Dexter 6.6 Recap: Just Let Go
“Just let Go”
Dexter is about to be led to Professor Gellar, when he receives the news of Brother Sam’s shooting. Rushing to the crime scene, Dexter misses the Doomsday killers picking out an outfit for their captive “Whore of Babylon.” At the garage Dexter recreates Sam’s shooting using the blood as his guide. Watching him work Masuka’s new intern gets a nerd crush on Dexter “He’s a rock star.” Dexter, and the police assume, that the shooter was Leo, the man Dex beat with a bat in episode 2. Finding the bat in Sam’s office, Dex scrapes blood off the bat and begins his hunt. In the meantime Sam hovers close to death in a coma.
Deb decides to throw herself a house warming party. As Professor Porter becomes more important to the “Doomsday Killer” Quinn is desperate to hide the fact he slept with her. By playing the “partner card” he puts Batista in the uncomfortable position of lying to Deb. When Porter is interviewed at the station, the tryst comes to light and jeopardizes the investigation. Under pressure to close the case, Deb is furious at Quinn’s lack of judgment. Quinn assumes its jealousy on her part.
At a vigil for Sam Dexter implores, the recently baptized, Nick to tell him where Leo lives. Sam’s dog, who witnessed the shooting, stay by Nick’s side, barking at nearly everyone else. Dexter wrestles with the emotions Sam’s shooting has inspired in him. “Who is he to me?” he asks Harry, the symbol of his conscious. “A fellow traveler” is the answer. Sam is a reformed murderer, something Dexter could never be.
Detective Mike Anderson uses some Chicago style police work to track down Leo before Dexter can. Dex watches helplessly as Leo goes down in a hail of police bullets. Inside his home, a murder weapon isn’t found but a dvd of the shooting from the garage surveillance is. The cops believe they got Sam’s shooter but Dexter thinks different. Watching the footage of Sam’s shooting, Dex notices the dog isn’t barking at the shooter and deduces it was Nick (as did I last week). Pulling the bullet Nick shot at Sam in episode 2 out of a wall, Dexter confirms a match with ballistics.
When Sam comes out of coma he implores Dexter to forgive Nick and not take revenge. When Dexter admits to not knowing how to do that, Sam tells him “Just let go.” Shortly after Sam dies. Dexter intercepts Nick as he approaches the hospital and whisks him away for a “talk.”
A very drunken Quinn crashes Deb’s house warming party and acts like the king of all dick heads. After suggesting he could make a baby with Jaime’s butt, her brother, his partner, Batista clocks him one. Lying on the floor, a sloppy beaten Quinn asks Deb if she ever really loved him. The party ends with a solitary Deb wondering where her brother is.
At their celestial evil hideout, Travis is expected to brand their captive with a hot iron on her face. Unable to go through with the gruesome act he sets her free at the beach.
Returning to the beach Nick was baptized at, he and Dexter go for a stroll. Attempting to honor his friends wishes Dexter let’s Nick know Sam forgave him before he died. Cackling with the joy of a gang-banger who just got away with murder, Nick proclaims to Dexter he killed Sam and “nobody can do anything about it.” And with that Dexter “let’s go” but not in the way Sam intended. He drags Nick into the very waters he was baptized in and strangles him to death, proclaiming to himself “There’s no light in you…there’s no light in me.” Returning to the shore, Dex is met not by Harry, but the new image of his conscious, his serial killer brother. When asked if he missed him, Dexter replies with a deathly grin.
On the Table.
In literature water is often used to represent the flow of human experiences and rebirth. Both Travis and Dexter used water-based locations to make big decisions this episode. Travis moved away from the ideology of his hero Professor Gellar and embraced the hope his sister represents. Dexter however embraced the darkness within him and rejected the salvation Sam represented. This was expertly illustrated by replacing his father as the symbol of his consciousness. And replacing it with his brother, an unrepentant killer.
There were clues that Dexter’s brother would become important this season, I’m happy to see this internal conflict between Dexter’s humanity and his dark passenger. Deb’s character is maturing and growing nicely into an authority figure. The conflict between our Doomsday killers is an interesting twist to the “big bad” formula. The Batista Quinn odd couple partnership is fascinating for the macho car wreck it is. The Masuka intern sub plot is an ever-morphing snake of story that I can’t predict where it’s going but I have faith. This season has proved there is still life in the show after a disastrous season 5 (you know it’s true).
An excellent episode, probably the best we’ve seen from this writing team in years. I’m a very happy Dexter fan.