This Year’s Killer
Every season, Dexter and the Miami Metro Homicide Division track down a serial killer operating within the city. The final bad guy seems to have a thing for brains.
The usual characters convene over a body left in the open for all to see. He’s been shot in the chest from close range, but as they go to lift him up by the shoulders, thereby elevating his head, they find the back of his skull has been detached. On top of that, and a melon-baller-sized portion of the brain has been removed.
There are no leads, no suspects, and no DNA to be found. We don’t even have a stylized killer name for the series’ final fiend as of yet. My guess is we’ll get there next week.
The Psychopath Whisperer
At a briefing following the discovery of the first victim of the season, Deputy Chief Matthews (remember him?) introduces Dr. Evelyn Vogel (Charlotte Rampling) to the division. A neuropsychiatrist specializing in the profiling of serial killers, Dr. Vogel has been brought on as a consultant in the latest serial investigation.
Immediately Dexter is wary. After all, Vogel is exactly the type of person he doesn’t want hanging around, asking him questions, but that’s just what she does after summoning him to the morgue where she’s examining the brain of the first victim.
Unrelated bit I loved: They had the victim lying facedown on a table, his open skull cavity front and center. It would be kind of gruesome if it weren’t such an amusing visual.
Vogel and Dexter banter about the nature and mental make-up of serial killers; she dropping knowledge, Dexter playing dumb externally, but narrating his concerns piece-by-piece as Vogel speaks.
She then pivots to questions about “The Bay Harbor Butcher,” which, of course, is actually Dexter, though the crimes were pinned on the dead-since-Season 2 Sgt. James Doakes. She knows Doakes’ personality doesn’t fit the serial killer profile, and seems to be sizing up Dexter.
NEXT: The secondary players, the twist and Spencer’s two cents…
