Dexter: Sign of the Crossroads

Dexter finds himself identifying with a killer again — this time because they’re both family men hiding their murderous impulses under a veneer of normalcy. But he also realizes how much he has in common with a family member: All the Morgans have a dark side.

Lundy is dead, Debra wounded. The cops think it’s the Vacation Murderer. In a brilliant move, Batista leaks the the syphilis story to the press via Quinn’s lady friend. Johnny “Vacation” Rose’s girlfriend freaks out and kills him, then gets herself nabbed by the cops mid-meltdown. Finally, that red herring has been reeled in.

Quinn decides that now that his reporter girl is making herself useful rather than being a nuisance, he might as well bang her again. Meanwhile, Batista and LaGuerta’s banging future is jeopardized when she announces their relationship to the brass, and the brass announces that Batista will be getting a promotion and a transfer out of homicide.

Dexter is convinced that his colleagues are wrong about Lundy and Debra’s attacker, but his logic seems a little dubious: The killer didn’t finish off Debra, so it must be Trinity. He’s right, of course, but doesn’t quite manage to piece things together before Trinity makes his third strike, bludgeoning increasingly dowdy Little House/Heathers actor Patrick Labyorteaux. Tailing Trinity, Dexter discovers Lundy’s lone-wolf theory is wrong: Trinity is a husband and a father. Just like Dexter, as the voice-over points out.

Which is, of course, this season’s central problem: family. Dexter fumbles his response to his sister’s injury, loss, and infidelity, worrying that the only thing he can offer her — revenge — he can’t tell her about. And then he sees her through her own eyes and realizes that she thinks she’s the broken sibling.

More troubling: Rita is on to Dexter. She finds out he still has his bachelor pad. Surprisingly, the criminal mastermind hasn’t bothered to put together an excuse to explain this away — is he slipping, or does he just not expect much from his wife? (And how much is he reminding us of Don Draper right now?) In the end, he pretends this is just where he’s storing his dad’s old gun, but Rita is pissed — and Dexter’s little secret is just going to become more of a problem.