What I’m Watching: Dexter

Dexter: Season 6, Episode 4 “A Horse of a Different Color” (A-)

This episode was by far the most invigorating and mesmerizing this season, acting somewhat uncharacteristically as both a thriller and horror piece at different times throughout the hour. Mike’s connection of the crimes to the Book of Revelation took on an entirely new, horribly disturbing meaning when Travis decided to sleep with the waitress, prompting James to string her up to be executed by a trip wire with locusts prepared to swarm out of a nearby closet. That was seriously freaky and entirely unsettling, much more so than everything else we’ve seen up to this point. The fact that James’ identity is known but he’s underground also makes him even more of a frightening threat. Harrison’s sudden appendix condition also helped to create some unexpected compassion in Dexter, with Brother Sam doing a good deed and being there for him in his moment of need. Matthews asking Deb to run the press conference instead of Laguerta was a surprising and interesting move, and it did produce amusing results, with Deb performing better than anticipated but negating it all with the dropping of an unnecessary expletive. I’m glad that she has her sparkplug-loving supporters since Laguerta is proving herself to be more and more conniving every day, taking credit for selecting Deb when she was anything but her choice. Everything did seem too good to be true with Ryan and Masuka, and his discovery of her having sold crime scene evidence as memorabilia online was the first time we’ve seen him truthfully betrayed, in a serious rather than childish way. Everyone has to grow up sometime.