Dexter: Popping Cherry

 "LaGuerta's not my pimp!"

Some fascinating developments in this third episode as Dexter gets better and better: the characters are more or less established and we can get on with things. I'm also coming to appreciate what a strong sense of place there is here- I've seen lots of films and television set in Miami, but we're really getting a strong sense of it here. 

Dexter himself continues to fascinate, finding it stressful to fake grief at a funeral yet piling on more and more brownie points with poor Rita, who is lovely but not having a great time, having her car brazenly stolen from her by a scumbag who is totally getting what's coming to him.

Meanwhile, our serial killer has another victim, a prostitute, and it seems a nightwatchman is being framed, setting up what seems to be a slow burn clash between Deb and LaGuerta, who seems to be staking an awful lot on Deb being wrong. But do I get a slight implication that she may have an unknown agenda...?

Meanwhile, Doakes' desire for revenge for the murder of the woman he was sleeping with seems to be leading to trouble, and there's a nice sequence in which Dexter's next intended victim turns out not to be what he seems, and Dexter lets him off with a warning. It's a nicely done moment, and shows us Dexter's principles.

And yet, to me, the core of the episode happens in flashback, and the episode is all about the Code of Harry, which gets deeply explored. Dexter's hero worship of his stepfather, who saved him by redirecting his homicidal urges towards strictly vigilante purposes, is powerfully shown- not least in Harry's oblique speech, in flashback, as he thinks he's on his deathbed.

Brilliantly, though, this shows us Dexter's first kill- a kind of Harold Shipman figure played by Natasha Yar from Star Trek: The Next Generation. For the second time this episode it's one killer to another, and Dexter's understanding of his fellow serial killers is genuinely chilling.

Yet again, utterly superb telly.