Guns & Rainbows

Dexter 5.05 Review - 'First Blood'

Guest Starring:

Tasia Sherel as Francis

Maria Doyle Kennedy as Sonya

April Lee Hernandez as Officer Cira Manzon
with 
Peter Weller as Stan Liddy

and

Julia Stiles as Lumen Pierce

After four relatively slow weeks, the newest episode of Dexter took the action and suspense up a notch this week. After gaining Lumen's trust in 5.4, Dexter spent a majority of this episode attempting to convince Lumen to do what he couldn't - move on. But will she be able to just leave Miami after all the terrible things that happened to her?

I'll get back to that in just a moment.

Dexter attempting to convince Lumen to go home.
Image copyright of Showtime.

Looking at the episode as a whole, four significant plot points were developed over the fifty minute run. First off the bat, i'd like to address Debra and Cira's story arc. The two of them made a grisly discovery during the episode when they went to visit the home of two suspected Santa Muerte victims, after visiting the injured man from the previous episode. Instead of being greeted by an elderly couple, they were instead greeted with two grotesquely deceased corpses, filled with maggots. Unfortunately, aside from forensics looking at the bodies and investigating the house for clues (which also cued Dexter's return to work), not much else took place in this particular story arc, save for Debra discovering that the suspected Santa Muerte tattoo was in fact a nightclub stamp for a local club in the neighbourhood. Hopefully next week's episode will elaborate more on the cult killer storyline, as it was just starting to get interesting.

Secondly, Batista and LaGuerta's storyline improved slightly from the last few weeks, namely with Batista's subtle investigation into LaGuerta's 'activities' with Internal Affairs. After finding out about LaGuerta and the IA agent's meeting place, Batista promptly busts up the party by bursting through the door, ready to punch out the IA agent, before LaGuerta promptly stops him. Turns out, that LaGuerta had been assisting the IA agent in an undercover sting - a sting which ended up costing a narcotics officer his job.  Unfortunately, that was the brunt of the story arc for them - a decent, but still unimpressive storyline for the characters.

Speaking of brief storylines, Quinn's was even more brief - the only significant scene Quinn was in was when he was having drinks with the same narcotics officer who had been fired in the undercover sting earlier. Quinn asked the man if he was interested in making some money in exchange for investigating a certain individual - Dexter Morgan. The officer promptly agreed and that was that. Seems like Dexter better watch his back.

Now, onto the main story arc of the episode.

Lumen disguises herself as she prepares to shoot one of the men who raped her.
Image copyright of Showtime.

After Lumen promptly storms off, Dexter decides to head back to work and helping Miami Metro with the latest Santa Muerte crime scene. However, before long, he decides to check up on Lumen, and promptly breaks into her apartment to see whether she had left. Unfortunately for him, not only had she not left, but she had been doing her own form of independant research - on a formerly convicted rapist living under a bridge. After doing his own research on the individual, Dexter decides to beat Lumen to the punch, and kidnaps the rapist before she has a chance to kill him. However, before he has a chance to kill the rapist, Harry intervenes, warning him that he knows nothing about this man, aside from the fact that he might have possibly been one of the men who raped Lumen. After cutting the unconscious man loose, Dexter discovers the truth - he was wearing an ankle bracelet all along, which meant that he wasn't one of the men who had raped her.

Dexter takes Lumen to the airport and tells her to try and move on.
Image copyright of Showtime.

After dumping him back under the bridge, Dexter leaves and returns later the same day in order to stop Lumen from killing an innocent man. Thankfully, he manages to stop her just in time, but it was definitely a close call. Finally, he manages to convince Lumen to leave, and drops her off at the airport. However, unbeknownst to Dexter, she doesn't end up leaving Miami - instead she decides that in order for her to move on, she needs to eliminate the men who ruined her life.

Looks like Lumen is here to stay .... for now.

Overall, my marks for the episode are:

• Potency of the theme(s) identified in the episode:  *******

• Editing & Scenes of Relevance:  *********

• Main characters connection with audience/actors effectiveness in role:  *******

• Secondary characters connection with audience/actors effectiveness in role:  ******

• Music & Visual Effects:  *********

• Originality and appeal of the episode's narrative:  *******

• Integration and effectiveness of multiple story arcs and character relationships:  ******

Overall marks: 51 / 70

Grade Percentage: 73%

All in all, this week's episode of Dexter was good. However, due to the major focus on Dexter and Lumen's relationship and respective storylines, the secondary character's unfortunately suffered due to lack of screen time/poorly developed story arcs. This is particularly true for both Quinn and Batista/LaGuerta's storylines, and even with the Santa Muerte case to a certain extent. Hopefully next week's episode will provide some more focus on secondary storylines as well as the main storyline.