Warehouse 12 Blues

Dexter 5.06 Review - 'Everything Is Illumenated'

Guest Starring:

Sean O'Bryan as Dan Mondale

Chad Allen as Lance Robinson

Maria Doyle Kennedy as Sonya

Geoffrey Pierson as Captain Matthews

April Lee Hernandez as Officer Cira Manzon

with
Peter Weller as Stan Liddy
and

Julia Stiles as Lumen Pierce

Dexter fans, prepare for the official start of a new partnership! This week's episode saw Dexter and Lumen break new ground in their slightly awkward relationship, as we learn of the repercussions of Lumen's decision to stay in Miami.

But i'll get back to that in a moment.

Dexter and Debra packing away some more items from the house where Rita was murdered.
Image copyright of Showtime.

This week's episode of Dexter, while full of suspense and twists, unfortunately once again gave the subplots a back seat this week. Fortunately, it was necessary for the show to progress forward in Dexter and Lumen's story arc, and boy, did they deliver.

Under the impression that Lumen had left Miami for good, Dexter returns to his normal life - packing up boxes of clothes and toys from the house he's selling, working on cases at work and, most importantly, back on the prowl for new targets to kill. This week, Dexter already had his prey lined up - a murderer by the name of Lance Robinson.

Sonya and Harrison saying goodbye to Dexter as he heads of to work.
Image copyright of Showtime.

After setting up a meeting with Lance (by soliciting him on the internet, the same way Lance did to each of his victims), Dexter drugged him, dumped him in the car and took him off to the kill room. Fairly routine, fairly ordinary. After that, Dexter wrapped up his victim in the plastic wrap, and was  about to do the deed when.... he recieves a phone call from Lumen. Deciding now isn't the best time, he ignores it, only to be called again a few seconds later. Again, he ignores it. Then, he recieves a picture message from Lumen - of a dead body.

Dexter and Lumen attempting to find the trail of Lumen's victim.
Image copyright of Showtime.

Calling her, Dexter realises his worst fears - Lumen is still in Miami and she has murdered a man. After locating the warehouse where she is, Dexter meets up with Lumen and together they both attempt to find the man who isn't dead at all, just severly injured. Along with some humourous banter between the two, they ultimately end up finding the man, and Dexter is faced with a difficult choice - kill the man or let him go. After searching the guy's wallet, he discovers that the man is in fact a dentist, with his own family. Dexter knows that he can't kill an innocent, so he attempts to treat the man at the scene, much to Lumen's chagrin.

After a brief distraction in which Dexter hears Harrison say his first words, Dexter tries to calm Lumen down but is cut short as he overhears the dentist talking to someone else on Lumen's phone. Realising that the man is in fact, one of the men who raped Lumen, Dexter promptly kills him and gets Lumen to wash the blood down the drain while he moves the car.

After moving the car to the back (and managing to avoid the police at the scene), Dexter tells Lumen to take a cab to his house and hide there until he comes and gets her. However, things soon go from bad to worse, as Lance escapes from the back of Dexter's car and makes a run for it. What follows is one of the most intense scenes of the season, as Dexter is running as fast as he can, trying to catch Lance before he turns the corner and runs into the Debra and Masuka, who are searching around the back of the warehouse to find the supposed homicide.

Dexter recaptures Lance Robinson after he flees at Warehouse 12.
Image copyright of Showtime.

By some miracle, Dexter manages to catch Lance just before turning the corner, and pulls his victim into the warehouse just as Deb and Masuka round the corner. Finding Dexter's car, Deb and Masuka approach the warehouse, only to see Dexter walk out telling them he found the crime scene. Entering inside, Dexter had positioned the bodies in order to make it look like some sort of sexual fetish crime scene, which Masuka eloquently calls - autoerotic mummification.

After meeting up with Lumen at home, they have an interesting discussion about their lives, before the episode concludes. Seems like Dexter and Lumen's interesting partnership is about to take on a whole new level.

Aside from Dexter and Lumen's story arc, not much else occured in the episode. Granted, Debra met Quinn's contact, Stan Liddy, the man who is investigating Dexter, but she is unaware that they are talking about business instead of just socialising. Debra and Batista do a stakeout of Club Mayan, the supposed nightclub hangout of the Santa Muerte killers, but nothing of interest takes place on this front, save for Batista meeting a woman, and convincing her to become an informant and get the Fuentes brothers to come to the club the following night. In exchange, her drug charges would be dropped.

That was pretty much the entirety of the episode.

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:  54 / 70

Grade Percentage: 77%

All in all, Dexter is really starting to come together now as a season, and it will be interesting to see where each character's story arcs will go, and how they will integrate together before season's end.