Dexter Review: “Buck The System” (Season 7, Episode 3)

Thus, in one of the show’s most convenient deaths, Louis was taken out by the mob because he happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, trying to sink Dexter’s boat with a screwdriver. Thankfully though, not before revealing to them the boat’s real owner. If he had kept up with his claims of it being his boat and then been killed for it, leading the mob to think problem solved, “convenient” wouldn’t have even begun to describe it.

Instead, the mob is more or less at Dexter’s doorstep and we’re only three episodes into the season. Many have voiced concerns with regards to how this could possibly be dragged out for this and another season. After last night’s episode, I’m starting to have similar worries about this season. Will the mob storyline end sooner than was originally thought and give way for other storylines, such as LaGuerta looking back into the Bay Harbor Butcher, to come to the forefront?

While I’m beginning to doubt they can stretch what they currently have out for a whole season, I’d love to be proven wrong. It’s already happened once, as it looks like Deb’s development is going to be more in line with how it is in the books than I first thought. She’s not quite to the point of using him and his Dark Passenger as a tool, but she seems to be on her way there, slowly but surely.

Come the end of the episode, there’s still some uncertainty on her part, but she’s accepted it enough to let Dexter back out from under her, allowing him to move back into his place. There’s still a ways to go before she knowingly lets him kill, but we’re only three episodes in, meaning there’s plenty of time for that, and everything else, to change.

Bits and Bobs:

• Quinn’s relationship with Nadia still feels like filler, but I’m glad to see it tied into the larger storyline concerning the mob.
• Masuka remains relegated to about one good line an episode, but he makes it work here with his bit about drunk ordering from Hustler. Plus, I wonder if his suspicions about Deb and Dexter will stay a one time thing or if they’ll increase in future episodes.
• Newcomer to the show, Chuck‘s Yvonne Strahovski, was given little to do as Hannah McKay, former accomplice of the killer who Dexter watched jump in front of an oncoming tanker truck. That is, besides facilitate some out-of-the-blue awkwardness on Dexter’s part in trying to get a swab of her cheek.  Does he see a bit of Lumen in her, the partner in crime he’s always wanted? Or is it something else about her that set him off his game?
• Was anyone else half-expecting Deb to kiss Dexter or, even worse, confess her love for him in that final scene between the two? You get the feeling him being a serial killer isn’t the only reason she’s having him move back out, that those feelings of hers are beginning to resurface now that she’s starting to see Dexter and his crimes in a new, not-so-harsh light. But, boy, do I hope I’m wrong. Leave the perverse to Masuka and let that semi-incestual relationship stay hidden at least for this season, if not for the rest of the series.