Review: DEXTER 1.6 - Return to Sender

This has got to be the best episode of Dexter’s first season yet, everything in this episode was brilliant as Dexter’s world was starting to seemingly crumble around him, he was in a world of trouble throughout most of this episode with a very real prospect of being caught before he had even got started, Dexter had to work fast to outwit his Miami Metro colleagues and fellow blood man Masuka who, would you believe it was almost Dexter’s down fall.

Fact is there are so many things close to Dexter’s heart that could have spelled the end for his dark passenger during this episode it’s a wonder he got out unscaved.  Dexter was backed into a major corner here, and thanks largely to his “friend” the Ice Truck Killer was he able to come out the other end.  Dexter brought the problems on himself of course when he killed Jorge Castillo and his wife Valerie, the scrap yard owners who were running a human trafficking ring from their Miami based garage.  Dexter disposes of them in the usual manner but next day gets a call from Deb asking him to go to a scene.  It
just so happens to be the scrap yard where he had committed the crime, but what could the cops be looking for as Dexter disposed of the bodies?

Step in Dexter’s “friend” the Ice Truck Killer who watched him dispose of the bodies in the ocean before diving down to retrieve Valerie Castillo’s and laying her out on Dexter’s kill table in the caravan. First off, Masuka notices something on her neck which Dexter tries to pass of as an insect bite, not happy with that Masuka makes more enquiries and finds out about the M99 which had been used to sedate her, now he has a list of the 20 people in Miami who are authorised to buy it one of whom is Dexter’s alias.  Not only that but Dexter was seen by an eye witness, a young boy who had been hiding in the trunk of a car and then just to top things off Deb is off working on a theory that it could be a copy cat killer.

Things are so bad for Dexter that he is even having nightmares, a problem that he has never had to deal with “I don’t have bad dreams. When I sleep, all of me sleeps. Nothing goes bump in Dexter’s night”.

I have said in some other reviews of the first season that I really don’t like Doakes, I was told he would probably grow on me.  In “Love American Style” he did a little with that very funny one liner to Dexter and now in this episode he invites Debra round to his mothers for dinner, for the first time we were allowed to see the more Human side of Doakes in the one place where he is simply not the boss, a situation which Deb took full advantage of, I have to admit this guy is growing on me.

Far from all the professional problems Dexter had this week adding to the pressure is his continually strained relationship with Rita, this episode her violent ex-husband was released from jail, a story line that is no doubt going to fall on Dexter’s lap to deal with at some point during this first season, I don’t think her ex is the type to just shrug this kind of thing off but he hasn’t met Dexter yet.

Now of course we haven’t officially met the Ice Truck Killer but if you have seen this season before or happened to catch season 6 episode “Nebraska” before this one then you may well have noticed that Brian Moser the Ice Truck Killer is posing as Tony Tucci’s doctor in the hospital, or maybe he is actually a doctor and I just don’t actually know that yet either. Anyway, enough said this has been by far the best episode of Dexter’s first season and I can wait to get on with watching some more.