TV Review: Dexter 4.05 – “Dirty Harry”

Episode: Dexter 4.05 – “Dirty Harry”
Original Air Date: October 25, 2009

Screencaps by rhcp_csi.

Dex arrives frantic at the scene of the Deb/Lundy shooting. Lundy lies dead under a plastic sheet while Deb is being pulled into an ambulance. For some reason Dex’s police team assumes that the shooting is connected to the Vacation Killings. Dexter immeditately sees that as a bad guess and starts his own investigation. Instead of going straight to the hospital with Deb, Dexter and Phantom Harry raid Lundy’s apartment and take a ton of stuff on his Trinity investigation. Dexter (and Harry) are out for revenge.

Quinn’s reporter girl shows back up. Quinn brushes her off, but she talks with Batista, who has her run a story about Johnny Rose’s (the Vacation Killer) syphilis hoping to turn his accomplice/girlfriend against him. After that she falls back in Quinn’s good graces. I would complain that this girl isn’t very trustworthy, but she isn’t hard on the eyes so I’ll let it slide.

Meanwhile, Dexter’s apartment landlord calls while he’s out and Rita takes the call. He had told her he got rid of the apartment and she isn’t taking the lying very well. Dex spends the rest of the episode avoiding a conversation about it.

Deb is wallowing in self-blame (with good cause), and confesses to Anton about sleeping with Lundy. Anton offers to stay with her to get her through things, but she insists and breaks it off with him. Deb then moves into Dex and Rita’s place, where she decides she’s going to forego taking pain killers as punishment for what happened.

Dex begins listening to all of Lundy’s tapes, then realizes he’s missing the last one. Luckily he’s able to steal it from evidence and now has the tape with Trinity’s description on it.

At the same time Trinity prepares for his next murder by buying a new hammer and then doing his final recon at the office building. He takes a tour with the security guard and meets the building’s coffee stand employee.

Johnny Rose’s girlfriend ends up killing him because of the story that Batista leaked to the press. They subdue her and call Deb to let her know that they got Lundy’s murderer hoping it will give her some closure. But instead it makes her go back to the parking lot where Lundy was killed and throw a huge fit. She blames herself, to which Dexter tells her she didn’t do anything wrong (I disagree).

Maria had gone behind Angel’s back and disclosed their relationship. Angel was pretty upset, but forgave her. But right when they return from the Johnny Rose bust, Laguerta’s boss tells her she has to transfer Batista out of homicide so it won’t interfere with any cases. No good deed goes unpunished, I suppose.

Dexter heads to his apartment, where he finds Rita and Harrison waiting for him. She tells him to stay there for the night, and that their marriage is going to take some work. Rita also says that she’s starting to see how good Dexter is at lying to her, but really if he were so good he wouldn’t get caught!

But Dex has more immediate concerns and heads to the office building where Trinity is to strike. At first he assumes it will be the security guard, but finds him safe. Trinity is meanwhile attacking the coffee stand guy on one of the floors above. Dexter is too late to stop the murder, but gets in his car and follows Trinity to his home.

Assuming that Trinity is heading back to the lonely hole he lives in, Dexter is shocked to find out that he is returning to a wife and family. Trinity is just like Dexter.

I feel like the writers really dropped the ball for some of this episode and I’m not sure why. Deb and Lundy were shot and robbed, and the immediate conclusion is that it’s Johnny Rose. It’s a bit hard for me to believe that there is only one person in the city of Miami that shoots and robs people. I’m not sure if it’s just that Quinn is a terrible cop, because the whole department just goes along with the assumption. I’m going to guess they’ll start looking into it more once the evidence rolls in, but assuming that much was just ridiculous to me.

The Trinity storyline definitely has some potential though. I’m looking forward to how Dex handles this new info on Trinity.

Rating: 3.5 / 5 Stars