Having checked the IMDB, I now know that episodes 1 to 3 were directed by someone different than episode 4, which might account for it, or it might be the fact that writer Drew Z. Greenberg is actually a real writer who wrote an episode of Firefly, but – this worked. I actually enjoyed this episode, which makes me a bit confused and, apparently, slightly gushy. So I’ll get on with the review now. Turns out that the hand belongs to the night watchman that Laguerta has fingered as the killer, which means she needs to make a public apology pretty darn quickly… and that, since there’s actual blood spatter at this crime scene, that Dexter gets to do the job he’s paid to do, rather than just lurking around irrelevantly. Hurrah! On top of all that, there’s some nice characterisation here, when Dexter makes a quip about this being a “nice hand-job” and then not understanding why everyone else thinks that’s funny. Not to over-egg the pudding here or anything, but this is the kind of thing we need to see; this is how you show that Dexter isn’t like everyone else and doesn’t feel the same things that everyone else does. Constantly telling us that he isn’t feeling it doesn’t work nearly so well as just one little light touch like that. On top of that, the flashbacks to Dexter’s unconventional upbringing in this episode are much better integrated into the main narrative of this episodes than they ever have been before, or ever will be in an episode of Lost. Unfortunately, some of this cleverness is balanced out by some redundant stupidity in a Dexter monologue about wearing Hallowe’en masks and pretending to be monsters, but I’m willing to forgive that because I’m still so pleased with the hand job joke. Eventually, it turns out that the body parts are all involved in the perverse game the Ice Truck Killer is playing with Dexter, so obviously only Dex can figure out the message and find the guy. In the meantime, there’s a nice-but-silly subplot going on with Rita’s bitchy neighbour mistreating a dog, which helps Rita learn to stand on her own two feet (or kneel on her own two knees, as the case may be) and there’s a brilliant subplot featuring Angel. Throughout the episode, he brings a selection of jewellery he’s thinking of giving to his wife for their anniversary to Dexter for approval, only to be told that there’s something hilariously wrong with it. (The diamond earrings which are supposed to be Xs and Os just spell out “ox”; the four-leafed clover looks like ‘some kind of bug’.) Only, by the end of the episode it turns out, heartbreakingly, that Angel and his wife have separated. It’s nice because it’s all so cleverly handled, played as a joke right up till the end, when it turned 180 degrees and gets serious, providing insight into a character who previously hadn’t been much more than an annoyance. Am I praising this episode too highly? It’s just that after three episodes of the writers telegraphing their intentions in letters twenty feet high, giving everyone racially stereotypical and clunky dialogue, something with this level of sophistication seems like a revelation. This show can be clever! And witty! And emotionally involving! More Dexter on Den of Geek: Dexter series 1 episode 7 reviewDexter series 1 episode 6 reviewDexter series 1 episode 5 reviewDexter series 1 episode 4 reviewDexter series 1 episode 3 reviewDexter series 1 episode 2 reviewDexter series 1 episode 1 review