8.6 A Little Reflection But then, any episodic show is going to have a distinctly cyclical nature, and Dexter is no exception. A Little Reflection was in many respects a time-out of sorts, in which things are allowed to stabilise somewhat before they presumably go entirely to hell in the latter part of the season. To that end was the presentation of a potential replacement for Dexter in the youthful guise of Sam Underwood as Zach Hamilton, psycho teenager. Underwood’s acting in the shared scenes between Zach and Dexter isn’t very subtle, but then they’re both playing someone presenting a fake persona, so it’s not meant to be entirely believable. What I did buy was Dexter’s incredulity when confronting Vogel about the boy. Though how rapidly these concerns vanished once he was in the kill room was a far greater leap. Surely, the whole point about Dexter is that Harry got to him before he’d killed an innocent, which is not the case here? This detail gets rapidly overlooked, as Dexter suddenly starts wanting to be a mentor. Really? This is yet another incident that makes me question Vogel’s motives, because surely the most efficient way to bury her experiments is to get younger killers who can then retire the likes of Dexter? At some point the student becomes the master, accompanied by light sabre waving or substantial blood splatter. It’s now becoming obvious that Jacob Elway is a darker character than we’ve been presented so far, though not obvious is how this fits into the later stories. He has a passion for Debs, but there’s more to this than a crush on her. As if to signal that the relative rest of this story was done, the writers decided to throw the return of Hannah McKay in right at the conclusion. While Yvonne Strahovski is a marvellous actress, I’m not yet sure that the chaos her character is likely to bring is needed right now. It will be interesting to see where her reappearance takes the story next week, because she’s likely to be an element that Vogel can’t easily manipulate. Her arrival hints that if and when Dexter’s undoing comes at the end of the show, it’s likely that it will be not because of those he killed, but those he didn’t, ironically. I expected better, though it’s probably more critical what she does next, now she’s back. Read Billy’s review of the previous episode, This Little Piggy, here. Please, if you can, buy our charity horror stories ebook, Den Of Eek!, raising money for Geeks Vs Cancer. Details here.
