Dexter - Season 5, Episode 2 - "Hello, Bandit"

After last week's season premiere tied up the loose ends from last year's ending, this week we get into the business of moving on with Dexter's life. To keep the kids away from the murder scene, all 3 kids plus Dexter move, or shall I say condense themselves, into Deb's apartment. And thus begins the family life of Dexter Morgan, widowed father of 3.

Deb reacts as Deb does, since she needs her space. Things are too cramped for her, so she calls the only person she apparently has in her phone besides Dexter, that being Quinn. Quinn, of course, assumes Deb is finally down for Round 2, but Deb just wants a place to crash, and refuses to even acknowledge they slept together. Mind you, I'd probably want to forget dirty floor sex that took place at a murder scene too. By the end of the episode, she finally admits they did though, setting them up for the eventual relationship which will cause her to pick between Quinn and Dexter in their eventual showdown. Sorry, but lazy writing bugs me. This could have been done in a lot of different ways, and they've chosen the easy route here. Speaking of Quinn, he's gotten a hold of some sketches of 'Kyle Butler', the pseudonym that Dexter was using while getting close to The Trinity Killer, and it's only a matter of time before he realizes that Kyle Butler is Dexter.

Back at the station, Batista discovers that his new bride LaGuerta has a nice stash of money saved away that he knew nothing about. He quizzes various people around the office to see if anyone thinks it's wrong of her to hide this money. Deb sees right through his ploy of pretending the money is his though and calls him out. Finally, Batista confronts LaGuerta, who tells him that she said nothing of the money because of her husband's terrible spending habits. In defiance, Batista pays for drinks for the precinct that night, though only Masuka seems to make the trip with him. Batista ends up in an argument with a guy who says he's from Maria's past, and this leads to blows with Batista being pulled off the guy. Why do I get the feeling this story might shatter the record for shortest marriage involving a Latin person, previously held by Jennifer Lopez and her first husband Ojani Noa. Or maybe it was the one with second husband Cris Judd. Who knows, point is, J-Lo gets around.

So that leaves us to Dexter. We get to see a bit of both sides of Dexter in this episode, as he goes back into the killing business as his means of grieving. First, as he's looking to rent a moving van to move some of the belongings from the old house, he notices a blood stain in his van. Dexter takes this opportunity to tell Baby Harrison some children's stories that involve blood spatter patterns. Even though this clueless act has become so predictable, I still get a kick out of him doing things like this. Possibly because it reminds me of all the inappropriate things I say to my almost 2 year old when we're alone. Anyways, Dexter traces the blood spot back to a local roadkill cleanup driver (played by Shawn Hatosy, who I only know as the guy who kills the kid at the end of Alpha Dog and that he was in a Justin Timberlake video). He follows his new prey around and sure enough, discovers that the guy has locks of women's hair kept as trophies in his house and is throwing bodies into a lagoon. And so begins the back and forth as Dexter looks to hunt another victim down. I feel a bit bad for Hatosy as he's stuck in the unenviable position of replacing John Lithgow. Hopefully he can pull an Aaron Rodgers and not a Brian Griese.

On the home front, Dexter finally meets with the FBI. Turns out he's not a suspect to them, they only want to figure out why Arthur Mitchell would want to kill Rita. So while he's got the feds off his tail, his stepdaughter Astor has decided she hates Dexter, and wants to move with her grandparents in Orlando. Cody wants to stay with Dexter, but as Dexter explains, like him and Deb, brothers and sisters are a team and can't be broken up. But it's okay to pull the team away from their baby brother? So off the children go to Orlando, which is probably for the best, at least for us viewers, because it gives Dexter more time to find people to Saran Wrap to tables, and really that's what we want to see, not bad family drama. There's still the Harrison issue, but that's what babysitters are for, right? To pay to watch your children while you commit felonies? Knowing Dexter though, he might just bring Harrison to a murder. Don't rule this one out.

Final verdict: I didn't have strong expectations coming into this one, just because I knew it would be a transition episode. It's necessary, but it's meant to get you excited for future weeks, not blow you away this week. It did its job and now we'll see if the rest of the season can pay off. Grade: C