Review: Dexter ‘This Little Piggy’

Last week on Dexter, we got to watch Debra at the end of her breakdown, trying to drive herself and Dex into a lake so that they both died.  Of course, she had second thoughts (we do, after all, have quite a few episodes to go before the finale) and ended up rescuing her brother.  So, it would seem that she’s now okay with her decision to choose Dexter over LaGuerta when she pulled the trigger.  This week’s episode, “This Little Piggy”, expands off of what happened while trying to wrap up a few things concerning the Brain Surgeon.

The episode starts as an eye-roller.  Dex and Deb are sitting in front of Vogel, voicing their grievances and the good doctor assures them that things are getting better for them.  Now why are these two opening up to a person that both of them have expressed a distrust of?  Not sure… but that seems to be where the season is going thus far.

As far as the Brain Surgeon goes, Dex is still on Yates’ trail and all evidence seems to point to him being the right guy.  Unfortunately, Yates finds Vogel first and kidnaps her.  Then it is up to team Morgan to come to the rescue.  But Vogel does some self-rescuing, using her mad psychology skills to mess with Yates’ head and keep him from doing her harm just long enough for the cavalry to arrive.  Then it’s one dead serial killer.  Dexter even invites Deb and Vogel along on his boat to dump the body - a true family bonding experience.

In the background, Cassie is trying to hook Dex up with his cute single neighbor, Masuka is embracing his newfound daddy-ness (albeit with a small amount of distrust) and Quinn is working towards his promotion.  Oddly enough, the Quinn story arc is becoming more interesting than the rest of the show.  He’s trying to hunt a killer and has the Lieutenant breathing over his shoulder to go easy, since the prime suspect is a big contributor to the police force.  Thus, the poor guy is not even a sergeant and already getting wound up in the corruption.

Once again, I was very disappointed with the episode.  The fact that Dex and Deb seem to embrace Vogel despite their distrust of her is very unrealistic.  The fact that Dexter believes Yates to be the Brain Surgeon despite the fact that he has a different kill pattern (something that Dex has used many, many times to dispel suspicion of killers in past seasons), suggests that our favorite serial killer’s brain has gone soft.

It almost feels like the show has become self-mocking in a way.  Events are occurring without real motivation and characters are acting in almost random ways, not sticking to the cleverness they usually display in the show.  I don’t know if they plan on fixing this or if the writers were just so tired that they decided to not care anymore.  Hopefully, the downslide turns around, but the longer the season goes on, the less faith I have.

Next week, probably another disappointment awaits in “A Little Reflection”.  If you want to see a trailer for what’s to come, check this link out.

Photo Credits -           

Vogel and Yates courtesy of whatculture.com