Five-Legged Iguana

DEXTER
Season 2 Episode 8
‘Morning Comes’
Written by Scott Buck
Directed by Keith Gordon
(WARNING: SPOILERS)

This is one of those great episodes where a whole lotta sh!t goes down, so let’s get to it.

Following the fire at her place, Lila’s been spending a whole lotta time at Dex’s, much to Deb’s annoyance; while Dex comes to think of them as a “cobra and a mongoose,” Deb thinks of Lila as a “gross, English titty vampire.”
With the Lila thing going on—he’s also beginning to suspect that maybe, Lila did set the fire on purpose—Dex is cold-cocked at work when Lundy brings in the FBI to help investigate the cases of the Bay Harbor Butcher victims, since he thinks the Butcher could have a law enforcement background, and could, in fact, be one of the Miami PD.
Asked to review the cases he handled, where the perp ended up back on the streets, only to get iced by the Butcher, Dex is forced to cover the fact that he fudged the blood work by admitting that he got sloppy with said blood work (which he never does).

Unnerved by Lundy’s sudden attack, Dex realizes he needs to put some distance between himself and Lila, so he can focus on staying a step ahead of Lundy’s hunt. So he lies about going bowling, only to have Lila insist on coming along, getting the address of the alley off him.
Later, at the alley parking lot, Santos Jimenez (who Dex decided not to kill a couple of episodes back) attacks Dex, wounding him in the arm, but Lila’s screams bring Angel and the rest of the bowling team to the rescue, and Jimenez drives off.
Dex lies to Angel about the attacker trying to grab his watch, but later on tells Lila it was Jimenez.

In the wake of the attack, Dex realizes he needs to take care of Jimenez, and begins to consider the possibility that he can’t really change and has to embrace who he’s always been.
Dex tracks Jimenez to a cabin out in the Everglades, which is stocked full of cocaine. (Apparently, Jimenez never got out of the coke business.)
It’s here that Dex falls off the wagon, and chainsaws Jimenez into itty bitty pieces.

Meanwhile, Lundy asks two things of Deb: 1) to help with the case investigation, as she’s new to Homicide, so there should be no conflict of interest as these are old cases they’re looking into, back when she was still with Vice; and 2) to have dinner with him.
She says “Yes” to both, reluctantly to the first, and eagerly to the second.
The date, if you must know, goes swimmingly, and the two seem to be really into each other.
Back on the work stuff, Deb asks Angel to help her with her investigation, which leads to a license plate number of a car that quite possibly belongs to the Bay Harbor Butcher.
It’s while working late on tracing the license plate that Deb sees Lila come to the station, where she’s brought Dex some dinner, since he said he was “working late.” (He is, of course, just not at the station.) Amused, Deb can’t help but drive the point home: Dex lied to you.

So what does Deb’s favourite gross, English titty vampire do, but sneak into Rita’s place (using the key she filched from Dex) to see if he’s there. Rita finds the fact that the door was unlocked odd, and calls Dex to ask him if he’s been by, something she’d already asked him not to do.
Having finished chainsawing Jimenez, Dex has just looked through Jimenez’s wallet, and finds a note with the bowling alley’s address on it. Dex realizes it was Lila who clued Jimenez as to his whereabouts. Dex then checks his key ring, and finds the key to Rita’s place missing, so he tells Rita to get out of the house and call the cops. He also leaves Jimenez’s sawed-up body in the cabin.
Making sure the cops watch Rita, Dex goes over to Lila’s and demands the key back. He then asks her if she called Jimenez, and Lila says it was because she felt Dex drifting away from her, and she just wanted him back, wanted him just like at the motel, after he’d gone to see Jimenez that first time.
Realizing she’s far more dangerous than his “addiction,” Dex warns Lila to stay away from Rita, and to stay away from him.
Yahoo! In Dex’s own words, “The Lila experiment is over.”

But…
When Deb cracks the license plate number, it turns out to be for a vehicle that had been impounded at their own lot. Thus, it appears that Lundy was right, the Bay Harbor Butcher really is one of the Miami PD. Lundy asks that this be kept between him, Deb, and Angel, though Deb and Angel are understandably distraught that the killer is someone who works at the station.
Thankfully, there are no records as to who exactly signed the vehicle out, used it in the commission of a murder, then signed it back in.

But…
When Doakes is brought back in for Lundy’s investigation, he finds out from Lundy that one of the cases involved some sloppy blood work, and something clicks in Doakes’ mind.
He walks out on the inquiry and later that night, breaks into Dex’s apartment (while Dex is off taking care of Jimenez and Lila, and Deb is at the station), and the mofo finds the blood slides Dex hides in his AC unit!
Man, Dex is so screwed!

I really thought that somehow, things would get lain on Doakes’ doorstep, that he’d somehow get fingered as being the Bay Harbor Butcher.
I also thought that just as he’d discover the damning evidence, that Lila would arrive and end up killing him, thinking he was a burglar or something. Then she’d see the slides and discover Dex’s deep, dark secret.
But that’s not how things panned out. She gets dumped, and no one’s around to keep Doakes from squealing about the slides.
Holy guacamole!
Man, Dex is so screwed!

(Image courtesy of sho.com.)