DEXTER
Season 2 Episode 11
‘Left Turn Ahead’
Written by Scott Buck & Tim Schlattmann
Directed by Marcos Siega
(WARNING: SPOILERS)

So the gross, English titty vampire finally gets into the spot I had a feeling she’d manoeuvre herself into. She just took her sweet, loony, co-dependent time to get there.

Dex’s epiphany last episode—that Harry walking in on one of his kills, and the subsequent horror of knowing Dex was his creation, and what that creation was truly capable of, was the cause of his suicide—puts him in a very shaky place.
Conversations with Doakes then put Dex in a suggestible state, and Lila swoops in with her ploy to make it look like Angel roofied and date raped her. Dex realizes his plan to frame Doakes isn’t any different from Lila framing Angel for something he didn’t do.
Dex wonders if the evil and the cancer that Doakes was talking about works this way, by seeping into the fabric of all those around him.

Meanwhile, Doakes manages to escape, but runs into a couple of Hispanic goons who can’t speak English, but when Doakes says he’s police, they knock him out and bring him right back to the cabin.
Fortunately, Dex happens to have just gotten to the cabin and seen the evidence of Doakes’ escape. With Dex’s help, they overpower and kill the goons, and Dex puts Doakes right back in the cage.
However, Dex also tells Doakes that he’s decided to turn himself in, but that he needs a day to get his affairs in order.

So he takes Rita and the kids out on the boat, and gives Rita the Mommy Mobile. Then he whips up a living trust, leaving everything to Deb, should anything happen to him. He also tells Lila to drop the charges against Angel, since he really won’t be around in a few days (as he thinks he’ll probably be in jail by then).
This gets Lila’s knickers in a twist and she steals the GPS thing-a-hoo from the Mommy Mobile, which tells her all the locations Dex has driven to in the recent past.

And while Lila’s sniffing around Dex’s affairs, LaGuerta makes her way to Haiti and talks to Doakes’ contact there. She finds out that Doakes wanted to have the blood slides analyzed, and that on two occasions when Doakes was on Special Ops missions, two of the Bay Harbor Butcher’s victims were killed, thus making it look like Doakes isn’t the killer after all.

Deb meanwhile, in her crusade to get Angel off the hook, discovers Lila’s name is an alias, and lifts some fingerprints off Angel’s microwave (which Lila used to nuke some popcorn). It turns out that Lila is actually Lila West and she’s in Miami on an expired visa.
So Deb drops by Little Miss Pardon My Tits’ studio and tells her she’s reported her bony a$$ to Immigrations and she wants Lila outta Miami, pronto.

Later that evening, Dex has some beer and steaks with Deb, prepared to tell her everything. But they talk about Deb and how she’s gotten her sh!t together after that whole Ice Truck Killer thing, and that it was Dex who helped her get through all that.
When Dex asks her how she did it, Deb says all she did was decide who she was and who she wanted to be and stuck to her guns.
It’s then that Dex realizes, if Deb can believe in him, then he can certainly believe in himself. He knows who he is, he’s known all along. He just has to stick to his guns.
So he decides against turning himself in, and reverts back to the “let’s frame Doakes for the Bay Harbor Butcher crap” plan.
But Deb gets a call on her cell: they’ve found Doakes’ car and the search pattern is homing in on the Everglades.

At the same time, the gross, English titty vampire uses the GPS thing-a-hoo and finds her way to the cabin…

(Image courtesy of sho.com.)

AFTERTHOUGHTS (34)

34.1 a.k.a. PIMP MY BOOK (4)

Experience the Habagat Mall Tour, now, at the Pelicula website!
Chapter 9 is up at the website, so get on over there if you want to see what the hell I’m blathering on about.
And thanx to everyone who’s checked the book out.

34.2 2008 WRITERS GUILD AWARDS (I’m excited about)

Meanwhile, as the strike keeps on keepin’ on, the WGA have released the TV and radio nominee list for the 2008 awards.
And just as the Golden Globe recognized them, so did the WGA:

Dexter:
Dramatic Series Written by Scott Buck, Daniel Cerone, Drew Z. Greenberg, Lauren Gussis, Kevin Maynard, Clyde Phillips, Melissa Rosenberg, and Tim Schlattman
Episodic Drama “The Dark Defender”; written by Tim Schlattmann

Entourage:
Comedy Series Written by Marc Abrams, Lisa Alden, Michael Benson, Brian Burns, Doug Ellin, Alex Gansa, Tim Griffin, Dusty Kay, Stephen Levinson, Ally Musika, Wes Nickerson, and Rob Weiss

Pushing Daisies:
New Series Written by Chad Gomez Creasey, Dara Resnik Creasey, Bryan Fuller, Abby Gewanter, Jim Danger Gray, Lisa Joy, Kath Lingenfelter, Rina Mimoun, Jack Monaco, Scott Nimerfro, and Peter Ocko
Episodic Comedy “Pie-Lette”; written by Bryan Fuller

And for good measure…

Lost:
Episodic Drama “Flashes Before Your Eyes”; written by Damon Lindelof & Drew Goddard

Congratulations, one and all. Winners will be announced on February 9, 2008, at the 60th WGA Awards. (The complete list of radio and TV nominees can be found here.)

Parting shot: Another round of congratulations must also go out to everyone behind Dexter and Pushing Daisies, for securing spots on the American Film Institute's Official Selections for TV Programs of the Year. Brilliant. (See the entire list here.)

(Image from Pelicula website, website designed by Carl Vergara, Habagat icon designed by Ian Sta. Maria; series images courtesy of about.com [Dexter]; hbo.com [Entourage]; avclub.com [Pushing Daisies]; and fanpop.com [Lost].)

DEXTER
Season 2 Episode 5
‘The Dark Defender’
Written by Tim Schlattmann
Directed by Keith Gordon
(WARNING: SPOILERS)

There’s a curiously hopeful streak in this episode as Dex sees some of the Miami citizenry actually condone and approve of the Bay Harbor Butcher’s choice of victim.
And when a murder occurs in a comic book store, Dex discovers The Dark Defender, a leather-clad vigilante who slays the bad guys, a character apparently inspired by the Bay Harbor Butcher.
Despite his disapproval of all that leather in the Florida humidity, Dex has a dream where, as the Dark Defender, he rescues his mother before she gets killed. When he tells Lila about the dream and the circumstances of his mother’s death, she convinces him to seek out his mother’s killers, so he can find closure.

Checking the case files, one turns up dead, the other in for life without parole, and the third (who cut a deal with the cops) part of the Witness Protection Program.
A road trip is in order, and Lila’s along for the ride.
Confronting the murderer, Dex tries to tell him how the man has made him feel and what he felt was taken away from him by his mother’s murder, but the dude won’t listen, so Dex resorts to violence, and comes this close to killing him, when Lila (ditched by Dex at the motel) talks him down over the cell.
Dex leaves the dude unconscious, but alive, and when he gets back to the motel, there’s some sympathetic cuddling, but no actual sex.
Along with the case files though were interview tapes of Harry and his mother, who was apparently a police informant, and (gasp!) sleeping with Harry.

Meanwhile, Gail tries to kick Dex outta Dodge when she finds out he’s a “recovering addict,” just like the not-so-dearly departed Paul was. Rita has a talk with Gail, and thinks she’s managed to convince her mother to move out, when all she ends up doing is convince Gail she should stay.

Over now with Deb, who starts to act like a loon, going through Gabriel’s drawers, and going apesh!t on his a$$ when she looks at his email and sees he’s been shopping a book around, a book entitled The Ice Princess.
Mistakenly, she jumps to the paranoid, self-involved conclusion that it’s a book about her, Mrs. Ice Truck Killer, when it’s really a children’s book. (She finds this out thanx to Lundy, who actually does a background check on Gabriel.)
Though she thinks she’s blown it with Gabriel, Lundy convinces her things can still be repaired, and they kiss and make up. (Gabriel and Deb; not Deb and Lundy, though there is something there, isn’t there?)

LaGuerta meanwhile is concerned about Doakes and his having shot and killed two men in half a year. Doakes of course, insists he’s fine.

Oh, and Deb tells Dex he should probably move his boat from the marina where it’s docked right now, as the security there is terrible (I believe she said it “sucks a$$.”)
Instead, Dex opts to clean the boat to make sure not a spot of blood or trace evidence remains.
Unbeknowest to Dex, Lundy has already had surveillance cameras installed, and Dex is caught on tape…

Parting shot: Comic book artist Tone Rodriguez, who supplied the Dark Defender art for the show, also played the murderer, briefly seen in the episode.

(The Dark Defender image by Tone Rodriguez, courtesy of comicbookresources.com.)