DEXTER “Sin of Omission” Review

DEXTER “Sin of Omission” Season 6 Episode 8 – After hearing the news earlier this week that Dexter has been renewed for two more seasons by Showtime, “Sin of Omission”, and the rest of the season for that matter, loses a little bit of suspense for me. On a show that has always had a hard time making big moves or changes to its formula, knowing that we have at least two more seasons to fill really takes a lot of the wind out of this season’s sails. I guess this won’t be the season that Deb finds out about Dex, or that another major character will die. I could be totally wrong, and we could have a major revelation by the end of the season and have the next two seasons be completely different, but I highly doubt it.

But I guess that’s neither here nor there as far as the quality of this episode, and “Sin of Omission” was yet another solid episode of this season. We finally see Dexter returning to the Doomsday Killer case, as he seems to have completely forgotten about it over the past few episodes. His first scene in the restoration room with Travis was really cool, as Colin Hanks does a great job as the guy who is being pressured from too many angles. This scene did give us another clue from Dexter that seems to be hinting at Gellar being a figment of Travis’ imagination, as he referred to Gellar as Travis’ dark passenger. I know he had that obligatory line about how Gellar is different because he “walks and talks and breathes”, but that seems like it’s just trying to throw us off the trail.

Miami Metro, meanwhile, is just doing their own thing. They started by investigating a dead call girl on the floor of a hotel bathroom, but as it turns out this didn’t have anything to do with the “DDK” case (Man, I really hate that abbreviation). I think maybe they’re feeling threatened by the nudity level in Homeland, the great new show that comes right after Dexter, and now they’re just putting dead hookers and strippers in here for no good reason. I know that LaGuerta had that shady phone call which makes it sound like she’s trying to cover up this prostitute’s death, but I could honestly care less about LaGuerta at this point. I hope this story line either ends with her death or in jail. Let’s make it happen, Dexter writers!

Anyway, DDK strikes again by killing Travis’ sister and turning her into the Whore of Babylon. I’m not quite sure I completely understand this kill. Up until this point, it seems to have been very important to the DDK team not only to get their message across, but also to keep their identities a secret. I’m not sure why Travis/Gellar would want to kill Travis’ sister since this puts all of the focus on Travis. When Deb has already gone by her house and seen Travis there, it’s obvious that she would put two and two together and Travis would shoot to the top of Miami Metro’s most wanted list.

There’s even more drama going on in Miami Metro, as Deb has a rather interesting session with her psychiatrist. We’ve always just acknowledged her and Dexter’s relationship as a bit of a one-way street, as we usually just see Deb venting at Dexter as Dex has never really been much of a sharer. So you never really give it much thought, but Dexter really is kind of a crappy brother when it comes down to it. With all that he’s been through, and all the effort Deb has put into their relationship and getting Dexter to open up, the way Dexter has been treating Deb all this time really is unfair. I’m not saying Deb was totally in the right when she barged into Dexter’s house and commanded him to hang out with her and share his feelings, but Dexter has always prided himself on his ability to fake all of his human interactions. You’d think he could at least fake a good story about why he went to Nebraska.

The final scene is hopefully giving this season a good shove in the right direction as we seem to be heading to a confrontation between Dexter and Gellar, if Gellar is indeed real. We still haven’t seen anything that proves that Gellar is anything but a figment of Travis’ imagination, but the Dexter writers have made it so painfully obvious that he isn’t real that them treating this reveal like a big deal is just going to come off as a joke. “Hey everybody, guess what? He’s not real!” Um, yeah, thanks you guys. We all figured that out back in the second episode.

Random Thoughts:

- The first scene between Dexter and Travis really reminded me of who Colin Hanks’ dad is. Just the faces and expressions that Travis makes, as well as the cadence of his voice, really reminds me of Tom Hanks.

- You’d think Brother Sam would have invested in a wide margin Bible if he was planning on taking that many notes.

- That poor actress who played the dead prostitute must have been so cold! Laying on a tile bathroom floor totally naked! My feet get so cold in the bathroom I have to wear slippers while I’m shaving, so I couldn’t imagine laying still and naked on the cold floor while a long scene is filmed around me.