Dexter “Ricochet Rabbit” Review

After last week’s incredibly obvious and telegraphed “twist”, I was heading into “Ricochet Rabbit” hoping for it to really pick up on the Doomsday case and try to redeem this rather lackluster season. Regardless of how much I didn’t like the twist last episode, there’s still enough time for Dexter to improve in the final three episodes.

Unfortunately, this episode really wasn’t off to a good start. My biggest problem with the “twist”, apart from how obvious it seemed to all of us viewers at home, was how obvious it should have been to Dexter. When you think about it, Dexter really is a better detective than anybody else at Miami Metro, and he of all people should have seen this coming. So it was disappointing to see Dexter start off the episode making such stupid decisions. First of all, shouldn’t the first thing you do when you find out that the guy who is a mass murderer and is the guy you’ve been looking for is unconscious upstairs, shouldn’t you go make sure he’s not going to get away? Instead, Dexter stays down in the cellar and checks Gellar’s wounds. After being easily contained and locked in the basement by Travis, he ends up having a very convenient vantage point to Travis talking to Gellar. This is followed by Dexter making his speech to Harry about how he needs to be the one to take down Travis after all that he “put him through”.

First of all, is Dexter really that stupid that he still feels he needs to be the one to kill Travis? Hasn’t he learned from Trinity that leaving prolific serial killers alive longer than you need to is dangerous? He could be putting Deb or Harrison into danger if Travis ever finds out about them. Second, what exactly has Travis “put him through”? They went on a field trip to the professor’s office last week and got locked up for a few hours. That’s not bad by Dexter’s standards.

Ok, so that’s probably a lot of complaining for just the first scene, so I’ll move on. Regardless of how we got to this point, I really did like seeing Colin Hanks get to go full-tilt psychopath. I kind of wish we get to see some form of flashbacks and actually see him kill all of the original victims, as it would have been a really powerful moment to see Travis’ sister’s reaction when she finds out that her brother is the one behind all of these kills. Still, it’s good to see him in full DDK mode, and Colin Hanks is finally getting to show some real acting chops after having to be the submissive sissy for the first 9 episodes. It was also a really nice touch to see him pick up a crazy couple to help him complete the rest of his mission, and I’m interested to see what happens next with Batista getting captured.

There were a couple other character moments this week that I really enjoyed. Finding out about Louis’ game was a neat little development, and Dexter’s reaction to it was priceless. I was kind of bummed how much of a baby Louis turned into when Dex denied him, though. He’s just one guy, dude, what do you care? I’m wondering if this is the reason for why Louis has the ITK hand, or if there’s a more sinister cause down the road.

We’re continuing to get some strong developments with Deb’s character. As a character that has very easily annoyed Dexter fans in the past, myself included, I’m really liking where these psychologist scenes have been going. I also thought it was interesting to see her have her panic attack in the old abandoned church, and you can’t help but root for her a little bit that all of this time spent talking about Dexter will unearth some realizations about Dex’s personality that lead to her finding out about him. We’ll see!

Lastly, as I guess it should be mentioned, Quinn continues to be an insufferable little A-hole. Not only is his whole “waking up not knowing what I did last night” routine getting old, but now his penchant for partying late and not coming in to work has put his partner in danger! Deep down I’m secretly hoping that this Wormwood attack on Miami Metro will take him out, and LaGuerta while we’re at it.

Random Thoughts:

- Did anybody think it was weird that the teenage girl’s house door opened right into the pool?

- How on earth did Travis find out where Holly Benson’s boat was? Was that ever explained? I guess he could have checked Friend Zone like Dex did, but is he that much faster of a detective than Dexter is? I didn’t think so.

- I wonder why nobody actually has made a game where you play as a serial killer (Except for the Dexter video game, I guess). I know it might be pretty offensive, but it might be interesting.