Episode 04 | Aired Jul 21, 2013

Dex and Deb get a crash course in extreme therapy: Here's 8 things we learned
By James Hibberd @ EW





This week Dr. Vogel continued to work her dark creepy magic on Dexter and Debra, trying to get them to accept their past deeds and feel generally okay about mercilessly killing people. The episode, aptly titled "Scar Tissue," is basically one big therapy session, climaxing with Debra taking her treatment into her own hands and Dexter having a breakthrough while trying to murder The Brain Surgeon.

With our Comic-Con coverage on the front burner this weekend (here's what happened at the Dexter panel), we're going to keep this recap short and bittersweet. Here's 8 things we learned Sunday night:

1. Quinn passed the sergeants test: In the 85th percentile, no less. We're surprised too. "I've never been this happy to get back a positive test," Quinn says. Yet deputy chief Matthews is putting pressure on Batista to give the stripes to Miller instead. Something about Miller scoring higher -- not to mention seeming like a competent professional who isn't about to bury her face in strippers and booze on any given weekend. Sorry Quinn, we're siding with Matthews on this one.

2. The Big Bad is a cable TV installer. Dex snooped around the house of Yates, one of Vogel's former patients who now is a "bundler." And here we thought it doesn't take a brain surgeon to work at a cable company (sorry). Not only has he had brain surgery himself at Dr. Vogel's recommendation (a little detail that you would think would have sprung to mind sooner for Dr. Vogel), but he also keeps an assortment of women's shoes in his home taken from his victims (Dexter Head-Smacking Implausibility of the Week Alert: If Yates is so paranoid that he's installed cameras all through his house, why wouldn't he at least keep his collection of hugely incriminating footwear in his secret rooms instead of in his regular closet?). Yates finds out Dex and Vogel are onto him and skips town, leaving behind only a half-dead victim and a diagram showing how he kills people in case anybody searching his house wasn't 100 percent certain of his guilt.

3. Dexter has a cute neighbor. Hi Cassie. Run Cassie. Seriously, just stay out of this show, it's bad news. You seem entirely too normal to be a love interest for Dexter Morgan.

4. Masuka has a daughter! A college-age hottie shows up at Miami Metro and Vince is startled to learn she's his daughter -- and she even has the same laugh. This raises a few questions: Would a woman really pick Masuka out of the sperm donor catalog and go "That one!"? And can kids from sperm donors really show up on their biological parent's doorstep like that? (Seeing conflicting things online, but it sounds like, yes, it is possible if Masuka chose to be an open donor). Another thought: What if Masuka and his daughter had met in a bar a month ago? ... Yeah, scary right? Accidental incest is one of the dangers of sperm donation, as pointed out by no less a source than Cracked.com.


6. Quinn is hung up on Debra and isn't that into Jamie. How many hints does Batista's little sister need? Now Quinn is beating up cops at a bar restaurant to defend his ex-gf's honor while he's on a date with Jamie. And to us viewers his feelings are even more obvious when he tells Debra "things are so easy with you, with Jamie things keep getting tripped up." As if things are not getting tripped up because of his longing for his ex-girlfriend.

7. Dexter has emotions (if muted). There was a lot of back and forth on this between Dexter and Dr. "Trust me you're dead inside" Vogel. Dex discovers when Yates uses his dying father as a distraction to escape getting caught that he could never use a family member in such a fashion and therefore Vogel is wrong about him. Granted, Dexter is setting the bar pretty low for himself, but we're siding with him anyway -- Dexter knows his feelings and seems pretty certain about them. Yet when it comes to Debra, the doctor might be right that---

8. Debra will always choose Dexter. After being haunted by the idea that she should have shot Dexter last season, Vogel helps her realize that she would still make the same choice today. She learns this in a pretty dramatic fashion after Dexter admits during their drive that their father killed himself due to guilt over Dex's slayings. She turns into a literal Dark Passenger for Dexter by grabbing the wheel driving the car into a lake (the crash was pretty great). Debra is rescued by a fisherman, then goes back and pulls out an unconscious Dexter rather than letting him die. (I'm pretty sure it's not a spoiler to reveal that Dexter didn't just die here in the fourth episode of the final season).

Bonus! Set-visit factoids: "It's sort of the last straw," Jennifer Carpenter explained to EW on the set about why she drives the car into the lake. "It's yet one more person she cared about [who died because of Dexter]. Sometimes you can't calculate something, it's a visceral response. At her core, she loves him, at her core, she needs him ... if you're brave enough to love all-out in your life, there are people that are clearly not healthy choices for you that your body your heart you will [go] to them again and again."

The Dexter team actually shot a scene that directly follows their reemergence from the water (it's not part of next week's episode) showing Debra dragging Dexter back to the shore and giving him mouth-to-mouth to revive him. Surprised it wasn't included since it gives a believable and non-romantic excuse to show Deb and Dex locking lips. But the image of the Morgans being "re-born" out of the water is pretty strong too.