THIS WEEK ON Dexter: A Horse of a Different Color.

Quite often the efficacy of the sidekick is downplayed. They are relegated to pure ancillary uses. You know, serving to wipe down your bloodstains, do the laborious bone sawing. The grunt word of the serial killer underworld. Let us make no mistakes about it, every serial killer aspires to one day have their own lackey. It’s understandable. They’re clutch though, and if you’re going to take a sidekick into your underworld of Blood and Gloom the best advice I can give you is this. Choose carefully. Your enterprise rides on it.

Someone should have given Professor James Gallagher this advice. Motherfucker is trying to roll out as the Doomsday Killer and he can’t even hire himself a competent number two. It may very well be this lack of adroitness by Travis (played my Colin Hanks) that is in fact slowing down the entire fucking season. I mean, four episodes in and nothing has happened. Something has to be behind this slow building nonsense. Right? I blame the soft-bodied, dough-faced inadequacy of Admiral Adama’s right hand man.

Already this douchebag has blown off two meetings, to hang out with his sister and lay some pipe. There’s a fucking Apocalypse to be kicking off and he’s too busy snacking on ice cream and getting some poon-funk on his grime stick instead of painting bodies for their Horsemen Tableau. This isn’t just poor form. It’s downright rude. It’s also taking its toll on Olmos’ character.

Once he was a respectable serial killer, painting pictures in-between slathering his gorgeous mullet with nutrient oil and buttoning his favorite cardigan. Now? Now he’s skulking about in Demented Robin’s apartment. Peering through doorways staring at what should be his Helpful Assistant defiling some poor women. Condemning her to Oblivion. Do you think he likes the skulking? Hell no! He was just wondering what the fuck was going on. It was past midnight and he had some corpses to saw and Travis hadn’t rolled up yet. He’s as embarrassed as we are for his stalking and the such.

And so mark my words, this soft-bodied Excuse for an Apocalyptic Assistant will be the Doomsday Killer’s undoing. He’ll crack. Be it to the police, or on the edge of Dexter’s scalpel. I mean, Jesus Christ! As the locusts swarmed and romped about the crime scene the doughy douche had the temerity to sit there with a slack-jacked grin. Sloppy man. Sloppy.

He’ll crack.

Don’t feel too bad for Gallagher though. I know that’s the tendency. We all want to see glorious Apocalypse carried forth courtesy of bent scripture and warped skull. So we weep for him. But don’t. Because as I’ve said, it’s one of the easiest things to miss, and one of the most essential to get correct. The hiring of your second in command. Why do you think Dexter runs solo?

Speaking of Dexter, it’s like the writers don’t even try to pull off that he’s a blood splatter guy anymore. He’s a straight-up autopsy machining motherfucker in this episode. Just him and Deb hanging out in the morgue. Like, really? I don’t know if I appreciate their gusto or if I’m offended they’re not even trying. “Let’s just have Dexter examine corpses now! What do you mean how are we going to explain why he’s doing it? Fuck you Steve, always the naysayer! We’ll explain it at the beginning of next season like we do all our odd character changes! Ha! Haha! Hahaha!”

These are the sorts of things that I thought about as my mind meandered throughout the episode. Why is Dexter now examining corpses? Angel and Quinn get lit-up as fuck is awesome. I want to crush some burritos with the two of them. What is that chick Ryan really up to? Why does she make my balls hurt so much? This Mike Anderson guy seems legit. I appreciate his use of literary terms. Why does LaGuerta exist at all? Is Deb hot, too skinny, or somewhere in the gray area? How are they going to kill Brother Sam?

How are they going to kill Brother Sam?

The most intriguing three minutes of the episode was centered around Dexter and Brother Sam’s conversation regarding The Sam’s father and salvation. Mos Def held it down delivering a monologue that was already interesting unto itself, but hammered home by his performance. There aren’t too many quiet moments on Dexter where someone who isn’t a hacking-slashing-maiming machine gets to deliver a poignant page or two of script out of their own gape-hole. Def got one in this episode and it allowed him to shine. Shine on, you crazy Black Star.

Brother Sam is an interesting character. More nuanced that I would have expected. Being a secular heathen bastard I was ready to roll my eyes at him throughout he season. He caught me with his honeyed tongue though, and dragged me under his spell. His acknowledgement of the potential for faith to be perverted, distorted, and stretched like taffy wasn’t something that I anticipated him tilting his head towards.

Hmm.  Well then!  Let’s see!

In fact his speech seemed more pointed towards “Whatever helps you become a decent person” and less towards “Hang out with the guy with the dope beard and holes in his hands”, and I could feel that. It just so happened that he found it on that day in the Church was he was tuning a motherfucker up. Happens to different people in different moments.

I don’t know where they’re going this season. I do know that I can’t handle another nine episodes of Dexter ruminating over his crisis of faith. Just chewing it over. And over. Burp. Vomit. Reconsider it again. Burp. Vomit. Something needs to happen soon before my ADHD-raddled brain begins giving out. It can only handle so much circling the Port before I demand it brings it on in.

What about you folks? Diggin’ on it? Impressions? Hit me.