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In a fog, Dexter scours the city to find the misplaced body of his latest victim. Does he, before it all crashes down around him?

Opening this episode with a bang, or in this case a crash, Dexter Morgan (Micheal C. Hall) finds himself smack dab in the middle of a murder mystery. Only this time instead of a Who-dun-it, it’s a How-did-I-do-it?

Dexter falls asleep at the wheel on the way home from delivering justice to his latest criminal, crashing his minivan, before he can dispose of the body. He finds himself addled with a concussion in the hospital when he comes to with no memory of what he did with the body of his victim. Dexter checks out of the hospital, setting him in motion to try to reconstruct the night’s event before the body is discovered.

This premise sets up a very schizophrenic episode of Dexter. While the story of Dex racing across town trying to reconstruct events sets up a taut ticking clock mystery, the episode seems to lose it’s momentum when it stops Dex’s frantic search to check in with the B stories of the episode which pretty much all focus in on the side characters romantic relationships.  All the tension built up from Dex’s quest grinds to a halt every time it cuts away him, except for the C story which focuses in on Dexter’s nemesis of this season, “The Trinity Killer” (John Lithgow).

Lithgow’s continues his fine performance from last week, conveying the feel of a Great White Shark in human form as he trawls Miami for his latest kill. Trinity stalks the town discovering his latest victim when her son innocently bumps into him on a boardwalk getting some ice cream on him. Trinity catches sight of her when the boy goes to meet her. Trinity then contrives to cross paths and befriend her late one night offering to help her with her groceries while he’s out walking “his” dog in “their” neighborhood.

While this episode is a decent episode when taken all together , it’s at it’s strongest when it focuses on the two dueling serial killers. Dexter always as a series is at it’s strongest when it zeroes in on Dexter’s struggle with his dark needs and his delicate balancing act of trying to live by his “Code of Harry”, and his mirror images in the form of the other serial killers who show what Dexter might have become if he hadn’t been taken in by Harry and the influence of his code on Dexter.  All in all, a decent watch slowed only by the seemingly prerequisite romantic storylines slammed into the story, deflating the tension of Dex’s storyline.

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