| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
My Bad is the first episode of Season Five and the forty-ninth episode overall. After Rita's death Dexter is left alone with three kids. Quinn stirs up trouble for Dexter but supports Deb.
Synopsis
Dexter faces the repercussions of Rita's murder and contemplates running from all of it. Astor and Cody return from Disney World to the news of their mother's death. Deb finds herself handling all of Dexter's responsibilities and an unexpected turn in her relationship with Quinn, who has theories of his own regarding the investigation.[1]
Plot
The episode begins with Dexter holding Harrison as he lingers outside of the house. The police arrive, and when Deb asks him what happened, his response is "Rita's inside, it was me." Masuka and Quinn examine the crime scene, with Masuka suspecting that this looked like another Trinity killing, though Quinn points out that the Trinity Killer never chose a married woman as a victim before. LaGuerta suggests that they should leave this case for the feds, because of Trinity, but Batista counters that Rita's family, and it should be with them instead. The team allows the FBI to take over the case. Quinn and Masuka examine Dexter's 911 call, and Quinn wonders why he sounds like he's giving a detailed report when his wife is the victim. Quinn noted that the next door neighbor seemed more visibly shaken than Dexter was at Rita's death.
Deb helps Dexter out with the funeral arrangements, while Dexter wanders the funeral home and struggles to see how "normal" people react to death. He decides that he should try to act normal during Rita's funeral because he believed she would have wanted him to. A flashback occurs to Dexter and Rita's first date. Rita is late because she went to the wrong restaurant at first, and she wonders why Dexter chose such an out of the way spot. Dexter's real target is a man sitting in the restaurant.
Deb goes back to the house with Quinn to clean the bathroom free of the blood. Things get heated and they begin to kiss, which leads into the pair trying to take each other's clothes off. Later, as they leave the house, Quinn asks whether Deb wants to talk, but Deb brushes off the offer and leaves. Quinn speaks to the next-door neighbor, who recounts the incident where Dexter caught Rita and the neighbor kissing and immediately punched him out.
Astor and Cody return from a trip to Disneyland with Rita's parents, and Dexter is waiting for them. He's given a souvenir, a Mickey Mouse ear hat with his name on it, but he tells the kids that he has bad news about their mom. After Dexter recounts Rita's death, Astor storms out, telling Dexter that he was supposed to have protected Rita and he didn't, and that the family was better off without him. Deb tells Dexter that it's not his fault that Rita's dead, even though Dexter does blame himself. He should have killed Mitchell when he had the chance, but he never did. Back to the flashback of the first date, Dexter excuses himself from the table after the man he'd been watching leaves. Outside in the parking lot, he drugs the man and shoves him in the trunk of his car. Returning to Rita, Dexter apologizes for having to leave early but he doesn't feel well. Dexter asks Deb to take care of Harrison as he starts planning for life after Rita.
Meanwhile, Quinn can't let the case go, even when LaGuerta reminds him that it's in the feds' hands. Quinn tells her about the incident with the neighbor, and says that the vast majority of the time, when there's infidelity before a murder, the husband did it. LaGuerta gets a call from the FBI saying that Dexter never showed up for his interview. Dexter is at the funeral home and speaks to Rita's body, saying that he doesn't deserve to be at her funeral. He confesses that he's a serial killer and apologizes for lying to her and pretending to be a normal human. After removing a few of his possessions from his storage unit, he sets fire to it and heads for his boat, the Slice of Life. The funeral starts and Deb wonders where Dexter is. She tries to call him but he ignores her and then flashes back to another encounter with Rita. As he's dumping a body off the side of his boat, he gets a call from her, saying that she wasn't completely honest with him. She has two kids and didn't want him to know about them right away. They plan on meeting again.
The boat runs out of gas and Dexter pulls in. In the store, he watches as an angry man repeatedly rings the service bell to get the key to the bathroom. When nobody comes, the man searches the desk until he finds the key himself, and turns around, taking offense to the way Dexter is staring at him and angrily calling him a retard for doing so. Offended, Dexter follows him into the bathroom, and tries to earn the man's sympathy by telling him that his wife died that week and it was his fault. But the man doesn't seem to care and furiously responds by saying (in a sarcastic, slightly skeptical tone of voice) "Well, I'm real sorry for your fucking loss, but your dead wife can suck my dick." An enraged Dexter attacks him, and after a brief fight, kills him. As he backs away from the man's cadaver, Dexter looks into the restroom mirror and sees Harry, who tells him that that's the first human thing he'd done since his wife's death. Harry tells him that he can show what hes feeling. Dexter finally lets his guard down and starts to shriek from both anger and grief over losing Rita. Harry tells him that he needs to go back. Dexter arrives at the funeral and while giving heartfelt eulogy, he realizes that Rita wasn't just part of a cover life-he actually did love her.
Cast
Regulars
Quotes
- I've watched 67 people die, and at the moment of truth I looked into their eyes and I knew - and they knew - they got what they deserved. But what if that's not what happens, if you don't get what you deserve? Is a white picket fence, your kids all around, and a husband who loves you. What if the least you deserve is a real human being and what you get instead is me... - Dexter
- His wife just died; he's submitting a lab report. - Quinn, referring to Dexter
- I wish that it was just my mom and me and Cody and Harrison because we all would have been better off if she'd never met you. - Astor to Dexter
- She had a big heart, big enough for the both of us, had to be, I wasn't even human when we first met. - Dexter, referring to Rita
- She (Rita) died a brutal death, and I can't fix it. But I know I have to try, here in Miami with the people who knew her, who cared about her, who loved her. - Dexter
Videos
References
Trivia
- When Astor and Cody arrive at Dexter's condo they give him a Disney Micky Mouse Hat. Unlike their hats with yellow text on the name plate Dexter's is red. A subtle easter egg about his career and facade.
- Despite having a prominent arc in Season 2, Rita's mother does not attend her funeral. False