Seeing Red is the tenth of twelve episodes in Season One of the Showtime series DEXTER and the tenth overall episode in the series. It first aired 3 December 2006.
Dexter Morgan is sent to investigate a blood-soaked crime scene, and is gripped by a suppressed memory. Meanwhile, Rita is charged with assaulting Paul and could lose the children in a custody battle. Angel investigates a hunch regarding The Ice Truck Killer.
Summary[]
It's morning at Rita Bennett's house. Dexter has made breakfast for Astor and Cody and packed their lunches. A locksmith is changing the locks with reinforced plates after Paul had broken in and attacked Rita the night before. Rita insists on going to work and Dexter gives her pepper spray and tells her to aim for the eyes.
Debra Morgan is sitting at her desk at work, eating a piece of Kirk Bliloc’s birthday cake. James Doakes teases her about the cake being old. Nearby, a young clerk opens a box and inside finds a jar filled with a red substance. She takes it out and holds it up. Doakes orders her to put it down and calls Dexter over to look at it. When Dexter holds it up, he finds a key to room 103 at the Marina View Hotel inside a jar of blood.
Sgt. James Doakes and Debra Morgan visit the hotel, where they find a room completely drenched in blood. Dexter is sent in first to investigate, When Dexter enters the blood soaked room, he suddenly has flashbacks of himself as a small child in the Shipping Yard, watching his mother, Laura Moser, being chain-sawed to death. Dexter experiences a panic attack and collapses into the blood. Unable to continue examining the crime scene, he hurries out of the hotel covered in blood. Dexter claims to his coworkers that he skipped breakfast and feels ill from the effects of low blood sugar. After he calms down, Dexter reenters the hotel and sits outside the room, instructing Vince Masuka to take "lots and lots of photos." Dexter is puzzled when Masuka says the blood is not clotting.
While Rita is at work, two officers from the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Department appear at the front desk. They inform Rita that Paul Bennett has been released from Baptist Memorial Hospital and filed an assault charge against her. They take her to the sheriff station to make a formal statement. She calls Dexter to say she that is being charged with a Class 2 Felony. He tells her that he knows a lawyer.
Debra tries to get Dexter to open up to her but to no avail. She asks why he keeps shutting her out.
Rita talks with a lawyer, who tells her that since she invited Paul into her bedroom, she cannot prove that her intent was to defuse the situation.
In Debra’s bedroom, Rudy is pressuring her to reveal Dexter’s reaction at the Marina View Hotel bloodbath. This annoys Debra because she has sex on her mind. They begin to argue and Rudy gets out of bed to watch TV in the living room. His attitude bewilders Debra.
Angel finds that he cannot stop talking about his divorce when trying to meet new women at a bar. Masuka calls him a "train wreck."
Both Dexter and Rita have trouble sleeping.
The forensics team surmises that the blood in the hotel room came from at least five different bodies, although none were in the room. Since there were only one set of footprints in the room, they assume that the victims were killed elsewhere else and their blood spread around the room by the killer. Debra suggests that The Ice Truck Killer, who had five bloodless victims, was responsible. Doakes disputes this because he thinks Neil Perry is ITK and he has been arrested. Maria states, "Bullshit."
Paul arrives at Rita's house with a bandaged head to pick up the kids. The court supervisor is with him.
Dexter breaks into Paul's motel room while he is at the circus with his kids. Immediately, Dexter notices prominently displayed photos of Cody and Astor. When Dexter searches through drawers, he discovers pot and a gun, but decides that it’s not enough for Paul to deserve death.
While Dexter is still in Paul’s motel room, he experiences a panic attack. He has flashbacks of the Shipping Yard Massacre and the Marina View Hotel’s blood-filled room.
During their investigation of the bloody room at the Marina View Hotel, Debra and Doakes discover that the radio is tuned to 103 FM and the room's Bible is bookmarked for Leviticus 10:3. (The number 103 refers to the date a newspaper was published (October 3, 1973) with an article about the murder of Dexter's mother (October 2, 1973).
Rudy unexpectedly shows up at Dexter's apartment with steaks and beer. He explains that he and Deb had a fight and he needs Dexter's advice. When Deb calls Rudy, asking him to come over, he says he is having dinner with Dexter. This infuriates her.
Angel, now single, is determined to find a new love interest. Dressed in a suit jacket, he goes alone to a dimly lit nightclub, and removes his wedding ring. As he looks around the club, Angel notices a sexy woman standing alone and approaches her. They are thoroughly enjoying themselves when Angel suddenly notices another woman wearing a prosthetic hand with multi-colored fingernails. Angel stops dancing, and asks the sexy woman to excuse him. He walks over to Monique (the woman with the prosthetic hand), says that he’s police and needs to talk to her. He asks why she paints her nails using different colors. After a few minutes, when Angel looks back to the sexy woman, she is gone. Monique (a hooker) tells Angel about a “client” that she met in Calle Ocho a year ago. “He started getting all rough with me until he saw this. Then he changed his tune, got all turned on. Told me to take my fake hand off. He started doing some kinky, weird stuff, like he was worshipping it. To cap it off, he takes all my nail polish and paints each nail a different color. I liked it, so I kept doing it.”
Rudy and Dexter have a conversation about repressed memories.
Maria tries to convince Matthews to let Neil Perry go but he doesn't want to admit that he made a mistake.
Rudy arrives at Dexter's lab to pickup his forgotten cell phone. While there, he suggest that the kill had used an electric chainsaw which makes sense to Dexter. Debra sees Rudy and Dexter having a conversation and she confronts Dexter on why he can't talk to her, too.
Working on a hunch that the Ice Truck Killer is an acrotomophiliac (an individual who expresses sexual interest in amputees), Angel decides to speak to Debra's boyfriend Rudy Cooper, a prosthetics specialist. Rudy cooperates with the interview but gives Angel no helpful clues. Rudy takes Angel's card and tosses into a drawer that is filled with bottles of nail polish.
During the deposition, it comes to light that Rita broke a visitation agreement on the weekend she went away with Dexter. The lawyer is annoyed that she did not tell him this before. Rita says that she didn’t realize it was such a big deal. Rita also learns that she is required to have a psychiatric evaluation to determine whether she will retain custody of her children. The lawyer informs her that Paul, unfortunately, has a valid case against her. Dexter, who is present at the deposition, begins to realize the seriousness of the situation.
Paul drops by Rita's house to return their children, and he threatens Rita when the two are alone in the kitchen, Dexter responds by hitting him with a frying pan. Paul loses consciousness, so Dexter drives him back to Paul's motel and frames him for drug abuse. Dexter anonymously alerts the police and Paul is sent back to prison.
Maria throws Matthews under the bus at a press conversation, stating that questions about Neil Perry not being the Ice Truck Killer should be directed to Captain Matthews. Matthew then warns Maria that she is about to see his true colors and to enjoy her office while she can.
Rita is overjoyed to learn that Paul is back in jail after violating the Florida Three Strikes Law.
In a parking garage, Angel unloads two bags of groceries from the back seat of his car. All of a sudden, he is attacked from behind by a man dressed in black, wearing a hoodie and mask. Angel throws his head back, knocking the man to the ground. A car alarm begins to blare. Angel, having been stabbed, reaches for his gun, but he drops it and falls down. As the masked man stands up to finish the job, two men (Andy and Jerry) run down the stairs, yelling, and the attacker runs away. The men rush over to Angel and phone for help.
At work, Doakes is trying to ask Debra out when Rudy appears with a bouquet of white roses. Doakes gives him a dirty look and walks away. Debra doesn't want to forgive Rudy until they kiss and say they love each other. Rudy has a mysterious wound on his lip.
Dexter decides to dig up his repressed memory rather than avoid it. He returns to the bloody hotel room, where he relives the memory, which he realizes was of the murder of his mother, right in front of him when he was three-years-old.
Quotes[]
- "I'm not gonna let Paul control my life anymore. Those days are over." -Rita to Dexter
- "I'll tell you what, if some random emotion strikes me in the middle of the night, you'll be the first one I call." -Dexter to Debra
- "My sister's right. I don't share my problems with her... Or with anybody. Harry taught me that -- Secrecy, self-reliance, and a well-stocked cupboard of hefty bags." -Dexter voiceover
- "You've spent our entire lives keeping me at a distance." -Deb to Dexter
- "The same images running through my head over and over. I was there. I saw my mother's death. A buried memory, forgotten all these years. It climbed inside me that day, and it's been with me ever since. My dark passenger." -Dexter voiceover
Related Pages[]
- Miami
- Dexter's Apartment
- Rita Bennett's House
- Rita's Lawyer
- Marina View Hotel
- Z Hotel
- Harry Morgan's House
- Prosthetic Hand
- Miami Motor Court
- Shipping Yard Massacre
- Ice Truck Killer Case
Gallery[]
