Showtime “Dexter” “Chemistry” #707 "Getting Closer"

By Catherine Giordano

The season 2 episode 7 episode of Showtime’s “Dexter” is entitled “Chemistry.”  The title refers to the sexual/emotional connection between Dexter and Hannah. Elements combining, setting off reactions, irreversible reactions, possibly explosive reactions, is a metaphor for the relationship between Dexter and Hannah. It’s a wonderful name for the episode, but since I like to rename each episode to reflect the theme that I feel runs through the episode, I’m naming this one “Getting Close.”

The episode begins with Dexter and Hannah asleep on the killing table, a post-coital nap. Hannah wakes, takes hold of the knife Dex meant to use to kill her, straddles Dexter, and holds the knife to his throat. She wants to know why Dexter tried to kill her. Hannah had been calm when Dexter held the knife over her the previous night, and now it is Dexter’s turn to be calm.

“It’s what I do.”

 

“Kill people?”

 

“Bad people.”

 “You think I’m bad?”

“You fit the general description.”

This is evidently foreplay for Dexter and Hannah, because in a flash Dexter is sitting up, with Hannah on his lap, making the beast with two backs.

Later Dexter drives Hannah home just as if it was an ordinary date. Dexter’s internal monologue is about the need to separate the elements to negate the reaction. He tells Hannah that “this cannot happen again.”  Hannah says, “You’re right,” and Dexter looks just a tiny bit disappointed.

Dexter asks Hannah why she wasn’t, and why she still isn’t, more freaked out about how close he came to killing her. She says, “Maybe I never believed you were going to do it.” Then she gives him a little kiss on the cheek and leaves that car. Just an ordinary  date.

Sal Price, a true-crime writer had been watching Hannah’s house, see’s Dexter and Hannah together. He’s closing in on having enough information to write his book about Hannah. Dexter and Sal stand in the street for a little confrontation. “Lab tech seduced by femme fatale,” is how Sal describes a major theme of his planned book. He now understands why Dexter covered up the evidence that Hannah was actually the murderer of the female victim of the couple that she and Randall killed. Dexter tells Sal that he will lose his job if this comes out. Dexter offers to give Sal information about Randall’s last words before his suicide if Sal will keep him out of his book. Sal says he will think about it and not say anything about this to anyone for the time being. Dexter is close to being exposed, but at least he has bought himself some time.

He uses this time to go to Sal’s apartment. His plan is to collect some of Sal’s DNA. He wants to plant this as evidence on an unsolved crime that Sal wrote about and  blackmail Sal into silence.  When Sal comes to Dexter’s apartment that night to interview him about Randall, Dexter reveals his scheme. Suddenly Sal clutches his chest and falls to the floor dead of a heart attack. Dexter knows that this is Hannah’s doing.  

Sal had interviewed Hannah earlier in the day. Hannah had given Sal a tearful account of how she killed the woman making it seem more like self-defense than a murder. She need have no worries about this confession—she has been granted immunity for all crimes committed with Randall. Dexter goes to see Hannah and she tells him that she put the poison on Sal’s pen. Sal had a habit of chewing on his pen. She assures Dexter that the poison is untraceable. She turns out to be right. The tox screen on Sal’s body comes up negative. 

I was sorry to see Sal gone. I liked him. Debra liked him. I liked Sal and Debra together.  This is the “Awww-I wish-the-writers-hadn’t-done-that” moment-of-the-week. Sal and Debra were getting close. It was nice to see the tough-as-nails Debra be all girly and flirty around Sal. She never did come through on her promise to “make-out” if Sal gave her information, but a romance was blossoming. At the end of their first date together, they are at her home and she gives him only a kiss on the cheek when he leaves. It’s eerily similar to the kiss that Hannah gave Dexter at the end of their “first date.” 

Quinn and Nadia have established a close relationship. Quinn and Nadia are together again after the mob, the Koshka Brotherhood, had disappeared her to a Pam Beach club. Quinn goes to the strip club. Nadia is still working there. He speaks with George, the club manager, and demands that Nadia be released. George refuses thereby breaking his part of the deal. He knows the Quinn has no leverage because he committed a crime by stealing the evidence against Sirko. Quinn threatens George, but since the mob still has Nadia, I don’t see what he can do.  

One thing Quinn can do is allay Batista’s suspicions about Quinn being responsible for the loss of the evidence against Sirko. Batista needs to raise a few thousand dollars to get his plan to buy and run a bar going. Quinn decides to get close to Batista by giving him a ten-thousand dollar check. He claims the money is from an inheritance he received. He tells Batista that it is just a loan, an investment. Batista is so moved by Quinn’s help that he embraces him in a big hug. Batista is not likely to accuse Quinn of wrongdoing now. 

Dexter is feeling more than close to Hannah, he may have fallen in love with her.  We hear his thoughts as a voice-over. “Hannah is not drawn to my darkness like Lilia, not blind to it like Rita, she doesn’t need it like Lumen. She accepts both sides of me.”  

Hannah’s killing of Sal Price reminded me of an event in a earlier episode. Doakes had discovered that Dexter was the “Bay Harbor Butcher.” Dexter has kidnapped Doakes and is keeping him prisoner in a remote cabin. He doesn’t want to kill Doakes, but if he releases him, Doakes will expose him. Lilia solves the dilemma for him by burning down the cabin killing Doakes. And now, once again, a lover has gotten him out of a tight fix by murdering someone who was a threat to him. Hannah killed Sal Price.   

While Dexter was at Sal’s apartment he removed all of Sal’s files on Hannah. When Dexter tells Hannah that he did this, Hannah says, “We were looking out for each other.  That’s a big thing for people like us.” They kiss. A big kiss. A tender kiss. Later, in Hannah’s bed, he wonders, “Is this what love feels like?”  

Sirko has been released from jail, but the police have a tail on him 24/7. This keeps Sirko from making his move on Dexter. He finds Dexter sitting outdoors having lunch.  He sits at his table. Sirko says he wants to kill Dexter for revenge, but he doesn’t understand what Dexter’s motive was for killing Viktor. Sirko doesn’t believe that Dexter did it to get revenge. Dexter hardly knew the police detective that Viktor killed. Sirko is closing in on Dexter’s true motives. “You’re a different kind of animal,” he says. Dexter decides to tell him what kind of “animal” he is. He describes how in killed Viktor in gory detail. Sirko goes all cold, and says, “You are going to regret sharing that with me.” They are like two animals circling each other, ever closer, until one of them will lunge at the other, going in for the kill. 

LaGuerta may be closing in on Dexter as well. Debra had a meeting with LaGuerta and she feels that she has convinced her that Doakes really was the “Bay Harbor Butcher”. She told LaGuerta that there was no need to continue her investigation into whether it could have been someone else. LaGuerta seemed to be convinced, but she can’t let it go. We see her examining a list of names of people who have boats at the marina.  She focuses in on Dexter’s name. 

The last scene is chilling. Debra is sitting alone in her home, listening to Hannah’s confession that Sal had recorded. She phones Dexter. He is in bed with Hannah asleep next to him. She wants to see justice done, but there is no evidence against Hannah.  Perhaps she is also motivated by a desire for revenge for Sal’s murder. She is convinced that Hannah murdered Sal. She tells Dexter, “Do what you do. I want you to make this right.”    

In my review of episode 4, I said Debra had gone “all in,” but Debra pulled back in the later episodes, distancing herself from Dexter’s killings, saying she didn’t want to know about it. Now she is closer than ever to being an accomplice. She is asking Dexter to kill. 

Will this be the thing that tears Debra and Dexter apart?

This picture of Debra and Sal is from http://tvequals.com/

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