Dexter – Season Five – Episode Four: “Beauty and the Beast” Review

Dexter Morgan (Michael C. Hall) has almost always had things under control. He is the king of cool when it comes to tricky situations and no matter how close to being exposed he has come, Dexter has always recovered, and usually with style. But that all changed when he came into contact with Arthur Mitchell, the Trinity Killer (John Lithgow), a man with thirty years experience in the act of murder.  He should have been Dexter’s prized kill and for about an hour he was, but, that all changed when Dexter found his wife, Rita (Julie Benz), in a bath of her own blood, murdered by Mitchell hours before Dexter took his opportunity to add Trinity to his blood slide collection.

Season five has so far shown us a Dexter Morgan in the midst of collapse. Just when he seems to get his act back together, the jigsaw puzzle pieces don’t fit and we’re right back to square one again. Failing to keep up the ‘being human’ act in My Bad; impulsively murdering a foul-mouthed hick in a grimy toilet; bodging his first attempt at killing Boyd Fowler (Shawn Hatosy): this is a Dexter Morgan risking total exposure, and it’s something we viewers are not used to seeing. And even behind the scenes, unbeknown to Dexter, Joey Quinn (Desmond Harrington) is hot on his heels, making progress with his own, private investigation into Kyle Butler, the alias Dexter used around Arthur Mitchell.

Episode three, Practically Perfect, seemed to bring us back to some level of normality. Dexter had finally killed Boyd, even if it was in a makeshift kill room inside Fowler’s own home, and although Dexter admitted that he didn’t feel any better for ridding the world of the sleazy road-kill remover, we assumed he was at least back on the right track. Then, Dexter heard a noise and discovered a mysterious, bloodied woman (Julia Stiles) in Boyd’s house. Dexter reassured her that everything was going to be all right, but seconds later the woman passed out in his arms. She’d seen everything, and once again, we were back at square one.

When we catch up with Dexter, he’s treating the young woman’s raw and bloody back, which has been lashed and whipped to a pulpy mess. It’s clear that she was to be Fowler’s next victim. When she wakes, she is confused and shaken, and lashes out at Dexter who, with little choice in the matter, is forced to inject her with some M99 anaesthetic. Harry (James Remar) is furious at the situation, suggesting that since she will die anyway from her wounds, Dexter, free of a conscience, should leave her to do so and move on. But as we’ve come to understand in recent seasons, Dexter has embraced that he is the master of the Code and Harry is now simply an advisor.

By trying to save the woman’s life, is Dexter attempting to make amends for Rita’s death? It could be interpreted that way, but of course this whole complicated situation holds even more significance than that. She has seen him in his true form; she knows what Dexter is capable of, and he can’t just let her go free. Not yet. We come to understand, through some classic Dexter evidence tampering, that the woman’s name is Lumen Pierce. In letters Dexter discovers, it is revealed that she left home after an argument with her father and that her mother is desperate for her to go back.

Dexter has to find a way to make Lumen trust him; his entire life depends on it.

Beauty and the Beast is an apt title for season five’s fourth instalment. Through Lumen’s eyes, Dexter must seem like a monster. She witnessed him murder a man, and after what she’s been through already with Boyd, her sense of trust is all but shattered. When Dexter forces Lumen is look at Boyd’s handiwork, the haunting grimaces of the girls in the oil drums, he is showing her the beast in man, what man is capable of. He tells her that he saved her life, and that he saved her from becoming yet another trophy in Boyd’s collection. After one last tussle, Lumen realises that Dexter is not the monster she first thought he was.

Dexter believes his problems are over. Now that Lumen understands his motives and the pair somewhat trust each other, she’s free to go back to her loving family who miss her. But it’s never as simple as that in Dexter, for you see, Boyd was not the only person present at Lumen’s rape and torture, “There were others,” she says.

Julie Stiles was fantastic in portraying the hurt, bewildered Lumen. Her acting in Beauty and the Beast never seemed forced and the scene where she read her mother’s letter was emotional and powerful. It reinforced that if she hadn't ran away from home, she wouldn’t now find herself on the awful road she does.

Elsewhere, Quinn’s endeavours to confront Jonah Mitchell (Brando Eaton) with a mug shot of Dexter. But before Jonah can confirm or deny that Dexter is Kyle Butler, Quinn is arrested for approaching a key witness in an ongoing FBI case and ends up suspended from duty without pay. It was a little disappointing to see what could have been an exhilarating twist in the story end so abruptly. Obviously Quinn is far from finished with his own investigation into Dexter, but the writers had a great chance to add some serious spice to season five’s storyline. All we needed to hear was a ‘yes’ from Jonah and things would have got very interesting, very fast.

Grudgingly, Batista (David Zayas) makes amends with the police officer he put in hospital last week, but IAD aren’t backing down like Maria (Lauren Vélez) had hoped. Recently, it seems as though the problems in Batista and LaGuerta’s relationship are only there to provide the two with something to do. Batista is a great, at time tragic character, and LaGuerta has been served well in the past with affecting, personal ties to Dexter’s secret life, so hopefully something more exciting is on the horizon for the newlyweds. Debra (Jennifer Carpenter) has a bad experience while on duty and ends up back at Quinn’s place again. It’s obvious that Quinn’s relationship with Debra is going to play a major role in whether or not he really pushes his pursuit of Dexter.

Beauty and the Beast proved to be a decent episode of Dexter, but served really as a building block for future episodes in the season. The most interesting scenes were the ones involving Lumen and Dexter and this storyline, in the space of one episode, gained impressive pace.

If Dexter chooses to pursue Lumen’s attackers then what part will she play? If Dexter lets her in on the killing then the difficulty for the writers will be to distinguish her from season three’s Miguel Prado (Jimmy Smits). Nevertheless, it looks as though Lumen Pierce will be sticking around for a while, so we’ll just have to wait and see what happens.

7/10