It seems fitting that an episode about messy, dysfunctional family units and how we go about forging human connections when the nuclear family fails was one of the more dysfunctional episodes in Dexter's recent history. Was that by design? My guess is that it was.

"This Little Piggy", the fifth episode of Dexter's final season wrapped up the story of the Brain Surgeon killer, reintroduced a new love interest and possibly a new apprentice for Dexter, and seemed to bring the show's main characters to a place where they have reached an unstable peace with each other. All of this was accomplished in a tidy 47 minutes that left me unsatisfied.

There are elements of this season that I have been fine with. The secondary stories have been so thin and given so little time that it's nearly impossible to care about whether or not Quinn makes sergeant, or whether Masuka's daughter is after his money. Great! Those characters have added to the show over the years, but the heartbeat of the series has become the relationship between Dexter and Deb. Deb's humanity, Dexter's struggle with whatever shred of the stuff he has himself, and whether the two can coexist.

The show opened with Dexter and Deb in a family therapy session with Dexter's self-proclaimed "spiritual mother", Dr. Vogel. Dexter was comically agitated to find himself sitting a few feet away from the sister that had just tried to kill him. As she pointed out, though, Deb also saved him.
I have no problem with believing that an emotionally ravaged Deb might do anything, including trying to kill Dexter only to end up rescuing him seconds later.

My issue with how the entire conflict between the two was tied up lies in the fact that the show continually brings us to a point where we feel as though there is no turning back, that whatever decision Deb has made on how to deal with Dexter is final, only to reverse course in the very next scene, or next episode. We've been at this for seventeen episodes, and Deb still can't seem to make up her mind.

I understand it, and I think it's totally in character for her to do any of the things that she has done. It's also hard to complain when it's given Jennifer Carpenter the chance to act the hell out of the material that she's been given. I also don't expect this to be resolved for good until the final scene of the series, so I guess I should just accept it and move on.

Dexter and Deb were forced to work together to track down Yates, the Brain Surgeon, after he kidnapped Vogel. They were successful in tracking down Yates, with some help from Elway, Deb's boss, who I expect to be writing a lot more about in the weeks to come. Dexter impaled Yates with a curtain rod, then disposed of his body on the Slice of Life, with Deb and Vogel along to keep him company.

Vogel showed some of the traits that made her the famed "Psychopath Whisperer" later in the episode, but as she was abducted by one of her former patients, I couldn't help but wonder whether or not her success rate was higher or lower than Dr. Drew on Celebrity Rehab.

Vogel was kidnapped while listening to "Make Your Own Kind Of Music", a song that I don't recall being used in a TV show before Lost, and one that a ton of shows and movies have used since. And just as I believe that this episode was constructed in such a disjointed way intentionally, I believe that this song was chosen for a specific reason as well.

Its lyrics speak to doing your own thing, regardless of what others may think. I think it speaks to the sort of family unit that Dexter has cobbled together for himself. He has his sister, his creepy mother figure, his son, and even his nanny who will work any number of hours for him and also wants to set him up with a foxy lady.

I don't think that his family will be enough to save Dexter. I think he'll likely pay for his crimes at the end of the series. But until then...

Wrong, Dexter. I think you were wrong when you uttered those words before your sister tried to kill you and herself by steering the car you were driving into a lake. 

"Scar Tissue", the fourth episode of Dexter's final season, continued to deal with the emotional wounds that Dexter inflicted on Deb in last season's finale, as well as the ones that Dr. Vogel and Harry may have inflicted when they made Dexter who he is, or steered him down this murderous path, depending on which version of this story you choose to believe.

We'll get to the dramatic ending of the episode in a second. But first, let's check in on some subplots.

Quinn passed his sergeant's exam! I know precious little about how police departments work, but I find it hilarious that there is a multiple choice test given to determine someone's aptitude for being the sergeant of a police unit that investigates homicide.

Remember last season when Quinn was shooting guys in the back room of a strip club and Batista was helping him to cover up his involvement? None of that will be taken into consideration here. Quinn scored in the 85th percentile of a multiple choice test, so he's absolutely sergeant material. Angie Miller scored higher on the test,  has never been involved in corruption, and she's neck-and-neck with Joey Quinn. I digress.

Masuka has a daughter. That should provide some good comedy, as it did here.

Dexter found the Brain Surgeon and saved one of his would-be victims, but the serial killer with a foot fetish lived to fight another day. As Dexter stalked and vetted the man, we were treated to this particularly funny moment in Dexter voiceover history:

"The body forms scar tissue to close a wound. Has my sister begun to do the same? Eventually scars fade. Who knows? With enough time, you may not even remember how you got them."
                                                                                                                                                              -Dexter

Trent Reznor wrote "Hurt" when he was at a particularly delicate psychological place. Nearly twenty years, and one iconic Johnny Cash cover later, the song lives on as a haunting, mournful expression of deep emotional pain.

As I've watched Deb this season, "Hurt" has come to mind again and again.

Deb doesn't know who she is, or what she has become. Dexter employed Vogel to try to bring her in off the proverbial ledge, and the usually headstrong Deb was so broken that she allowed Vogel to treat her, and even went along with the idea of living with her.

We saw her try to kill her memories of the choice that she made in that shipping container last season with drugs and alcohol as she threw herself into a job that was squandering her talents.
Finally, after viewing some footage of her dad's sessions with Vogel, where they essentially created Dexter, it seemed that maybe she was able to come to peace with who she was, who her brother was, and what they had done.

As it turned out, what we were seeing in "Scar Tissue" was Deb making the decision that the world would be better off without her and Dexter. I don't think we achieved any resolution in the episode, though, as after a bystander pulled Deb out of the lake, she went back in to save her brother.

Maybe Dexter was right after all, and they will always be together. But after the events of this episode, it seems to me that the two are locked into some sort of mutually assured destruction.

There will be no "new normal" for these two. We're witnessing the beginning of their end.

"...I'm just like you. I consume everyone I love."
                                                                                                                                               -Dexter

Who is Dexter Morgan?

That's the question at the heart of Season 8 of Dexter, and the third episode of the season, "What's Eating Dexter Morgan?", in particular.

Is he a psychopath that should pay for the countless lives he has taken, undeserving of our sympathy? Or is he a man who experienced unspeakable childhood trauma that was molded into a serial killer by some well-intentioned and wildly misguided, adults?

While not the strongest episode of the season, "What's Eating Dexter Morgan?" featured a standout performance by Jennifer Carpenter as Deb, and effectively slowed down the pace on what has been a breakneck run of storytelling from Dexter's creative team.

Good stories are like roller coaster rides in that there are climbs and drops. The steeper the climb, the more anticipation builds for the drop. "What's Eating Dexter Morgan" was a climb episode, if you will.

As Dexter continued to stalk and vet suspects in his quest to find The Brain Surgeon serial killer before the killer finds him, he encountered a former patient of Dr. Vogel's, who happened to be a cannibal. After seeing Dexter searching the guy's kitchen, let's just say I dodn't think I'll be able to eat anything from a crock pot for a while.

Batista continued in his quest to try to get Quinn to become a sergeant. Matthews, playing the role of the skeptical audience member here, scoffed at Batista's suggestion that Quinn was suited for that role. Ordinarily, I would agree, but it sure seems that kid has gotten his life together, as we saw in the episode's main angle.

The "A" story in the episode chronicled the continued demise of Deb, who narrowly avoided a DUI charge, thanks to Quinn, and almost managed to bring herself and her brother down by confessing to Laguerta's murder. Had she been sober, and had Quinn and Dexter not intervened, the final nine episodes of the series might have become a prison drama.

Deb has been spiraling down because she has had a crisis of conscience. In his attempt to help get her back on track, Dexter turned to Vogel to help treat Deb. Vogel remains puzzled as to how Dexter seems to have a conscience of his own.

Vogel asserted to Dexter that he is only interested in helping Deb because in doing so, he is ultimately protecting himself, sticking to the first rule of the code that she and Harry developed for him years ago.

It would seem, though, that may not be the case. As he stood over his kill table, Dexter uttered the words that opened this piece. He isn't just fighting for his own survival. And he abandoned Harry and Vogel's code long ago.

No, he is fighting to keep his family intact. He is fighting to keep his sister and his son from being consumed by his Dark Rider, er, Passenger.

I thought that the storytelling at the end of Season 7 of Dexter was superb and I liked where it seemed to be going. Dexter, it appeared, had come to terms with the fact that he was a monster that deserved to pay for all of the lives he had taken, even if it was mostly "bad" people that he had killed.

Season 8 has departed from that premise. I don't like this angle as much as I did that one, in as much as there wasn't a whole lot of room for ambiguity. But this departure is not so wildly off-base that I'm not okay with it. This story is fine too.

It should come as no surprise that Dexter Morgan, who saw his mother brutally murdered in front of him as a small child, might have some mommy issues.

But what might have shocked us as viewers was seeing Dexter, the sociopathic serial killer, reduced to an emotional, trembling wreck, clinging to the woman who helped set him down that path, as we saw  at the conclusion of "Every Silver Lining...", the second episode of Dexter's final season.

"Nature vs. Nurture" is something of an outdated argument, as we know that some inextricable link between the two makes us who we are as people. Still, "Every Silver Lining..." explored that age-old debate, and how Dexter's main characters, Dexter and Deb, have had their behavior influenced by the most traumatic experiences of their lives.

For Deb, the choice to kill Laguerta, and the guilt and second-guessing over making that decision, has sent her life into a tailspin.

When the man sent to kill Briggs (the guy Dexter killed in the motel room in the season premiere) and steal his jewelry showed up at Briggs' storage locker to collect what he was after, Deb snapped and murdered him.

Yes, he attacked her, and yes, he deserved to be punished, but the Deb that existed before the Season 7 finale never would have done that, right? And the Deb we knew for seven seasons never would have asked her brother to cover something up for her, as she did here, yes?

In the episode's first sequence, we learned that Dr. Vogel sought out Dexter's help in tracking down Miami's newest serial killer. "The Brain Surgeon", as Masuka dubbed the killer, must be a former patient of hers, Dr. Vogel surmised, and should the authorities find the killer before Dexter could, her career would be jeopardized.

To convince Dexter to help her, Vogel preyed on Dexter's psyche, proclaiming herself his spiritual mother and creator, even going so far as to tell him that he was perfect, and perhaps not the "creep motherf*cker" that he has come to see himself as.

So, Dexter set out to vet, stalk and kill the Brain Surgeon, barely managing to stay a step ahead of Miami Metro in the process, only to come up empty. Vogel conveniently found some evidence at her home that showed that the killer was still at large, but only after she had psychologically broken her spiritual son, her creation, to the point where he felt it his duty to help her.

We have the seen the humanization of Dexter over the course of the last seven-plus seasons. And while Vogel still thinks of him as the sociopath that she helped create, he may not be that person after all.
In the same way, as Deb now looks at herself as a killer who foolishly trusted her brother, and is acting in a manner that suggests that she has a deathwish as a result, Dexter keeps popping up to remind her of all the good that she has done and is capable of.

The conclusion that we can draw from "Every Silver Lining...", and from Dexter's eighth season to this point, is that bad people, like Dexter, are capable of good. Good people, like Deb, are capable of previously unthinkable evil. And, it would seem, some circumstances bring out the best or worst of what Nature and Nurture gave them.

I came into this final season ready to judge Dexter, to write him off as a creep and a murderer that deserves every bit of what's coming to him. The writers of the show, however, seem to be asking you and I to hold off on making a final judgement on one of the Golden Age of Cable Drama's great characters.