Season 1, Episode 5 – Love American Style

How can having breakfast and getting ready for work look so sinister?  This is like the best theme ever.

This is the episode where Rita talks to one of the housekeepers at the hotel and learns of “the Coyote” who brings immigrants over the border for a fee.  Of course, if you can’t pay a surprise balloon payment at the end he kills you.  Immigration knows about the Coyote and they have 4 or 5 suspects, but not enough for a warrant or a conviction  … enter Dexter.  I’m excited … we’re going to have a kill this episode!!!  After two “dry” episodes I’m longing for this.  Am I, perhaps, the voyeuristic version of Dexter?

Dexter breaks into Jorge Castillo’s junk yard.  He was on a list Dexter got from the precinct.  He finds the room where Castillo keeps the immigrants after they come in, but at the moment no immigrants are in residence.

Dex does surveillance on Castillo’s house and watches him with his wife.  The underlying thread in this episode seems to be love and how to make a relationship work.  Of course, most episodes correlate in some way with something Dexter is struggling with and this one is no different.   Dexter is trying to make sense of his relationship with Rita at this point – trying to find a way to allow it to continue and to relate to her in this, the new phase of their relationship.

A body washes up on the shore the next morning … yes, this is the body of the housekeeper’s fiancé.   He brings the housekeeper and Rita to the morgue and they identify the body.  Dexter watches as she identifies the body and thinks, “that must be what love looks like.  The inability to feel has it’s advantages sometimes” and, yes, it does … but how empty life would be without those we love.

Dexter also searches Jorge Castillo’s boat and finds the place where he kills his victims.  While he’s doing this he is thinking of if Rita and the kids would like fishing.  I find it strange that he can’t FEEL anything for her, but even in his most private and consuming moments he is thinking of her.

Castillo gets another shipment of immigrants (that sounds so wrong to say) just as Dexter is closing in.  He sets up the kill room in an old RV camper in Castillo’s junk yard and Castillo just wanders right in… how considerate.  BUT … and here’s the shocker … the wife pulls up looking for Castillo and it comes to light that she helps him run this operation.  So Dex takes her too … yeah … two for the price of one!!!  And as they lay there, waiting for the end to come, they proclaim their love to each other in their last moments of life.  So Dexter questions them on how they make it work and they tell him they share the same dream.  Then he kills them.

Dexter unlocks the door where the illegals are being held so they can escape.  Unbeknowst to him Dexter, there is someone watching from the trunk of one of the junk cars as he loads the bodies into his trunk.

Later, he asks Rita if she has a dream for her life.  And she asks him if he does.  He says someday he wants to be content and to feel comfortable like everyone else.  And then Rita finishes his thought when he says, “I want …” she says “a normal life”.  Which solidifies for Dexter that Rita wants the same things as him – a boring, average and ordinary life.  This proves to him that they are meant for each other.  After all, they share the same dream.

Deb gets to “babysit” Tony Tucci until he wakes up, but she’s not allowed to speak to him.  This is her punishment for smoking on a crime scene.  If she wasn’t so damn annoying I’d feel bad for her.  Part of me envies her … she’s getting paid to just sit in a chair at the hospital. 

We meet Rudy … who is fitting Tony Tucci with prosthetics.  Now we ALL know at this point who he really is.  The surprise here is how much I like Tony Tucci – he is a dog with the ladies but his flirting with Deb is amusing.  It lightens the tale he tells – one of imprisonment and amputations.  In spite of his horrible experience he is mostly upbeat and this gives me hope that yes, bad things happen to good people, but they persevere and there is light.  Even Deb says “If Tucci can be optimistic then we can too”.

Doakes finally gives in and let’s Deb question Tony Tucci again.  Doakes even talks Tucci into using a blind fold to help him remember (Deb’s idea).  This of course does help and Deb has a great bedside manner with him.  Like I said a couple of blogs ago, maybe being a great cop is just asking the right questions.  After this they go back and search the rat nests for lozenge wrappers.  Poor Masuka (who has a fear of rats) searches each nest and finally hits pay dirt … lozenge wrapper with a partial print on it!!

To thank Tony, Deb gets him a prostitute … how thoughtful is she?  While the prostitute is “doing her thing” Deb and Rudy make eyes at each other in the hall.  That will NOT end well.

Dexter goes out with Batista to celebrate his pay bump.  He asks Angel for advice and Angel says not to go down the emotional road, just go down on her … it’s easier and she’ll be distracted.  I find this hysterical!!  Batista gets shitfaced and Dexter takes him home, but Batista is too drunk to tell him where home is.  Dexter wakes up Batista’s wife who tells him that Batista no longer lives there.  So Dexter takes Angel to his house and pretends he just didn’t remember where he lived.  See, he really does have a heart.  Or maybe he just didn’t want to get into a long chat with Angel about matters of the heart. 

He has a date with Rita and says he’ll pick up something “light” for them to watch … and he rents Steel Magnolias.  Since he can’t bring himself to cry he tries to take Angel’s advice and “reciprocate” the “generousity” Rita had shown him, but Rita turns him down.

More Harry flashbacks, but again, Dexter has no current day conversations with him.

On a personal note, my 18 month old loves to dance to the Cuban music they played this episode.

Dexter’s Body Count:

Jorge and Valerie Castillo – the Coyotes – kill immigrants who can’t pay their “entry” fee

It was my assumption he killed them with a power drill since that’s what Dexter is holding, but they do not show it, however, in the next episode we learn that at least Valerie Castillo was bled out - the carotid artery was cut with a knife.

Quotes of the Episode:

Ever since the blow job she assumes we’ve taken it to the next level.  She doesn’t know I don’t have a next level.