Up to this point I have kept my suspicions about the potential upcoming plot twist in the sixth season of Dexter quiet, mostly because I myself hate spoilers. I never really understood people that actively seek to ruin or at the very least diminish their viewing experience by finding out the shocking moments weeks or months before they’re set to happen, but they do exist, and in this particular case I hit the internet to confirm to myself that I wasn’t, in fact, crazy. This entire paragraph should serve as a warning to anyone that doesn’t want to even have the possibility of a spoiler coming their way - this is entirely speculation, but there is mounting evidence to suggest that my and many other people’s shared theory is true.
POSSIBLE SPOILER WARNING!!! (Jump to after the second picture for non-spoiler related talk)
The spoiler that I am talking about is of course the fact that one of this year’s so called “big bads” might not actually exist. I may be completely wrong and Professor Gellar certainly lived at some point, but this week’s “The Angel of Death” did its best to make me think that I may be right. Throughout the season it should have been at least vaguely apparent to viewers that the Professor interacts with basically nothing and never exists separately from Travis. Sure, he has sat and painted, but if he were just a figment of an extremely disturbed Travis’ psyche, that wouldn’t be unusual. Up until this week I was pretty sure that I was just imagining things and not wanting to spoil myself, I didn’t check online to see if people agreed, but one glaring point stood out to me so I could no longer simply ignore it.
After being semi-outed as the “Doomsday Killer” in last week’s episode after a strong collaborative effort on the part of Miami Metro, Gellar’s face was plastered across newspapers and television in this week’s showing. We then got several scenes in which Travis and Gellar sat in fairly public places as they discussed their work and the acquisition of their next victim, with absolutely nobody noticing that the killer from the news was right in front of them. It is entirely possible that the general public just ignore old people in Miami, because let’s face it, there are a lot of them, but it stood out to me as pretty much an admission of the “hidden” truth.
Last week we got a scene that also hinted towards Gellar’s lack of existence in a strong way, as the waitress that Travis ended up sleeping with completely failed to acknowledge Gellar’s existence as she walked up to Travis and poured him a cup of coffee. She spoke to Travis and poured, yet set no place for Gellar, nor asked if he wanted anything himself. Worse still, only when Travis walked into the kitchen to find her tied up did she begin to whimper, she wasn’t looking at Gellar who appeared to be standing in the room with her the entire time. Furthermore, what is the likelihood that Gellar could have removed her from the bed, tied her up and gagged her, all without making enough sound to wake Travis up and have the argument about her fate then and there?
There have been further indications throughout the episodes, ranging from Gellar burning his arm without any acknowledgement of the pain it would have caused, to him literally forcing Travis to run a couple over in his car, but I will leave it to you to find them and debate the topic yourself. There is certainly the possibility that I’m wrong, but it seems more and more likely that is the way things are going right now. All of this really is a precursor to saying that Dexter really is an idiot. He has no way of knowing that Gellar doesn’t exist, but he managed to get his hands on Travis after seeing him at the crime scene last week and let him go in favor of catching Gellar instead, who Travis claims to be the one doing the killing.
The idiot part however, doesn’t come from the fact that he probably just let a serial killer go, rather that the last time he did the same thing, well, we all know how that turned out for Rita. His actions don’t really make any sense. Finding Gellar would be difficult, perhaps even impossible if he didn’t use Travis to get there, but sending a man that he knows to be involved in murders back out onto the streets just doesn’t seem too logical for Dexter. It may be that this is a part of Dexter’s humanization due to his friendship with Brother Sam and his questioning of faith and all involved with it, but that is again speculation that seems less likely than imaginary Gellar.
POSSIBLE SPOILER OVER!!!
On the Brother Sam front, we got a lot of scenes between him and Dexter once again, something that is always welcome in my book as the character is quickly becoming one of my favorites that the show has ever had. Brother Sam’s existence within the show now sadly falls under question as the episode came to a shocking conclusion when Sam was gunned down, but based on the promo after the episode, he isn’t dead quite yet. One would imagine the possibility that his survival of such an ordeal would be just another in a series of things pushing Dexter towards faith, but it remains to be seen which avenue the writers are ultimately going to take that thread down.
Not too much else actually happened in the episode save for Deb finally facing therapy, resulting in her getting a new place to live and Mike continuing to integrate himself into the team. Batista and Quinn got themselves more evidence of Gellar’s guilt as the “Doomsday Killer” and Masuka’s new intern following Ryan’s departure, showed him that hiding your porn is probably a good idea. When it comes down to it “The Angel of Death” didn’t quite live up to the quality of last week’s episode, but to be fair, that was a steep curve to be graded on. What we got was another strong episode, but one that didn’t do too much but give us nice conversations between characters that we like watching. If you’re liking the season thus far, I’d imagine you liked the episode. If you’re not, then you wouldn’t have. Next week’s outing is sure to be a one to watch however, as Brother Sam’s shooting is going to bring some revenge-fueled killing out of Dexter for sure.