‘Dexter’ season 7, episode 6 review: It’s all on the table

The critical consensus thus far on “Dexter” season 7 has been that it marks a major return to form for the series, but after Sunday night’s new episode, the show is falling more squarely into “polarizing” territory. Some characters fell back into old habits, and we saw Dexter Morgan himself dive headfirst into a situation that even he may not be able to escape.

It’s almost better here to work in reverse, and start with what was a shocker that may have not been that shocking at all: rather than killing Hannah McKay when he had her on his table, he instead decided to go all “50 Shades of Grey” on her and make this into one of the more bizarre love scenes in recent memory. Dr. Freud would have a field day with this show; first, we had Deb falling in love with her adopted brother, and now we are following it up with Dexter basically getting romantic with a female version of himself.

Dexter sees the same need in Hannah that he did in Lumen; but unlike this loose end from season 5 (who was thankfully brought up for the first time in years this week), Hannah’s need is not predicated on a single act like revenge. Her emotionless response to being on the table seemed to be what sealed the deal for him to allow his passionate and narcissistic side to over.

The one thing Dexter has going for him here is that Hannah is not the sort to turn him into the police, but this is going to be a pretty bizarre game of cat-and-mouse; she obviously knows that he wants her dead, and she probably feels the same way about him. Could this officially qualify as the worst relationship ever?

Before moving on, it’s necessary to give some applause to Yvonne Strahovski for her performance this week. Back when we first heard about her casting, our initial reaction was skeptical given that as a devoted fan of “Chuck,” it’s hard to get past Sarah Walker. As a matter of fact, these concerns were even there for the past week or two. This week is the one that really changed things, and we completely bought in to her as a significant part of this universe. As for those who may think that Dexter making love to a woman on his killing table is out of the realm of possibility, our response is this: “Dexter” is about a man killing bad people, taking blood slides of them, and dumping their bodies into the ocean in pieces. Need we say more?

As for the rest of the episode, it was a little less controversial and therefore less enjoyable. Deb is starting to date an author in Sal who is the only other person out there skeptical about Hannah (which is going to pose a problem for Dexter), and she’s also dealing with trying to get LaGuerta off the Bay Harbor Butcher case now that she is starting to speculate about who was behind the disappearance of Jordan Chase and Barrel Girls killers.

Meanwhile, Batista is considering leaving the force in order to open a restaurant (which seems to be the best thing the guy could do for himself), and Quinn could be sending Isaak back into the world courtesy of fudging evidence just so he can ensure that Nadia is safe. This is the part of the episode that was the hardest to buy into. Why in the world would Quinn trust an organized crime group to keep their promise, when he could use the police to save his new girlfriend? Instead, all we are probably going to get here is a mob boss back on the outside, and this may lead to the show having a little too much going on that some stories are not as fleshed-out as they could be.

While this episode and this season are still thoroughly enjoyable, one of the biggest flaws we have right now is pretty simple: where is the love for Masuka? He may be a supporting character, but C.S. Lee is a series regular and shouldn’t be ignored like he is right now. In seven years, can’t the pervy character have one nice thing happen to him?

What did you think about this episode, and do you think “Dexter” season 7 took a right or wrong turn with the Hannah twist?