Dexter Season 6 Premiere Review

In the first few minutes of the premiere, we learned that Dexter Morgan’s (Michael C. Hall) life returned to a state of normalcy following the death of Rita (Julie Benz) at the end of Season 4 and the apprenticeship of Lumen (Julia Stiles) in Season 5. He’s back to killing regularly and performs an unconventional double homicide (without the plastic wrap kill table) in the first few minutes. He killed two EMTs who had been a part of illegal organ harvesting with a defibrillator-induced heart attack.

Dexter is still taking care of Harrison. However, he’s purchased the apartment next to his own so that he can sneak in and out at his leisure. Angel Batista’s (David Zayas) little sister Jamie (Aimee Garcia) is now Harrison’s new nanny.

Unfortunately, Angel and Lt. Maria Laguerta (Lauren Vélez) were divorced in the off-season. During this time, Maria was able to blackmail Chief Matthews (Geoff Pierson) into a promotion. She discovered that Matthews was paying for sex and had a madam’s black book as evidence. Lt. Laguerta is now Captain Laguerta, taking over Matthews’ old position. Despite the promotion, Maria will still be in the mix this season throughout this season. She’s already offered the lieutenant position to Angel. She will most likely continue to butt heads Matthews, who gave her the promotion with a cautionary threat.

Travis Marshall (Colin Hanks) and Professor Gellar (Edward James Olmos) join the cast as the lead villains this season. In the premiere, the two performed their first kill. Actually, Marshall was the main killer while Professor Gellar coached him. The two first hunted down a pregnant snake in the Miami swamp. Then, Gellar watched as Marshall used what looked like a rusted sword to gut a fruit stand owner.

Instead of just killing their victim. They left exactly three pounds of intestines on the fruit stand owner’s scale for the police to discover. It seems that there are delivering a very precise message. The next day, the man’s body washed up on shore. Dexter and Masuka (C.S. Lee) examined the body and noticed stitches across the man’s stomach. Quinn (Desmond Harrington) then revealed that they were the Greek letters for Alpha and Omega – beginning and end. If that wasn’t bizarre enough, the stomach started to move. Dexter cut open the stitches and seven baby snakes climbed out. Dexter and Masuka couldn’t hide their elation at such a freakish sight. They collected the seven snakes as evidence like children at a candy store.

At the end of “Those Kinds of Things”, Marshall and Gellar quote Revelation 13:1. The general quote was somewhat abridged, but here is the quote from the King James Bible:

And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy.

The Season 6 premiere wasn’t all dismal religious killings. Dexter went back to his high school for a reunion, a blowjob and a kill. He went to his 20-year reunion to kill a football player named Joe who had murdered his wife. However, he soon discovered that his life as a blood spatter analyst made him popular. He even got on the dance floor to dance to MC Hammer’s “Can’t Touch This”, while Harry (James Remar) watched. Eventually, one of the most popular girls in school reveals that she cheated on Dexter throughout high school. As repayment, she gives strips and gives him a surprise blowjob, which he uncomfortably but willingly accepts. He then uses her phone to trick Joe into coming outside. Dexter then put on the head of his mascot and killed Joe, but not before saying “Sorry, Hammer time.”

It looks like there will be some strong religious themes in this season. Harrison is attending the Catholic school that Jamie went to. We also got to see Angel try to explain God to Dexter.

This season of Dexter got off to a great start. After Season 5, fans are looking for a truly engrossing story that doesn’t have another apprentice arc. Lumen and Dexter felt like shadow of Dexter and Trinity (John Lithgow). Wait, did I speak too soon? There is a sort of apprenticeship going on with Marshall and Gellar. However, as long as Dexter is not directly involved in that relationship we can approach this new teacher-padawan-killer tale as something fresh. With Dexter Season 7 on the horizon, one has to think that Marshall is being trained to take the mantle from Gellar by the end of this season.