If last week’s episode of Dexter: Original Sin was the best yet, episode 4, “Fender Bender”, is by far the one with the biggest blindside. It ends in a moment that can only be encapsulated by words, which I’ll hit you to a little further along in this week’s recap.
As Dexter (Patrick Gibson) targets an alleged retired mob hitman, Harry (Christian Slater) works a disturbing murder case that triggers past trauma, and Deb (Molly Brown)—who’s growing angrier by the second—rebels her way right into the arms of some tall, dark, and handsome serious potential danger. SPOILERS BELOW.
Harry works a disturbing case
Episode 4 opens drearily, as the body of a 10-year-old boy is found hanging from a bridge. It's Jimmy Powell (Brayden Gleave). It’s quite a disturbing scene that affects everyone at their core. In fact, Dexter can’t even process the scene. He is both sickened and inherently angered at the sight, that he even stops breathing for a minute before telling Harry he has to get away from this one. So, he’s sent to work forensics on a new crime scene with LaGuerta (Christina Milian).
As news spreads about the death of Judge Powell’s son and an official homicide investigation begins, Harry too is triggered, oscillating between flashbacks of his time with Dexter as a child before he ever adopted him and of his own son's death. Harry goes to see Camilla (Sarah Kinsey) down in the Records Department to make sure Dexter’s name has been completely erased from all files in the Laura Moser (Brittany Allen) case. Here, he flashes back to the Estrada case as he so frequently does, with relevance.
It’s a time when Harry finds himself as the babysitter for Dexter and Brian (Xander Mateo) so Laura can do her job for Miami Metro. That one time led to others, as Harry genuinely loved these boys but clearly had more of a connection with Dexter. That is evidenced when we see Harry reading to him at night and panicking when he wanders off during the day.
In that moment, when Dexter wandered off, all Harry could do as he searched frantically for him was a flashback to his own young son’s death, a moment when Harry accidentally left the door open and the boy wandered outside, fell into the pool, and drowned. When we do see Brian, who grew up to be the Ice Truck Killer, he’s pulling tails off lizards, so there’s that. It’s an opportunity, though, for Harry to teach the boys that death is part of life, and he does. However, it’s hard to say whether this moment played a role in affecting young Brian’s psyche.
In his final flashback of episode 4, Harry returns to the first night he babysat the boys when Laura returned home. Having successfully done her job and moved herself that much closer to a meeting with cartel kingpin Hector Estrada, she and Harry fight the irresistible urge to celebrate their victory. Their efforts don’t work, and they give in to their desire, confirming for us that Harry did indeed know Dexter’s mother a lot more intimately than we ever knew.
Deb rebels against Harry
As we continue to watch the family dynamics of the Morgan household unfold, we also continue to watch Deb find ways to rebel against her father. In episode 4, Harry triggers her anger when he doesn’t leave her the truck for her planned day at the beach, which only makes Deb feel more insignificant in an environment where the only family members she has are growing closer without her. What Deb doesn’t know at the time is that Harry had to leave because Jimmy Powell’s body had just been found. Her anger is further fueled by her teammates after school in a total mean-girls moment.
In her efforts to rebel, Deb secures some drugs for a night of partying with Sofia (Raquel Justice), and the two sneak into a nightclub. While there, an older guy named Gio (Isaac Gonzalez Rossi) hits on Debra and gives her his number. The next day when Harry triggers her anger again, she calls Gio for a day of fun, leaving Harry a message that she won’t be home until the next day and leaving herself wide open for Gio ... and potential trouble.
While we do not yet know who Gio is, we do know that a) he’s wealthy and b) he’s the son of someone important. As he and Deb get closer, we can’t help but wonder if she’s falling into the arms of Hector Estrada’s son. Will Harry’s entanglement with Estrada will include more than just professional strands?
Dexter: Original Sin season 1 episode 4 ending explained
But first, Dexter processes his first solo crime scene after being unable to work the case of Jimmy Powell due to the feelings it kicked up in him ... feelings that enraged his Dark Passenger.
He’s put on the spot when LaGuerta stands back, along with other law enforcement personnel. “Let’s see what you can do,” she tells him. It’s a great scene where Dexter—all eyes on him—processes the requirements not just of what is needed in this moment professionally but also of what he needs to do to continue blending in as a normal guy, certainly not a vigilante serial killer. He effortlessly slips right into his mad skills of predicting exactly how a death occurred by following the blood.
At the scene, LaGuerta fails to see the magic in Dexter’s abilities. Back at the office is another story, as Dexter engages in a unique recreation of the death as it happened. It’s in this humorously creative moment that she starts to see his capabilities, but she doesn’t let on, nor does she relinquish any control she has in running the case.
At home that evening, Harry checks in on Dexter, who tells Harry he needs to do something to unbottle those feelings surrounding Jimmy Powell’s death. Harry tells him no, to leave justice to the police in this case, instead shifting Dexter’s focus to hunting down another killer: a "retired" mob hitman named Mad Dog (Joe Pantoliano). Miami Metro has been unable to produce any evidence he’s still doing hits since he arrived years ago, and Dexter sees this as the perfect case to investigate. He just needs Harry’s approval, and he gets it.
Dexter follows and even interacts with Mad Dog, who for all intents and purposes is just a normal retired guy who runs fishing charters out of Miami and being a grandpa. His house echoes this lifestyle right up to the moment when Dexter discovers Mad Dog’s (for lack of a better phrase) man cave.
The walls are adorned with all kinds of pricey guitars—guitars Mad Dog no doubt bought with blood money. Dexter looks around the large room, at the records and turntables and audio equipment, and he sees a desk. As he rummages around for proof that Mad Dog isn’t retired, he finds a mostly shredded image stuck in the shredder. In true Dexter fashion, he packs it up, along with the trash, and returns to his lab at work to piece it back together.
The image turns out to be that of a witness in a local case, who is expected to testify in just a few days. On the back of the picture is a name and an address, the evidence Dexter needs to confirm that Mad Dog is still killing people for money and to confirm that Mad Dog is worthy of Harry's code. Harry agrees, so Dexter sets up a plan and snags the hitman in a conversation that unnerves him entirely. It’s a moment showing a professional killer in the highlight of his career unknowingly conversing with a new one at the beginning of his, and only one knows the truth of what’s really going on. Dexter is pleased.
That night, as Mad Dog arrives home and enters his man cave, Dexter ambushes him and knocks him out. Where else to kill Mad Dog but inside the one structure adorned with evidence of his blood money, of every single person he killed in his career? But as Dexter finishes preparing the room and starts tying up his victim, chaos erupts.
Mad Dog is awake! The two struggle fiercely and scuffle about the room before Mad Dog escapes, running half-naked down the street of his neighborhood, being chased by someone with a knife. Before Dex can catch up to him, though, a truck comes barreling out of nowhere at an intersection and blindsides Mad Dog, killing him right in front of Dexter’s face. Dexter is left standing in the middle of the street—knife still in hand—with only one word in mind to encapsulate what has just happened: S**T.
And thus is the end of Dexter: Original Sin episode 4.
Dexter: Original Sin episode 4 review
I’m loving a lot about this prequel series. From the originality of the opening credits integrated with newness to how the bigger picture of our story is unfolding not just for our titular character but also our supporting characters, it’s all done really well. Episode 4 also continues on with the use of 90’s mega-hit songs, like C&C Music Factory’s “Everybody Dance Now” and the Spin Doctors’ “Little Miss Can’t Be Wrong” (I’ll give you one guess who that song applies to in this series). But that’s not all.
If you watch carefully and pay attention to those moments in narrative voiceover or just beyond, you'll start to notice some smooth editing techniques. There's a great transition in episode 4 from one of Harry's flashbacks of Dexter to Dexter in our present-day past. These techniques are creative and are performed in a way that gently transfer us right into the next intended moment without harshness or haste. It reinforces the way Dexter’s code and techniques must be utilized: calmly, and intentionally.
Additionally, Joe Pantoliano makes for a believable hitman, and the introduction of a potentially dangerous connection for Debra increases our tension and curiosity. Because we all know, if Gio turns out to be Estrada’s son, and Harry finds out the two are dating, Deb will not heed her father’s warning and will only be further pushed into Gio’s arms. I also can’t help but wonder how all of this is going to play into Laura Moser’s death, if it will at all. Time will tell.
Dexter: Original Sin streams Fridays on Paramount+ with Showtime and airs Sunday nights on Showtime at 10 p.m. ET.