Dexter: Original Sin – Season 1 Episode 2 Recap & Review

Kid in a Candy Store

Episode 2 of Dexter: Original Sin begins with Dexter starting his first day at Miami PD. Tanya is quick to put him in his place after showing him around, gives him a pager and keeps him on a tight leash.

Harry is teased at the station by his buddies, but these laughs soon pave way for the crux of the issue this episode. Judge Powell’s child has been kidnapped and thrown into a room. Word spreads to Miami PD, and it could well be linked to the drug trade sweeping across the state. In the past, they had a lot of issues with this, and Harry was part of the taskforce to try and sort it out.

Dexter show up at his first crime scene and he can hardly contain his excitement. A man is lying on the ground with a bullet wound in his head and a pool of blood. Unfortunately, Dexter is not here to discuss the crime scene (at least not yet) as instead he’s sent across the road to get coffee.

When he gets back, Dexter checks over the body and the blood spatters but he’s teased by the other guys in the process. Harry gets involved here and encourages his son to bite back with humour of his own, given it’s their coping mechanism for looking at bodies all day.

Harry knows all about blending in, given in the past he pretended to be a druggie in order to bust a couple of guys out dealing drugs. One is a woman called Laura Moser (who happens to be Dexter’s mum of course), and the other is a man named Joe.

Harry’s play here is to use Laura as an informant in order to find out where Estrada is, who happens to be the hotshot dealer in town. Simultaneously, there’s trouble at home too as Harry and his partner are struggling to have kids.

Back in the present, Debra is the odd one out through all of this, given she doesn’t have the same bond that Harry and Dex have. Shes also unaware of the secrets they’re both keeping with one another either, so there is that. Dex contemplates whether all of this is behind him, so he decides to reminisce as a way of trying to keep his urges at bay.

Harry has enough of his plate with Dexter, who tries to win the hearts of his fellow detectives with a plate of vegetables. It doesn’t work, obviously, but he also has to contend with Deb back home too, who continues to feel like a spare part in the family.

While rooting around in Dexter’s room, she ends up finding the earrings inside a VHS box. She shows up at the pawn shop and learns that they’re fake. Instead, she sells her pearl necklace, which happens to be something she received from her mum.

Dexter however, appears to have his sights set on a new target, Ferrer, a killer who ended up responsible for the deaths of a mother and son, all thanks to greedy loans. Dexter is like a shark that smells blood, and he soon moves in for the kill, determined to avenge the Carballo family.

At the Miami PD, a severed finger from Powell’s kid is brought in for forensic examination. This was sent to Powell’s house and his son has been missing for 72 hours now. The print’s a match and Dexter is absolutely consumed by the desire to kill.

The Episode Review

The follow-up to last week’s premiere is a bit slow and doesn’t do too much beyond establishing Dexter’s need to try and blend in. He learns quickly though, and he soon starts to win over the hearts of those inside the PD.

Understanding what drives him, and how this job is akin to him being a “kid in a candy store” is a nice touch and some of the visual cues are a nice way of capturing this. Showing the red bow around the dead body for example, or the projected image of Carballo up on the ceiling, are stand-outs.

Beyond that, there’s also the situation involving Debra, and her finding the earrings is definitely not going to pose well for Dexter moving through the season.

For now though, we’ll have to wait and see what next week’s episode brings us!