For the longest time, I haven't been impressed by Dexter when everything is amped up and Dexter is running around the place. Even the Trinity Killer last season never got too much out of me. I mostly watch the scenes with indifference, knowing Dexter will get away in the end.
"First Blood" has few of those moments, but delivers on what draws me to the show--Dexter and his mind. To me, exploration into Dexter as a character is far better than the actually killings. Dexter must handle two potential killers, Lumen and Harrison. In both cases, he realizes they should not go down the path he did and tries to get Lumen out of town, first preventing her from killing the wrong person and then giving her a plane ticket to leave. There's something calming about Dexter trying to turn someone away from the life of murder, but despite that, Lumen is still in Miami at the end of the episode. As for Harrison, it's stupid to believe he could be exhibiting signs of a serial killer at 8.
I'm repeating myself, but as always I don't care about LaGuerta and Angel's marital problems or the intersection of Quinn's buddy, played by Peter Weller, with LaGuerta and Dexter. They just aren't well-developed characters and their storylines don't have anything close to what Dexter's doing or even the Santa Muerte stuff.
Score: 8.7/10
