There have been a few twists so far this season on Dexter, but all pale in comparison to the final scene of last night’s episode. [Don't read on if you haven't had a chance to check out the latest episode!]

When we first met Brother Sam, I — like many of you, I imagine — thought we’d seen his kind on the show before. A man with a good reputation, who was secretly very, very bad and was going to bond with Dexter. Well, the “bad” part never came and, as it turns out, I guess I was the awful person because I had thought the worst of him. And he, in fact, was somewhat of a good influence on Dexter. He opened his eyes to the idea and concept of faith and proved to be a real friend (how sweet was it for him to go to the hospital when Harrison was sick?). All of Brother Sam’s good qualities and obvious bond with Dexter made it even sadder to see him get riddled with bullets last night.

His exact fate is unknown, but easy to guess that he’s not long for this world based on how many bullets he took, right? (By my count it was three, but they looked serious.) Guess we’ll have to see.

I will say that the attack caught me off guard. After he and Dexter fought off those other assailants a few episodes back, I never expected that more would come around. And I’m sad they did — I was enjoying seeing new sides of Dexter as a result of Brother Sam’s involvement in his life. That said, this attack will no doubt leave Dexter reeling — and possibly crazy with rage. I love enraged Dex! And I think crazy Dexter is just what this season needs.

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What about you readers? What did you think of the Brother Sam’s shocking shooting? Think he’ll pull though? Do you want him to? And what’s your take on the season so far?

Dexter season 6 returns to choke out its fifth entry with this week’s “The Angel of Death,” as our favorite serial killer moves closer to discovering the identity(ies) of the gruesome “Doomsday Killer,” and Deb struggles to keep her life in order. With Dexter season 6’s main villains out in the open, the story mostly moves along, even with a few sidetracks here and there.

I may have been a little hard on last week’s Dexter “A Horse of a Different Color,” mostly in that it devoted too much attention to storylines and characters with no real bearing or payoff to the main threads. With twelve episodes and a certain amount of space to fill, not everything can drive the plot but “The Angel of Death” at least utilizes its smaller focus to weave together larger pictures in a more effective manner.

“The Angel of Death” flirts with (though not really committing) the concept of doing an episode from Deb’s perspective, which has expectedly mixed results. On the one hand, I like the Deb that struggles to find her identity as the new Lieutenant by running the situation room or dealing with the fallout of her relationship with Quinn, or her living situation.  There’s a scrappy underdog current to Deb that always keeps our sympathies with her, but it becomes less effective the whinier it gets.  Watching Deb fix her living situation, bond with Chicago Mike or argue with Jamie just doesn’t add anything to season 6′s main drive, unfortunately.

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The same could be said of Brother Sam, who has become an equally fascinating character in his own right. Dexter will take the flimsiest of pretexts to put Brother Sam and our protagonist together in a place they can meaningfully interact, but there’s precious little connecting these moments to the narrative anymore. The discourse created by Dexter and Sam’s discussions of light and darkness makes for some of the more fascinating debates Dexter has ever had to offer, but it’s tragically marred by how tangential we know Sam to be.  Guest stars, talented and intriguing though they may be, just don’t last on this show.  At least Lumen got to get her hands dirty now and again.

Travis and Professor Gellar we at least know to be temporary fixtures in the Dexter universe, but what’s overshadowing their character development is the fascinating rage spreading across fans and the internet at large from the fairly telegraphed question of Gellar’s presence.  Even IGN can’t resist opening up the floor to question whether or not Gellar exists solely in Travis’ mind, and it becomes a tremendous distraction from actually investing in the characters, specifically the growing divergence Travis seems to be experiencing.  It’s only five episodes in, but definitively answering the question of whether or not Gellar’s alive would do wonders for moving the story along.

“What?! Of course I’m real. I’m totally real. Maybe. I mean, sort of. I’ll get back to you.”

Smaller stories do poke their way into “The Angel of Death,” but in a much more intriguing way. For instance, no one wants to see the adventures of Batista and Quinn, resident sleazeball, but it’s all worth it to establish that his former teaching aid Clarissa Morris (True Blood‘s Maria Klaveno) holds key evidence to identifying Gellar, and that Quinn may have compromised the investigation. Similarly, even with Ryan (Brea Grant) gone Dexter finds reason to continue the thread of the Ice Truck Killer hand with Masuka and his new intern, and I’m intrigued to see where that arc lands.

It’s a sad pattern to think that Dexter episodes do their best work in their last ten minutes, but boy does “The Angel of Death” return to form fast with Dexter’s incredibly badass capture of Travis, and the heartbreaking (if expected) shooting of Brother Sam. To see Michael C. Hall exude such menace bathed in red light makes an incredible parallel to the bumbling Dexter seen early on in the episode, and reminds us why we keep with the character in the first place.  I just hope that Dexter actually has a bigger fish to catch as the season approaches its midway, and not one that exists solely within the mind of Colin Hanks.

And Another Thing…

• Confusing Professor Gellar evidence of the week: Travis has visions of Gellar’s head bleeding and mentions “all I can hear is my own voice,” but still needs to imagine calling him to cancel their plans later on?
• Dexter’s even telling Brother Sam of his “born in blood” backstory, and we can’t find better ways to tie him into ongoing stories? A criminal waste of Mos, def.
• So Gellar has a “thing for brunettes.” Am I the only one who then saw his relationship with Travis in a disturbing new light?
• They went out of their way to point out that Chicago Mikes is married, so once again, PLEASE no falling for Deb.

What did you think?

At this point it’s pretty pointless to complain about Dexter‘s shortcomings. Now that it’s Season 6, we should all know exactly what we’re getting ourselves into each new season: disappointing plotlines, wildly uneven storytelling, and straight-up intolerable supporting characters. Yet we still keep coming back for more. Why is this? Two reasons: Michael C. Hall and also the fact that this is a show told from the point of view of a serial killer. So, two EXCELLENT reasons, basically.

The first season of Dexter was not only the show’s finest season, but also one of the best seasons of any TV show ever. Everyone knows this. Over the course of twelve episodes we got to know a supremely messed up killer of killers, witnessed his childhood flashbacks, and watched him grapple with his chilling lack of humanity. Dexter’s personal growth continued in Season 2, but by Season 3 and especially Season 4, it became clear that Dexter had more or less sorted out his personal problems: He was feeling emotional toward his friends and had made his marriage work, fathered a child, and even cut back on all the murderin’. So that’s why Rita’s surprise murder at the conclusion of Season 4—while admittedly a watercooler-worthy moment—felt mostly like the producers were simply applying defibrillators to the exhausted husk of one of Showtime’s biggest hits. It worked (temporarily at least) to put Dexter back into a dark mind space, but should we continue tuning in to a show that has probably run its natural course already? I hate to say it, but Sunday’s Season 6 premiere didn’t really make the case yet for Dexter‘s continued existence.

To its credit, the episode seemed eager to get back to basics. Like many recent shows that have painted themselves into narrative corners, Dexter has done the ol’ between-seasons time jump. So really, this episode served to re-introduce us to the characters’ respective lives one year later. Deb and Quinn are now shacking up; Quinn no longer suspects Dexter of being a serial killer; LaGuerta and Batista have divorced; LaGuerta has blackmailed her way into a promotion; Dexter’s Irish nanny has mysteriously been replaced by Batista’s sexy baby sister; little Harry’s ready for pre-school; and most importantly, Dexter’s back in full-fledged killing mode. Add to that a brand-new Big Bad (a duo actually) and a much-advertised religious theme and Dexter Season 6 does feel like a refreshed show. It’s just that, well, it’s also kind of exactly the same.

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The episode began with some playful misdirection: Dexter, bleeding in an open field, placed a 911 call to summon paramedics. When they arrived to tend to his “stab wounds” he syringed them both and then defibrillated them to death for intentionally killing patients and selling organs on the black market. So we were off to a ludicrous start, but a pretty entertaining nonetheless!

Dexter’s primary victim for the rest of the episode would be a murderous jock from Dexter’s old high school, and as luck would have it, their twenty-year reunion was just around the corner! The class reunion scenes were pretty fun—Stop. HAMMERTIME.

It turned out Dexter didn’t have the greatest time in high school. Imagine that! How much did you love his conversations with former classmates (filmed in a weird, first-person P.O.V.) in which they struggled to remember who he was? But, you know, Dexter’s a bit a a head-turner now (am I right, ladies?), so obviously he quickly became the life of the party. As for that murderous jock: Unfortunately Dexter’s serial killer spy shenanigans (usually the best part of any episode) ended up being pretty laughable; his plan involved a razor-sharp class ring, the stolen cell phone of a topless hoochie, and a panther costume. Meticulous, uber-cautious Season 1 Dexter Morgan this is not. But again, at least it was entertaining!

Aside from any scene involving Dexter, the other main highlights from this episode were the brief, somewhat cryptic scenes featuring Colin Hanks and Edward James Olmos as a pair of academic, possibly religion-obsessed murderers. In a truly unsettling series of events, they first captured a pregnant water snake and then later murdered a fruit stand operator, which resulted in this:

AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!

That’s right, a corpse erupting with water snakes. Despite the collective horror of the other responding detectives, Dexter seemed positively giddy to be dealing with a new ritualistic murderer, and frankly, I was too: That image is HORRIFYING. As much as Dexter the show seems to think it’s a procedural or a relationship drama or some kind of satire, I think it really shines brightest with its more disturbing, deadly serious horror elements. The brief, stilted conversations between Olmos and Hanks left me incredibly unsettled about their intentions, and even better, completely curious. I thought this plotline was so interesting, in fact, that I resented it whenever I had to sit through yet another scene involving Batista. (Like that super long dinner ordeal with his sister? What was THAT all about?)

As for the smaller plotlines, Dexter attempted to get his son enrolled at an exclusive Catholic pre-school, mostly out of hope that Harry would grow up with a stronger moral code than his own. Also, Dexter’s nanny dropped some clues to Batista about Dexter’s personal life, which may or may not lead Batista to become the obligatory suspicious co-worker figure this season. And Masuka has hired a pretty blonde intern (Heroes’ Brea Grant). Finally, Quinn attempted to propose to Deb, but their restaurant got shot up by some lunatic in a bulletproof vest? I don’t know, does that about cover it? Seriously, these characters were as much blatant filler as they’ve ever been.

So we return then to the question of whether Dexter still has life in it after all these seasons? While I think we’ve definitely settled into procedural territory in that this show seems reluctant to rock the boat in any meaningful way, the Season 6 premiere did set up some intriguing elements that may become full-fledged awesome. These Big Bads, their motives, and ultimate relationship to Dexter’s burgeoning religious exploration all teem with possibility. I just hope that in future episodes these bright spots won’t be too diluted by the remaining forty minutes.