Dexter 5.06 “Everything is Illumenated” Recap

Is the show just going through the motions? Check out Michael Mahoney’s review right here.

And now, let’s recap “Everything is Illuminated.”

Photo by Showtime

Dexter is packing his things into boxes with the help of his sister. It’s time for the house to be put on the market. He remarks that he hopes a “ridiculously low listing price will help the buyers see past” the fact that a murder took place there. Deb tells him he should take the apartment – it was his before he gave it to her after all – but he says no. When packing up the car, Deb finds some sunglasses that she doesn’t remember Rita wearing. Dexter knows that they’re Lumen’s, but doesn’t say anything. He is happy because he thinks that she’s gone back to Minneapolis – but we know she never left Miami.

Later, Dexter takes Harrison down to the beach to play on the playground. That’s not the only reason he’s there though; he’s following a man named Lance Robinson, who has casual encounters with innocent men which have turned deadly four times. Dexter thinks it will be “an easy kill, just like old times.” Meanwhile, Lumen is at home getting dressed up, and has even put a wig on.

At the station, the group is discussing their plan to go undercover at the club in hopes of finding the Fuentes brothers. The Chief says that the brothers know that the police are on to them and doesn’t believe they’d return to the club now, and tells Deb he would have expected more from her. LaGuerta approaches him after he leaves and tells him they don’t have a lot of options, and he responds by reminding her that she’s been spending a lot of time dealing with internal affairs to bail her husband out of the trouble he got himself into. Batista goes to her and they argue about everything that’s been going on between them.

Lumen, all dressed up and ready to go out, puts a gun in her bag and leaves. Deb goes to Quinn’s but he says it’s not a good time, because he’s busy talking with Stan Liddy, who was just suspended. Deb leaves and the two men talk about Dexter. Liddy says Dexter is “squeaky clean on paper” but “it’s all too neat a little too phony.”

Dexter is off to “work” (kill Lance) for the evening and says goodbye to Harrison, who says “die die” back to him. He posted an ad online and Lance comes right up to him, so Dexter knocks him out and throws him into an RV. While wrapping him up, Lumen calls him. He ignores her call twice and then sees that she sent him a bloody photo. He calls her back and she says “I shot one of them. I killed him.” He then realizes that she’s still in Miami.

The Miami Metro undercover operation has begun at the nightclub. Quinn is flirting with the women; Batista is impressed and Deb is annoyed. Batista tells her it sounds like she’s jealous, and she denies it and says she isn’t interested.

Dexter goes to meet Lumen and she brings him to the crime scene but the body isn’t there. Dexter uses his blood spatter expertise to help figure out just what happened. Lumen tells him that she found this man by going back to the bar where she was taken in a disguise so they wouldn’t recognize her. One of them came to the bar, she flirted with him and got into his car, where she pulled her gun on him and told him to drive, and they ended up at this warehouse. Dexter asks her how she knew it was one of the men she’s looking for, and she says that she just knew, even though they kept her blindfolded most of the time.

Back at the club, Batista and Deb are discussing each others relationships while watching the surveillance cameras inside the club. Batista gets a call about a possible homicide, and Deb decides to respond for him.

Photo by Showtime

Dexter continues to try to find the missing body at the warehouse. He gets a call about a crime scene and realizes it’s that building. Lumen asks him if he’s a cop, and he says no. “What are you?” she asks. “Complicated.” Well, that’s an understatement. He asks her why she didn’t take the flight home, and she says that she tried but she couldn’t. Just then, Dexter finds the man hiding under a grate in the floor. At the club, Batista heads out to the dance floor to approach a woman he saw on camera, and asks her if she wants to get out there, and she agrees. Dexter is busy with the man he just found, who is covered in his own blood. He says he has no idea who she is. She calls him a liar and she calls her crazy. As it turns out, he’s a kids dentist. Dexter gets a call and leaves the room. It’s the nanny and Harrison, who again says “die die.” He tells her he’ll be home as soon as he can and goes back into the other room to attend to the man who may or may not have raped Lumen. He walks in to find her shoving her shoe in his face and calling him a liar. Dexter takes her into the other room, but her phone is accidentally left on the ground near him. As they walk back in, they hear him on the phone. “Can you hear me? She shot me. She’s alive, you hear me? That last [expletive] is alive.” He then realizes that they’re listening to him. Lumen was right; he’s one of the men. He tells her that they’re going to find her, so Dexter grabs him, says “die die” and breaks his neck, killing him. She asks what they do now, and he says they need to clean up.

Dexter gives Lumen the key to his (old) house and the address and tells her to go there and wait for him. Just then, Lance breaks out of the back of his car and runs for it. He’s running right to where Deb and Masuka are, but Dexter just barely is able to stop him and drag him out of sight. Deb and Masuka see his car, and then he comes out of the building and leads them inside to the scene he’s staged: Lance, dead on the ground with a gun, right next to the man who’s neck Dexter snapped. Masuka believes it was auto-erotic asphyxiation, and everyone buys it. Dexter really cut it close here.

Batista is waiting in his wife’s office with the woman he met in the club. As it turns out, she knows the Fuentes brothers and also has some drug charges against her, and Batista suggests a trade. She told Batista that she thinks she could get the brothers to go to the club if her drug charges can be dropped.

Deb goes to Quinn’s, and he’s up waiting for her. They sit down to talk and she reveals that she has feelings for him. “I like you too,” he says. “More than like.” It looks like the office romance that was just physical is now a real thing. It’ll be interesting to see what everyone else at the station thinks of this development.

Dexter goes to his old house and finds Lumen lying in the tub, reminiscent of Rita’s death. He walks out and waits for her to put a robe on. She says the tub isn’t draining, and he has flashbacks to the bloody scene when he goes to check on the tub. “I know you, what you are deep down,” she tells him. “You’re a father.” He explains that his two oldest are not his, and that he has Harrison. She tells him the story about how on her wedding day, she looked at the aisle and thought about everything it was leading to and couldn’t breathe, so she left to “find something more.” She tells him that she felt peace, because of the man who was dead, but that it won’t last. She knows she’ll have to find the rest of them to find that peace again.

“I don’t even have a name for what I’m feeling,” she says.

‘I do,’ thinks Dexter. ‘The Dark Passenger. I can’t get revenge for Rita’s death but I can help Lumen avenge what was done to her.’

“How many more were there?” he asks.