Dexter Episode 8: Shrink Wrap

A wealthy woman’s apparent suicide leads Dexter to investigate a therapist whose patients have also died by suicide, and the case pushes Dexter into an unsettling therapy session that forces him to confront buried memories from his own childhood.

At the Miami crime scene, Dexter and Batista examine the death of a woman found dead in her bathtub, and the team quickly realizes her death resembles two earlier suicides of similarly successful women. Dexter becomes curious when he notices the pattern and traces all three women to the same psychiatrist, Dr. Emmett Meridian. While LaGuerta is still trying to pin the Ice Truck Killer case on Neil Perry, Matthews publicly marks progress in the arrest, but LaGuerta remains unconvinced that Perry is truly the killer.

Dexter arranges to see Meridian as a patient so he can study him and look through his notes. During the first sessions, Meridian appears to have a solid alibi, since he was in appointments during the women’s deaths. In a later visit, Dexter notices a camera recording the sessions, and he later sneaks in to watch the recordings of the women, confirming that Meridian manipulated them by cutting off their medication and pushing them toward suicide.

The therapy also has an unexpected effect on Dexter. Meridian draws him into open discussion about his childhood and his emotional detachment, and Dexter is shaken enough that he leaves after a memory of his mother’s death comes back to him. He later goes to Rita, and the two sleep together for the first time.

Afterward, Dexter returns to Meridian and confronts him, admitting his own dark urges before kidnapping him. Dexter kills Meridian after confirming that the therapist was responsible for driving the women to their deaths.

Meanwhile, Debra’s relationship with Rudy continues to deepen, and she grows more confident that the romance could become serious. At the same time, Dexter continues communicating with the Ice Truck Killer through coded Craigslist messages. By the end of the episode, Rudy responds to one of Dexter’s messages, revealing that he is the Ice Truck Killer.