Dexter Season 7 Episode 5 Recap – “Swim Deep”

It’s hard out here for a serial killer. In this week’s episode of Dexter, it seems as if everyone is on Dexter’s tail. Our favorite serial killer has cops, crazy hit men and even hot chicks circling him. In this spoilerific recap of episode “Swim Deep,” we learn that there’s only so much that Dexter and his sister Deb can do to protect his secret.

The episode opens with Dexter cleaning his boat while he’s having a conversation with his dead father, Harry. Now that Deb knows the truth, Dexter is hoping that she may come to accept him. But Harry doesn’t agree. The truth will eat at Deb, he warns, just like the salt water eating away at Dexter’s boat.

Then Dexter finds a large amount of blood recently cleaned up on his boat. After some patented Dexter Detective Work™, Dexter discovers that Louis was killed on his boat. But who killed him? And why? And what were they doing on his boat?? So many questions!

Back at Miami Metro, Masuka thinks his job is in jeopardy because LaGuerta farmed out lab work. Deb asks LaGuerta about it, but what she thought was just a simple management issue opens into a big ol’ squirming can of worms. LaGuerta admits that she found a blood slide with the Doomsday Killer’s blood on it, proving that the Bay Harbor Butcher is alive and well and still killing. Deb knows that her brother is in deep trouble and she covers well, offering to help LaGuerta with her investigation, but when she’s alone Deb completely flips out. Clearly, Dexter screwed up by dropping the blood slide after killing Doomsday, and now LaGuerta is hot on her brother’s heels.

Deb confronts Dexter about this, and though Dexter asks his sister not to get involved, she’s already in up to her neck. LaGuerta made a list of potential Bay Harbor Butcher victims and she’s going to question their families. Deb shows the list to Dexter and he admits to killing three of the men on her list, but Dexter is certain that he covered his tracks. Still, it’s Deb’s ass on the line too. She will have to shadow LaGuerta to steer her away from any evidence that might incriminate Dexter.

When Dexter gets back to his apartment, he realizes that his curtains are open. Evil British Dude™ Isaak Sirko is waiting inside to kill Dexter, but he never gets the chance. Clued in by Louis’s blood on his boat and now the fact that someone has broken into his apartment, Dexter slips away. He waits for Sirko to leave and then follows him. Dexter calls Sirko, demanding to know why he was in his apartment. Sirko is entirely forthcoming about everything. He freely admits to Dexter that he killed Louis, he knows that Dexter killed Victor, and now Sirko is going to kill Dexter. He’s even remarkably polite about it. Evil British Dude™ probably even craps with a silky accent.

Dexter warns Deb that Sirko is after him, and worse that Sirko believes that the police conspired to kill Victor as part of some vendetta. He wants Deb to hide out with him until he can deal with Sirko. Not only is Deb furious to learn that Dexter killed Detective Anderson’s murderer, she’s over-the-top furious that he kept information from the police in order to do it (Dexter found Victor’s fingerprint). Deb makes Dexter promise never to interfere in a police investigation again. Yeah, because Dexter has been so good at keeping promises thus far…

Dexter’s cat-and-mouse game with Sirko is momentarily interrupted when Dexter has to accompany Batista to another dig site. Hot Serial Killer Ex-Girlfriend™ Hannah has come forward to help the police locate more bodies buried by Hannah’s ex-boyfriend years before. Though Hannah has sworn all along that she is innocent and that it was her boyfriend who did all the murdering, the evidence Dexter uncovers at the dig site tells another story. Dexter can tell (from a surprisingly detailed reenactment that would make the chick from Bones jealous) that the second victim was murdered by a smaller, inexperienced killer. Dexter admits his suspicions to Hannah, but he doesn’t tell the police (breaking his promise to Deb already). Hannah doesn’t seem too worried that Dexter thinks she’s capable of murder. She even seems a little turned on by it. Dexter seems to be planning to make Hannah his next victim.

But all of that must wait until Dexter deals with Evil British Dude™. Dexter allows Sirko to follow him into a rough part of town where the Colombian drug cartel hangs out. The Colombians are sworn enemies of Sirko’s “Brotherhood,” and when Dexter lures Sirko into a bar full of Colombians, it’s curtains for Sirko… Or is it?

Meanwhile, Deb and LaGuerta question the son of one of Dexter’s victims. The missing man was a wedding photographer and apparently Dexter stalked him at a wedding. Sure enough, Deb spots a photo of Dexter amid a collection of the victim’s photographs. Deb manages to hide the photo before LaGuerta gets a look at it. Phew! That was a close one.

The crew at Miami Metro get the call that there was a shooting at a Colombian bar. The police show up and Dexter assumes that they will find Sirko’s body, but he’s wrong. Instead, Sirko apparently went all Terminator and wiped out four gunmen. Still, Sirko dropped some of his own blood at the scene and it doesn’t take long for Dexter to match it to Sirko. The police arrest Sirko and Dexter confronts him in the visitor’s area. Now that Sirko is in jail, Dexter wants to know if Sirko’s vendetta is over. Sirko tells a long, intense story about a man waiting years to get revenge, the moral of which is that no, it’s not over. It won’t be over until Sirko has killed Dexter for Victor’s murder.

Meanwhile, Batista tells Deb his suspicions that the bartender from the strip club isn’t Detective Anderson’s killer. To protect Dexter, Deb lies to Batista and orders him to back off. Though she hates herself for saying it, Deb tells Batista that she is not going to reopen a closed case, despite what Batista’s gut says.

Deb goes to Dexter’s apartment and gives him the photo that she hid from LaGuerta. Chagrined, Dexter thanks Deb for protecting him, but Deb has decided that she wants no part of Dexter’s killing. She knows that Dexter won’t stop, but she can’t deal with all of the lying and deceit.

They reminisce about going to the beach as kids. Deb used to chase Dexter along the beach, but she could never quite catch him. Now, Deb can’t even tell if Dexter is lying to her or not. He is not longer the great man that she thought he was.

Later, as Dexter burns the photograph, he admits to himself that he outpaced Deb at the beach when they were kids because he would “swim deep” beneath the waves. He will go to the depths that Deb was never willing or able to go. And he will go there alone.