A Beautiful Day, indeed: The first episode of Dexter season 8, reviewed

A Beautiful Day, indeed: The first episode of Dexter season 8, reviewed

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I arrived late at the Soho Hotel late, two minutes before the season premiere screening of Dexter season 8 was scheduled to begin.

My desperate rush through the back streets of London meant I was too clammy for polite handshakes and too anxious to take advantage of the free bar.

It was probably for the best as any amount of speculation or booze might have heightened my senses even more to the already unbearably graphic opening credits.

I entered the luxury theatre and slumped into my oversized blood red lounger chair and vacantly stared at a giant promo board for the new series.

Already in the string of promos and teasers we know this season eight premiere has it all. Cryptic and psychotic imagery, comical quips and the fear of seeing our favourite serial killer's secrets revealed as Dexter's apparent grip on control is slipping further away from him.

The atmosphere could only have been made more tense by wrapping me to my seat in cling film â€" but that displeasure will remain saved for another night of the week. 

A teaser flicks onto the enormous cinema screen as the familiar phrase, "Previously on Dexter," booms around the tiny auditorium and what followed was a breathless recap of season seven.

The unholy killing in the church, the damning evidence against Dexter and Deb and of course, the bullets which found refuge in the innocent body of Captain La Guerta.

The chair swallows me further as we run through the familiar morning routines and intro music before capped off with a grin and a slight twang noise.

It starts with the Miami sunshine burning down, the blinding light of forgiveness showers Dexter who tells us how alive and free he feels after "solving all my problems."

He tells in a previous series “I never feel normal, I just pretend to be normal” â€" and that’s exactly what he’s doing by revving up his levels of what is normal to a whole new stratosphere of normality.

Dexter’s flying a kite with son Harrison, who's old enough to talk, react and will no doubt be involved in a heart stopping storyline. What’s more, he's back to work as if everything is fine.

 

He’s reformed the infamous bowling team and coached his Harrison’s soccer team to the championship. It's fair to say he's dealing with the pulsating tragedy rather well â€" as well all expected he would. However, cut to Deb.

The shield-yielding, fun-gunning cop is an absolute wreck, a skeleton of her former self as she racks up a line of cocaine and snorts like she's a hayfever sufferer struggling to breathe.

She's staying in a grimy motel with cameo character Andrew Briggs, a white trash shaggy haired twentysomething with money for drugs but nothing for a razor of shower gel.

Within seconds of seeing their relationship it’s obviously sexual but there's a darker history underlying their bond.

Deb went AWOL from Miami Metro after murdering La Guerta in cold blood and even skips her former captain’s memorial in favour of racking up drugs with her new partner.

But the broken bird inside Deb's soul is being sobered up slightly as she works as an agent for hire, her target is the man she's making love to and the bounty is half a million dollars in stolen jewellery.

Little does Deb know and by golly later does she find out later, the petty thief staged a smash and grab is owned by a heavyweight Mafioso, so the number of interested buyers are slim pickings.

The only chump making a deal is a “fence” known only as El Sapo, who is sharking around for some cheap diamonds.

It’s revealed Dexter hasn’t had contact with his sister for months and eventually tracks down Deb in a liquor store.

He desperately begs her to return to Miami from the drug fuelled lifestyle she’s swapped it for.

She declines, naturally, and tells her foster brother: “I f****** hate you, I shot the wrong person in that container.”

For the first time since Dexter’s ex-wife Rita was found dead in a bath of her own blood he’s looked emotionally broken.

Their relationship is beyond repa ir and Dexter is troubled by his latest revelation - El Sapo isn’t in the same business as the vultures who buy gold, he’s actually a hitman.

Despite the subconscious and ghostly figure of his late father Harry Morgan warning him to stay away he pursues his sister and tracks her down to her grubby low budget room turned whore house.

Briggs finds Dexter on the porch arguing with ‘his girl’ and the pair clash in a brawl which ultimately ends with Dex plunging a butcher knife into the sticky fingered thief’s heart.

He turns to Deb, broken on the floor in tears, and tells her she’s “lost”, assuming he means both mentally and geographically.

Deb replies: "I am not lost. I know exactly where I am. I am in some shitty f******* hell which is exactly what I deserve. But you ... you are lost!"

It’s an obvious guess that the idea, the image, the fear of being lost will be a running theme.

Meanwhile, Detective and serial shagger Jose ph Quinn has solved the riddle behind getting babysitter Jamie â€" who is of course Batista’s sister â€" completely naked and into bed.

There is a serial killer which will rung a subtle yet parallel side story along the demise of Dexter.

A body of a bloke was dumped with his head cut in half and a portion of the brain which controls empathy has been scooped out. Think the last scene on Hannibal when he’s tucking into a bit of brain instead of plane food, which is probably a more nutritious option.

Which conveniently links in the introduction of creepy tight-faced yet somehow saggy Dr. Evelyn Vogel, a “psychopath whisperer”.

It’s obvious, with the amount of eye contact penetrating Dexter’s guilty rear end she knows his secret.

Vogel, a stern Englishwoman, later approaches Dexter in private, while he creepily sits on La Geurta’s memorial bench.

He is short, snappy and abrupt, telling her he doesn’t want to speak to her.

But Lady Thatcher doesn’t need to speak, she simply drops an envelope of childhood drawings on his lap, signed with young Dexter’s name.

They are typically nightmarish and what you’d expect a child possessed to scrawl for their psychiatrist. It’s a wet dream for anyone selling red and black Crayolas.

Dexter loses control and latches onto her throat with a vice like grip, shoving her against a steel garage door as she reveals she knew Harry [Dexter’s late father].

“You can’t kill me,” she spits at Dexter. “Why not,” he growls back.

“Because I don’t fit Harry’s code,” gasps Evelyn, as the episode draws to a close.

Breathless and arguably rushed, the season premiere was utterly reckless.... which is bloody fantastic news for the last 11 episodes.

I was the last to leave the screening room, as I waited in stalker-like (well, not like an actual stalker) optimism for a preview of the next episode which sadly didn't appear.

Instead, I was left to stagger back onto the dusty streets of central London and into the real world wondering what in Dexter's mad world could possibly happen next.