Dexter Can't "Just Let Go"

Did you think that Brother Sam was going to be able to help Dexter leave his Dark Passenger behind? I did. I really did. And then, sadly, in this week’s episode (“Just Let Go”), Brother Sam died, and put Dexter to his most rigorous test yet.

Brother Sam asked Dexter to tell Nick, the man whom Brother Sam had tried desperately to save from a life of crime, that he forgave Nick for shooting—and killing—him. That’s not how Dexter operates—forgive the pun. Dexter knew before Brother Sam made his dying request that Nick was the one who pulled the trigger. He’d already begun to plan how he was going to get Nick onto his table.

But Dexter liked and respected Brother Sam, and he wanted to believe—I think—that there was a lightness inside him that Sam could see and that could maybe, eventually, be brought out to shine over the Dark Passenger Dexter carries with him. So he tried to carry out Brother Sam’s wish.

When he took Nick for that walk on the beach, I didn’t know how it was going to go with Dexter. I did believe, though, that when Nick found out Sam forgave him before he died, Nick would convert and be the person Brother Sam thought he could be. I think maybe that’s what Dexter thought would happen too because he was giving Sam’s request consideration.

And then Nick laughed because Dexter was the only person who knew of Nick’s guilt. Nick was jubilant that he’d gotten away with the murder.

Dexter, as he told us, hit his fork in the road. Nick’s laughter was more than Dexter and his darkness could handle, and he drowned Nick there in the knee-deep surf. And I think he also drowned any hope he had of finding the light inside himself. It made me really sad for Dexter.

Then, when Big Brother Brian shows up at the very end of the episode, I got really worried about Dexter. On the same day that he loses Brother Sam—someone who saw both the light and the dark in Dexter and believed in the strength of the light—the darkest figure in Dexter’s life comes back.

The trailer for next week’s episode of Dexter promises a reconnection with Trinity. Will Dexter ever be able to separate himself from his Dark Passenger? And is he even going to want to anymore, now that Sam is gone?