Dexter: Original Sin Season 1 Episode 3 Review: Miami Vice

With Dexter: Original Sin Season 1 Episode 3, “Miami Vice,” we get more backstory on Harry and Laura Moser. On top of that, we get Detective Maria La Guerta making her Miami Metro Homicide debut, much to the annoyance of Captain Spencer.

This addition to the story does little to further Dexter’s story, but it does give more insights into a character we have only ever seen at a step further in her career. Detective La Guerta is going to play a big part in what is to come with Harry and Dexter based on what “Miami Vice” tells us.

Besides that, this episode does a great job of showing just how Dexter learns how to be more human. It further develops his learning curve while also expanding on the Dexter and Deb dynamic that has been seriously lacking so far.

Dexter Tries New Things

With a character as established as Dexter Morgan, there is nothing more exciting than to see him before he was well-regimented. He knows he is much different than his colleagues, but he also knows that he has to stay under the radar. 

He is now a known person, and if his colleagues find him quirky, odd, or the least bit suspicious, he won’t be able to get away with his crimes. Especially now that he’s killed a very prominent member of the community — Tony Ferrer.

Sure, more people than not are going to be happy the loan shark is dead, but there are going to be a select few who will be relentlessly looking for him. Something tells me that leading the Miami Metro’s charge for his disappearance is going to be none other than Detective Maria La Guerta. 

Sure, her connections to Dexter aren’t there yet, but it’s already been established that she gets what she wants. But, more on that later. For now, let’s focus on Dexter and his attempts at normalcy.

The most significant adjustment we see to his attempts at blending in comes alongside his moments with Deb. Dexter has to get his earrings back from Sophia, so Deb encourages him to flirt with her and buy her a gift in an attempt to woo her.

It’s a fantastic way for the show to establish that Dexter has a special bond with his sister and that, eventually, he’ll even be able to communicate with the ladies.

Then, we get to see him awkwardly ask Masuka if he knows where Dexter can get a fake ID. At first, it seems as though Masuka is going to rat on him, but the minute he finds out, it’s so Dexter can fly under the radar while out drinking he is in. 

As I touched upon in my review of Dexter: Original Sin Season 1 Episode 2, “Kid in a Candy Store,” this builds up that infamous Dexter and Masuka friendship we know and love. It’s still in the baby stages, but the throughlines are being built.

On top of that, “Miami Vice” establishes Dexter’s innate ability to see an opportunity to ingratiate himself to the people he’s about to kill and seize it. We see him going to a Jai Alai tournament — and selling that as a new hobby to his dad, very successfully — and then charming Tony into loaning him some money.

Dexter’s Second Kill — Not As Clean

Sure, with his first kill, Dexter showed fans that he’s always known to cover the killing spot with plastic and make sure the person killed is naked. However, once again we see him making some careless mistakes.

With Nurse Mary, he killed her and kept her earrings. Now, with Tony Ferrier, Dexter attacks him in his home despite the man having many pounds on him, which leads to a mess of broken dishes and other scattered items. 

In addition, Dexter kills the man while he is wearing his famous alligator shoes. Despite feeding Ferrer’s dead body to hungry alligators, Dexter has no proof that these shoes won’t be found by someone else. 

This leads us to the relationship between Harry and Dexter in this episode in particular. Dexter: Original Sin does a fantastic job of taking the bones of what the original series created and expanding on it to help us understand why Harry spiraled so far as to kill himself.

Dexter has to admit that he kept Mary’s earrings because Deb gave them to her best friend Sophia, who coincidentally has a major crush on Dexter. When he opens up to Harry about this slip-up and also his pursuit of Tony Ferrer, viewers can see how terrified Harry is starting to get.

No longer do we see a dad willing to protect his son at all costs. Now, we find ourselves watching as Harry tries to reconcile what he’s done to help Dexter. He’d hoped this “help” would prevent Dexter from killing more than once, but now he knows Dexter’s urges can’t be satiated by a job in Homicide.

Introducing Detective Maria La Guerta

One of the funniest things about Detective Maria La Guerta’s arrival at Miami Metro Homicide is Batista attempting to flirt with her. She shoots him down and says, point blank, that she doesn’t fraternize with her coworkers.

Anyone who knows her character knows she ends up dating Batista for a while, making her initial dismissal of him as anyone worth knowing that much funnier.

But what is most enjoyable about the introduction of La Guerta is how well Christina Milian portrays a hungry, driven female cop during a time when they were simply laughed at. She isn’t afraid to call out the department for its backward way of treating situations.

It’s evidenced by Captain Spencer’s attempts to tear her down for going to the press about the use of the NHI moniker. Instead of cowering away from him, this situation drives her to work that much harder and prove she’s made of steel.

That’s not to say La Guerta doesn’t have compassion for the people within the Miami communities; she does. We see it in her calling out the department for calling certain people “no humans involved ” and her coaxing a witness to come forward in the kidnapping cartel case.

While we haven’t seen much of her in action yet, her disposition is already proving to be a precursor for the dogged way she approaches the job in Dexter fifteen years in the future. After all, she takes Captain Spencer’s misogynistic crap and throws it right back in his face by being better at her job than any of them combined.

It’s clear that for now, she’ll be directly tied to Harry Morgan, but something tells me that in the future, she’ll play a big part in whatever happens to both Harry and Dexter.

Stray Thoughts:

• Dexter making fake coke for Deb’s party is peak Dexter looking out for his sister. It’s also just a fun moment in general.
• I’m interested to see if Sophia and Dexter become a thing in Dexter’s continued drive to blend in.
• Finding out more about the Laura Moser of it all makes her death that much more tragic. The guilt Harry must feel over her death is already palpable despite their affair just getting started.
• I’m already tired of Patrick Dempsey. I feel he doesn’t do much for the overall plot.

 

What did you think of this episode of Dexter: Original Sin? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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Dexter: Original Sin streams Fridays on Paramount+ with Showtime and Sundays at 10/9c on Showtime.

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