‘Dexter’ Review: “A Little Reflection”

‘Dexter’ season 8 slices up the 6th episode of its final year with “A Little Reflection,” as Dexter attempts to prove Zach Hamilton (Sam Underwood) guilty to a reluctant Dr. Vogel (Charlotte Rampling), while Deb goes on a personal sting with Elway (Sean Patrick Flanery), and Hannah McKay (Yvonne Strahovski) finally returns.

Last week’s ‘Dexter’ episode, “This Little Piggy,” saw Deb and Dexter put aside their differences to rescue Dr. Vogel from the "Brain Surgeon," while Quinn hits a wall in a new case and Masuka questioned the motivations of his recently-revealed daughter. So how does “A Little Reflection” continue the 8th and final season?

Read on for your in-depth recap of everything you need to know about ‘Dexter’ season 8, episode 6, “A Little Reflection”!

Continually suspicious of Zach Hamilton, Dexter observes the boy photographing crime scenes before tailing him to Dr. Vogel’s office. After their session, Dexter questions Vogel about her treating yet another potential killer, but she reminds him he has no proof of Norma Rivera's murder. Once he obtains it however, she asks that Dexter see her before killing Zach. Elsewhere, Masuka learns from Deb of his daughter’s several outstanding loans before Elway tasks Deb with helping him expose his sister’s cheating husband.

Dexter learns from Jamie that Harrison may have hidden the remote control, despite the boy’s claims of ignorance before heading to the scene of a new murder. Dexter again spies Zach taking photos from a distance, for which Dexter invites him behind the tape and sees that the boy looks for tips on how not to get caught. After making plans to meet up with Zach later, Dexter goes on his date with neighbor Cassie, though he finds dating more difficult than he remembers.

Deb and Elway find his sister’s husband Kevin striking out at the bar, and Deb offers to set him up another night, while Dexter pays a visit to Zach’s studio of blood photos. Dexter points out a woman in a photo on Zach’s desk, though he quickly hides it, and ends up called away by his drunk mother. Over at Miami Metro, Matthews presses Batista to make his decision of either Miller or Quinn for sergeant.

Deb and Dexter share steaks and beers, noting how hard it will be for them to go back to normal before Jamie brings out the destroyed remote from under Harrison’s bed. The next day, Batista informs Quinn of his reluctant decision to promote Miller instead, given Quinn’s history. In a fume, Quinn decides to tail Zach Hamilton to close the Norma Rivera case and improve his record, for which Dexter reluctantly joins him. The pair follow Zach to observe him photographing a yoga class, among the women of which Dexter notices the girl from Zach’s photo.

Elway and a glammed-up Deb prepare to entrap his sister’s husband at the hotel, and he begins to head up to Kevin’s bedroom before Elway violently interrupts in defense of Deb. Meanwhile, Dexter rummages around Zach’s studio and finds photographic proof of him killing Norma Rivera. After showing it to Vogel, the woman reveals she already knew, and instead thought they might teach Zach the code rather than kill him. Dexter balks however, given that the boy killed an innocent.

The next day at Jamie’s birthday picnic, Masuka accidentally insults his daughter by revealing he checked into her, and offers her money for her debts. Meanwhile, Dexter notices that Cassie brought along another date, and Jamie finds out that her brother passed over Quinn for the sergeant job. Meanwhile, Deb finds Elway just off the phone with his heartbroken sister, and the two joke about liking one another. That night, Dexter confronts Harrison about his lie over the TV remote, though Harrison revealed that Dexter too lied in claiming to have lost a stuffed doggie with murder blood on it. Dexter allows Harrison to keep the doll and apologizes, before heading over to Zach’s studio for the intended kill.

Realizing that Zach bought a new car to avoid getting caught, Dexter races over to the woman’s job at a yacht club, finding Zach lying in wait with Quinn tailing nearby. Dexter phones Jamie and tells her that she should invite Quinn over, watching as the detective gets up to leave. Dexter next spots the woman, realizing her to be Zach’s father’s new mistress, rather than the intended victim. Instead, Zach goes to kill his father, before Dexter intervenes and drags the boy away, nearly getting caught by an oblivious Quinn in the process.

With Zach pinned to a kill room table, Dexter listens as the youth explains how he killed his father’s mistress Norma, then decided to kill his father for the trauma and alcoholism his mother had endured. Dexter insists that the boy likes killing regardless, to which Zach begs to be put out of his misery, though Dexter decides to heed Vogel’s advice and become a “spiritual father” of sorts to a new killer.

The next morning, Dexter and Deb share coffee and debate their respective developments before Deb loses focus and seems to pass out. Dexter too grows woozy, seeing with his last moments of consciousness the return of Hannah McKay through the door.

Hooray, Hannah's back! As awkwardly staged a reintroduction thought that might have been. Indeed, we'd been worried that the apparent resolution of the Brain Surgeon case and the shift toward Dexter's relationship with Zach Hamilton might have taken the wind out of the sails, so to speak, it seems the second half of 'Dexter''s final season is wasting no time with plot developments to keep things moving.

Of course, we'd likely rather the final season focus on the individual drama between characters and the danger inherent to the show's premise, given that only six episodes remain, but we're willing to see how Dexter's "spiritual fatherhood" plays out, and how Hannah manages to complicate things for both he and Deb. Of course, we're still not entirely willing to trust Vogel, so there may yet prove further sources of drama going forward.

Finally, we'd like to point out that Quinn catching Dexter in the act, and brushing off his presence at the marina so quickly would have to go down as the worst Quinn writing in history, right? It wasn't long ago that Quinn was the one looking at Dexter's darker nature, and now seems willing to brush of both Deb's confession, and Dexter's apparent "playing detective." Yeesh. Miami Metro supporting stories need to shape up, or ship out, finally.

What say you? Did you get your fill of darkly dangerous ‘Dexter’ drama? What did you think about the latest episode of the final season? Stay tuned for the latest from ‘Dexter’ season 8, and join us next week for the a new episode recap of “Dress Code” on Showtime!