Earlier in the season, I found myself getting frustrated about the pacing of Season 6 of 'Dexter,' but 'Angel of Death' was the kind of stellar, fast-paced episode that Dexter can deliver when it's clicking on all cylinders. It covered a lot of ground and didn't waste any time. Dexter stacked clues in pursuit of Professor Gellar, but -- as has often happened to our morally ambiguous anti-hero -- lost someone close to him in the process.

As per usual, Dexter's off-the-books investigations found him several steps ahead of his colleagues in Miami Metro, the ones conducting the legitimate, lawful detective work. Dexter tracked Travis from outside the greenhouse crime-scene, connected dots from glue used in one of the horse's sheets and tracked him from there. He eventually staked out his car, ambushed him with the "wire around the neck from the backseat" trick, but concluded he was only a pawn in Gellar's game and kept him alive to get closer to the twisted Professor.




We learned a lot about the creepy, cult-leader-ish, God-hearing Professor Gellar in this episode. Edward James Olmos is doing a phenomenal job playing this character: his performance is always weird, strong and convincing. Gellar is the kind of guy who can have a loud conversation about finding "our next whore" to kill right beside a newspaper rack featuring his face splashed across the front page on a wanted poster, and he's established himself as crazy and brazen enough that it seems entirely believable.

Gellar left a trail of lovelorn brunette TA's at the University of Talahassee, as Batista and Quinn found out in their field-trip to campus. Is Quinn such a bad cop that he didn't even notice the witness he banged had a lower back tattoo reminiscent of the Doomsday Killer's insignia? The answer is probably yes. Fortunately, Batista was there and found Gellar's weird book of drawings that depicted the biblical tableaus we've seen play out so gruesomely.

Sadly, the Angel of Death in the episode title came for Brother Sam. He got gunned down by some gang-bangers for trying to steer one of their members out of trouble. It's sad loss for the show, as Mos Def had done a great job playing Sam, a deep, easy and wise ex-con that had grown into one of Dexter's closest (only?) friends. Their last scene together drinking beers on Dexter's balcony was genuine and heartfelt, and reminded me of the classic 'Wire' balcony scene between Stringer and Avon.

It was an eventful episode for Deb, too. On the heels of a tremendously cathartic twenty minute therapy session, she decided to move into a place of her own, which just so happened to be the crime scene of a lover's quarrel turned murder-suicide. This sounds healthy for her. Hey, at least she got a good deal on the place.


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