Dexter wakes up to hear his son, Harrison, crying out for him.  Half asleep, he spots a trail of red on the floor leading from the kitchen into the bathroom and all of us hold our breaths hoping that nothing has happened to Harrison.  We’ve seen toddlers sitting in a sea of red before.  Happily, all the little boy has done is consumed an entire box of cherry popsicles,  and a little Pepto-Bismol soothes his tummy ache.

Dexter’s attempts to soothe what’s ailing his sister, Debra, aren’t going quite as well, or as easily.   Debra is asleep in her car at the side of the road, passed out from a night of drinking.  A police officer pulls up, recognizes her as a former cop but takes her into custody anyway, spying a pile of empty bottles on the floor of her car.  She calls Quinn to come to her aid and he climbs out of bed, the one which he’s sharing with Jamie, telling his new girlfriend that he has to go out on a case.   A little professional courtesy goes a long way and Deb’s let out with a warning.

Dr. Vogel’s received another bit of brain in a box and calls Dexter to show it to him.  It’s two boxes, actually, marked “His” and “Hers”.  Vogel is still convinced that the Brain Surgeon is one of her former patients and Dexter is checking each of them out thanks to her book which devotes chapters to them and their particular psychopathy.   The two also have a conversation about The Code, the one she and Harry devised for Dexter.   The first rule, of course, is “don’t get caught”, so when Dexter tells Vogel that Debra knows about his crimes and saw him kill Travis Marshall, she asks him why he didn’t kill Debra.   He says that he loves his sister, but Vogel isn’t so sure.  Psychopaths aren’t capable of love so she believes that Dexter has conjured up some sort of feelings that he can live with but don’t resemble anything anyone normal would consider even close to love.

Dexter and Debra go out to dinner so that they can try to work out their problems.  Debra wants to know why Dexter has taken her to the particular restaurant, or “hell-hole” as she describes it.  Dexter show her a video from his phone where Deb is seen saving a man during a robbery and shoot-out.  He then Points to a man sitting nearby and tells her that he’s the man she saved years ago.  Without her, the man wouldn’t behaving dinner with his wife and children.  She’s a hero, a good person, who’s done so much to help people.  Debra looks happy to see and hear what Dexter has shown and told her and even manages to lay off the booze for the night – just for that night, though.

Debra is assigned a new case by her boss, Jason Elway.  A worried wife wants the agency to follow her husband who she suspects is cheating on her.  Deb and Elway find the errant hubby having sex in a car with someone who is definitely not his wife.  They bring the photos back to the office and present them to their client.  She looks at them, then looks again and tells them it doesn’t look like him.  She says that the photos are too blurry and the man is only seen in profile.  She apologizes to the P.I.s, pays them and says that she might have been wrong about her husband.  A stunned Debra asks Elway why she did that when the evidence couldn’t have been more damning.  He tells her that some people cope with crises by living their lives in a state of denial.

That little phrase rings oh so true to Deb and, after getting drunk all over again, she staggers into the Detective Bureau at Miami Metro, telling Quinn that she wants to confess to murdering LaGuerta.  Quinn thinks that she’s just distraught and very inebriated.  He takes her into the interrogation room and calls Dexter about the situation.  Dexter arrives with Dr. Vogel and they try to talk to Debra.  She’s not having it, though, and begins to shriek her sins to anyone within earshot – until Dexter administers one of his handy-dandy tranq needles on his sister.  They carry her out, take her home and Dexter handcuffs his sister to the couch – probably a good idea given Debra’s behaviors, drunk or sober –  leaving her in the very capable hands of Dr. Vogel who assures Dexter by saying “Let me do what I do”.   What she does isn’t exactly clear and I’m not sure that Dexter should be feel any sense of relief with her offer of help.

If that wasn’t enough for Dexter, he still has the Brain Surgeon problem to deal with.  He’s got a hunch about one of Vogel’s patients, Galuzzo, who now works at a mall selling fitness equipment.  Dexter visits the kiosk, trying out various machines and even going so far as to put  Vogel’s book on display to see if Galuzzo will react.  The guy claims that he never heard of Vogel and then offers Dexter some unnecessary advice on how to keep buff.   Galuzzo’s denial about knowing Vogel raises Dexter’s serial killer radar and he breaks into Galuzzo’s house, looking for clues.  What he finds is a stew in a crock pot.  The ingredients for the stew include human fingers, and the refrigerator is chock full of Tupperware containing various other body parts.  The dining room table is set in a way that would have pleased Hannibal Lecter, wine glasses and all, but Galuzzo isn’t the Brain Surgeon.   That doesn’t mean that Dexter is going to leave him alone.  He still fits the Code, the guy needs killing and Dexter sets about doing what Dexter does best.  Just before he performs his kill ritual, Dexter realizes that he and Galuzzo share something.  “I consume everyone I love.”

Empress