Open on Dexter and Travis right where we left them -- chained to a church, and trying to unchain him from the church. Dexter notices a painting marked with '2LOT' which he later deduces to be the book of a famed atheist hated by Gellar, and likely the angry professor's next target. Since Travis is a wanted man, and basically useless, Dexter sets him up in a hotel. His sister is in with her psychiatrist. Again. After dropping the Brian and Lundy bombs, it's even suggested that they begin meeting more than once a week. There's something vaguely sinister about the way this therapist turns Debra's thinking, even if she needs it.
Arriving at the station, Debra uses her freshly found sentiments to call Dexter a chair and then tell everybody to get their shit together. Which is kind of how all these meetings are sounding. Oh, and Quinn's not there, which Masuka blames on the strip club they visited which, as he clearly remembers, had such highlights as the errant detective attempting to propose to the dancers.
Angel goes to bust Quinn's ball, being the great partner that he is. But as they start to get ready for work without even letting Quinn change his shirt -- you really want to be in the car with that, Angel? -- they notice that Quinn's gun is missing. Oops. Good thing he already had some kind of GPS history pulled up on his web browser that would pinpoint where he must've left it. They visit the house, only to have the hot teen who answers the door call for her far less Barbie-looking mother. So Quinn slept with a homely lady or something. Angel and Quinn are relegated to some kind of side-show Odd Couple storyline, where even Angel's car breaks down. Though it allows Quinn some valuable time to insult every aspect of Angel's life, leading to a fist-fight where Angel probably would've broken his nose if a lady hadn't threatened to call the police. Great partners.
The badge gang notice Gellar's updated blog, and all the fun fanatics who posted that they support him, including convenient video-posts where they show their faces very clearly to the authorities. Better With You (Louis) thinks he can get to the IP address. After some of his smooth-tapping fingers -- interrupted briefly by Masuka with some bizarre love advice, "In matters of the heart, always think with your dick" -- he gets them within viewing distance of a church. Debra orders uniform to fan out and canvas the area.
Later inside, Debra's visited by Jessica Moore's father, asking her to reopen the case, but he's unable to explain why he has some pretty specific details of the case. Thanks to a particularly motivated session with her therapist, Debra tells LaGuerta that she's 'breaking the cycle' of their arguments to opening the case, whether LaGuerta likes her not -- and if not, she can fire her. LaGuerta slips off to a covert meeting with the illicit man she holds blackmail over, none other than the Chief who gave Debra the job. Whoops. On a whole, this situation feels like a sadly deprived way to keep LaGuerta in business -- certainly not relevant, as she continues on the same path she's always held, one of arrogance and holding secrets over other people's heads. Sullying the one person who was above her feels like a possibly cheap way to advance her, as she was already promoted once on dirty information from the same plentiful source.
Meanwhile, Dexter continues to follow his own leads, including a rather overly suitable comment that he's pulling against his own team -- you're a little late to that realization, Dexter. Your entire existence has been to try and cheat the police out of their arrests so that you can have the pleasure of a kill and feel better about yourself, while leaving them in the professional lurch. Gellar's no different, but he acts as though he were. This, in some way, to endear us to his quest to help the unfortunate Travis. So, he visits upon the good Professor Casey, famed atheist, and tries to warn him he's in danger. No dice.
Deciding to be proactive, Dexter brings Travis to the school and they stakeout until Travis sees Gellar entering the building. Dexter tells Travis to hold the stairs while he takes the elevator to cut Gellar off, only to have it grind to a halt less conveniently in-between floors. Being a ninja, Dexter is only slightly put-off. But as he gets to the upper doors, Travis pries them open and they search the office only to find that Gellar has already gotten to Casey. And another one bites the dust.
Despairing that this is his fault, Travis seems to have lost most of his steam, which Dexter reignites by telling him to reach out to Gellar on his blog, pretending to be repentant so they can lure Gellar in. Too late, though, to save Casey, when Dexter is called to the scene where the professor's body lies on the very stage he taught upon. One hand is missing, and so is everything inside. As Dexter raises his eyes to the heavens, Masuka raises the stumpy arm -- triggering the buckets above which overturn, raining blood and manly professor guts down upon the detectives. Drenched in an innocent man's blood, Dexter makes a rare messy figure, drenched in the liquid of his profession, but sneering -- seeing, as you will, red. He promises wrath on Gellar, and we believe him.
Meanwhile-meanwhile, things are heating up for Louis, the tall nerdy intern, when he resolves to bring hot Jamie home to show her his collection -- and then his bedroom. And the audience gets to see his prized Ice Truck Killer hand. And the impression of Aimee Garcia's naked legs.
Debra goes straight to the one person she thinks she can talk to -- her therapist -- to talk about what just happened. Does this woman have no other patients? They discuss Debra's trend of bad decisions when it comes to relationships, notably not bringing up the latest and greatest, Quinn, whose brutal fist-match with Angel has been left with less resolution. These therapist visits are clearly leaving quite an impression on the young lieutenant, who greets Dexter's next attempt to ask her how she's doing with a snarky comment and a nice view of her back. Even though the therapist was talking about Debra's romantic relationships being unhealthy and changeable, she seems to continue to inspire sister and brother to connect less and less, a depressing venture when it was the one relationship always able to bring around Dexter's lament for real human emotions. Now, he swears in the name of Harrison.
It's this Harrison that he claims to be working for, when his Obi-Wan-Kenobi vision of his father questions him at the church later. "I want to be better", Dexter claims. Not a better person, which he believes to be beyond his grasp, but a better father. Dexter, my friend, we're not sure those two things are mutually exclusive.
This confrontation is thanks to Travis waking up from a fretful sleep to find that Gellar has written "BRING THE FALSE PROPHET TO THE CHURCH" on the bathroom wall in blood, and lent him a hand. Travis calls Dexter, telling him that the message came from the blog. Once at the church, Dexter tells Travis to go in first. He does, confronting Gellar whose menacing comments about second chances and repentance do not bode well for the tearful Travis. Stepping into Gellar's out-stretched grasp seems to spell no more than his doom -- one that would wreak a grave unhappiness in Dexter, as he relies on Travis to prove that second chances away from Dark Passengers is possible. But when he stalks into the church, neither man is anywhere in sight. He eventually spots Travis on the ground, still breathing, but out of it. A search for Gellar shows him a secret door in the floor under the altar table, and Dexter descends.
He finds a basement, filled with trinkets. And a giant freezer. And in the freezer is Gellar's long dead and respectfully preserved body. Above, Travis' eyes open. Dexter comes to the heavy conclusion that Gellar is dead, has always been dead, and it's Travis who's been killing all along: he's made a "grave mistake". Dexter runs to the passage entrance to see his nemesis there -- for, truly now, Travis and Dexter are equals, haunted both by Dark Passengers and father figures who appear to them as if real. Only Travis' two figures are the same, leading him astray in a darker code than Dexter's attempt towards the light. As the episode closes, Dexter will find himself with a hard purpose: stop Travis, who he put so much stock in saving.
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