Episode 108: Shrink Wrap

Shrink Wrap is the eighth of twelve episodes in Season One of the Showtime series DEXTER, and the eighth overall episode in the series. It first aired 19 November 2006.

Dexter enters therapy with a psychiatrist, Dr. Emmett Meridian, who he suspects is a murderer.

Summary
Dexter Morgan becomes suspicious when he discerns a pattern of recent deaths of powerful women by suicide. He discovers that all the women have consulted the same therapist, Dr. Emmett Meridian, so Dexter visits him under the pseudonym "Sean Ellis." The therapist actually helps Dexter with his intimacy issues, enabling him to have sex with Rita.

During his therapy appointment, Dexter notes that the therapist is surreptitiously recording his sessions. At night, Dexter breaks into the therapist's office, erases the video of his session, and reviews the videos of the sessions of the dead women, discovering that the therapist has used both drugs and psychology to induce them to commit suicide. Dexter books another appointment as Sean, confronts and subdues the shrink, and kills him.

Perry confesses that he is not The Ice Truck Killer after he freaks out at the sight of a severed head. Dexter sends the real Ice Truck Killer a message via Craig's List.

Dexter's sister, Debra, brings her relationship with the prosthetist, Rudy Cooper into the open. Rudy is revealed as the Ice Truck Killer when he responds to Dexter's message online and then walks into his freezer of sliced body parts and Barbie doll.

Quotes

 * I can't have sex with Rita. Every time I sleep with a woman, she sees me for what I really am -- empty -- and then she's gone. But I don't want Rita to go. -Dexter to himself

Trivia

 * Dexter strangles Dr. Meridian with a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu move known as "Lion Killer."
 * Rudy Cooper is revealed as the Ice Truck Killer by being shown working on a dead body in a laboratory. The fate of this person is never revealed nor the body left for discovery. The only body that is presented after this was of a hooker that Detective Batista interviewed.

Goofs

 * Dr. Meridian is described as a psychiatrist, and his clients ask him for prescriptions. When Dexter finds his name in the victim's files, he's listed as "Emmett Meridian, PhD." Psychiatrists are MD's; a PhD would make Meridian a psychologist, and unable to prescribe medication.
 * When Rudy reads Dexter's craigslist ad the e-mail to respond to is frozenbarbie@hotmail.web, but he replies to frozenbarbie@hotmail.com.
 * The camera crew is reflected in the side of the minivan when Dexter goes to help the guy pick up his dropped cantaloupe.
 * When Dexter cuts Dr. Meridian's cheek, he takes a sample of blood with a pipette. When he does this, there is a small amount of blood in the pipette; in the next shot, the pipette is fairly full.

Related Pages

 * Blood Slide Boxes
 * Brian Moser's Residence
 * Code of Harry
 * Miami
 * Dexter's Apartment
 * Harry Morgan's House
 * Ice Truck Killer Case
 * Kill Tools
 * Rita Bennett's House
 * Shipping Yard Massacre
 * Slice of Life 

Gallery
Shrink Wrap