Episode 410: Lost Boys

Lost Boys is the tenth of twelve episodes in Season Four of the Showtime series DEXTER, and the forty-sixth overall episode of the series. It first aired 26 November 2009.

The disappearance of a ten-year-old boy forces Dexter to question his assumptions about Trinity, while Cody defends one of Dexter's lies and Masuka is unable to face what he witnessed on Thanksgiving.

Summary
Rita is holding baby Harrison as Dexter sits next to them in the doctor’s office. Harrison won’t stop crying and he is about to receive four booster shots. Rita tries unsuccessfully to calm the baby. Dexter, speaking to Harrison, says, “A little pain now means a lot less later on.” He thinks of his own dilemma and regrets not killing Arthur when he had several chances to do it.

Instead of the backyard shed, Dexter is keeping his kill tools and blood slides inside of a shipping container at Miami Shores Storage. He thinks it’s appropriate because his dark passenger was born inside a shipping container. This is the night he is finally going to kill Arthur and he retrieves his knives. Dexter has learned Arthur’s schedule, so he expects him to go to choir practice, where he plans to capture him in the parking lot. To his surprise, Arthur drives on by the church.

Dexter follows Arthur to a parking garage where they park their vehicles some distance apart. Both Dexter and Arthur notice a babysitter leading a boy and a girl into an arcade. After Arthur memorizes family names from stickers on their SUV, he begins to stalk them. Dexter assumes the young woman must be his target. He wonders if by saving Arthur’s life, he’s responsible for Arthur starting another kill cycle. The arcade is crowded, and Dexter soon loses sight of Arthur. Alarmed, Dexter quickly begins to search for him.

Meanwhile, the little boy (Scott Smith) is playing an arcade game. Arthur approaches Scott, flashes a badge, and lies that his parents have been in a car accident. He tells Scott that he must go with him to the hospital, with assurances that his partner already has his sister in the patrol car. Scott believes Arthur and accompanies him to the parking garage.

Dexter finally locates Arthur as he’s leading Scott to his van. He realizes that Arthur wasn’t after the young woman, but the little boy. When Scott balks at getting into the van, Arthur chloroforms him. Dexter screams “Arthur!” and sprints after him as Arthur jumps into the van and squeals out of the garage. Immediately, Dexter turns around and runs back to his car, where his phone rings. It’s Arthur, who doesn’t like being followed. He tells “Kyle” that he will preserve Scott’s “innocence,” but if he sees a police car, he’ll kill the boy. Arthur says that. as long as his process is followed, he’ll set the boy free. However, Dexter is certain that Arthur is going to kill the boy, regardless. He’s never known of Arthur taking a child before, so he wonders if it’s something new.

Unable to follow Arthur, Dexter goes to Arthur’s house and finds Jonah home alone. Jonah says his father is at “some teaching thing up in Naples” and will be there for a couple of days. This hopefully gives Dexter some time before Arthur kills the boy. Vera’s urn has been restored, but Jonah’s finger is still bandaged. Dexter pressures Jonah to help him stop Arthur from “doing something really wrong.” Jonah, though, is reluctant to look through Arthur’s desk, journals, and computer, stating that his father would kill him. Suddenly, Sally’s car pulls into the driveway and Dexter disappears.

Scott wakes up in a dim underground bomb shelter, furnished with bunk beds, a table, and shelves, but not much else. Arthur is setting up a model train set on the floor. He asks Scott, whom he calls “Arthur,” if he likes trains. Arthur starts the train and watches it with childish glee, making sound effects as it loops around the track. Scott retreats into the bottom bunk.

Back at home, Dexter suspects that Arthur’s ritual was born in the past, like his own. He searches online for missing boys, and discovers that a ten-year-old boy disappeared in New Orleans five days before a young New Orleans woman was found dead in her bathtub. He continues to find missing boys of the right age in Omaha, St. Paul, and Denver -- always five days before a bathtub murder. Dexter suspects that a bathtub victim represents his sister; a jumper is his mother; and the bludgeoned is his father. This means the boy must be Arthur himself, since he was ten years old when his sister died and his own “innocence” was destroyed. Dexter now realizes that Arthur leaves behind four victims, not three. Missing children are never reported as homicides, so Lundy misread the pattern. After Dexter confirms that a ten-year-old boy, Christopher Kavanaugh, went missing in Miami five days before Lisa Bell’s murder, he’s certain that a boy is the first victim in a cycle.

Just then, Rita turns on the light and Dexter says he’s working late, which she accepts. She tells Dexter that Harrison can’t sleep, so she’s going to keep him in their bed that night. He promises he’ll be there in a second.

At work the next day, Dexter’s hair is a mess and he’s pounding back coffee as he contemplates the day’s blaring headline: Miami Boy Missing. There’s a knock at the door and a patrol cop named Gordy enters the lab. Dexter lies that he dinged a parked van the day before and having recently totaled his car, he doesn’t want to involve the insurance companies. Dexter claims he left a note on the van, but hasn’t heard back, and would like Gordy to keep an eye out for the guy so he can pay him in cash. Gordy agrees and asks for the plate number.

Meanwhile, Masuka is blocking Debra from entering Dexter’s office. He insists he’s next because he needs to talk to Dexter about something he saw on Thanksgiving. However, Debra ignores Masuka and walks in first as soon as Gordy leaves. Dexter is in a rush to leave for “field work” but Debra won’t let him until she talks about her upcoming interview with Christine Hill. When Debra asks if she should give Quinn a heads-up, Dexter adamantly says she shouldn’t as Quinn’s loyalties are questionable.

Next, Dexter attends a briefing in which he throws doubt on Debra’s theory that Trinity is in the school system. Nevertheless, LaGuerta approves mouth swabs at a few schools, causing Masuka to comment, “Oh, wonderful. More old man spit.” LaGuerta also demands that Dexter hurry with blood work on a bar stabbing. Last, Angel admits to having no significant developments for the Frank Lundy Murder Case.

As soon as the briefing is over, Dexter almost runs to the elevator. He is so eager to avoid Masuka (who wants to tell Dexter about Rita and Elliot kissing), that he takes the stairs. As Angel and LaGuerta walk out together, Angel asks her to authorize a requisition (actually a Thai menu), and suggests they hop on a plane to an island. She laughs.

Quinn and Debra are discussing mouth swabs when Christine interrupts them, ready for the interview. Debra directs Quinn to lead Christine to “the box” because she’s forgotten to run something by Angel -- which is true. She asks Angel to watch the interview, saying it could concern the Lundy shooting.

In the fallout shelter, Arthur is playing with the model train. Scott is hungry, but Arthur won’t feed him until he puts on a pair of cowboy pajamas that are on the bed. Scott stubbornly refuses to comply. Arthur crouches next to him, holding tiny plastic models of a man and woman. “Don’t you understand?” he says. “Father drinks, and mother pays the price. I’m just trying to protect you, Arthur.” Scott angrily insists that his name is Scott. Arthur calmly replies, “Very well.” Then he walks up the stairs; opens a door at the top, letting in the sunshine; and closes it behind him.

Dexter is at Scott’s house, offering his unofficial services to help find the boy. He surveys the crying babysitter and Scott’s mother, as she comforts her frightened daughter. The father hands Dexter a stack of flyers and says they have received no tips or found no leads. As Dexter is leaving, a man by the door asks him if he can imagine not knowing where his child is; Dexter can’t. In the car, Dexter concludes that Four Walls build sites are the perfect places to bury kids where they won’t be found. He thinks Arthur may be holding Scott captive at one of them.

Christine interviews Debra in the interrogation room. She asks Debra why she’s working in Homicide, after three years on patrol and two years in Vice. Debra says her father was a detective in Homicide, but police work was a different game back then -- less forensics, more reliance on gut feeling. Listening, Angel states, “Amen.” Debra brings out photos of Lundy’s corpse. She tells Christine that forensics are a dead end, so she just stares at the photos, looking for answers. Abruptly, Christine ends the interview, claiming to have enough background info. “Sure,” says Debra, with a slight smirk. She then brings up the fact that Christine lives in Coral Gables, away from “all that touristy stuff.” The Gables is a sixty-minute drive from Lundy’s hotel, so Debra asks how she got to the crime scene so fast, since the call went out at 5:05 a.m. and Christine was the first reporter there at 5:20 a.m. Christine explains that she was on her way to the gym because she likes to get there early. Angel doesn’t buy that, and neither does Debra. At the door, Christine asks, “How do I get out of here?” Debra gives her directions, while smiling knowingly.

Debra and Angel, meeting behind closed doors, agree they must tread lightly. Angel says Christine showed up at the crime scene with her hair and makeup fully done, which casts doubt on her gym story. Debra is curious why a “hard-boiled crime-scene reporter” couldn’t look at the photos of Lundy’s body. She says her radar was tripped when Christine mentioned how she was looking into Lundy’s eyes as he died. Just then, Quinn opens the door with a DNA-sweep update. Awkwardly, they tell him they’ll be right there. He seems aware they want to talk privately and closes the door. Angel and Debra resolve to never talk about their suspicions of Christine with Quinn around.

Donned in his kill outfit, Dexter is at the Four Walls build. He paces through the almost-finished house but finds nothing, and loudly curses. Jonah calls to say he’s found nothing of interest in his dad’s desk. Dexter asks him to check the computer’s search history. Jonah only finds “school stuff,” “Bible stuff,” a hardware store, a real estate agency, and the local paper.“ Dexter inquires about the real estate agency, and Jonah says it’s a list of homes for sale. He offers to e-mail the listings, but “Kyle Butler” doesn’t have e-mail. “Who doesn’t have e-mail?” Jonah asks, incredulous. Dexter instructs Jonah to fax the list to the Kinko’s near his house.. Before he hangs up, Jonah asks Dexter how he can see Arthur for what he really is. Dexter just says they “have a few things in common.”

Rita is waiting in the car outside Cody’s school when a brawl erupts among the children. They chant, “Fight! Fight!” as Rita runs to the school, where she finds Cody fighting with another boy. The other kid’s mother pulls them apart, as Rita grabs Cody and asks what he was thinking. The boy says he saw Dexter leave the Young Sailors campout “because he was scared.” This angered Cody. Rita tries to smooth things over, but the other mother believes her son’s story.

Ominously, Arthur is loading bags of cement mix into the back of his van. Christine calls and says she really needs to see him. Arthur replies that they just did, on Thanksgiving night. Christine tells him that she can’t wait another four months until her birthday. Arthur says they only meet twice a year because he has a full life, and his family needs him. On the verge of tears, Christine pleads, “I’m your family too. I need you. More than they do.” Unmoved, Arthur says it will have to wait and hangs up, Christine breathes, “I think I’m in trouble,” and starts to cry.

Arthur re-enters the bomb shelter with burgers, fries, and sodas in a cardboard tray, and kicks the dust off his shoes. Scott asks if he can go now. “In due time, Arthur,” says Arthur, as he plays a 1950s-era song on an ancient record player. He tells a very hungry Scott that he can eat once he puts on his pajamas. He then takes a big bite out of one of the burgers, remarking that it’s delicious. This wears down Scott’s resistance and he slips on the cowboy pajamas over his t-shirt and shorts.

Dexter is spending the evening checking houses on Jonah’s list, but cannot find Scott. At one of the houses, when he looks through a window, he see a couple having sex. Dexter is nearly finished when he’s summoned by Rita to return home because Harrison has a fever. On the way back, Dexter stops at one last house. It’s rooms are empty but then he looks down into the basement. Standing at the foot of the stairs, he sees the silhouette of a young boy. Dexter whispers hopefully, “Scott? Scott Smith?” A bedraggled woman holding a toddler appears. With desperation in her voice, she says, “Me and my kids got nowhere else to be. My babies just need a place to feel safe at night. We don't make a mess or nothin'. You ain't gonna tell?” Dexter assures her that he won’t.

At home, Dexter explains his lateness by “helping out with that missing boy,” which isn’t a lie. “Those poor parents,” Rita sighs. She tells Dexter that Paul’s parents want to take Astor and Cody to Disney World. He asks if that’s a good idea, but she says they’re nothing like Paul. Dexter notices Cody’s black eye, and Rita explains that Cody was defending his honor at school. Dexter again lies, saying, “The only time I left my tent that night was to find a tree.” Cody no longer wants to be a part of the Young Sailor group, because he doesn’t want to be around someone who tells lies. Too late, Dexter thinks. When he takes the baby’s temperature, it reads 101 degrees. Rita asks him to give the baby a sponge bath.

To avoid Quinn, Debra and Angel are discussing the shooting at her apartment. Angel suggests that Christine may be covering for a source. Debra, thinking outside the box, says Christine is the same height as the shooter. Taken aback, Angel asks why would Christine shoot Lundy, but Debra has no idea. She’s already run Christine’s prints (lifted from the photos she touched) but found no record. Angel points out that maybe she’s just never been caught. They decide to get her DNA, somehow.

Harrison splashes the water as Dexter bathes him in a little blue plastic tub. Dexter mulls how Rita and Cody have been drawn into defending his lie. He realizes that Arthur’s not the only one using his family as human shields.

Debra is at Quinn’s apartment and he’s angrily yelling that there’s no way Christine is connected to the shooting. He accuses Debra of a “Morgan vendetta” against him, and she asks why Dexter would have anything to do with this. Debra begs for his help, saying that she has a hunch, and he should know what that’s like. She assures Quinn that only Angel knows about her suspicions. Debra then asks for Christine’s toothbrush. “When the results come back clean,” she says, “you can shove this up my ass anytime you want.”

Debra hands over Christine’s toothbrush to Masuka, who’s working late and would rather be watching “Project Runway.” He agrees to run the DNA, but Debra won’t say who it belongs to, except that it might be a lead on the Lundy case.

Early next morning, Dexter is still surveying houses, with six down and eight to go. LaGuerta calls, asking where the hell he is because she still needs the bar shooting blood report. Dexter blames traffic and says he’s on his way.

Quinn is shaving as he stands next to Christine at his bathroom mirror. He brings up her plans for Christmas as a pretext to ask about her family. She wants to spend it with him and says she isn’t close with her family. When Quinn remarks that she never talks about them, she changes the subject to her missing toothbrush. He blames it on the cleaning lady and gives her a brand new one. When she starts untying his bathrobe, he tells her “now’s not a good time.” “Well maybe it’s a good time for me,” she replies angrily. “You ever consider that?” Christine asks if Debra has said anything about her, adding that she’s going to ditch the article because of a “shitty interview.” She then states that she’s late for work and leaves, as Quinn wonders if Debra is right.

In her car, Christine’s on the phone to Daddy again. She says they might be in trouble and they need to talk about “that woman in the bathtub that night when I was little.”

In the fallout shelter, the model train is still looping around its miniature track while Arthur asks Scott what they should name the station. Scott asks why he can’t go home, but Arthur ignores him. In frustration, Scott kicks the train off the track. Before Arthur can react, the song “Venus” starts playing on the record player. Turning sad, Arthur starts to sing along. He begins to cry and Scott asks what’s wrong. Arthur says it was Vera’s favorite song, and keeps repeating that it wasn't his fault that she died. Scott moves closer to Arthur. He says he’s sorry about Arthur’s sister and if it makes him feel any better, he can call him Arthur. Arthur appears touched. In a conciliatory tone, Scott suggests they play the trains a little more, and afterward Arthur can take him home. “You’re a dear boy, Arthur,” says Arthur. “So innocent. Kind-hearted. Promise me you’ll always stay that way.” “Sure,” says Scott. Arthur offers the boy some ice cream. He takes a small plastic cup of vanilla from a freezer, and mixes in a capsule of white powder. Arthur tells Scott that once he’s finished, he’ll let him go free. Convinced by Arthur’s act, Scott smiles and begins to eat the ice cream.

At the station, Dexter calls the real estate agent to find out which homes are vacant. He gives LaGuerta the long-awaited blood report. Gordy informs Dexter that the van has been spotted at a diner on Flagler and Fourth. It’s good news for Dexter since it will narrow down his search considerably. He checks maps online and finds four listings in the area, with two within a mile. He grabs his bag.

On his way out, Masuka and Debra try to flag Dexter down. He ignores Masuka, but Debra follows him to the elevator. He says he needs to be in two places at once. Quinn rounds a corner and throws Debra a dirty look. She tells Dexter that she’s half out of her mind with the Trinity Case. Suddenly, a perky voice calls out, “Debra Morgan!” It’s Valerie Hodges, Harry’s old C.I. “fuck buddy.” Valerie waves at her enthusiastically. As Dexter ducks into the elevator. Valerie apologizes to Debra for the things she said about Harry. She admits that it was because she’s still hurt from Harry dumping her for another C.I. She doesn’t remember the woman’s name, but thinks she will remember her, because she caused a scene at her house. Just then, Masuka slams his fist on the glass partition, holding some papers and looking shocked. “I’ll call you,” Debra tells Valerie, and goes to see what’s up.

As Angel and LaGuerta are walking to the elevator, he asks to pick her up later and share a bottle of wine. Debra and Vince catch up to them with jaw-dropping news: Christine and Trinity are related.

Dexter barges into yet another empty house, and fails to find a basement or any secret hiding place. In the backyard, he finally has luck when he discovers an underground bomb shelter, built during the 1960s Cuban missile crisis. Dexter climbs down the stairs and realizes it’s Arthur’s hiding place. The model train is still set up on the floor and the record player is also there. Dexter notices the empty ice cream cup and is annoyed that he just missed them.

Arthur is meeting with his panicked eldest daughter in a parking garage. Christine tells him that when she was five years old, she saw him kill a woman in a bathtub. (She was supposed to be waiting in the car.) She thought it was a dream until it happened again in the same house thirty years later.

Meanwhile, Dexter ransacks the bomb shelter looking for clues, wishing he’d figured this out in time. Dexter can’t help imagining if it was Harrison or Cody? He’s a father now and his priorities have changed.

Christine takes out a bunch of postcards from her purse. They’re from her father, and each one was sent from a place and time where a woman was murdered in a bathtub. She explains why she wanted to meet with him. Lundy was getting close, so she got involved with someone in the homicide department so she’d know what they knew. She began to follow Lundy and saw him bump into Arthur at the plaza. To protect her father, she shot Lundy and made it look like a Vacation Murder. Until recently, the police had no idea, but now they’re starting to ask questions. Appalled, Arthur turns away. He then puts on a loving-father face, and turns back to his daughter with a smile. Christine whimpers and looks at him fearfully. “You put yourself at risk for me,” he says gently. She cries, “I’d do anything for you. More than your other kids. They would never do what I did for you.” Arthur promises to protect Christine and says that she’s always been special to him. He kisses her on the forehead, hugs her, and tells her to go home. He promises to come over that night and they’ll figure it out. After he gets into his van, he waits until she’s gone before he pounds the steering wheel and screams, “Stupid fucking cunt!”

Dexter is still in the bomb shelter, without a clue, when he sees the dust on the floor where Arthur kicked it off his shoes. He drips a little water on it and it turns into wet cement. He realizes that Arthur encases the boys to preserve them forever. Dexter runs up the stairs.

At the Four Walls site, Arthur is zipping Scott into a bag next to a pit of wet cement. Dexter appears and says. “Burying a child in cement. That’s not very Christian.” Arthur forbids him to come any closer, and Dexter guesses that Scott is still alive. Arthur insists that he needs to do this, but Dexter can’t walk away. The bag slides into the cement as the two men begin to battle. Dexter lands a blow with a shovel to Arthur’s head, and he falls to the ground. Dexter quickly pulls Scott out of the pit. He is unconscious, but alive. Arthur, though, has escaped.

Christine is pacing in her living room when there’s a knock on the door. She reacts with relief, but it isn’t Daddy. It’s Angel, Debra, Quinn, and a uniformed police officer. Angel leads her to the elevator, as she looks over her shoulder at Quinn. When Debra tries to comfort Quinn, he walks away from her.

Dexter arrives home to find Rita on the couch, still awake. She knows from the news that Scott has been found, but nobody said what happened. The house is completely quiet, until Rita mentions it. Then Harrison begins to cry. Dexter goes to soothe him, assuring Rita that he wants to. Harrison calms down when Dexter picks him. He promises his son that no one will ever hurt him again -- “Especially me.”

Quotes

 * A hypodermic needle. The perfect drug-delivery system. Rapid, efficient. Especially in the right hands. - Dexter to himself, during Harrison's vaccination
 * I didn’t remember what happened to me as a child… until I was forced to. - Dexter to himself

Trivia

 * "Lost Boys" refers to the revelation that Trinity actually has four kills in his cycle, with the newly discovered kill being a little boy, meant to represent Arthur himself.
 * The original Lost Boys lived with Peter Pan in Neverland in the 1904 play by J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up. In the play, the Lost Boys had literally been lost or misplaced by their parents.
 * It's revealed that Vera Mitchell's favorite song is "Venus" (1959) by Frankie Avalon. Another song that Arthur plays is "Tell Me That You Care" (1959) by Jodie Victor.

Related Pages

 * Arthur Mitchell's House
 * Charles MacLay Elementary School
 * Christine Hill's Apartment
 * Fallout Shelter
 * Four Walls One Heart
 * Frank Lundy Murder Case
 * Kyle Butler (alias)
 * Miami Shores Storage
 * Rita and Dexter's House
 * Trinity Case

Gallery
Lost Boys