The Dark Defender
Tags: murder

Plot synopsis:
While drinking coffee with his sister Debra, Dexter is called to a murder scene at a comic book store. Talking to a witness about the victim, a shopkeeper who had been bludgeoned to the head with a snow globe, he sees a poster of The Dark Defender, a vigilante killer based on the Bay Harbor Butcher. Later, at a Narcotics Anonymous meeting, Dexter falls asleep and dreams about the death of his mother, Laura Moser (Katherine Kirkpatrick). In the dream, he enters the cargo container where she was killed, dressed in The Dark Defender's cloak, and beats his mother's murderers to the ground, saving her. When he tells his sponsor Lila about his dream, she tells him that he must confront them to seek closure. He and Lila travel to Naples, Florida where one of the three men, Santos Jimenez, is alive and running a tavern. Having been warned by his girlfriend Rita Bennett's mother Gail (JoBeth Williams) to leave Rita (Julie Benz) and her children alone, Dexter tells Rita that he is going away while Gail is visiting. Leaving Lila in their motel room, he goes to Jimenez's bar and waits until all of the patrons have left. Dexter tries to explain to Jimenez how he feels, but Jimenez takes out a baseball bat and threatens to beat him. In response, Dexter disarms and brutally beats him, revealing his past to Jimenez as one of the boys he left in his mother's blood. Jimenez tells Dexter that his mother was killed because she was not only a narcotics informant to Harry Morgan (James Remar)—Dexter's adoptive father and a police officer—but also his lover. Dexter punches Jimenez and is close to killing him when Lila phones and he tells her that he is about to "use". Thinking that he is about to use drugs, she urges him not to go any further, because "using" will only leave him empty and alone inside. He returns to the motel, leaving Jimenez unconscious in the bar, and falls asleep in Lila's lap, distraught and completely drained.
When the morning comes, Lila tells Dexter of why she went into rehab. She had been dating a man who introduced her to methamphetamine, a drug that she became very addicted to. But when her boyfriend broke up with her, Lila set his former house on fire after getting high. But later on, she would find out that her boyfriend was squatting inside the house, and had been burned alive. Dexter asks her if she thinks that he was bad and deserved to die, something that Lila silently agrees to. Comforting her now, Dexter tells her "It's okay then."
Debra is insecure in her relationship with Gabriel because her ex-fiancé Brian Moser, the "Ice Truck Killer", kidnapped and tried to kill her. When she looks through Gabriel's e-mail, she sees that he has sent a book titled The Ice Princess to a number of publishers. She assumes that the book is about her and angrily breaks up with him. Discussing the break-up with FBI Special Agent Frank Lundy (Keith Carradine), he gives her the background check that he had run on Gabriel, revealing that Gabriel is a children's writer, and Debra realizes that The Ice Princess is a children's book.
When Dexter visits Rita the next morning, Gail—who suspects that he is hiding something—announces that she will be staying in Miami and will live with Rita. Dexter realizes that he must protect his secrets, so he begins by cleaning his boat that night with a black light to detect any blood. He is unaware that the marina is being videotaped by the Miami-Metro Police, who believe that the Bay Harbor Butcher may be keeping his boat at that marina.