Seeing Red (Dexter)
Encyclopedia
"Seeing Red" is the tenth episode of the first season
of the American television drama series Dexter
, which first aired on December 3, 2006 on Showtime in the United States
. The episode was written by Kevin R. Maynard and was directed by Michael Cuesta
. In the episode, the Miami Metro Homicide Department team investigate a blood-soaked crime scene, where blood spatter analyst Dexter Morgan
(Michael C. Hall
) is confronted by a repressed memory of a traumatic incident from his childhood. Meanwhile, Dexter's girlfriend Rita Bennett
(Julie Benz
) is charged with assaulting her ex-husband Paul Bennett (Mark Pellegrino
) and risks losing custody of their children, while Det. Angel Batista
(David Zayas
) investigates a hunch that the Ice Truck Killer has an amputee fetish.
Scenes for "Seeing Red" were shot at several locations around Long Beach, California
. Particular attention was paid to the cinematography and filming of the sequence of Dexter's flashbacks to make them feel like "fragments of memory". The episode received positive reviews from critics, with particular mention made to the scene in which Dexter hits Rita's ex-husband, Paul, in the head with a frying pan because of his threats about the lengths he will go to in order to protect his children.
(Erik King
) and Debra Morgan
(Jennifer Carpenter
) visit the hotel, where they find a room completely covered in blood. Dexter is sent in first to investigate, but seeing the blood-covered room brings back a repressed memory
from his childhood— Dexter at three years old sitting in a pool of blood—and he collapses and runs from the room. The forensics team surmises that the blood in the hotel room came from at least five different bodies, although none were in the room. Since there were only one set of footprints in the room, they assume that the victims were killed elsewhere and their blood spread around the room by the killer. Debra suggests that the Ice Truck Killer, who had five bloodless victims, may have been responsible.
Angel finds that he cannot stop talking about his divorce when trying to meet new women at a bar. After he meets a woman recovering from her own divorce, though, he has to leave her to speak to a prostitute whom he sees across the room with a prosthetic hand and fingernails painted in the same way as the Ice Truck Killer's first victim. Working on a hunch that the Ice Truck Killer is an acrotomophiliac, Angel decides to speak to Debra's boyfriend Rudy Cooper (Christian Camargo
), a prosthetics specialist who, unbeknownst to any of the department, is actually the Ice Truck Killer. Rudy cooperates with the interview but gives Angel no helpful clues, and Angel is later stabbed in a parking lot.
Rita finds out from a county sheriff that Paul, her abusive ex-husband who attacked her the night before, is pressing charges against her for assault. She talks with a lawyer, who tells her that since she invited Paul into her house, she cannot prove that her intent was to defuse the situation. At a hearing, it is revealed that Rita violated her and Paul's custody agreement, making Paul's case against her even stronger. When Paul drops by Rita's house to return their children, he threatens Dexter when the two are alone in the kitchen, and Dexter responds by hitting him with a frying pan. Paul loses consciousness, so Dexter drives his body back to Paul's hotel and frames him for drug abuse. Dexter alerts the police and Paul is sent back to prison.
With encouragement from Rudy, Dexter decides to dig up his repressed memory rather than avoid it. He returns to the bloody hotel room, where he relives the memory, which he realizes was of the murder of his mother, right in front of him, when he was three.
urged the mother of his son's friend not to let her son audition to play a young Dexter, who is filmed sitting in a pool of blood. Erik King found the shot of the boy crying in the blood to be the creepiest moment of the first season. He described it as "very uncomfortable to watch, even when you know it's not real and you know these kids are actors." Cinematographer Romeo Tirone tightened the camera's shutter angle when filming these scenes to make them "feel like fragments of memory - subjective, with tight close-ups against an indistinct background. You don't see all the details of the environment." Series director Keith Gordon
found these flashbacks "incredible" because he thought they were "like a Stanley Kubrick
movie".
Several scenes from the episode were filmed on September 28, 2006 with a crew of 200 people in Long Beach, California
at the Seaport Marina Hotel, along the Pacific Coast Highway
, and on San Anseline Avenue. The Seaport Marina Hotel was used as the setting for Paul's motel, while a house on San Anseline Avenue was used as Rita's house.
reviewed "Seeing Red" warmly and gave the episode an "Outstanding" rating of 9.0/10. He thought that the scene wherein Dexter hits Paul was "one of the most jaw-dropping, intense scenes yet", and he liked that Angel's "seeming separate" subplot was well-linked to the main plotline of the episode. He noted the "fascinating dynamic" between Dexter and Rudy, sensing "interesting psycho-sexual undercurrents" developing. TV Guide
Paula Paige felt that "Seeing Red" proved that each episode of Dexter was a constant improvement on the last. She enjoyed Dexter's manipulation by Rudy and found his solution to Paul's threats "perfect". Jonathan Toomey of TV Squad wrote that he was "in awe" of the episode. He was particularly impressed with Dexter's choice to frame Paul rather than kill him, and a minor storyline involving Lt. María LaGuerta
(Lauren Vélez
) and her betrayal of her superior, Capt. Tom Matthews (Geoff Pierson
).
Dexter (season 1)
The first season of Dexter is an adaptation of Jeff Lindsay's first novel in the Dexter series, Darkly Dreaming Dexter. Subsequent seasons have featured original storylines. This season aired from October 1, 2006 to December 17, 2006, and follows Dexter's investigation of "The Ice Truck Killer"...
of the American television drama series Dexter
Dexter (TV series)
Dexter is an American television drama series, which debuted on Showtime on October 1, 2006. The sixth season premiered on October 2, 2011. The series centers on Dexter Morgan , a bloodstain pattern analyst for the Miami Metro Police Department who moonlights as a serial killer...
, which first aired on December 3, 2006 on Showtime in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. The episode was written by Kevin R. Maynard and was directed by Michael Cuesta
Michael Cuesta
Michael Cuesta is an American film and television director. Cuesta co-wrote and directed the 2001 independent film, L.I.E.. He has directed and produced television series including Six Feet Under, Dexter and Blue Bloods.-Biography:He received a BFA in photography from the School of Visual Arts in...
. In the episode, the Miami Metro Homicide Department team investigate a blood-soaked crime scene, where blood spatter analyst Dexter Morgan
Dexter Morgan
Dexter Morgan is a fictional character in a series of novels by Jeff Lindsay, including Darkly Dreaming Dexter , Dearly Devoted Dexter , Dexter in the Dark , Dexter by Design , Dexter is Delicious and Double Dexter...
(Michael C. Hall
Michael C. Hall
Michael Carlyle Hall is an American actor whose television roles include David Fisher on the HBO drama series Six Feet Under and Dexter Morgan on the Showtime series Dexter. In 2009, Hall won a Golden Globe award and a Screen Actors Guild Award for his role in Dexter.-Early life:Hall was born in...
) is confronted by a repressed memory of a traumatic incident from his childhood. Meanwhile, Dexter's girlfriend Rita Bennett
Rita Bennett
Rita Bennett is a fictional character created by Jeff Lindsay for his book series about a vigilante serial killer named Dexter Morgan. She also appeared in the television series Dexter, based on Lindsay's books. She was the girlfriend and later, wife of Dexter in both media...
(Julie Benz
Julie Benz
Julie M. Benz is an American actress, best known for her roles as Darla on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel and as Rita Bennett on Dexter, for which she won the 2006 Satellite Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role in a Series, Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television...
) is charged with assaulting her ex-husband Paul Bennett (Mark Pellegrino
Mark Pellegrino
Mark Ross Pellegrino is an American actor of film and television. He is best known for his work on Lost as Jacob and for playing Lucifer on Supernatural.-Career:...
) and risks losing custody of their children, while Det. Angel Batista
Angel Batista
Detective Sergeant Ángel Juan Marcos Batista is a fictional character in the Showtime television series Dexter and the novels by Jeff Lindsay upon which it is based.-Character biography:...
(David Zayas
David Zayas
David Zayas is a Puerto Rican theatrical, film, and television actor. He is most known for his roles as Angel Batista on Showtime's series Dexter and as Enrique Morales on the HBO prison drama Oz.- Life and career :...
) investigates a hunch that the Ice Truck Killer has an amputee fetish.
Scenes for "Seeing Red" were shot at several locations around Long Beach, California
Long Beach, California
Long Beach is a city situated in Los Angeles County in Southern California, on the Pacific coast of the United States. The city is the 36th-largest city in the nation and the seventh-largest in California. As of 2010, its population was 462,257...
. Particular attention was paid to the cinematography and filming of the sequence of Dexter's flashbacks to make them feel like "fragments of memory". The episode received positive reviews from critics, with particular mention made to the scene in which Dexter hits Rita's ex-husband, Paul, in the head with a frying pan because of his threats about the lengths he will go to in order to protect his children.
Plot
When a key to a room at the Marina View Hotel is delivered inside a jar of blood to the Homicide Department, Sgt. James DoakesJames Doakes
James Doakes is a fictional character in the Showtime television series Dexter and the novels by Jeff Lindsay upon which it is based. In the television series he is portrayed by Erik King. Doakes is a police detective with the rank of Sergeant serving as lead case investigator to Miami Police...
(Erik King
Erik King
Erik King is an American actor, perhaps best known for his portrayal of Sgt. Doakes on Showtime's television series Dexter.-Early life:King attended Morehouse College, where he won a varsity letter in track and field and graduated summa cum laude. For his honors thesis, he adapted the 1985 film...
) and Debra Morgan
Debra Morgan
Debra Morgan is a fictional character created by Jeff Lindsay for his Dexter book series. She also appears in the television series, based on Lindsay's books, portrayed by Jennifer Carpenter. In Lindsay's novels, she first appeared in Darkly Dreaming Dexter, and has featured in every novel...
(Jennifer Carpenter
Jennifer Carpenter
Jennifer Leann Carpenter is an American actress, known for her portrayal of Emily Rose in The Exorcism of Emily Rose, Debra Morgan on Dexter, and the lead role in the 2008 horror movie Quarantine.-Early life:...
) visit the hotel, where they find a room completely covered in blood. Dexter is sent in first to investigate, but seeing the blood-covered room brings back a repressed memory
Repressed memory
Repressed memory is a hypothetical concept used to describe a significant memory, usually of a traumatic nature, that has become unavailable for recall; also called motivated forgetting in which a subject blocks out painful or traumatic times in one's life...
from his childhood— Dexter at three years old sitting in a pool of blood—and he collapses and runs from the room. The forensics team surmises that the blood in the hotel room came from at least five different bodies, although none were in the room. Since there were only one set of footprints in the room, they assume that the victims were killed elsewhere and their blood spread around the room by the killer. Debra suggests that the Ice Truck Killer, who had five bloodless victims, may have been responsible.
Angel finds that he cannot stop talking about his divorce when trying to meet new women at a bar. After he meets a woman recovering from her own divorce, though, he has to leave her to speak to a prostitute whom he sees across the room with a prosthetic hand and fingernails painted in the same way as the Ice Truck Killer's first victim. Working on a hunch that the Ice Truck Killer is an acrotomophiliac, Angel decides to speak to Debra's boyfriend Rudy Cooper (Christian Camargo
Christian Camargo
Christian Camargo is an American actor, perhaps best known for his role of Brian Moser in the Showtime drama Dexter.-Early life:...
), a prosthetics specialist who, unbeknownst to any of the department, is actually the Ice Truck Killer. Rudy cooperates with the interview but gives Angel no helpful clues, and Angel is later stabbed in a parking lot.
Rita finds out from a county sheriff that Paul, her abusive ex-husband who attacked her the night before, is pressing charges against her for assault. She talks with a lawyer, who tells her that since she invited Paul into her house, she cannot prove that her intent was to defuse the situation. At a hearing, it is revealed that Rita violated her and Paul's custody agreement, making Paul's case against her even stronger. When Paul drops by Rita's house to return their children, he threatens Dexter when the two are alone in the kitchen, and Dexter responds by hitting him with a frying pan. Paul loses consciousness, so Dexter drives his body back to Paul's hotel and frames him for drug abuse. Dexter alerts the police and Paul is sent back to prison.
With encouragement from Rudy, Dexter decides to dig up his repressed memory rather than avoid it. He returns to the bloody hotel room, where he relives the memory, which he realizes was of the murder of his mother, right in front of him, when he was three.
Production
Since Dexter producers try to shield the child actors as much as possible from the show's dark subject matter, executive producer Daniel CeroneDaniel Cerone
Daniel Howard Cerone is a television writer and producer. He wrote and produced episodes for the series Dexter, Charmed and The Mentalist. He created and produced the short-lived Dean Cain drama Clubhouse.-Biography:...
urged the mother of his son's friend not to let her son audition to play a young Dexter, who is filmed sitting in a pool of blood. Erik King found the shot of the boy crying in the blood to be the creepiest moment of the first season. He described it as "very uncomfortable to watch, even when you know it's not real and you know these kids are actors." Cinematographer Romeo Tirone tightened the camera's shutter angle when filming these scenes to make them "feel like fragments of memory - subjective, with tight close-ups against an indistinct background. You don't see all the details of the environment." Series director Keith Gordon
Keith Gordon
Keith Gordon is an American actor and film director.-Life and career:Gordon was born in New York City, the son of Barbara, an actress, and Mark Gordon, an actor and stage director. He grew up in an atheist Jewish family and was inspired to become an actor at the age of twelve, after seeing James...
found these flashbacks "incredible" because he thought they were "like a Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick was an American film director, writer, producer, and photographer who lived in England during most of the last four decades of his career...
movie".
Several scenes from the episode were filmed on September 28, 2006 with a crew of 200 people in Long Beach, California
Long Beach, California
Long Beach is a city situated in Los Angeles County in Southern California, on the Pacific coast of the United States. The city is the 36th-largest city in the nation and the seventh-largest in California. As of 2010, its population was 462,257...
at the Seaport Marina Hotel, along the Pacific Coast Highway
California State Route 1
State Route 1 , more often called Highway 1, is a state highway that runs along much of the Pacific coast of the U.S. state of California. It is famous for running along some of the most beautiful coastlines in the world, leading to its designation as an All-American Road.Highway 1 does not run...
, and on San Anseline Avenue. The Seaport Marina Hotel was used as the setting for Paul's motel, while a house on San Anseline Avenue was used as Rita's house.
Reception
The episode received positive reviews from critics. Eric Goldman of IGNIGN
IGN is an entertainment website that focuses on video games, films, music and other media. IGN's main website comprises several specialty sites or "channels", each occupying a subdomain and covering a specific area of entertainment...
reviewed "Seeing Red" warmly and gave the episode an "Outstanding" rating of 9.0/10. He thought that the scene wherein Dexter hits Paul was "one of the most jaw-dropping, intense scenes yet", and he liked that Angel's "seeming separate" subplot was well-linked to the main plotline of the episode. He noted the "fascinating dynamic" between Dexter and Rudy, sensing "interesting psycho-sexual undercurrents" developing. TV Guide
TV Guide
TV Guide is a weekly American magazine with listings of TV shows.In addition to TV listings, the publication features television-related news, celebrity interviews, gossip and film reviews and crossword puzzles...
Paula Paige felt that "Seeing Red" proved that each episode of Dexter was a constant improvement on the last. She enjoyed Dexter's manipulation by Rudy and found his solution to Paul's threats "perfect". Jonathan Toomey of TV Squad wrote that he was "in awe" of the episode. He was particularly impressed with Dexter's choice to frame Paul rather than kill him, and a minor storyline involving Lt. María LaGuerta
Maria LaGuerta
Captain María Esperanza del Alma LaGuerta , known in the books as Migdia LaGuerta, is a fictional character in the Showtime television series Dexter and the novels by Jeff Lindsay upon which it is based. She is portrayed by Lauren Vélez in the television series...
(Lauren Vélez
Lauren Vélez
Lauren Vélez is an American actress of Puerto Rican descent and the twin sister of actress Loraine Vélez. Her most notable roles are as María LaGuerta on Dexter, Detective Nina Moreno on Fox's New York Undercover, and Dr...
) and her betrayal of her superior, Capt. Tom Matthews (Geoff Pierson
Geoff Pierson
Geoff Pierson is an American actor known for his role on The WB series Unhappily Ever After as Jack Malloy, the father of a dysfunctional family whose best friend is a stuffed animal rabbit named Mr. Floppy...
).