{"id":289526,"date":"2024-12-28T11:03:15","date_gmt":"2024-12-28T16:03:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tvobsessive.com\/?p=289526"},"modified":"2026-08-14T03:35:40","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T03:35:40","slug":"dexter-original-sin-episode-4-the-one-with-joey-pants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrevas.com\/?p=289526","title":{"rendered":"Dexter: Original Sin Episode 4 (The One with Joey Pants)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dexter: Original Sin<\/strong> Episode 4 is now streaming on Paramount + (and will broadcast on Showtime Sunday evening). You know the drill: We\u2019re going to get into heavy spoiler territory here. If you haven\u2019t seen the episode and don\u2019t want to be spoiled, bookmark this article, watch the episode & come back!\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Dexter: Original Sin<\/strong> Episode 4 was written by Nick Zayas and directed by Monica Raymund.
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This all new episode of the Dexter<\/em> prequel<\/a> had a little bit of everything. Teenage cocaine use? Check. Extramarital affairs? Check. Christian Slater in 1973 with killer sideburns? Check. Joey Pants (aka Joe Pantoliano of The Sopranos<\/em><\/a> fame)? Check! While it was great to see the icon Mr. Pants grace our television screens again, this episode was absolutely a dreaded \u201csetup episode,\u201d albeit one with some memorable moments.<\/p>\n

C\u2019mon, He\u2019s The Big Bad<\/h2>\n

I\u2019ve hopefully made it pretty clear in my last two articles that I\u2019m 100% all in on Patrick Dempsey being the \u201cBig Bad\u201d of the season. Captain Aaron Spencer is not a legacy character, is very impulsive at times and his mustache just screams \u201cBad Cop!\u201d. Here in Dexter: Original Sin<\/em> Episode 4, we see Captain Spencer\u2019s ex-wife and son come to the police station. The good Captain makes a point of pointing out that it was his ex-wife who ruined the marriage by having an affair, and she points out that he\u2019s never been to one of their son\u2019s soccer games.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m going to begin to build my case here. Captain Spencer has obviously been obsessed with the cartel for over 20 years now. Could not being able to bring them down lead a cop who is married to the job\/went through a messy divorce to commit a heinous crime to bring more heat on the cartel? Could we be looking at a scenario where we find out that the judge whose son was abducted perhaps let cartel members off easy or acquitted them, perhaps pushing Captain Spencer a little further into madness?<\/p>\n

Which leads me to the abduction. We opened the episode with the abducted child\u2019s body found dead, held high in the air for the world to see. We would later find out that the child\u2019s missing finger was cauterized with a cigarette lighter from a car and the cause of death was an ice pick to the back of the skull. While the car lighter does point to the cartel (or cartel frame job), the ice pick to the back of the head feels like it could be pointing to the Ice Truck Killer himself, Dexter\u2019s brother Brian.<\/p>\n

Last week we saw a stranger approach Dexter in the 1991 timeline at a restaurant, asking if a seat was open at the booth Dexter was holding. Many people online speculated that could have been Brian. We\u2019ll discuss him more later in this article when we get to the 1973 timeline, but here in \u201891, Brian certainly is being hinted at.<\/p>\n

Could we be looking at a scenario where Captain Spencer recruits a young serial killer to abduct and kill a judge\u2019s son to put pressure on the cartel? There was never any ransom note nor a phone call, which makes this a usual kidnapping.<\/p>\n

Prediction<\/strong>: The season finale sees Dexter killing Captain Spencer. Brian gets away with Dexter having knowledge that someone else was involved but not figuring out that it was his brother. Harry however puts it all together, which leads to his fatal heart attack.<\/p>\n

Deb Is Hurting<\/h2>\n

Deb\u2019s downward spiral continues here in Dexter: Original Sin<\/em> Episode 4. She\u2019s struggling to fit in with her volleyball teammates, she feels left out by Dexter and Harry (her accusing them of being attached at the dick might have been her funniest line so far this season), and she\u2019s buying large amounts of drugs from the guy at Blockbuster. No wonder they\u2019re out of business in present day.<\/p>\n

Deb and her BFF wind up at a club and are dressed to impress. Deb winds up drinking the $300-a-bottle champagne of a champion boxer and gets the number of an older man with a flashy car. It almost felt like the origin story for Deb\u2019s broken picker. At this point the operative questions revolve around who this guy actually is and what kind of trouble she\u2019ll get in as a result. It does feel like we\u2019re destined for something to strengthen the relationship between Deb and Dexter, so it\u2019s not much of a stretch of the imagination to think he\u2019ll eventually get her out of whatever trouble she winds up in. How much stress she causes her father and his ailing heart remains to be seen.<\/p>\n

Amateur Hour<\/h2>\n

Dexter was visibly upset by the discovery of the judge\u2019s son dead. His trauma is starting to surface. He doesn\u2019t know his origin story, but it seems inevitable that he will learn those details soon. For now, all he knows is that violence towards children bothers him in ways he doesn\u2019t understand. After being consoled by a few police officer who gave him good advice that Dexter would warp, Dexter decides that he needs to feed his habit.<\/p>\n

Enter Joey Pants Aka Mad Dog. Mad Dog is said to have been a retired mafia hitman who legend says killed over 200 people. Harry warns Dexter that Mad Dog is too advanced for him this early in his \u201ccareer\u201d as a vigilante. As it turns out, Harry was right. Mad Dog fights off Dexter and runs down the street in his boxers with Dexter chasing him\u2026until Mad Dog is hit by a car. It\u2019s unclear whether or not he survived.<\/p>\n

A lot to unpack here. Hopefully this was a lesson to Dexter that he\u2019s sloppy as a killer. If Mad Dog survives, he can identify Dexter to the police or come after him himself. If he dies, Dexter could still be busted, as he has a kill room setup in this man\u2019s house and the remnants of the broken Clapton guitar, showing that a fight happened here prior to Mad Dog\u2019s death. Personally, I hope he lives so we get more Joey Pants.<\/p>\n

Prediction: Mad Dog survives and torments Dexter for several episodes. When Dexter finally gets another chance to kill him, he uses his trademark tranquilizer for the first time.<\/p>\n

The Ballad of Harry<\/h2>\n

Finally, in our 1973 timeline, we see Harry finally give into Laura Moser\u2019s sexual advances after he spends the evening babysitting her kids. I really hope this story gets dragged out longer, as it\u2019s been enjoyable learning about both Dexter and Brian as small children, as well as the dynamic between Harry and Laura.<\/p>\n

Dexter: Original Sin<\/em> Episode 4 absolutely makes the case that Brian was born a psycho and Dexter became one because of trauma. We are shown Brian killing lizards and Dexter trying to revive them. They are not the same. It\u2019s fascinating to watch this distinction between the brothers being made.<\/p>\n

Harry continues to become a more complex character. He\u2019s not all good but he\u2019s not all bad either. His mistakes seem to carry large consequences, but he\u2019s broken at the end of the day because of these mistakes. When Laura eventually dies, the inner turmoil that lives inside Harry will move to the next level, making him almost a tragic character.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dexter: Original Sin Episode 4 is now streaming on Paramount + (and will broadcast on Showtime Sunday evening). You know the drill: We\u2019re going to get into heavy spoiler territory here. If you haven\u2019t seen the episode and don\u2019t want to be spoiled, bookmark this article, watch the episode & come back!\u00a0 Dexter: Original Sin […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":289529,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"saved_in_kubio":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[283],"tags":[295,97,39],"class_list":["post-289526","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tv-recaps","tag-dexter","tag-paramount","tag-showtime"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrevas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289526","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrevas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrevas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrevas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrevas.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=289526"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrevas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289526\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":298906,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrevas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289526\/revisions\/298906"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrevas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/289529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrevas.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=289526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrevas.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=289526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewgrevas.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=289526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}