'Dexter' Season 6, Episode 9 Recap - 'Get Gellar'

Heading into this season, there was a big question about who the "Big Bad" would be, and the show's creators and stars were being very cryptic about the matter. After "Get Gellar," now we know why.

Dexter enlists the help of Travis to track down Gellar, who is showing signs of preparing another tableau... the Bowls of Wrath. Dex suspects that the victim will be Professor Trent Casey, a vocal atheist who teaches at Gellar's former university. Sure enough, when Dex and Travis go to try and stop Gellar, they find they're too late.

That means we were treated to another tableau this week, which have been one of the more fun aspects of this season, in that can't-look-away-horror kind of way.

The "Whore of Babylon" one last episode was largely skipped over, so it's nice to see that they pulled out all the stop for this one: Miami Metro finds Casey's body in his lecture hall, his abdomen hollowed out, his hand cut off, and all of his blood poured into buckets rigged to the ceiling, which dump on the detectives.

That's creepy and gross enough to be good old-fashioned "Dexter" fun, but seeing Dex doused in blood and seething, "Gellar hasn't seen wrath until he's seen mine," is truly chill-inducing.

Ultimately, though, things didn't really get kicking until later in the episode. First off, we saw a bit of a crack in Louis' seemingly perfect image: as Jamie visits his apartment, we see that Louis is a big collector... including the Ice Truck Killer's hand, displayed on his end table. Harmless collecting, or something more sinister? Hard to say, especially since this revelation comes in an episode where Deb was told by her therapist that we pick our partners after discussing Rudy/Brian.

The big revelation, though, is this: Gellar may have never existed. Well, he existed, but he was dead and locked in a freezer. Is it true that Travis was doing all of this on his own? He could have carried out the previous murders on his own, but it would have taken some serious skill to off Trent Casey in the short time that Dex was stuck in the elevator.

You'll notice, though, that Dexter never saw Gellar. Travis pointed him out in the car, and nodded toward the balcony back in the church, but Dex apparently never caught a glimpse of him. That explains how he was so elusive.

However, this raises a few questions. Is Travis aware that Gellar is dead and playing Dexter for a fool, or is Travis suffering a bit of a split personality? Is he having conversations with himself? Was that writing really up on the wall in his bathroom?

Travis' shock (with no one around to show it off for) implies that perhaps we have a Tyler Durden situation going on here. That is to say, Travis has his good side (the personality we've seen) and his "dark passenger" of Gellar, whom he acts as sometimes. If that's the case, it makes Travis a little less sly that he might have been if he knew what he was doing all along, but definitely a lot more insane.

And if Travis was having a split personality problem, is his reunion with Gellar in the church an indication that he has joined those two personalities? Will he be acting consciously as Gellar from now on?

In any case, it's an interesting solution to the problem that we just didn't know Gellar as well as we knew Travis, which made him a bit aimless and, honestly, not all that intimidating. That Travis is crazy enough to be Gellar (and possibly be arguing with himself) makes him a little scarier and a lot more dangerous.

The rest of the season should be a fun ride, folks! Stay tuned.

Other notes:

-Harrison giving out cookies like Dexter gives out donuts. Nice touch.

-Parallels between Deb talking with her therapist about breaking out of her patterns and making herself whole again, in an episode that has Dexter wondering if he can make himself whole, and Travis making himself whole in another way entirely.

-"When it comes to matters of the heart, always follow your dick."