Later, Dexter takes the Slide of Life out for a sail and dumps the bags o' Arthur into the sea. He checks out the full moon and wonders if Rita's currently looking at the same one. He likes that notion. In fact, DVO tells us he's interested in embracing a whole bunch of schmaltzy notions, Dark Passenger be damned. He envisions backyard birthday parties with Rita and the kids. "And maybe one day not so long from now," DVO muses, hopefully, "I'll be rid of the Dark Passenger. It all begins with a getaway."

So we all should have known right then.

Dexter returns home, night having definitively fallen. He's going to pack up and head off to meet Rita in the Keys. He takes a look around his home, filled with photos of his family, the floor littered with his kids' toys; aspirational mementos. He grabs his duffel bag and starts to head out when he gets the beep-beep of a voice mail. It's from Rita, who says she forgot her ID and had to head home to get it. They'll be on a later flight but still there waiting for him when he shows up. "Oh and," she continues, "I know you're not into this stuff, but the moon tonight is going to be amazing. So take a moment, you deserve it." The two halves of that last sentence are probably going to rattle around in Dexter's head for a long time.

Dexter hangs up and calls Rita back. And that's when we hear her phone ringing from her purse across the room. And then Harrison starts crying from down the hall. And Dexter races to find him, sitting on a bathroom floor, covered in blood. The connection between Harrison right now and Dexter in that shipping container so many years ago are obvious. Not least of which because, across the bathroom, Rita lies in a bathtub full of bloody water. She's gone. He reaches for her face, but she's gone. He closes her eyelids and stares at her in disbelief, but she's gone. He turns back to Harrison and picks the boy up. "Born in blood," DVO notes. "Both of us." And then Dexter utters the saddest line of all: "Harry was right." Dex thought he could keep his family safe, but he couldn't. "I'm what's wrong," he muses. "This is fate."

Joe R is sorry he was so hard on Rita this season and hopes Julie Benz's next gig is a lil' more badass. He can be reached for lavish praise and nothing but at joseph.reid21@gmail.com.