Dexter Morgan is an enigma wrapped in a riddle wrapped in a Hefty bag

Now what?

Those two simple words hold so much promise and yet so much fear all at the same time. They can mean the exhilaration of a jumping off point for a whole new life or the "in your tracks" stopping fact that one has absolutely no idea how to recover from what has just occurred.

In the season five premiere of Dexter, those words stare at us literally from promotional materials but more poetically, metaphorically from the opening moments of Dexter Morgan (Michael C Hall), beloved blood analyst, husband, father, and serial killer, cradling young Harrison in his arms, taking him away from the scene of his mother’s brutal death.

His wife has been murdered; the FBI wants to talk to him; Harry (James Remar) seems to have gone AWOL. Now what? Dexter, the man who always has a plan because to be without one is to be without control, cannot speak at all, let alone answer such a heavy question.

The season five premiere of Dexter, entitled “My Bad,” acts almost as a bonus episode to the fourth season. Rather than jump forward a few months in time, like previous season openers have, it picks up exact moments after "The Getaway" ended, wrapping up loose ends and not much more. But to have picked this show back up anywhere except where it did—in the mere moments after Dexter found his wife’s body—would have been an injustice. To Julie Benz who gave her heart and soul to this character for the last four years, to Dexter as a character who finally learned how to feel human emotions through his counterpart, and to the fans, who were shocked, saddened, and intrigued by the events of the finale.

“My Bad” opens with Dexter quite literally saying “It was me” to his sister Debra (Jennifer Carpenter) on the lawn of his house, and for the entire fifty-five minutes, we see a man who was once so convinced he couldn’t feel anything at all struggle with a new feeling. It is like a rebirth, in a lot of ways. He was born in blood once, after witnessing the death of his own mother, and now he is reborn in the blood of another woman that he loved.

Director Steve Shill proves he truly earned his recent Emmy by utilizing tight close-ups on supporting actors’ faces when they are in scenes with Hall. It is as if the camera lens is a stand-in for Hall-- and Dexter, by association--'s own two eyes, and through his perspective we are able to see what he wants to see regardless of the words coming out of their mouths. For example, when Deb tells him that Rita used to tell her how lucky she was to have found Dexter, we see a strange, almost angry intensity in Carpenter’s face because Dexter himself has a well of such emotions bubbling up inside of him.

But Dexter still doesn't understand many of those emotions, let alone know how to express them. Hall himself exhibits an eerie calm to which everyone around him, including the one who supposedly knows him the best (Deb), gives sidelong glances. But his reaction, or lack thereof, to such a horrific scene (and yes, they did make Benz sit in that tub again; man we hope she got hazard pay!) is exactly what we have come to expect from the man who can jam knives into men’s chests without flinching. He is in shock; he doesn’t know how to handle his emotions; and he turns inward to hide.

Unfortunately for him during the majority of the episode, his usual saving grace has gone missing. Harry, whose image Dexter still uses to project his own inner concerns, thoughts, and self-reassurance, has left him. But don’t freak out, Remar fans; this isn’t permanent. Rather, it is a way that new showrunner (and also scribe of this particular episode) Chip Johannessen chooses to show just how lost Dexter truly is without Rita. He doesn’t know how to comfort their children because he doesn’t even know how to comfort himself.

If LA TV Insider Examiner could be granted one wish for season five of Dexter, it would be that Dexter’s visions of Harry would disappear permanently. No disrespect to Remar as an actor, but real growth for the character would be for him to move on. The person he once admired and respected more than anything as a child was Harry; he hung onto Harry’s image to remember what he taught him. But these days, he really is making progress, and the person he has learned he loved and admired the most was actually Rita. And he should want to hold onto her image to remember what she taught him. Sure, it would be an internal struggle to for him to see her aiding him in his …travels, but that could just provide the catalyst he needs to really challenge himself.

Yes, we know this isn’t going to happen. After a bittersweet stint in the premiere episode, Benz has moved on to a new familial drama. And though “My Bad” is all about Dexter learning to cope and once again learning to feel, it does also plant a few seeds for side story lines to come.

Quinn (Desmond Harrington) and Deb bond over a particularly touching scene in which they scrub Dexter’s house clean before getting it just a different kind of dirty; Batista (David Zayas) and LaGuerta (Lauren Velez) take heat regarding their secret marriage; and Astor (Christina Robinson) seems determined to be more of a thorn in Dexter’s side than just your average bratty tween.

There may be no consoling Dexter into thinking he is not at fault for Rita’s demise. But regardless of what he believes, the episode itself proves quite the opposite. In simply choosing to show the grief and the aftermath, they are showing Rita more respect than any of the other, past victims of similar heinous crimes. Dexter’s or otherwise.

Dexter returns to Showtime on Sunday, September 26th. You can check out LA TV Insider Examiner's exclusive video interviews with co-stars C.S. Lee and Desmond Harrington, as well as a Q&A with Michael C Hall, leading up to the premiere. They talk about investigating Dexter within the new season, as well as new guest stars, and potential love interests for both Masuka and Quinn.