There was a moment in last night's episode of "Dexter", called "Slack Tide", that could possibly the most significant moment in the history of the series. As Debra was going through the files of her father's former CI's, she becomes overwhelmed by Harry's history and leaves Dexter's mother's file on his desk.

Dexter realizes the risk this file's existence poses to him, should Debra be able to discover that Ice Truck was Dexter's brother and maybe come to understand the real monster lurking within her brother, so Dexter decides to shred the file. Before he can destroy the picture of his mother; however, he saves her, not being able to bear the site of her picture being shredded - seeing his mother cut to pieces again.

The first time his mother was hacked to death was the most significant moment in Dexter's life - it's the moment that he became the monster he's tried to keep hidden his entire life. And as he was faced with the prospect of seeing this again, he showed his humanity for the first time in the series in a way other than in the throes of an ecstatic kill. This was something different. Something of love.

Of course, this wasn't the only significant moment in this episode. This episode also proved two things.

One, that Dexter is superior to Arthur. It seemed beforehand that Arthur was to be Dexter's mentor and our favorite serial killer the pupil. But we saw, with Arthur's failing to kill a lame deer, and Dexter's outperforming him with a chainsaw, both symbolically and literally who is the better killer.

Also, for this first time, Dexter killed an innocent man. How did this happen? How did Dexter fail to gather all the evidence on a potential new victim? Well, it's pretty simple: His kids have taken far too much of his time - not nearly enough left over to properly gather evidence, and enough to burn him out completely - make him desperate to kill.

Image © CBS Broadcasting

It's clear now that Dexter may be completely unable to balance family and his killing addiction - and that something of a calamity may be soon to follow. Something that may be as significant as the day he watched his mother meet her end.

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Story by Andrew Payne

Starpulse contributing writer