October 2006 Archives

The dramatic moments and humor danced especially well in this episode. Perhaps the most insightful and humorous moment into Dexter's mind came as he was watching a chick-flick: Rita is of course crying, sucked into the moment during what Dexter hoped would be a 'light' evening; whereas Dexter cannot make an emotional connection with what he sees and realizes it. He then thinks to himself, "Maybe if I don't blink my eyes will water up." Heh. This episode opens with Dexter beginning to process the abandoned hospital where Tony Tucci was found as a crime scene. He tells us that it feels somehow disrespectful to have so many people "pawing around" what was, for a while anyway, the sanctuary of the Ice Truck Killer. Meanwhile Rita has spoken to a housekeeper (Yelina) at the hotel where she works, called the "Z" hotel and found that Yelina's fiancé has not arrived from Cuba (illegally) and the man she had hired to get him to America had disappeared since asking for more money that Yelina did not have. Rita has offered to take the matter to Dexter and so she does.

Dexter learns that many Cubans in Miami have paid to have family brought to America, only to lose the money they paid. From hearing how the Cubans are victimized, Dexter discovers who it is that is need of his particular brand of justice. Jorge Castillo may be number 3 on the department's list of suspects for being the coyote (the man taking money to get Cubans into America), but he is Dexter's number one. He is convinced after meeting Jorge that he is the man behind the missing Cubans. He runs an auto junk yard, with no neighbors nearby, and has no employees working for him. It is the perfect place for human trafficking, or worse, according to Dexter.

Dexter's personal project turns out to be conducting surveillance on Jorge Castillo to gather proof that he in fact deserves to be "Dextered." While he doing his detective work; Rita is having trouble with hers. First she caused Tony Tucci to become reserved when she suggested blindfolding him to help trigger his memory from his time with the Ice Truck Killer and now, she is arguing with Doakes and Lt. LaGuerta over whether a potential witness (a man apparently walking his dog) got a good look at the Ice Truck Killer or not.

While getting ready to "Dexterize" Jorge, Dexter discovers that Jorge's wife is not the innocent he thought she was, but is fully complicit in his guilt and aware of what is really going on. This episode will see our first time Dexter takes out two victims simultaneously. But not before another hysterical scene where he pumps them on relationship advice, observing that they are cold-blooded killers like him, and have found a way to make it work.

Odeo has been acquired by a new company called Obvious Corp. Evan Williams writes:

Obvious Corp was started by myself, with help from long-time collaborator, Biz Stone, and other Odeo people. Obvious has purchased all the assets of Odeo, Inc.--including odeo.com and twitter.com from the investors and other shareholders and will continue to run these services. Obvious is fully funded by me and, eventually, will create other things, as well.

It is interesting to see this move from Evan Williams, poster boy for Internet success (and recently overfunded). Williams continued:

As services mature, the goal is to get them to profitability with advertising and/or subscriptions, so they can add to the network (and fund more building). When justified by growth, resource needs, and desire of the team, we will spin off growing properties to form their own entities (with outside investment).

I do applaud him for making mistakes and learning from them. There can be nothing more difficult in life than making mistakes as a public figure and taking your lumps. The first thing they taught me in business school was to make money. So I am curious: why does Silicon Valley seem to perpetuate the idea that profit isn't as important as [insert noun]?