Are You...?

Plot

The episode begins with a flashforward to Dexter hurrying through an airport to catch a flight. He realizes his credit cards are cancelled.

Deb walks in on Dexter killing Travis Marshall, the infamous "Doomsday Killer." She pulls her gun and he tries to explain away the kill as self-defense and he "snapped". He explains the kill table and plastic wrap as it is his forensic instincts to get rid of the evidence. Deb wants to call it in, suggesting a temporary insanity plea or a good lawyer. Dexter dismisses this, saying his life, career and relationship to Harrison will be ruined, and instead suggests moving the body. She refuses, but then they agree to disguise it as a suicide. They set the church on fire with gasoline from a nearby gas station. However, Dexter drops his customary blood slide into a floor vent and does not notice it has gone.

Miami Metro Police, including forensics expert Vince Masuka (C. S. Lee), Detective Mike Anderson (Billy Brown), Sergeant Angel Batista (David Zayas), Detective Joey Quinn (Desmond Harrington) and Captain Maria LaGuerta, come to investigate the church. LaGuerta finds Dexter's broken blood slide.

Dexter returns to his apartment and finds Louis Greene (Josh Cooke) on his side of his apartment and gets angry at him. Louis later complains about Dexter to his girlfriend and Harrison's babysitter Jamie Batista (Aimee Garcia) and cancels his credit cards. Dexter goes to put Travis's blood slide away, but realizes that he lost it.

Flashbacks to Dexter and Deb's childhood demonstrate how Dexter's psychopathy has always affected Deb. Doris Morgan (Kathrin Lautner Middleton) surprises Deb with a dog, but Harry Morgan makes them take it back out of fear that Dexter will kill it. At one point, Dexter almost admits the reason to Deb but Harry stops him and tells him Deb wouldn't love the real him.

Mike calls Deb, suspicious about it being a suicide since Travis's car was not at the church. He later sees a driver, Viktor Baskov (Enver Gjokaj) on the side of the road with a flat tire. He stops to help him but discovers the corpse of Katja Soroka, a stripper for a Ukrainian mob-run strip joint, the Foxhole, in his trunk. Viktor shoots him in panic, leaving the car and Soroka's corpse.

Production

Scott Buck says Deb discovering Dexter's secret is a "story we've talked about doing for a long time but it was never a story we wanted to do early on in the run of the show because it is such a big moment and the more you can build up to it, the more significant it is. It just felt like we teased the audience long enough. It was finally time to pull that punch and do that story. [...] It's a story we've been wanting to tell for a long time." Of writing the first scene in the church, Buck recalls "I just really loved writing that scene [...] because it had been in the back of our minds for so long, there were so many things that we knew we had to do in that scene. And it's almost like there's so many things you want to put in that scene and then you have to start pulling them out because it becomes too much and those little gems actually become parts of other episodes and stuff because eventually everything comes out." He also said about the pace "We have decided consciously this season to move things along a bit faster and not to play things out quite so slowly and not to tease the audience as much, to tease them but to answer that pretty quickly on."

Michael C. Hall says "It fundamentally changes [their dynamic] ... it's a relief and yet simultaneously a huge problem and a real bear for [them both] to wrestle with."

Casting

Rome actor Ray Stevenson was cast as the season's main villain, Isaak Sirko, for nine episodes. Sirko was a high-ranking member of a Ukrainian crime syndicate. He was the first new cast member for season 7 to be cast. Dexter showrunner Scott Buck had previously worked on Rome as a writer. Stevenson was convinced to accept the role after Buck revealed that the character was gay and heartbroken and acting out of love and revenge on Dexter. He considered it a big opportunity to play such a pivotal role. Stevenson also enjoyed the personal stake the character had in killing Dexter.

Jason Gedrick was cast as George Novikov, the owner of a crime-run Miami gentleman's club, in a multi-episode arc.

Calista Flockhart was announced as a guest star in an unknown role, but did not end up appearing in the episode.

Billy Brown makes his last appearance as Detective Mike Anderson. Scott Buck says Mike's death "was not taken lightly at all. It was done partially because Mike seemed to be the best cop in the precinct last season and because so much of our show is more about serial killers and about Dexter's secrets and stuff but we do take place in a police station which is an extremely dangerous place. And when police officers do die, it's always a horrible tragedy and often it's for the most silly minuscule reasons imaginable so we just try to play it as real as possible." Josh Cooke and Aimee Garcia continue to appear as Louis Greene and Jamie Batista, respectively. Enver Gjokaj was cast in a one-episode guest role as Viktor Baskov.

Nicholas Vigneau and Savannah Paige Rae were cast as Dexter and Debra as children for flashback scenes. Kathrin Middleton as Doris Morgan. Andrew Kirsanov makes his first in a set of recurring appearance as Isaak's loyal bodyguard, Jurg Yeliashkevych. Dana L. Wilson was cast as recurring Miami Metro Detective Angie Miller.

Reception

Ratings

2.40 million viewers watched "Are You...?," the largest audience since the fifth season finale.

Critical reception

The episode received highly positive reviews from critics.

Matt Fowler of IGN, like many other critics, was disappointed in season 6, and wrote "Are You...? does its best to speedboat past that forgettable year and deliver unto us a thrilling and viable endgame to the entire Dexter saga. He called the episode a "return to form" and that the episode "has assuaged most of [his] fears and given us some terrific new terrain to explore." He concludes his review by writing that "Are You...?" was a well-crafted and promising way to kick start this later season, and it left me with goosebumps and excitement for the rest of this year's story." Fowler also praised Jennifer Carpenter's "truly memorable performance that horrifically encapsulated the entire series to date."

The A.V. Club rated the episode an "A−", and agreed the sixth season "represented the death knell of the series, [...] but "Are You...?" represents a different Dexter." The reviewer especially praised the opening scene in the church, praising Buck's writing and Hall and Carpenter's performances. The review sums up with "Dexter appears to be, at long last, back on his game." The episode "lends a momentum that has been absent from the show since season two."

Drusilla Moorhouse of Zap2it praised the premiere as even better than expected.

Alan Sepinwall of HitFix lauded that although he was disillusioned with the sixth season because of the unchanging status quo and thus lack of stakes and danger, "Are You...?" gave him renewed hope for the series and "demonstrates just how much potential "Dexter" was wasting by avoiding consequences or paradigm shifts. [It] shakes the series out of the doldrums it's been in for several years now."

Matt Richenthal of TV Fanatic complained "Dexter had grown stale," and called season 6 "atrocious." However, Richenthal called the season 7 premiere "pure tension from beginning to end. [...] Just a terrific premiere all around, enough to help me forget all about [season 6]." He also praised Hall and Carpenter's acting.

James Hibberd of Entertainment Weekly opined the episode is "far superior to any episode from the contrived and lackluster sixth season."