Not only that, but Deb turns her back to Christine immediately after entering. Christine closes the door, but just as easily could have gone for Deb’s gun, which looked easy to remove from the holster.
I think Deb just cries out an ambiguous “No!”, which could’ve meant “no, don’t shoot me!”
Yep, but that’s just hair – it wasn’t what made the Jacksonville cops call the Miami cops. Dexter had to plant the notebooks so they’d make the connection.
But it’s yet another thing that can be checked if anyone questions Brodie as Trinity. Brodie would have to have been in Miami when the notebooks disappeared from Trinity’s apartment. I suppose the detectives could think that Christine stole them and gave them to Brodie. But neither Christine’s nor Brodie’s prints will be on the notebooks.
It’s a big ol’ house of cards.
That’s not what I criticized. I criticized the assertion that they could hold a “material witness” (as opposed to a pre-arraignment defendant) indefinitely, which is just absurd.
Seems like the police would have gotten the kid that Dexter saved from Trinity to work with a sketch artist to come up with a drawing of his abductor. They don’t know that it was the Trinity killer that had the boy, but surely they would want to find the guy. That sketch would probably be all over the news for a few days and someone might recognize him as Arthur.
I guess those people who were tired of Rita’s whining are happy now? 
That was a nice twist ending. Did Michael Hall cut his hair short for a movie role?
OMG - How could they do that? I thought it might be a dream sequence until the after show chat with the actors. Help, I need support.
MODERATOR EDIT:
There’s already a long discussion in the existing thread, so I merged this post into that thread. Hopefully they will be able to provide the support you need. 
That was definitely a huge twist- they weren’t kidding about the death of a major character. At the beginning of the show, my money was on one of the newlyweds (or Lundy counted as it) but was not at all suspecting that. Poor Astor & Cody- Disneyland is completely ruined for them.
Dex will have to be the prime suspect for this.
Will the cops think Dexter killed her and made it seem like Trinity did it? Or will Debra think that now she knows about his mother and brother? I think season 5 will be the last season. Only question is will Dexter be caught.
That was dumb. Nuts to this show.
Also, I missed the opening. How did things resolve between Dexter and Arthur in the police station?
In the first scene Arthur said he would leave Dexter alone if Dexter left him alone.
A real anti-climax – I don’t want to be explicit in case some people haven’t seen it yet, but the station scene was BO-RING.
I don’t think so. Or rather, I hope not. No motive. And Debra’s blind where Dexter’s concerned. But Dexter won’t have an alibi, so maybe.
Next season, I can see Deb wanting to move in with Dexter to help him with the kids. It’ll be harder for Dex to keep up his secret life if that happens.
The series has to end with Deb finding out about Dexter.
I dunno if I see Dexter being the prime suspect; I think there will be good evidence Trinity did it. However any evidence would be suspect since Dexter is a gifted forensics expert and the assumption would be that he could ostensibly fake any crime scene he pleased.
How the hell did Trinity manage to waste Rita? When did he have time? How did he even know where Dexter’s house is (I admit, the “Debra Morgan!” scene amused me)? How did Dexter get the oil cap off the mustang? Did he really follow Trinity around for what seemed like several hours (or was he hiding in trunk? - he did seem to pop up out of nowhere) until mustang conveniently failed on a deserted road? Why was Rita still at home at all?
What the hell was that convoluted mess? I’m with Palooka - that was dumb.
Good questions!
We don’t know much about the timeline – daylight at Arthur’s house, daylight when Arthur picked up the car, nighttime when the car died.
There might have been something in Debra’s house with Dexter’s new address on it.
The oil cap is a big problem, especially since it looked like the car was still being worked on when Arthur picked it up. So yeah, that was tricky, how Dexter managed that. I don’t think he was hiding in the trunk – he had to have a way to transport Arthur’s body. Can you restart a car after it’s run out of oil, even if you have oil to put in it? Maybe next season will start with a flashback explaining how Dexter did it. And as awful as Rita’s murder was, it’d be interesting to have a flashback from Arthur’s point of view. I’d like to know what he said to Rita. It’s sad to think that she may have died thinking Dexter was a blackmailer. Or worse, since Dexter had attempted to kidnap Arthur. Arthur might have surmised that Dexter wasn’t such a bad vigilante after all.
(Rita was home because she forgot something. Her message said something about catching a later flight.)
No motive? Haven’t we all been talking about how annoying she was? 
But in any case, husbands always are suspects, as they should be.
Just rewatched the oil cap scene. The car didn’t stall which means it didn’t run out of oil, he just pulled over because of all the smoke, which would have happened since oil would have been sloshing out on to the block. My guess is that Dexter went down to the body shop, grabbed the oil cap* and hid in the back seat until Arthur pulled over.
What was odd is that it didn’t look like any oil cap I’ve ever seen. The closest car to that I’ve worked on to that one is a 72 Ford LTD and IIRC it had a perfectly normal looking oil cap…I don’t think that’s what he had in his hand. Come to think of it, it looks more like the switch to to the trains on and off.
*Dex seems to have the uncanny ability of doing these kind of things without being noticed.
In a convertible?
Anyway, Dexter won’t have a good alibi for Rita. “I was out in the ocean dumping… err… ahhh… I went to the movies.”
I realize Rita’s death was supposed to be shocking at all, but it’s just more confusing and pointless than anything else.
NETA, I think what’s going to have to happen is that Dexter is going to have to account for things like being at the crime scene so early, and sooner or later Arthur’s family is going to notice him. I think he’ll either have to tell Deb who he really is (then she can help keep his secret, besides, isn’t that what happens in the books) or he’ll just have to ‘fess up’ that he was working the trinity case from behind the scenes trying to help her, that could explain Rita’s killing, but if this unorthodox method makes the news, the department is gonna see a shitstorm when the media figures out that the real Kyle Butler (And rita) got killed because of it.
Also, Dexter has Arthur’s wallet, so I’m thinking he’s going to have to use Arthur’s credit card around the globe to keep Deb convinced that Trinity is far far away and doesn’t pose any threat to either of them…knowing where both of them live…or again, Dex will have to come clean, at least about killing Trinity
On the other hand, Dexter could give up just enough info to get himself into Witness Protection and from there he could start a new life.