With Dexter very close to the finish line, “Are We There Yet?” proves that the show is firing on all cylinders while gearing up for the big finale. While the previous episodes have been surprisingly sedate given the big splash that started the season, episode 8 has the show flipped around once again. Rarely has Dexter been this ambiguous and this muddled, but in a way that makes for fascinating television.

But, before I get into this week’s episode, I say one of the few annoyances this season has been the giant dangling plot thread that is Deb’s suicidal/fratricidal car crash. It was a courageous move for the show to go into, and one I was sure would be an impetus for even more great soul-searching between the Morgans. But one episode (and a lot of towels) later, the whole ordeal is completely forgotten about in lieu of Zach, Hannah and Dr. Vogel. I know the show has a lot of loose threads to tie up in its senior season, why drop so dramatic a plot twist in the beginning of this year’s arch if you’re not going to do anything with it? In fact, it’s seemed to end Deb’s PTSD and mend her relationship with her brother. I’m no doctor, but a suicide attempt tends to do the exact opposite.

“Are We There Yet” mostly focuses on Dexter’s feelings for Hannah. She is beautiful and can see the real, homicidal man behind the mask of civility he wears everyday. She is, for all intents and purposes, his soul mate and a sweet scene set in Dexter’s car (filmed gorgeously in the dust) proves it. But, as Rita showed, Dexter works best as a solo agent. In his line of work, emotions and attachments generally lead to death. “I would give anything to feel nothing again,” he says to himself about Hannah, bring to mind Season 8’s biggest theme: Identity. Is Dexter really as much of a sociopath as he has always been lead to believe? He falls in love and cares deeply for his sibling. We are meant to believe his Dark Passenger is his nature, but is it Dr. Vogel’s nurture that has caused his bloodlust? We don’t know yet, but I sure don’t trust the good doctor, both because of a twist at the end of the episode (more on that later) and her insistence in keeping her past a secret.

But whether how much of Dexter’s Dark Passenger is his own, it is clear that he has fallen for Hannah. After helping her dispose of her husband’s body, he is helping her get out of the country and get a new identity. But Hannah McKay then Maggie Kasner and now Claire Thompson (which I guess is a very good alias given I am friends with two girls of the same name) is still a wanted criminal and, thanks to a jealous and protective Debra, is now being tracked by the private detective agency where she works. But, despite the plane and a chance of escape, the episode ends with Dex doing his version of the rom-com “I gotta get to the airport before it’s too late!” run and stopping Hannah before she can board.

But Hannah is merely a supporting player in an episode that revolves around Zach Hamilton, the teenage sociopath and Dexter’s somewhat protégée. While it looked like Zach killed Cassie, Dex’s neighbor, he pleads innocent after they (Dex and Hannah) track him down in a motel. Complicating the matter is she died in a very similar way to Zach’s first victim and that his blood was found at the crime scene. He was at the motel to kill a student who has confessed to killing a young woman. But right when it seems that Zach is following Dexter’s Code and that he would be the perfect person for him to mold and hand down family business too, Zach looses his head. Quite literally, in fact, as Dex and Hannah find a chunk of his skull and brain missing ala the Brain Surgeon. Could The Surgeon still be out there? Did Dex kill the wrong guy? And why is Dr. Vogel holding a piece of his brain at the end of the episode? Perhaps he sent It to her but perhaps she is not just a observer anymore and that her interest in sociopathy comes from a very…intimate knowledge.

Dexter airs each Sunday at 9/8 central on Showtime.