Is Sal Price Dexter’s new nemesis?

Y’know, I was totally wrong in my pick for Dexter’s new pain-in-the-ass for this season, when I thought now-deceased Louis Greene would take the honor. Disappointingly, the writers chose to throw away all of the mystery of Louis — like why he was so obsessed with Dexter in the first place — and instead make him just some whiney nerd. It could be that we’ve now found out the reason for that gear change, with the introduction of one Sal Price.

It was mentioned back in July that Santiago Cabrera (Heroes) would be playing this character this season. The fact that a more well-known actor was placed into the role spells out that there’s more to his character than simply a way of getting Dexter a little more info on Hannah’s past. Now that things have been put into motion with regards to Sal and Debra having some sort of relationship, Sal’s not going anywhere soon. So what does that mean?

There are quite a few things that can transpire now that heavily involve Sal Price. For starters, we’ve got Dexter and Hannah sexing it up on … the murder table. Weird. A lot of us saw that relationship coming a mile away, but maybe not manifesting right at that strange moment. Anyway, with Dexter now likely in a state of caring for Hannah, there’s the likelihood he’s going to want to protect her. And what’s Hannah’s greatest threat, now that Dexter’s turned sides? Yep, Sal Price.

So if Sal Price is Dexter’s next target, there are at least a couple of rather big things he’s going to have to deal with. For one, he’d be going well outside his code, if her were to kill an innocent man. Whether that matters to Dexter or not at this point isn’t clear. The much bigger and obvious issue is what Debra would do with Sal suddenly disappearing or flat-out turning up mysteriously dead.

There are only two ways this could go to work in Dexter’s favor, should Sal remain a threat to Hannah. First, Sal could be eliminated, but the circumstances turn out to make it look like Hannah did it — or she just does it herself. The second, perhaps less-plausible scenario deals with Debra finding out Sal is getting closer to finding something that implicates Dexter in a murder, and she takes measures to make sure that doesn’t happen.

My call would be for that less-plausible situation. So far this season we’ve not only seen Louis cast aside like garbage, but we haven’t seen or heard one thing regarding Debra’s strange realization last season that she had romantic feelings for Dexter. Not that I want to see anything come of that at all, but what the hell happened to it? This season’s as if that had never occurred. If the writers were intent on keeping that possibility alive, they’d have Debra take one for the team — a BIG one — by killing someone to save Dexter, the one she truly loves the most.

However things turn out, I have no doubt that Sal has been put into play to become trouble for Dexter. How long he lasts is going to be interesting to watch; I’m hoping he doesn’t become another Louis Greene. I agree with commenter Lind from last week’s post: someone like Louis Greene — or Sal Price — is far more interesting than Dexter’s current problem.