It's Alive! (Dexter)

"It's Alive!" is the second season premiere and thirteenth overall episode of the American television drama series Dexter, which first aired on September 30, 2007 on Showtime in the United States.^[1] The episode was written by Daniel Cerone and was directed by Tony Goldwyn. In the episode, which takes place five weeks after the first-season finale, Sgt. James Doakes (Erik King) is following Dexter Morgan (Michael C. Hall) at all times, but when he gets his first opportunity Dexter finds himself unable to kill. Meanwhile, his sister Debra (Jennifer Carpenter) returns to work after her ex-fiancé Brian tried to kill her, and his girlfriend Rita Bennett (Julie Benz) refuses to believe that Dexter sent her ex-husband Paul (Mark Pellegrino) to prison in spite of the evidence in front of her.

Although Dexter's first season was adapted from Jeff Lindsay's novel Darkly Dreaming Dexter, the show's writers decided not to follow Lindsay's second novel, Dearly Devoted Dexter, in the second season. Filming of the episode began in May in Los Angeles, California, marking the show's permanent move from Miami, Florida, where the show takes place. A small crew flew to Miami to film short pieces of Dexter which were integrated into "It's Alive!" and other episodes, but the bulk of filming took place in San Pedro and Long Beach. With 1.09 million viewers, Dexter became the first Showtime series to attract over a million viewers with a season premiere. The episode received mostly positive reviews.