A. A city
street, where a Cuban street festival is underway.
Q.
Where is it supposed to be on the show?
A. In Miami.
Q.
When did we see it on the show?
A. We saw
the horses (and their strange riders) for the first time at the end of
Episode 3, of Season 6, "Smokey and the Bandit".
Four horses (their heads adorned with the same Alpha/Omega letters that were sewn into the snake victim) suddenly come galloping down the middle of a downtown street, during a Cuban Festival.
Astride the real horses are what, at first, appear to be mannequins, dressed in Ancient Roman garb.
But a closer look reveals that someone has sewn real human body parts onto the four mannequins.
Those
body parts turn out to have come from the unfortunate jogger who was
captured by Travis & Gellar, and whom they tortured (at the church) into confessing his sins.
The same horse scene continues at the start of Episode 4, "A Horse of a Different Color", where we learn that the horses were reported missing from a local stable. Masuka
says that blood tests indicate that all of the body parts came from the
same victim.
The new guy from Chicago (Mike Anderson) recognizes that the odd spectre represents the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, one of the bizarre visions from the Book of Revelation that will supposedly presage the End of the World.
( In the Book, the Four Horsemen represent Conquest, War, Famine and Death.)
Q.
What is it actually in real life?
A. A city street - but nowhere near Miami.
Q.
Where can I find it in real life?
A. This scene was shot on Seaside Way, in Long Beach, CA.
Seaside Way is a somewhat obscure
Long Beach street, located just below (south of) busy Ocean Blvd, and just
above Shoreline Drive. It runs east/west from The Pike
(shopping/dining center) to Linden Drive.
This horse scene was shot in the 300 block of Seaside Way, near its east end, between Hart Place and Linden Avenue, just below the Aqua condo towers. The four horses were running from west to east, led by a camera car.
The parking garage you
see on the other (south) side of the street provides parking for Long
Beach's Convention Center, Arena, and Performing Arts Center.
I shot the photos below during the filming, on June 29, 2011.
And then Ellen, who was on the scene later in the day, sent me this great video clip of
the Four Horsemen actually galloping down Seaside Way during the filming:
A. In previous seasons, I've
usually had to hunt down the locations after viewing the episodes,
using clues from the various scenes. By the 6th season, though,
I'd developed a small group of fans, spies & tipsters who kept an
eye out for Dexter filming in their neighborhoods, and would let me know
in advance when something was about to film there.
Between those reports, my own personal reconnaissance around town, and a
few new resources I discovered, by the time the first episode aired, I
already knew most (but not all) of the filming locations, and only
needed to watch the episodes and match up the scenes with the correct
locations.
This group of helpful fans includes Kerry, Rick, Ellen, Susan, Jason, Elaine, Joel, Julie, Geoff, Jeff, and others. My thanks to all of them.
I was actually on the scene when they filmed this bizarre scene (as you can see from the photos I shot above).
So was Ellen, who sent me that incredible video of the moment when the horses galloped down Seaside Way.
