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The
location: Debra Spies on Ramon at café. |
![]() A. An outdoor
patio café.
Q. Where is it supposed to be on the show? A. Somewhere
in Miami.
Q. When did we see it on the show? A. In Episode 6 (of season 3), "Si Se Puede". Debra
suspects that Miguel's brother, Ramon Prado, might be the serial killer
known as In this brief scene, we see Debra phoning her brother, Dexter. It is night time, and she is spying on Ramon while he eats alone at a table on an outdoor patio café. She watches from a distance, while she peers into his car with a flashlight. When Dexter starts to warn her, she tells him to relax, that Ramon is "Busy scarfing down a second portion of arroz con pollo" (chicken & rice). When
Dexter asks her if she's found anything interesting, she sarcastically
jokes: "A set of
Q. What is it actually in real life? A. The front of a private school.
Q. Where can I find it in real life? A. This is the Oakwood Academy, at 3850 Long Beach Blvd, Long Beach, CA. They shot the scene looking south down Long Beach Blvd, with Debra standing partially hidden by a wall and bushes next to a parking lot (see the photos below), while they created a fake café under a carport in front of the school. (The carport bears the address 3840.) Under the existing carport, they added a wrought-iron railing, tables & chairs, overhead lamps, a sign and their trademark Christmas lights, to create the look of a thriving outdoor café. The school is just a few doors south of the Big Donut where Debra does more spying on Ramon, later in this same episode. It's just a few blocks east of several other Dexter locations: Prado's house, LaGuerta's house, the murder scene with the grieving fiancé, and the white house being sold by Rita and Syl.
I shot the photos below in 2009. In
the photo below, we are standing approximately where Debra was standing,
looking south/southeast. The photo below is a closeup of the shelter used for Ramon's patio café. The photo below looks in the opposite direction, north/northeast. (Notice how close we are to the big donut. )
Q. How the heck did you figure out where it was? A. This was tricky, because they didn't show much, and it was a night time scene. My first thought, noting the car port, was that they might have used a converted gas station. But that led nowhere. Eventually, I more or less wrote off finding it as a lost cause. I know
that they tend to "cluster shoot", that is, shoot more than one
scene in a given area, so it wasn't surprising when someone in the know
tipped me that it was shot near the Big Donut. With that knowledge,
and armed with Google StreetView, it didn't take me long to track it down.
The
Dexter screenshots from the show and all related characters & elements
are trademarks of and © Showtime.
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