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The
location: The Doakes/LaGuerta phone call. |
Q.
What is it supposed to be on the show?
A. Two different
locations: a waterfront snack stand, and the Opa-locka Airport.
Q. Where is it supposed to be on the show? A. Somewhere
near Miami.
Q. When did we see it on the show? A. In Episode 9 (of Season 2), "Resistance is Futile". Dexter has goaded Doakes into attacking him in public, and as a result Doakes has been put on suspension. When he is called in for a police interview concerning the Bay Harbor Butcher, Doakes refuses to cooperate and walks out of the police station (putting him under suspicion). Having broken into Dexter's apartment and found his bloody souvenir slides, Doakes is about to go rogue. Maria
LaGuerta, concerned about her friend, phones Doakes while she buys coffee
from a waterfront snack stand. We see him pick up a bag, and then hide something (the bloody slides) under a blanket in his car's trunk. He then turns and walks towards a waiting helicopter. A sign reads "Welcome to the Opa-locka Airport." He is on his way to Haiti, to get the blood slides tested.
Q. What is it actually in real life? A. Two different
locations: the end of a breakwater, and a public park.
Q. Where can I find it in real life? A. The LaGuerta scenes were shot at the far end of a long breakwater, which starts near Parkers Lighthouse in Shoreline Village, and runs out towards the Queen Mary (wrapping around the marina). This is the same marina breakwater where they filmed the scenes of Lila breaking into Dexter's car. There is a small building at the end of this breakwater, but that isn't the snack stand you see in the scene - the snack stand appears to have been just a prop the filmmakers erected next to the actual building. The green land with palm trees that you see to the right (in the LaGuerta shots) is one of the landmark oil islands off the coast of Long Beach. (This one is Island Grissom.) The camera mostly looks northeast during the scene, across the bay, where the downtown Long Beach skyline is visible on the horizon, including the International Tower (featured in "Lethal Weapon") and the landmark Villa Riviera. To reach the spot, turn south on Shoreline Village Drive, follow it along the east & south edges of the village's parking lot, then, at its end, turn left onto the breakwater (which has a two-lane road running down its center). Drive out to the very end of the breakwater, and that's where they shot the scene.
Doakes parks in the parking lot just south of Maina Green Park, then walks northeast across that lot towards the park. The tall building seen behind Doakes (in the second photo from the top) is the Hyatt hotel at the Long Beach convention center. You'll find the park on the south side of Shoreline Drive (just east of Shoreline Village itself), in Long Beach, between Shoreline Village Drive & Linden Avenue. From Shoreline Drive, just turn south on Shoreline Village Drive, then turn left (east) into the parking lot. The long, narrow park will be to your left (north) as you head east. ( The Marina
Green Park is the scene of several annual festivals in Long Beach, and
is also home to the bleachers at the annual Long Beach Grand Prix. ) The two locations
are actually less than half a mile apart. Here is an aerial photo of the Marina Green Park. Here is an aerial photo of the breakwater. And here is
a map
link of both locations. (I shot the photos below in 2008)
Q. How the heck did you figure out where it was? A. It was clear that both scenes were shot in the Shoreline Village area of Long Beach. Well-known buildings on the Long Beach skyline are visible in the background of both scenes. I've parked in that Shoreline Village lot often enough that I recognized Marina Green Park. But it took me a while to figure out exactly where the cameras were in the LaGuerta scene. At first, given
the fact that the downtown skyline was obviously across water, I thought
it might have been shot from the Hotel Maya
area. But it wasn't. What threw me for a while was the land to the right,
until I realized it was just one of the oil islands. But when I triangulated
the visible buildings in downtown, they pointed across the bay towards
the end of the breakwater. Then, it was just a matter of going there
to check out the details (such as the slanted wood in the boardwalk).
The
Dexter screenshots from the show and all related characters & elements
are trademarks of and © Showtime.
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