Dexter: Original Sin Filming Locations: SWAT Raid on Cartel Stash House
The
location: SWAT Raid
on Cartel Stash House
Q.
What is it supposed to be on the show?
A. A supposed stash house for the Estrada drug cartel.
Q.
Where is it supposed to be on the show?
A. In or near Miami, Florida.
Q.
When did we see it on the show?
A. We see this house twice in Episode 8, of Season 1.
The first
time is a relatively brief scene in which Dexter watches while a
nervous-looking junkie named Victor brings a small bag to the house
and is admitted by those inside. He had been given that bag by
Captain Spencer (And we later learn it contains Nicky's T-shirt.)
The second time we see it is in is a much longer and more dramatic
nighttime scene involving a major SWAT raid on the house that turns
violent and leaves multiple people dead or wounded.
As part of their investigation into the kidnapping of Captain Spencer's
son, Nicky, Miami Metro has received an anonymous tip saying that the
boy is being held at a cartel stash house.
So the
entire Miami Metro press police force converges on the cartel stash
house where they believe the boy is being held captive.
Dexter,
Tanya, Batista, Masuka, Bobby and Capt. Spencer are all on the scene, and so is a
large assault force in combat gear. (Harry & LaGuerta are out of
town on that road trip to Tampa.)
Because Dexter earlier followed Spencer, and saw him hand off a package
to Victor, and then watched Victor deliver that package to this very
same house, Dexter knows that Spencer is up to no good.
And he watches as that large SWAT team rush the house, break down the door, and get the drop on the armed cartel members inside.
No one is hurt — until Spencer
“finds” Nicky's T-shirt, which he planted in the house as fake evidence
to “prove” that the cartel kidnapped his son (when in fact, he kidnapped his own child).
Spencer pretends to lose control and threatens to kill one of the cartel
members, deliberately provoking them into fighting back, which results
in a bloody gunfight in the house that leaves all of the cartel members
dead, and leaves Harry's partner, Bobby, critically wounded.
Dexter has watched all of this play out, and now has no doubt that
Spencer is behind the kidnapping of Nicky, and the kidnapping and murder
of the previous child victim (Jimmy Powell), and that he maneuvered to have these
cartel members killed to shift any suspicion away from himself.
Q.
What is it actually in real life?
A. A residential home.
Q.
Where can I find it in real life?
A. This SWAT scene was filmed at 12346 Tiara Street, in Valley Village, CA (a neighborhood that was once part of North Hollywood), about three blocks west of the Hollywood (170) Freeway.
Tiara Street is the same street where they filmed the flashback scenes of Laura Moser's home. ( Only this house is about a mile west of Laura's home. )
According to real estate listings, the house was built in 1937, and it
has three bedrooms and three baths. (But no visible gnome.)
Q. How the heck did you figure out where it was?
A. This was
very difficult for me to find. I searched for this house for two months before I
finally learned where the scene was shot.
The problem was that
there were virtually no visible clues present in the scene to indicate
where the house might be.
Since greater Los
Angeles contains almost two million single family homes, trying to find
one unexceptional house makes looking for a needle in a haystack seem
easy by comparison. This season they had previously shot in the San
Fernando Valley,
Long Beach, Venice, East Hollywood, West Los Angeles, San Pedro, and
Miami, Florida, so I wasn't even certain where to start looking.
Fortunately, Showtime eventually released a short video
that, among other things, included a “making of” segment about the
filming of that SWAT scene, complete with comments from cast
members. That video finally gave me a look at the surrounding
neighborhood, as well as a quick, partial glimpse at the street number
painted on the curb.
I could see that the first three numbers of the five-digit address were
123. That, and the presence of tall trees, was enough to convince me to limit my search to older
neighborhoods in the San Fernando Valley, and (thanks to a tip) I eventually tracked it
down on the same street where they shot Laura's house.
