Dexter Morgan is a domesticated monster in the ho-hum New Blood premiere
The reappearance of a familiar face could jolt the Showtime revival awake. But there's at least one huge red flag in the series premiere.
TV Reviews Dexter
Since its announcement, Dexter: New Blood has become something of an inkblot test for its potential audience. To some, New Blood promises a fresh (and potentially open-ended) start for a character that remained fascinating even when the show around him was anything but. To others, it offers the rare opportunity for Dexter to replace its infamously risible and unsatisfying conclusion with something more befitting a once-celebrated cable drama. And to others, New Blood merely symbolizes Hollywood’s lazy, ruinous nostalgia, which results in the reanimation of even the most dubious franchises while new ideas languish in the development pipeline. “See! I told you so,” will be the rallying cry of… well, anyone from any of those constituencies, honestly, now that New Blood has aired its first installment.
If you simply love Dexter Morgan and his brand of vigilante justice, the superhero version of the character that emerged once the body count became too high to justify, “Cold Snap” has to be thrilling. Opening with a montage set to Iggy Pop’s “The Passenger” was perhaps showrunner Clyde Phillips’ shrewdest decision. The establishing sequence has such a playfulness about it between the song itself and its relevance to how Dexter now finds himself a decade after sailing the Slice Of Life directly into Hurricane Laura. It’s hard not to smile when Dexter dilly-dallies in a garden shed pleading to be turned into a kill room or sets up a lure in an ice-fishing hole that’s entirely too wide for its stated purpose.
There’s a seriousness of purpose to all of the choices made by Phillips and returning director Marcos Siega in a stretch of Dexter that plays, for once, like a silent film. There’s none of Dexter’s constant blathering, just an entirely new slice-of-life that feels completely set apart from the many entanglements he created in Miami. (At the risk of paying too rich a compliment, the opening is reminiscent of the first wordless moments spent with Daniel Plainview in There Will Be Blood.)
It’s hard to argue with the competence of New Blood, which was conceived and realized by veteran television storytellers who can wring something compelling from less than a serial killer working as a blood-spatter analyst. Why, then, is “Cold Snap” so lifeless and limp?
First, an update on where things stand with America’s most self-righteous serial killer. Having faked his own death, Dexter is now living as James “Jim” Lindsay in Iron Lake, a fictional New York village worthy of being depicted in watercolors on a two-cent stamp. He lives in a remote cottage with some animals and appears to have worked the logging bug out of his system. These days, “Jim” is just a mild-mannered sales clerk at a family-owned fish and game store. Most people would probably stop there, as Iron Lake is the kind of environment to which people relocate precisely to be left alone to commune with their regrets. Were he to stay out of sight except to fulfill his work shifts, the townspeople of Iron Lake would probably pride themselves on staying out of his personal affairs.
But this is Dexter Morgan, so of course, he has made sure to install himself as deeply as possible into the social tapestry of his new town. (Y’know, because the walls can’t slowly close in on you if you haven’t built any walls.) And so he’s in a relationship with Sheriff Angela, one so torrid as to include uniformed roleplay trysts first thing in the morning. Dexter has gotten well acquainted with Angela’s officers and her spitfire daughter Audrey. He’s on a fake-first-name basis with just about everybody in the town and has a tab open at the local watering hole, where he’s all too happy to join in on the line-dancing. He hasn’t killed so much as an animal in nearly a decade, despite now being in an environment that actively encourages killing for sport.
In as much as Dexter is an addiction narrative, the beginning of “Cold Snap” represents what should be regarded as the best version of Dexter we’ve ever seen. By the end of the episode, he’s calling himself an “evolved monster,” but the evolution is on display from the beginning. Dexter was gobsmacked when Rita first revealed being pregnant with Harrison back in season 3, in part because his sex life with Rita was a component of his performative humanity that he forgot it could produce an actual baby.
Now Dexter is enjoying vigorous backseat hookups that seem just as much based on his desires as Angela’s. His genuine interest in Fred Junior’s personal life seems to confirm that Dexter has been pretending to be charming long enough that he’s not really pretending anymore.
The artist currently known as Jim Lindsay is, to borrow from Rob Zombie, more human than a human. He is someone who James Doakes, were he alive today, would invite out for beer and darts and would never describe as a “creep motherfucker.” It’s a huge accomplishment of which Jim Lindsay should be incredibly proud. But Dexter Morgan was most often portrayed as a superhero who had channeled his murderous talent into a form of public service.
That’s the version of the character you spent the most time with if you watched all eight seasons of Dexter, and seeing him laid low in this way is kind of a bummer even if it represents important growth for the character. Jim Lindsay is a former titan turned pitiful spectacle in the vein of Gene Takavic, mild-mannered Cinnabon manager or the thick-thighed Thor of Avengers: Endgame. (There’s a super-quick daily routine montage that drives the point home.)
Of course, Dexter is about to have his new normal thrown out by a confluence of shocking events that would have landed more powerfully had they been parceled out gradually. The first is the arrival of Matthew Caldwell, who broadly represents “rich asshole season,” the influx of privileged, trigger-happy tourists that engulfs Iron Lake when the hunting conditions peak. Matthew is not just an unbelievable dick, or an irresponsible drunk, or a bad friend who bird-dogs his best friend’s female acquaintances. He’s also responsible for a boating collision that left five people dead and was an act of pure malice. And nearly kills Dexter as he shoots the white buck whose life Dexter has spared multiple times in a nod to his sobriety. Matthew, then, is a mass murderer who poses an active safety threat to anyone he comes into contact with.
The characterization of Matthew, the man for whom Dexter doesn’t mind rolling off the wagon, is a huge red flag for the season. For all the rightful derision directed toward the post-Phillips seasons of Dexter, there’s not enough acknowledgment that the foundational issues that led to those seasons present themselves well before Phillips left. In “The Dark Defender,” the fifth episode of season 2, Dexter begins to fantasize about being an actual comic book hero which allowed the show to steer away from the thornier questions the character represents or a responsibility to punish his actions.
Superhero Dexter remains the main character of this show, so when he inevitably kills Matthew in the latest incarnation of his plastic-lined killed room, he’s not having quite the relapse “Cold Snap” keeps foreshadowing. No, this is Dexter reverting to his terrible old habits within a framework that allows him to feel like he’s doing Iron Lake, and the world, a favor.
The more intriguing development is the appearance of an adolescent Harrison, who has managed to track Dexter from somewhere in Argentina to upstate New York in a process we’ll hopefully hear a lot more about. Of all the reasons to reanimate Dexter, the most thematically promising thread is Dexter as a father, specifically to a boy who had the same traumatic blood baptism that sent him down a murderous path.
Is Harrison destined to kill? Can Dexter impress the code of Harry onto him before something terrible happens? Will Dexter learn that Harrison can choose not to kill, suggesting that he could have also taken that path without Harry’s influence? The fun part of “Cold Snap” was in those questions, not in watching Dexter eliminate yet another cartoonishly terrible person.
The vicariously violent version of this show simply won’t hunt, not in 2021, with so many antihero stories that confront rather than conveniently dodge the moral quandaries such a character creates. Hopefully the unpleasantness with Matthew will prove an unsavory means to an elegant end. This is, after all, definitely Dexter’s last shot at one.
Stray observations
- It’s nice to have Jennifer Carpenter back in this role, and simply seeing her and Hall back together in front of the camera is a lot of fun. I need more Debra f-bombs though and less of this Touched By An Angel version of foul-mouthed Deb.
- It’s safe to say Dexter won’t have much to worry about in the way of law enforcement interference in a town where pie theft is the most pressing crime. That said, taking up with the sheriff is baffling any way you slice it. What are you doing, Dexter?!
- I’m a big fan of Alano Miller and am hoping he gets something interesting to do, perhaps as the new Doakes.
- Looks like the season is going to touch on the issue of murdered and missing Indigenous women, which could be interesting.
- I found the music in the episode kind of distracting outside of “The Passenger,” in terms of needle drops and score alike.
141 Comments
“none of Dexter’s constant blathering”TBH this already interests me. Admittedly I tapped out around S4 of the original.
he didn’t say “my dark passenger” a single time so everyone is sober
This was dumb in fun classic Dexter fashion, I’ll tune in next week to see how it pans out.
Hopefully we’ll also find out what happened to Hannah.
I thought it was OK. Granted, it did have one spectacularly stupid line from Ghost Deb where she said “everybody close to you dies” and lumps DOAKES into that.Doakes was close with Dexter? Did I miss something in season 1 and 2?
Hey, I’m all for a “Surprise, Lumberfucker!” Doakes appearance.
they really messed up by not bringing him back as a ghost.
I was really hoping it was Doakes watching him instead of (aged up?) Harrison.
Close enough to figure Dexter out. Being close doesn’t always mean in a “friendly” way.
That means he was a great detective. Not that he was “close to Dexter”.Hannah was closer to Dexter than Doakes ever was. She’s still alive (as far as we know).
Maybe this show is pretending seasons 7 & 8 never existed, so Hannah doesn’t exist? That’s what I had to do in order to keep fond memories of the show.
Nah, they mentioned Hannah in the dialogue, I think right after Harrison first showed up.
Not to mention, “she” named Doakes and LaGuerta before Rita…..you know, his wife and mother of his child?I’m probably going to watch this til the end but I don’t have particularly high hopes. As the recap and above comments indicated, I can already see the old failings rearing their ugly heads- one dimensional bad guys, plot twists you can see a mile away (that deer getting shot gave me major “Colin Hanks was the really killer all along!” vibes), Dexter being treated like a superhero, plot points that exist solely for drama (dating a cop while living under an assumed name…..wonder if she finds it suspicious that he doesn’t have any remaining living relatives or friends prior to them meeting), etc…. there’s also the fact that You and Hannibal cover the same subject matter infinitely more competently.
It was almost like a soft reboot where they tried to bring the viewer up to speed on all of Dexter’s greatest hits way too quickly. This first episode really affirmed my belief that we don’t need more Dexter.
“there’s also the fact that You and Hannibal cover the same subject matter infinitely more competently”Much more stylishly as well.
I miss Hannibal. Sooo much better than Dexter.
Doakes was one of his close co-workers and people around him do cared about Doakes, even if he didn’t liked Dexter all that much. And he did got close enough to learn his real identity as serial killer.So yeah, he counted Doakes as “close” in those senses. His death still kind of stings as it goes to show how much he shouldn’t let his friends or coworkers know about who he really is.
There were people far more close to Dexter than Doakes. Masuka, Batista, even awful Quinn. None of them died. Heck, as far as we know, Hannah is still alive.
if I remember correctly, Doakes got blamed for Dexters murders too. So not only did Dexter get Doakes killed, he also inadvertently got his name smeared.
That was my reaction as well.
‘Close’ is both metaphorical and literal. Doakes was a case of the literal. They were co-workers were they not?
Again, so was Bautista, Masuka, Quinn. All of them were literally and metaphorically closer to Dexter than Doakes ever was.And especially Hannah. Who might be dead; we don’t know, and she wasn’t mentioned anyways.
“it did have one spectacularly stupid line from Ghost Deb where she said “everybody close to you dies” and lumps DOAKES into that.”
Yes. They were co-workers who had a weird banter, and also the point is that people who don’t deserve to die DO die because they are in Dexter’s orbit.
Doakes may have been an antagonist, but Dexter isn’t delusional enough to think that he killed someone who deserved to die when he killed Doakes.
Ghost Deb?!! I’m out……
He was close as in proximity.
But so were a lot of other people that didn’t die. So one way or another Deb’s statement was dumb.
Man this just reminds me of how the AV Club peaked with Emily VanDerWerffs reviews of Dexter. Those were fuuuuuuun. I mean sure why not, you can’t somehow make a worse ending then last time.
I miss hatewatching S6-8 of Dexter just so I could keep up with the funny critiques in the Disqus comments section of old AVClub back in the day
That’s a low, low bar to clear given how badly done that finale was.We shouldn’t accept that and expect them to give Dexter a much fitting end.
Oh I agree. This is strickly morbid curiosity watching on my part.
Damn i actually liked the finale, i hated that deb died and i would have rather seen dex get killed but other than that i liked it.
Those were some of the most fun reviews + comment sections I’ve ever read.Insert gifs here of Dexter saying he’s good at sneaking before staring at the guy he’s tailing through the Burger King window, or the kid on the treadmill.
Wheee! I did the gif if Harrison shooting off the treadmill. Golden days of av club. Good times.
Can you believe that was a decade ago! Goddammit
‘That said, taking up with the sheriff is baffling any way you slice it. What are you doing, Dexter?!’He’s doing the hot sheriff, duh!
He needs access to the station and investigations if he’s going to resume his hobby.
I definitely think this is it, he needs to be able to pull open his the Sheriff’s laptop to get someone’s criminal record, and have some way to run lab tests or run fingerprints to gather his “proof”. They can try an analog, self-help Dexter for some period of time, but eventually they’re going to need the police crutch. Of course, that’s a writers’ reason rather than a plausible character motivation, which a problem.Maybe Dexter is paranoid about the police catching on to him, and it’s a strategic decision to keep your enemies your closer, so to speak. That would at least be my head canon, I think that’s plausible enough.
Plus honestly she’s the person he’ll have the most in common with. Of course he can’t tell her about his police background but it makes sense that he’d gravitate toward someone whose language he speaks and makes him feel a bit at “home.” Plus as OP says, she’s very pretty.
Did you notice she looked allot like Deb IMO
lol ew, yeah, I can see it.
Yes i got stepais vibes lol
Can’t believe nobody else has mentioned this
There was so much wrong with the gun sale. As someone who has purchased a few rifles in NY over the past couple of years, there is a whole lot more to the paperwork than just showing the clerk your license and typing it into the computer and wait for an OK on the background check.
This is the same Dexter who could somehow hack into anyone’s computer by guessing the password. A shoddy background check is peanuts in comparison.
He also had an ongoing method of bulk-buying M99 tranquilizers under the name “Patrick Bateman”.
To be fair, the minutiae of a firearms background check is not particularly compelling TV.
Very little of this episode was particularly compelling TV, to be fairer.
And a trip down the rabbit hole of how to obtain a firearm would’ve helped that?
Yeah, what is this, Pennsylvania?
In Pennsabama there are no pretty police chiefs and absolutely no gay gun store owners. You’d need to go to Pittsburgh for that.
I wonder if maybe they skipped some of the paperwork and bureaucracy because, you know, it’s not a show about how to obtain a firearm.
Paperwork doesn’t make for good TV though…
It disnt raise any flags to me hell in my state you can get a rifle or pistol in qbout ten minutes nd walk out same day. Of course watching the show i had no idea it was in NY. State i was thinking montana or something.I loved the original show and while most criticisms are valid i still found and find it to be enjoyable tv. Deb was probably my fave part of the original series. I mean it had to do something right to be on for 8 years.
The sad thing is the small town stuff was actually kind of enjoyable. I doubt they could sustain it but, if they could, that would actually make a fun show to watch. But as soon as they introduce the asshole and kept underlining ‘Hi, I’m going to die’ ever single second he was on screen it all nosedived.
I agree; that part of the plot felt too rushed and extremely on the nose.
The one obvious part of the episode was you KNEW that a-hole was going to come out of nowhere and shoot the deer with his supergun.Could see that a mile away.
They never nade a habit of hiding obvious plot stuff in the original, to me half the fun of the show was being able to figurebout 90% of how the plot was goint to go, few surprises but not many.
It all feels a little derivative of American Gods’ Lakeside storyline to me.
Small Town Dexter is almost Joe Pera-like. Of course I say that because I watched them back to back but still.
I mean, if in the series finally it’s revealed that Joe Pera had been killing people the entire run, that’d be… well, bold, to say the least.
Joe Pera was so weirdly sublime. Bring him back Adult Swim!!!
First rule: don’t get caught. Right… so Dexter just assumes that Matt, who came to town with a bunch of people to hunt, was out hunting by himself? And that they weren’t looking through their rifle scopes when dexter bops him? Then Dex uses his bare hands on the knife handle?
I thought he was SO obvious as the victim of the week that there was gonna be a swerve and he wouldnt be so bad but… nope, he dead.
Dammit, I can’t believe I dragged myself into watching Dexter again, even after I promised myself I never would (revival version or otherwise)!It was…OK, I suppose. Without spoiling it, I’d say the ending felt very rushed. They packed waaay too much in the last 10 minutes, probably two episodes worth of material, I’d say.My own stray observations:I also missed cussing Deb, but remember: this is Dexter’s version of Deb.I hope Harrison doesn’t end up like Dexter, or a the very least (like Deb warned him), not like everyone else who got close to Dexter.No way Iron Lake PD can be more incompetent than their Miami counterparts…or can it? (And please, no Masuka-equivalent!). Also, wouldn’t the sheriff run a background check on Jim? Wouldn’t the sports and fishing store, since he’s selling guns?The last trailer had a few scenes that didn’t make it into the premier.My wife asked me to “approve” this first episode before she also gets suckered into it, but I don’t think I’m ready to put a stamp on it yet.
“Also, wouldn’t the sheriff run a background check on Jim? Wouldn’t the sports and fishing store, since he’s selling guns?”
There IS a thing called identity theft.
“The last trailer had a few scenes that didn’t make it into the premier.”
Shit, and there’s only nine more hours of the season left. I wonder if any of those scenes will make it into episode two, or three. Or four or five. Or maybe six, seven or eight? Heck, it might not be till episode nine or ten!
Already during the first minute, with Iggy Pop’s ‘The Passenger’ playing, I was thinking: he isn’t riding, it isn’t at night, and it’s not in a city. This doesn’t look good at all.
See, takes like this are why I wait to watch serial dramas until there are at least a few episodes available… Serial show-runners tend to see a season as an entire story, and each episode tends to be only a portion of one of multiple acts that make up the entire season.Since this has a 10 episode order, I’ll wait AT LEAST until there are 3-4 episodes to dig into before making judgements. The first episode obviously had to be a call-back to the original while establishing the new “world” of this season. You can’t really expect much more out of it in an hour than exactly that.I understand that entertainment blogs much prefer the weekly format and often claim the “water-cooler” argument, but I much prefer entire season drops all at once for serials.
Comedies? Fine.Slightly-serialized series like Case-of-the-week’s with a couple plot-lines running through a season or even the entire series? That’s cool too.Unless I can watch an entire “act” of a fully serialized drama, though, I’ll be patient and wait, preferably for the whole season, but, at the VERY least, until a third of the total episode order is available.
These things are almost ALWAYS written as three acts, and just watching 1/3 of the first act doesn’t allow for the full blossoming of the direction the narrative that the writer’s room crafted is heading.It obviously could still deserve “C-”, but this could lead into a great first act over 3-4 eps as well, and set the groundwork for something great, we simply have no reason to judge it yet.
Dexter fans should know this, and the creators that have heard the clamoring for years for a better ending know this, and RIGHTFULLY think they have earned the attention capital to go that route.
I mean, it’s their impression from watching one episode. I think we can all understand that opinions change from week to week with episodic television. You can just not read the review if you want to wait until the first third is done…
Sure is a long rambling post you made there
They’ve clearly learnt nothing from Season 1 of Bojack Horseman.
I found the music in the episode kind of distracting outside of “The Passenger,” in terms of needle drops and score alike.The music was kind of weird, it was super 80s, slightly alternative and almost like a John Hughes soundtrack. I mean, Love and Rockets?
Weirdest thing for me was seeing people line dance to Heart Of Glass.
“To some, New Blood promises a fresh (and potentially open-ended) start for a character that remained fascinating even when the show around him was anything but. To others, it offers the rare opportunity for Dexter to replace its infamously risible and unsatisfying conclusion with something more befitting a once-celebrated cable drama. And to others, New Blood merely symbolizes Hollywood’s lazy, ruinous nostalgia, which results in the reanimation of even the most dubious franchises while new ideas languish in the development pipeline.”There’s also a group of people who also just like to watch shows and don’t care about all that shit you said.
Meh, I enjoyed it. Particularly in comparison to the last couple seasons of Dexter, I’d give it a solid ‘B’ at least.
I had been watching the reruns on Showtime that they’ve been showing last week (I didn’t watch the final three seasons), so I was comparing it to the good episodes. It doesn’t hold up to them, but it no doubt is way better than the bad episodes.
Oh, it certainly isn’t as good as the first few seasons of the original. No experience exists in a vacuum, so I’m sure my positive reaction is informed by my disappointment at the latter seasons.
Its no Harrison Treadmill but it’s also no Doakes Suprise Motherfucker.
The mere mention of “Harrison treadmill” is enough to make me burst into uncontrollable laughter
Same. I have maybe sometimes looked up that clip to both make me feel better about my own writing, and to laugh when I’m feeling down. Its truly a thing of beauty.
It is an absolute masterpiece of slapstick comedy, made even more incredible by the fact it wasn’t intended to be funny. Like if you put it in the middle of a Naked Gun movie, it would get the biggest laugh. Every camera angle choice, the timing of every cut, every facial expression, every sound cue. It’s perfect.
It truly is. Its made worse because this incident leads the police to Hannah thus making it more important then 90 percent of the events in season 8.
It’s no “Hello, Whore,” nor is it “I just ran his Internet Protocol Address,”but it’s also not “Rita? I’m home!”
Hello Whore is indeed another classic. Oh Colin Hanks, I’m so glad you butchered that line.
Much as I enjoy the Rob Zombie musical catalogue, the song title you refer to was *itself* a reference to Blade Runner. Tyrell Corporation: More Human Than Human.
You, my friend, deserve a star, and may Sean Yseult’s blonde locks bless you and keep you.
Ooh, one of several high school crushes!
It wasn’t just the title. More Human than Human was a song about Blade Runner.
As much as a Rob Zombie song is ever “about” anything, sure.I am the Astro-Creep a demolition style hell American freak yeah
I am the crawling dead a phantom in a box shadow in your head
Say acid suicide freedom of the blast read the fucker lies
Make me do it again, yeahMore human than humanI am the jigsaw man-I turn the world around with a skeleton hand
Say-I am electric head a cannibal core a television said yeah
Do not victimize read the motherfucker-psychoholic lies
Into a psychic war I tear my soul apart
And I eat it some moreMore human than humanI am the ripper man a locomotion mind love American style
Yeah I am the nexus one I want more life
Fucker I ain’t done yetMore human than humanIt’s like he just transposed the screenplay into song lyrics!
I remember reading somewhere (and this may well have been two decades ago) that at least for the previous album, Rob Zombie, for some if not all of the songs, hadn’t written any lyrics and basically just went into the recording booth and just ad-libbed / improv-ed everything. I’ve no idea how true that is, but it’d be kind of hilarious if it was at least a little bit accurate.
Never meet your heroes (or actually read their lyrics)
I am an american dad
locavore kohls bass pro card in my hand yeah
Quick, bang a go-go dancer and put her in every project you do from then on!(I like Sherri as a person but fuuuuuck am I tired of seeing her in everything he does.)
not as tired as I am of seeing Kevin Smith’s wife and daughter!
Fair. Though at least *some* of Smith’s films are free of them. Sherri is in EVERY goddam RZ movie. And she’s usually the star or featured. And she’s usually not that great. She was decent in Lords of Salem but that is a shit movie.
I agree, Lords of Salem is terrible but it was definitely her best role that I’ve seen
…to borrow from Rob Zombie Philip K. Dick, more human than a human.
Ah, that good ol’ lazy, ruinous nostalgia. Isn’t that what America is all about right now?
I thought it was fine for the most part, but I wish there was a bit more to it (maybe coupled with a second episode?) to really get a feel of where the show is going. I get people being wary of the show, but I’m not sure there’s really enough there to judge either way.That said, it still felt way less embarrassing than S8’s premiere, so at least there’s that.
Full disclosure, I never watched the original series, not one single episode. I tuned into it this time because I love Clancy Brown, and he’s in this season. That said, I kind of actually enjoyed it. I’ll keep watching.
They might have made it a little too easy for Dexter to start killing again, I mean that guy was essentially Donald Trump Jr. I would think Gandhi might have offed him
Honestly, I love the developments of the episode as it clearly shows who Dexter is now and what he could become eventually over the course of season. Him hanging out with the townspeople is a treat and I dread that it would all comes crashing down on him (as it should have happened in Season 8). The Season Trailer promised to deliver more exciting stuffs that I hope would wash away the red flags.So yeah, I agree with your red-flag criticism about SO-OBVIOUSLY-BAD-GUY-TO-BE-KILLED as that rich asshole character was kind of hammering up every scene he was in. If the character was written and turned down, perhaps we would have stomach him like other good small-time villains in the show. Dexter raging over him on the table like a souped-up addict getting his first fix in a decade is quite a sight, though. Also agree on slow development of episode, though I argue that it is for service of setting up the premise before (maybe?) knocking it all down around Dexter.Glad to see Deb back as well, especially as his new Dark Passenger. Harrison returning to his father’s life was the twist I did not expected at all and I hope one that would get fleshed out over the season. I say it’s a pretty good start to hopefully a more fitting conclusion to Dexter series.Grade: B
God, this was as bad as I had feared.
I was looking forward to this, but man was this boring. I kept pausing it to read my book. Also, what’s up with Harrison’s black-ass hair? He had the whitest hair as a kid, and I know blonde hair tends to get darker as kids age, but that dark? Also, his features are all small and pointy, and little Harrison had a rounder nose and fuller lips. Again, kids thin out, but they didn’t even try to approximate what he would have looked like in any way. If I were Dexter I’d have been like no you’re not my son.
Boring is exactly the best way to describe it. And, as others have said, it’s full of lazy tropes. Nothing unpredictable whatsoever happened in this episode, which I hoped would be a new or unique take on the show and character but just wound up being dull and predicable.
Yeah, I was all primed for something fresh and exciting, remembering how it felt to watch the first episodes of original recipe Dexter, and it’s just…so here’s Dexter…bein’ Dexter. Deb’s here too, but hella calm and weird and not like Deb at all. And a bunch of randoms with no distinct personalities. And a gay!
Every new show must include a gay, or else places like AV club will write mean articles asking “where’s the mandatory gay?”
I don’t know about all that. I’m not saying I mind that they included a gay character—it’s just that they included him as a person whose only personality trait is that he’s very gay, oh and how kooky that the gay person owns the gun shop. It’s just lazy.
My dad was born with bleach blonde hair, and it turned black as midnight by the time he was 15.
Fair enough, and I knew someone would respond something like this to my comment. lol But was he still bleach blonde by the time he was like 5 or 6, which is the last time we saw Harrison? And it’s still weird because Harrison’s mom had bright blonde hair, and Dexter has sandy brown hair. Where did this black hair come from? I’m not feeling it. Not saying it definitely can’t happen, but I don’t know why they would have gone that route instead of choosing an actor who looked at least some little bit of how someone would have expected Harrison to turn out? Why choose someone completely opposite?
Pops had the bleach blonde hair until he was about 10 or so, and then it started coming in midnight black in parts for a few years and by the time he’s 15, the blackest hair of anyone I’ve ever met. His mom had red hair, his dad had light brown hair, so no idea where he got either his blonde from, or the jet black.
But I don’t disagree with the casting. Keeping it blonde would have probably been better, but just having known someone who had this very thing happen to them, it doesn’t bother me for a second. Can totally see how it might mess with others though.
Milkman?I’m sure I’m just being picky because I just didn’t like the episode, but he looks nothing like Harrison to me, so I’m holding out hope that he’s phenomenal in the role as that could retroactively justify this casting choice.
Yeah the actual actor doesn’t look like Harrison at all, that’s for sure.
Underwhelming, but definitely a table setting episode. They should have just stuck to that and let the first kill happen next time. It felt rushed given the pacing of everything else.
If nothing else, I guess it’s nice to see a series featuring an American small town that isn’t being destroyed by opioid addiction. First one in a while.
You can tell HR was on point with the diversity hires and they made that clear episode 1. Indigenous hottie as “chief” of police, amputee, plucky dispatcher who saves her prosthetics to line dance, gay boss and minister husband. Not sure about the chief’s daughter, though. Seems like a basic white bitch to me. You get the point though; sure, it’s show where the serial killer is the hero, but by god we will have wokeness!As for Dexter? He seems tired. We got a lot in the first episode and I think they rushed into the old Dexter too fast. We barely got to know Jim, Dexter’s Clark Kent. It feels like no time has passed for us since the debacle that was the final few seasons. And too obvious an asshole to kill, which will likely cause more trouble than he’s worth. What happened to the sensible Dexter we knew who would be more cautious than to kill the son of the local millionaire power guy? Nice to have him back, but it’s more a curiosity at this point.
It was about as silly as it always has been, but slightly better shot. It’s already better than the final season, but tbf all it has to do to vault that bar is keep things happening at a steady pace for 10 episodes rather than the frustrating wheel spinning we were subjected to. Also has there ever been a Dexter villain that didn’t scream ‘Im a walking corpse’ as soon as they appeared on screen?
I actually really enjoyed this premiere. It had a slow-burn feel of building to the inevitable, but that’s what I liked about it. And the final moments, and what triggered the relapse, felt a LOT less like “Dexter” as we knew him and more like “Dexter Unhinged”. Rusty, out of practice, and sloppy. That’s very interesting to me because in the original show we pretty much start “in media res” where he’s already experienced, skilled, and semi-perfect at what he does. Seeing Dexter struggle will be great.
Don’t have Showtime, haven’t watched yet. Is he still hot?
So what is the point of this going to be? Are they going to have Dexter somehow run across more than one murder-worthy asshole in a town of a hundred people or whatever?
Well, is Miss Marple is to be believed, small towns are cesspits full of worse evil than any city, so … maybe?
A lot of the murders in Miss Marple are motivated by money or blackmail though, which is plausible. Although I did used to smile at how many people had conveniently large doses of things like laudanum, opium, cyanide and chloral hydrate laying around…..
To be fair, a lot of the deaths were based on things like pesticides and powerful cleaning solvents, which I can totally believe were lying around in the 1940s and 50s.
The point of this show is Micheal C Hall writing down a huuuge check on his bank account and Showtime doing the same. It’s everything we could have wanted!
Based on the next-episode(s) teaser, there’s a human trafficking thing going on in Iron Lake
I wonder if that sensitive subject will be handled better or worse than Prison Break handled the conflict in Yemen…….
Can we add a new trope to the list of fucking exhausting TV/movie tropes? Like the one where a cop pulls over our protagonist and we’re supposed to be thinking that he might be in some trouble only to find out WHOA, THEY’RE DATING??? WHAT??? NO WAY!!! WHO COULD HAVE POSSIBLY SEEN THIS TWIST COMING EVEN THOUGH IT’S BEEN DONE LIKE 100 TIMES BEFORE? Ugh. And of course there is a coitus interruptus call from dispatch letting us know just what a litttle Mayberrry town this place is with it’s pie and goat crimes. Then there is the next trope where our protagonist is roaming around town and he knows EVERYSINGLEGODDAMNBODY? “You keeping up your grades, Suzie? Good luck in the swim meet, Tommy! Sorry about your pecan pies, Pastor! Did the rpescription take care of your yeast infecction, Granny Oldlady?” Why, he’s just so gersh dern neighborlike. Wouldn’t a guy who MIGHT have people looking for him AND was always one of the most socially awkward people be a TAD more discreet. There’s hiding in plain sight, then there’s being in everyone’s business. And that town is a regular little Liberal Utopia, isn’t it? The gay guy (whom I personally know in real life…shout out Michael Cyril Creighton) and his partner, a Black cop, a woman in a wheelchair, the Latino family that runs the bar and I think a lesbian couple too. This town makes Stars Hollow look like an Orange County country club. And his first victim is, of course, a rich white Wall Street douchebag. It was all just a little too on the nose.
^^^^hell yeah^^^^^^
It honestly reminded me of Beacon, NY, or Jim Thorpe, PA. Walking through those towns seemed like they were part of a TV show where the directors and producers were trying to have everything as diverse as possible. It was almost comical. Granted, I don’t think that the diversity is a bad thing for a second.
And yet they left out the interracial couple.
Dexter and the cop are the interracial couple
I really loved that the character and show are nothing like the previous one.
I liked it well enough. I was hoping for a more complex take but “Dexter kills asshole of the week” is a fine jumping off point. I just hope they do more than that with the season.And Harrison is what, 18 maybe? He tracked down Dex, a cunning and elusive psycho, then traveled from Argentina to upstate NY?My guess is something bad happened to Hannah, she told him all about his dad, helped him find Dex, and left him some money to go to him. Only way it works in my head.
Let me know when Hannah shows up with the armies of Gilead.
I just wanna know a) where were Matthew’s hunting buddies when he shot the deer? You KNOW he would have been out there with his “bros” to show off his new hunting rifle! And b) how the hell did Dexter lug his body back to his home without leaving a trail of blood and drag marks? From what we saw of his running to “hunt” his beloved deer every morning it was a pretty long trek, right? Major plot holes as far as I’m concerned.
If Dexter’s narration is gone, how’re else are we gunna know whats happening?
Dexter was always more of a junk food show than a prestige show until it just turned into a shitty show post-trinity killer. This episode brought back those good junk food vibes. As long as it remains in this territory, I’ll be satisfied.
“I found the music in the episode kind of distracting outside of “The Passenger,” in terms of needle drops and score alike.”
Me too. I’m a composer and I thought Dan Licht’s score was perfect in the original series, but sadly Dan, my friend, passed away a few years ago. The score here, while minimal, was somewhere between forgettable and annoying. At least Dan’s incredible “Blood Theme” is still played over the end credits. But speaking of credits, Dan deserved better than “Additional music by”. I think “Original Dexter themes/music by” would’ve been more appropriate.
But Dexter as Ted Lasso bringing baked goods in a little pink box is priceless.
“I need more Debra f-bombs though and less of this Touched By An Angel version of foul-mouthed Deb.”I need more ‘Debra who wants to bang Dexter’ god that was hilariously awful.
Man I am SO GLAD THIS SHOW IS BACK! From the intro, to the extremely lame voice-over, to the ending theme, it was so awesome to see the show hit the familiar notes if just for nostalgia.That said everything I’ve seen so far is indicative of this turning into a total shitshow. The appearance of Harrison was laughable (where did he come from? what does it even mean when Dexter says that it is safer for him to return to Hannah when he walks away, how would he even know??). The whole thing just reads like a fever dream, and everything feels so weird and convoluted to the point that I had trouble understanding if scenes were sometimes meant to be one of those Dexter hallucinations or real (it took until the end before I was able to say for sure that it was indeed Harrison). The Harrison introduction scene just made so little sense.The grim, austere dark scenes in-between didn’t register as much either. Like it feels like the creator binged on the 3 seasons of Hannibal and then felt inspired to incorporate it into Dexter’s new season. Like that deer and the blood must be STRAIGHT out of a Hannibal episode it was soo so similar. It was like the creator wanted to go with this cool cool dark edgy vibe and it felt so weird to watch. Also, I miss Batista and the gang. I was waiting for the stalking figure to be Batista or some weird stuff like that, it seemed like totally something this series would pull (having it be Harrison was not far off from that).It’s just such a weird show to watch in 2021, but also somehow satisfying. The whole thing feels so very plastic to the degrees of serious escapism, but that is where the heart of Dexter always lied in my opinion, just totally implausible stuff happening over and over and everyone being complete caricatures but it being outrageously fun to watch (at its peak). That mixed with the wonky Miami vibes make the series imo. It’s still got that quality for better or for worse.But I am totally glad it is back. I was literally so happy when the voice-over returned at the end, it’s everything I wanted and I’m going to enjoy it for all its worth.
Hot take: Harrison kills Dexter