Dexter races against the clock to save Harrison in a frustrating New Blood
Episode 8, "Unfair Game," has a ticking clock to count the wasted minutes
TV Reviews Harrison
Dexter has always been heavy on the overt visual metaphors, but there’s an unintentional one early in “Unfair Game,” New Blood’s eighth episode. It’s the beat where, following a struggle with Caldwell henchman Elric Kane, Dexter is hurtled through a windshield and into the snow. Just as Dexter has no choice but scramble to his feet somehow and keep moving at all costs, so must we move from abruptly and painfully from one of Dexter’s best episodes in ages to one of its weirdest. While not a complete disappointment, “Unfair Game” is oddly paced and edited throughout, even as it finally brings the season’s long-simmering plotlines to a head.
The episode picks up just moments after the cliffhanger, with Dexter bound in the back of a pickup truck bound for Kurt Caldwell’s murder cabin. The driver is one Elric Kane, the payee on that $5,000 check Dexter found while snooping around Kurt’s office, and that check was an apparent payment for this current assignment. Dexter stirs himself awake thanks to an ultraviolent dream sequence featuring the absolute worst version of Harrison’s narrowly averted showdown with the vengeful Moose Creek kids. The sequence’s goofy editing foreshadows that equally goofy windshield ejection, which evokes season one of Fargo as recreated by Benny Hill.
Thanks to Dexter’s quick reflexes, and… I guess, imperviousness to most injuries, he escapes into the woods as Elric tracks him using the blood trail from a rifle shot to the leg. The ensuing chase basically eats up the entire episode where Dexter is concerned. He knows Kurt is up to something sinister involving Harrison after hearing Elric’s phone conversation, but he can’t get to Harrison until he deals with the Elric threat first. While it’s kind of delightful to take another detour through the abandoned summer camp we saw earlier in the season, this plot is an enormous waste of time. There’s no question that this the chase ends with Elric at the pointy end of Dexter’s knife, so it’s a suspense-free suspense sequence and a waste of the proto-slasher setting.
Worse still, the script suggests Dexter had to force Elric to tell him what secret location he needed to get to in order to save Harrison, only for it to be the most obvious possible answer. Where else would Kurt take someone he plans to harm other than the place where he goes to harm people, a cabin Dexter has been to multiple times? (Dexter has made equally consequential decisions based on wispier hunches, as in the last time he had to save his kid from a serial killer.) But the beat is shoehorned in as a way to make the “escaping Elric” scenes feel less like a naked plot mechanism. Dexter has to arrive at the cabin just in time to save Harrison, and Elric’s actual job is to stall Dexter long enough to create that moment.
While Dexter’s occupied with the henchman to whom he gave an Arthur Fleck smile, Kurt spends the day playing foster dad to Harrison, who remains hopelessly drawn to his darkest-timeline father figure. The Kurt and Harrison scenes are as much of a stalling tactic as the Dexter and Elric scenes, but they don’t feel that way because of the excellent performances. Clancy Brown and Jack Alcott have killed it all season, and they make the most out of each opportunity to deepen Kurt and Harrison’s twisted bond. The scene with Harrison demanding more bruises from the pitching machine is especially sharp because it suggests there are ways Kurt can hurt Harrison that don’t involve killing him at all.
That’s why the ultimate reveal of Kurt’s plan is a bit of a letdown. The psychological tug-of-war between Dexter and Kurt is what made “Skin Of Her Teeth” so satisfying, since Dexter never gets any worthy adversaries and Kurt’s playfulness showed real promise. I’d have been far more interested to see Kurt escalate his psychological manipulation of Harrison, perhaps by contriving a way to make Harrison kill someone and helping him cover it up, or by exposing Dexter’s actual nature before Dexter has a chance to. Instead, Kurt abruptly dons his hunting garb and tells Harrison it’s time to go from tasting venison to role-playing as the unsuspecting elk.
Besides the boring bluntness of Kurt’s scheme to kill Harrison in front of Dexter (and then, presumably, kill Dexter too), Kurt’s exact motivation and modus operandi seem murkier than ever. While the previous episode suggested Kurt’s experience with Iris dictated his protocols and predilections, apparently Kurt’s not even particular about the gender of his victims, let alone their transient status. At least that’s the only reasonable way to interpret this, since he’s been desperate for a body to replace the one he spoiled, though we still don’t know what exactly he’s doing with his victims. Kurt was going to kill Molly before Dexter intervened, even though that was guaranteed to lead directly to him, so we’ll just suppose he’s desperate to stick just anybody in his human taxidermy diorama.
Dexter, yet again, arrives just in time to prevent Kurt from completing his collection. Disguised as Elric, he tries to run Kurt over and narrowly misses. Dexter then narrowly misses his opportunity to catch Kurt since he’s too busy having a father-son moment with Harrison. One catharsis leads to another as Dexter finally realizes what he has risked by keeping his true nature from the one person who can most understand what he’s going through. It’s a big moment for Dexter, but one that presupposes that all the audience wants is for Dexter to get everything he needs without facing any real consequences. If fulfilling Dexter is the end game for this season, it will be unfair indeed.
Stray observations
- The third plot of the episode finds Angela jumping down the rabbit hole as her suspicions of Dexter intensify. Maybe this is what she’s doing to take her mind off Iris?
- At this point, Angela has connected all the dots (thanks in part to, ugh, a visit to Batista’s Facebook page), which can only mean one of two things. Either Angela is going to die before the season is out because someone else kills her in a most convenient way, or she’s going to make peace with Dexter because he’s able to avenge Iris when the law fails. Neither feels satisfying to me, so I’m really hoping for a third option.
- The ketamine thing really bothered me. I haven’t watched the original series in years, so I don’t know this for certain, but I don’t think ketamine was the drug Dexter was using to sedate victims during his BHB days.
47 Comments
I’ll admit all I really wanted was for Dexter to bond with Harrison, so at least I got that out of this episode. I don’t necessarily want this to be Dexter’s happy ending, but it should have Harrison being “saved” from his darker tendencies.Between Kurt both being metaphorically blue balled for his murder ritual and wanting to hurt Dexter, him turning on Harrison wasn’t that hard a pill to swallow. But I agree, I thought more would come from the surrogate dad angle before going sideways. Instead, this late into the season we had a very slow build up to that quick turn. With two episodes left and that unaddressed oil tycoon I’m worried we’re gonna have a season 2
I think the it’s pretty obvious that the Kurt’s plan had nothing to do with Iris:Kurt ‘knows’ that Dexter killed his son and has passed that message to Dexter via the titanium screw. So now he seeks revenge on Dexter by having Dexter witness the death of Harrison before killing Dexter.
Yeah, the way I read the scene was Kurt seemed a little rattled, things weren’t going how he’d planned with Dexter being late and maybe sensing something off when Harrison went outside (and not a hard leap when you realize you’ve only been texting your late henchman). So he fell back to his goto “this is how I kill people” schtick that he knows so well. Plus, a rifle and camo might be useful if things are going to go sideways. I really don’t think that was his main plan, with how much he seemed to enjoy breaking Harrison physically and emotionally. Maybe I’m giving him too much credit, but I thought he’d want Dexter to see the results of that before killing them both.
B+ for the acting and that final minute alone.That is all.
He used M99 all throughout Dexter. Either really sloppy, or else that was just a miraculously wrong fact on the internet. If she has just searched for “Miami homicide injection” I wouldn’t have had a second thought.
Brown is easily the best big bad a Dexter season has had since Lithgow. His weird, genuine “if only I didn’t have to kill you” vibes were oddly moving. And Alcott played against him very well, especially in that table scene, dropping the hostility and angst and showing how lonely he is. Admittedly, the whole Dexter in the woods plot wasn’t nearly as interesting.
Agreed. None of the other big bads past season 4 compare to Trinity, but Clancy’s Caldwell is getting close.
As soon as I saw that Clancy Brown was in the cast, it was painfully obvious that he was going to be the big bad… but who cares, because as you said, he’s crushing it.
When is Mr. Krabs not the villain?
Harrison just doesn’t have muck luck around exercise machines!
I’m not sure what I would have done differently (I’m no writer), but it just seemed like the conclusion of the Mr. Krabs/Harrison “courting” came way too soon. I realize they only have like 2 episodes left this season, but maybe they could’ve done something with Mr. Krabs completely turning Harrison against Dexter rather than trying to hunt Harrison like he does the runaway girls.Which also didn’t fit—why go through the whole thing of dressing up in his ‘serial killer’ disguise for something that doesn’t fit his serial killer credo?Overall, still, a pretty decent episode. B or B-minus seems about right. Its pretty obvious now the Sheriff is going to put the Bay Harbor Butcher on Dexter, which illustrates just how ridiculously incompetent and oblivious Miami Metro was, if she puts it together in like 2 days, lol.
In fairness, it’s a lot easier to solve crimes when people drop the one piece of relevant information they had from a decade ago in a three minute conversation about an unrelated case.
I thought that Kurt was trying to set up Dexter to bust in violently in a way that would turn Harrison against him so that Kurt could steal Harrison away from Dexter as a new surrogate son that he connects with much better than his old son that Dexter stole from him.
Mixed feelings once again, but the last scene made it worth it (not sure about Harrison being huggy all of the sudden).You’d think sharp slimy villain like Kurt would’ve known something was up when Elric was taking 10x longer to show up with Dexter, and would’ve called evil Cousin Eddie much earlier. The scenes between Harrison and Kurt were fantastic, only to be ruined once Mr Karbs quickly loses his patience and says “fuck it, I’m killing the kid!”Also, are we supposed to believe Angela dropped the Kurt investigation to solve, whiting hours, what the entire Miami PD and FBI couldn’t for years? Mark my words: this plot is going nowhere.
For the record, you are right. He used an animal tranquilizer in the original show known as M99, not Ketamine.
1.) Given how much time Kurt spent grooming Harrison, with Kevin Spacey-level “your dad will never appreciate you like I would” gaslighting, I started to wonder if the story was going to go in a different direction. Really, the resolution with him trying to kill Harrison was something of a relief.2.) It took Dexter like 5 seconds to get free so why didn’t he do that inside the truck (I don’t think the Glaslow Grin Goon had a clear line of sight to him and he was driving anyway) and either subdue GGG from the backseat or wait til they got to the dropoff point.3.) There is no way you can go flying out of a vehicle at that speed and not be seriously injured.4.) Harrison is supposed to be this street smart kid and it didn’t trigger his alarms bells at all that this man is just….spending the whole day with him?5.) No Ketamine is not the drug he used in the original series. There was an entire episode dedicated in the first season to explaining how he used an extremely controlled type of tranquilizer that he procured under an alias.6.) Calling it now- Julia Jones is going to figure out he’s the BHB but will either let him go or give him a headstart or “avenging” her friend from over 20 years ago or some crap.
“Calling it now- Julia Jones is going to figure out he’s the BHB but will either let him go or give him a headstart or “avenging” her friend from over 20 years ago or some crap.”Wouldn’t be shocked if Molly does the exact same thing—-she seems to be well on her way to figuring it out herself.I hope not. That would be a repetition of the old series. Here’s hoping they buck the trend and either shoot Dexter (when he says he won’t go to jail) or take him to jail.
So, is it just me, or was I slow on the uptake here? I just realized that the sheriff has a lot of resemblence to Deb. Similar narrow build and narrow face, dark hair falling straight down, etc. I wonder if it’s intentional, or just happenstance in casting. Or maybe a bit of both…they noticed the similarities and leaned into it with the hairdo, and fitting the clothes to make her look even more narrow.
No I don’t think the casting of the Angels character was an intentional act. But that is my opinion. I keep thinking that the rich oil tycoon is Audrey’s father. The way he interacted with Angela and when he pulled over on the side of the road with Audrey, he wasn’t creepy with her he was more of caring and doing some disappointment that she hates him so much. I could be completely wrong and he is tied up with Kurt somehow, maybe as a brother or something or possibly the boyfriend of Iris and that is why she rejected Kurt to run away. One thing for sure is there has to be a lot more for there to be still two more episodes left. At least I hope there more to develop and not drag out episode 8’s developments for two more shows. I honestly feel like Harrison is going to be killed in the finale. I read an interview he did at the beginning of the series.they didn’t post anything about beware of spoilers and I believe it was just simply a slip of his mind on what he was saying. Anyway he said that it was an honor and so enjoyable to be in this series and he wished he would have been able to continue if they decided to continue with more seasons. So what does that sound like to you? It sounds to me that sometimes major happens to his character that he cannot be in future seasons. That only means death to me. If he leaves the town he could always return and no other scenarios work either. I’m really interested in what you think and also how you feel the end will go.
Oh, yeah, the creepy rich oil tycoon. I completely forgot about that very small, very foreshadowy thread.At least now when they bring it back it won’t feel completely out of the blue.
Yeah, wait a minute, what ever happened to that oil tycoon guy?Maybe he realized how humiliating obtuse him rolling up in a giant SUV and calling Audrey’s Neon a “gas guzzler” was. He’s in hiding.
Thanks for intentionally passing on that spoiler you ran across accidentally.
It’s not just you. Pretty much from the first episode I was like, “She looks a LOT like Jennifer Carpenter” and I was wondering if it was intentional for Dexter to be drawn someone so similar to Deb.
Kurt said a few things that indicated having Harrison run like that was not his original intention that he had other plans. I think he assumed Elmer Fud wasn’t going to bring Dexter because he was surprised when the truck came. Not sure why any of this was time sensitive but he did make several references to how it was taking too long. And I know it is a TV trope that people like sit down to a big meal and eat one bite and leave but for some reason in this show it bugs me a lot more because it seems less casual. He took Harrison to the cabin for the expressed purpose of eating and decides halfway through dinner he can’t wait any longer and needs to kill him that minute?
Yeah, there were so many super-dumb moments in this episode that were based on — as mentioned — plot-mechanics that it was hard to stay interested.
…Dexter is hurtled through a windshield and into the snow. Just as Dexter has no choice but scramble to his feet somehow and keep moving at all costs…This one irked me most obviously — maybe I can believe that Dexter couldn’t hop over and finish strangling Elric before the guy regained consciousness, but even after he cut his feet free, the guy was still fumbling for his rifle and getting it loaded. His ONLY chance in real life would’ve been to rush him and struggle for the gun before he had it loaded. To start running like that in the snow, away from the scoped rifle, would’ve been suicide.
Harrison also came off as pretty dumb in this episode. He knows the guy who’s giving him the full-court father-and-son seduction routine was just taken away to jail. He has no idea why he was released. He knows his father — who is dating the town Police Chief — told him to stay away from the guy. Is he really going along with all this, without any kind of additional information from anyone else other than Kurt? WTF? That had me rolling my eyes hard enough to pop them out.Speaking of unbelievable character behavior, I think all the leaps of logic (based on digging into coincidences) that the Police Chief is making about Dexter were more than a little over-the-top, too. She previously thought there might be a chance that Kurt is telling the truth, because the DNA evidence is “only” 67% conclusive (despite all the other additional circumstantial evidence that would most definitely keep that guy in prison in real life), but instead of digging further into that case, or putting a tail on Kurt or at least observing his residence and cabin, she’s investigating Jim/Dexter??? Nope, didn’t buy that for a second.(Also in the next-episode-preview we saw …everything back to normal? Wouldn’t Kurt immediately be arrested if they told the cops what he’d done to Harrison? Who cares what he says afterwards? That titanium screw *has no link to Dexter whatsoever* and at that point, Kurt would be the most unreliable of witnesses insofar as any other hearsay evidence goes.)
I know they have to advance the plot, but this is way out on a limb even moreso than usual for this show.
… but even after he cut his feet free, the guy was still fumbling for his rifle and getting it loaded. His ONLY chance in real life would’ve been to rush him and struggle for the gun before he had it loaded.Given Doakes not only had the jump on Dexter and was pointing his gun at him when he realised Dexter was the serial killer they were after, I still find it very hard that Doakes hadn’t shot him at least six times before he could even come close to closing the gap to grapple with him all the way back then.
“I still find it very hard that Doakes hadn’t shot him at least six times
before he could even come close to closing the gap to grapple with him
all the way back then.”This. Doakes was special forces and a hardened cop. Dexter should have been gator food.
tbh that’s what turned me off the original series – the whole arc ended so conveniently, it just killed all the stakes.
I agree with most of this outside of the Harrison criticism. He’s a high school kid, unable to connect with his father, and I think the show did enough development of his relationship with Caldwell that it made sense to me.
Another super-dumb moment was having Elric repeatedly pause, stall, lower his rifle, etc., until Dexter was conveniently far enough away to miss. Yes, apparently he was supposed to bring Dexter back alive, but he could have accomplished that by shooting him in the leg when he first had him in his sights, no?
Elric shot him in the leg once, he just didn’t know Dexter is a meat-eating super-killer who has had experience in all sorts of life-or-death situations. Elric assumed chasing down Dexter would be like tracking down an injured deer, but he was wrong.I mean, obviously the show is ridiculous and Dexter definitely has plot-armor like a mofo, but the show also makes it pretty clear that Dexter spends a lot of time on fitness and keeping his “skills” sharp.
The lack of care taken to move the plot forward in an interesting and believable way is really irksome in this series.
I get that they didn’t really just want to do a season of Dexter getting caught, but while I enjoy the Kurt plots overall, it still feels like a separate idea that doesn’t always come together. I can kind of see the ending they have in mind and while I already prefer this season to the very lazy S8, I can’t help but feel like it’s going about this in a very sloppy way.
“I can kind of see the ending they have in mind and while I already prefer this season to the very lazy S8″Thats a very low bar to clear. I don’t blame laziness on S8 at all—just actively and insistently BAD writing.
Yeah true, though I suppose bad writing can also be lazy writing when they bring up a major plot point (Laguerta’s death that can easily be traced to Deb) and then just don’t bothering following through on that idea.
The ketamine thing is because that was what he took from the Vets office a few episodes ago, it had been like 10 years since he killed somebody, so its not like he has a stash of his preferred drugs on hand.
Every one takes this show very seriously but in rewatching even the first 4 seasons dexter was always much closer to nip/tuck than the sopranos and thats okay. I’m okay with dexter being dumb as long as it’s still compelling, but people seem to not expect it to be pulp
The reviewer needs to remember this is essentially a superhero show. Of course we know Dexter will get out of being hunted in the woods in episode 8 of 10, but the point is Dexter doesn’t know that – so it’s suspenseful from the point of view of the character in terms of how he manages. Two things though: the summer camp is obviously being visited throughout the year by teens so I find it surprising that a set of perfect, sharp knives is sitting right there unmolested. Also, really? Jumping through the mirror? Would require a lot of running room and force, and Dex would probably be hugely cut up – that’s just C-level horror movie action, instead of hiding behind him or just running out from behind the mirror.I haven’t hugely loved Harrison, but his absolute agony at being betrayed by Kurt (did I say something wrong?) was actually quite heartbreaking, and wordlessly hugging Dexter at the end was really moving. I’m just waiting to see if they’ll somehow ruin it in the final two episodes…but damn, taking this show for what it is, I’m loving seeing new Dexter after all these years.And, it’s kind of funny how much crossover there is with Dexter and Spongebob fans, judging by the amount of people who just refer to CB as Mr. Krabs 🙂
Dexter has never been a show that thought dexter was wrong. At all points the show sees dexter as a cool dude, not a man to have contempt for, and the first 4 seasons at least heavily imply that the only bad things dexter does is not listen to Harry. Everytime something goes wrong it’s not because dexter did something the audience or anyone is supposed to think is “wrong” for him to do, unless it goes against harrys code. That’s why to me personally Deb being the ghost that haunts him is a way better story telling device because Deb challenges dexter more imo
Dexter as a concept basically is saying “light yagami is correct”
Dexter did not use ketamine in the original series. Idk why they would say that in this episode. It would have no connection to the Bay Harbor Butcher. He used Etorphine (Immobilon or M99). A semi-synthetic opioid possessing an analgesic potency approximately 1,000-3,000 times that of morphine.
Where else would Kurt take someone he plans to harm other than the place where he goes to harm people, a cabin Dexter has been to multiple times?Kurt knows that Dexter (and Angela/the cops) have been to his cabin and suspect it’s being used for nefarious purposes, so it’s not illogical to think he’d choose another location. It made sense to me that Dexter would need to confirm where he was, rather than waste his one possible chance at finding Harrison in time.
I’ve been wondering about how this could possibly end with Angela. At the rate of revelations shes operating on, im guessing she’ll fully conclude Jim is the Harbor Bay Butcher. And perhaps she will let her desire for revenge against Kurt allow her to request Dexter’s services once again. Kill Kurt for murdering her best friend, and she wont turn him in. Which doesn’t really seem like her but we just watched Dex go headlong through a car window and shake it off no problem so… And needle puncture points are like insect bites lol.I am enjoying the season tho
Dexter used M99 (etorphine) to subdue his victims back in the day
Not sure why you thought Kurt would be worthy adversary – he murders young, lost girls by shooting them with a gun. You don’t exactly have to be a mastermind to lure a vulnerable child to her death. He basically had a meltdown when his kill went wrong. He didn’t cover up his lie about Matt calling very well. Not really someone with the skills for the large scale manipulation you were hoping for. He doesn’t even need to be all that smart to cover up his own crimes – no one cares about lost runaways, that’s like a main feature of this season. And, you know, reality. You seem awfully concerned about logistics when it concerns Dexter, but not Kurt.
Did anybody else think that Kurt’s cabin was a new cabin because he had abandoned the 1st cabin, and that’s why Dexter needed to know where it was? I may have misunderstood.
I gotta say, I expected quite a bit more out of Elric. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elric_of_Melnibon%C3%A9