Harrison and Audrey take a pair of bad trips in a frustrating Dexter: New Blood
The fifth episode, "Runaway," feels like old Dexter in the worst way possible.
TV Reviews Harrison
The announcement of Dexter’s return to the airwaves sparked a round of feverish speculation, as series reboots are wont to do. Who would return to join Dexter Morgan’s relatively principled murder spree? Would James Remar reprise his role as Ghost Harry? Why is Jennifer Carpenter back? How can they possibly bring back John Lithgow, whose character was last seen busting the seams of a Glad lawn-and-leaf bag? Hell, if dead characters are on the table, might we see Erik King return for a surprise “Surprise, motherfucker?”
In all the scuttlebutt that trickled out as New Blood went into production, I don’t remember seeing a single headline about David Zayas’ involvement. There have been no Batista rumors, no sightings of Zayas milling around the set, and no ultimatums from Angel’s Angels, which I assume is what his biggest fans call themselves. The reason for the dearth of Batista news is simple: No one cares about Batista.
That’s no offense to Zayas himself, who’s just a professional who shows up and performs what’s on the page, which usually involves plotzing any time someone voices the faintest suspicion about Dexter. But Batista symbolizes the absolute dumbest impulses of a show working to restore its goodwill with the audience. And yet, here he is in “Runaway,” a disheartening follow-up to the unexpectedly solid fourth episode and the closest New Blood has come to full-on self-parody.
The episode picks up from last episode’s tantalizing cliffhanger as Dexter poises himself to interrogate Harrison, who is either a hero or a budding vigilante depending on whom you ask. Dexter is still inclined to believe the explanation that dovetails with his own heroic origin story, but Harrison isn’t ready to be anyone’s dark defender. He bristles at his father’s insinuations, then gets whisked off to a party where the theme is apparently “We’ve Learned Nothing.” Rather than attempt to include some of the people they’ve shunned and tormented, “Zack and those guys” turn Ethan’s kill list into a guest list. Stay classy fellas.
Harrison pretends to enjoy himself at the party thrown in his honor, but inside he’s spiraling, ill-equipped to handle the adoration of people now convinced he’s single-handedly responsible for their survival. He starts taking pills handed to him by grateful party guests, and before long Harrison is SnorriCam wasted and loses consciousness. Logan is able to bring him back, but Harrison was only moments away from dying just like more than a dozen other people in the area who have died after ingesting these particular party favors.
So yet again, as before with Matt Caldwell, we’re introduced to an ancillary character designed to be such a cartoonish menace that Dexter has to drop everything to attend to a clear and present danger to the community. Never mind that Kurt Caldwell is still acting incredibly weird, including his habit of sauntering into the bar already tipsy and dancing to Del Shannon as if his missing son is the furthest thing from his mind. Just like old times back in Miami, Dexter has to risk it all to stalk and kill a random who has offended his delicate sensibilities.
This time, the random is one Jasper Hodge, who likes to season his illicit pills with fentanyl and is entirely unrepentant even when he’s strapped to Dexter’s kill table. In fact, Jasper goes so far as to insult Dexter’s parenting, because that’s just how glib and monstrous he has to be in order to justify spending even a moment’s time on this exhausting detour. (It still didn’t work.) Rather than stab Jasper and incinerate his body as usual, Dexter instead forces Jasper to get high on his own supply, then apparently returns and poses the body so it’ll look like Jasper accidentally overdosed on his own dangerous concoctions. Another threat has been eliminated in the unassuming little hellmouth that is Iron Lake, New York.
When all the dust finally settles, I wonder if Dexter will feel great about how he spent his time given that Kurt Caldwell has continued apace with his killing spree while he’s been fighting the war on drugs. Kurt escorts Chloe, his latest unfortunate boarder, down to his subterranean guest room, which apparently isn’t as instantly creepy in person as it looks on the show. Chloe attempts to use her sexuality to throw Kurt off his game, which works all too well. Kurt melts down because Chloe is refusing to hit her cues as he attempts yet again to hunt the least dangerous game. He hastily shoots Chloe in the eye, then again in the chest, telling her she “ruined everything.” Everything I’m not so sure about, but any residual menace or gravitas Kurt was hanging onto is for sure ruined.
Which brings us to the Batista of it all, as Angela and her new podcast bestie Molly are the only people focused on unraveling the disappearance of Matt Caldwell. Angela is so annoyed upon learning Matt’s credit cards were used at a Manhattan hotel that she decides to head into the city to confront him, giving her a chance to drop in on a missing persons convention she had her eye on. And who does she run into but the one and only Angel Batista, who happens to be the keynote speaker of the session Angela attends and naturally has lots of insights into mysterious disappearances and apex serial killers. He even insists on giving her the names of everybody involved with the old case he worked including Deb, Dexter, and even cute little Harrison.
The end result is that Angela is now armed with the knowledge that Jim Lindsay isn’t who he claims to be, which is confirmed for her after Audrey mentions Harrison’s intoxicated confession. And that’s a fine place for New Blood to be in as it enters its back half. But man alive, getting to that point requires accepting a Jenga tower of goofy contrivances that harkens back to Dexter’s very worst storytelling impulses. “Runaway” suggests there may not be any new blood running through this franchise after all.
Stray observations
- There can’t be anymore plot points that hinge on someone glancing at a document they aren’t supposed to have access to. There just can’t be.
- I sincerely hope Harrison is going to evolve into the villain of the season, because that murder scene with a flustered Kurt Caldwell took every bit of the wind out of his sails.
- Molly Park is irritating and I can’t imagine why Angela has taken such a shine to her. But her boyfriend is Dexter, so who knows.
- Ghost Deb doesn’t seem to have much sway over Dexter. It’s pointless to have her constantly show up to convince him not to do things he’ll invariably do.
- Under no circumstances would an employee of an upscale New York City hotel buckle under threats made by the sheriff of a small town upstate. Just… no.
80 Comments
I didn’t think it was THAT bad—-granted, last week’s episode was far better, but I did like the cameo appearance of Batista, who hilariously offered detective advice when he had a serial killer successfully passing blame, right under his nose for years.We need C.S. Lee to make an appearance!
His wisdom- that when you have multiple disappearances in the same location, they may be the work of one perpetrator- and the fact that everyone treated this as devine knowledge as opposed to tautologically obvious common sense made me realize it’s not just Miami Metro- in this universe, everyone in Law Enforcement is a complete bumbling stupid fuck.
They remind me of the Cabot Cove PD.
Hshs
We need C.S. Lee to make an appearance!At this rate, there’s still a chance Molly is Masuka’s other daughter he didn’t know he had.
This was actually my favorite episode so far this season. I’m sure a lot of it has to do with imagining the possibility that Angel and Dexter will meet again, a scenario I never really thought would occur or even thought about. But even if they don’t meet, just seeing the actor again was nice.Sure, there were some dumb things in there, Batista bringing up Harrison by name being just bizarre and a thing that I cannot see ever happening, but overall I enjoy how the show is moving forward.
Now now, Dexter posed that dude’s body after faking an OD because he saw Logan outside (all these police departments have at least one competent employee) and knew he didn’t have time to finish the regular kill.Kurt is a little more interesting to me now. I just want to know what his deal is, why he kills the way he does. I also want to understand why a girl would keep bothering him for money, what would happen if she took the job offer, and how no one has caught on to this before.Which brings us to Angel. Was that an hour long presentation that boiled down to “Look for a common factor in the cases”? Glad he remembered Harrison’s name and felt it was important to the story he was telling Angela.Boy that girl that asked Harrison to carve an H in her leg is gonna be so confused when she sobers up
I am also curious as to what Kurt’s M.O. is. I kind of like they aren’t showing us yet. Normally with the main season villains in the original, the camera would only show us some of their deeds, then Dexter would be “detecting” and uncover more evidence. This show is crafted a little differently. And thankfully, Harrison is not a young woman. I was actually fearful for a moment Kurt might go off pattern since his last kill got botched.And I see despite all the rise in suspense and tension in this episode, and even a cool Angel Batista appearance, that Joshua subjectively still dislikes Dexter.
Kurt is a little more interesting to me now.The only interesting about Kurt is how he keeps getting away with so many stupidly-planned murders. He’s basically the Donald Trump of he Trinity Killers.
Like even the first girl we saw him kill, wasn’t Angela the one that specifically recommended she see him for shelter? How is no one piecing this together?
Because they’re just tourists passing by and no one cares and everyone just assumes they continued on their travels?
I know its been a week, but didn’t Angela send her to a woman who runs a shelter? I’m thinking of a young woman at the bar in the first episode.
I forget who she sent her to specifically, and I didn’t even recognize the girl when we see her in the kill cabin. But the way it was shown, it was as if Angela said “Go here if you need a place to stay” and the next we see the girl she’s in that room. I got the impression at the time that Kurt was known to shelter people.
Glad he remembered Harrison’s name and felt it was important to the story he was telling Angela.He turned and remembered the name with the force and grace of the Kool-Aid Man crashing through a wall. I’m surprised they didn’t fire off a menacing organ chord.
He should have brought up why when Deb and Dexter died no one bothered looking for Harrison. Also, not that it’s something I expect this show to address at all because they were written out so completely, what happened with Astor and Cody. They’re also Harrison’s family.
I expected Batista to bring up an old photo on a smartphone. Hey, here we are, Deb and Dex and all the gang, and Angela’s eyes scream WTF?!
Huh, I thought this was the best ep of the season so far because it finally felt like an episode of Dexter. The messy plot threads, some tied up, some leading onto future episodes. Things happened, and like them or not, at least it wasn’t boring. The majority of Dexter was like this, so to expect something different seems setting yourself up for disappointment.
I did also as I was watching. It really upped the stakes. I even feared for Harrison when Kurt pulled up beside him in his pickup truck.
I disagree with the best episode of the season call—-last week’s ep was it for me, but I thought it was much better than C-minus.The funny thing was me thinking that for a supposed expert serial killer, Dexter sure does screw up a lot. Like going after that drug dealer right after the police found out who he was AND right after they caught him beating the hell out of the first drug dealer outside the bar.He’s no Jessica Fletcher, that’s for sure.
Well, he is Jessica Fletcher in the sense that he’s the Johnny Appleseed of killers. Wherever he goes, they sprout up.
Just nowheres near as good at covering up his crimes.
The next season will be called That’s Our Dexter! I expect canned laughs and everything.
This. To me Harrison is the weakest part of this season; not really interested in him, but I bet he’s been lying to Dexter all along, e.g., is Hanna still alive, or did he kill Hanna?
Couldn’t agree more – Dexter has always had a messy charm to it, even in its best seasons, so I’m all for future episodes channeling this more than the start of New Blood has.
I thought it was another solid episode. It is a little ridiculous that Dexter would try to go after two people in broad daylight. He used to stalk his victims and learn their routines. Here, he acted uncharacteristically sloppy and stupid. At the same time, I liked the suspense of him barely getting away from the cops.
The Caldwell situation was already a lost cause last episode, where we watched him proactively establish himself – in a public place, with lots of witnesses – as one of the last people to see a future-disappeared-girl alive, talking to her, offering her a job, all that.This week’s episode just doubles down on the idiocy. Now we get to witness one of his victims “ruining everything” by doing pretty much exactly what you’d expect the victim of a perv-kidnapper-rapist to do in order to try to save their own life. The perpetrator is an older man who shows himself to his victims – younger women – before they realize they’ve been kidnapped. Many of them already have experience with being uniquely sexually vulnerable as runaways/transients, and some of them are prostitutes!It’s so sad, too, because Brown is a fucking titan, and clearly somebody has a few good ideas here and there on how to make Caldwell’s public persona compelling and just “off” enough. But literally everything about his real self – the serial killer – has just gone straight down the toilet.Listen, I know things are really bad in places like this, especially for the native populations. But this is just gilding the shit-lily with cat turds. Huh, this one dude who runs a diner has been one of the last people to see a disappeared girl alive forty times in a row.
As if that’s not bad enough, the episode is exactly what the reviewer accuses it of being on the Dexter side: a perfect storm of contrivances, a complete “fuck you” to all pacing, a rushed transition into another situation where Dexter is suddenly in massive amounts of danger just as he decides to also set a dehumidifier and a humidifier in a room together to see which one will win.Only, you know, the dehumidifier is the The Stupid Stick and the humidifier is Plot Armor.
And then there was Batista. Agreed that the actor can hardly be blamed. The character is a curse, and became a symbol of everything that was wrong with the original show after like two seasons (and we can certainly quibble there. Quibble 1: was it sooner? Quibble 2: how could you single him out with so many other cursed characters flailing around?)
I could’ve swore I heard Mr. Krabs in there a couple of times when he was raging at the girl for not following his plan.
I would not have objected to the girl saying “are you feeling it now, Mr. Caldwell?” during her Hail Mary stripdown, but only because this episode tanked the season. Dumb references and memes are all we have left.So, here’s my idea: take the writers and storyboarders responsible for Ghost Deb (for the first three episodes, at least, because they’ve still got time to ruin her too!) hook them up with Carpenter on some completely different project, and see if something good can indirectly come out of all of this.
I love Carpenter and whish she got more and better work. It has to be wild to go back to a reboot with your ex as the lead though.
Wait, where is it established that Kurt is a rapist? He gets angry when Chloe starts to undress because his ritual — whatever motivates it — isn’t supposed to be sexual. He even tells her, “That isn’t what this is about.” Like Trinity, he may be reenacting some form of childhood trauma. He gets flustered because the victim is always supposed to run away from him; Chloe is the first one who charges him, realizing that fleeing is futile.
Sorry, when I say “rapist,” I’m speaking from the reasonable conclusions drawn by his victims from context, which would then lead them to try to use sexuality in a Hail Mary play to survive.
I thought Kurt’s reversion to an almost child-like state was unexpected and perfectly played by Clancy Brown. Unlike Dexter, he can’t improvise because these killings are clearly ritualistic in nature — they’re supposed to follow a script. Chloe interrupted that script by running *toward* him, even though she knew he had the gun, because she wanted to die on her own terms.I don’t know, it made sense to me?
In isolation, yes, but my point is that Caldwell’s rituals should lead to a significant number of his victims “ruining everything” in very similar ways. So now suddenly we’ve got a highly-ritualistic serial killer whose rituals are both 1) insanely reckless, and 2) themselves create a very high probability that things aren’t going to work out the way he needs them to work out.If the writers had spent time showing us that Caldwell was incredibly smart and careful, then okay, maybe I’d give them some rope for exploring a self-defeating serial killer. But they shat the bed by showing us that Caldwell should’ve been caught decades ago, so I’m inclined to think they just shat the bed again.
I’d add that while the kid who plays Harrison is doing a great job, “Is Harrison a psychopath?” is about the least interesting, most obvious way they could have gone with this. I know it’s fucking Dexter, so that’s just how we roll, but Dexter dealing with and/or mentoring another budding killer that he cares about is a plot we’ve done at least three times already. I might be in the minority here, but every time we stop to wonder if or when Harrison is going to kill, my eyes glaze over.Forcing both Dexter the character and the writers to deal with a badly traumatized kid who needed his fucked-up dad’s help without the crutch of murder-bonding would have been a way more interesting emotional and creative challenge. But Dexter is nothing if not lazy.
But THIS time it’s different, it’s his OWN SON, DUN DUN DUN!!
I’m just glad it wasn’t Joey.
I still think Caldwell is just a minion for Olsen supplying him with bodies while getting his own rocks off on the kill so I’m not too disappointed with his failings this episode. He’s not the big bad he’s a miniboss at best. I like Batista but I did roll my eyes at the convenient coincidence of it all. But, that’s Dexter, (in)convenient coincidences are always a primary plot driver.
When I saw Batista, it was obvious a connection to Jim’s real identity would be made. I was wondering if Angela would invite him up to her town, and fuck, Hi, Dexter Morgan! Or Dex calls Angela and his face shows up on her phone and Batista goes WTF?!
Under no circumstances would an employee of an upscale New York City hotel buckle under threats made by the sheriff of a small town upstate. Just… no.Wait, this is the plausibility hill you’ve picked to die on? You might want to avoid Showtime.
Me, last week:
Best episode of the revival so far, though it’s very convenient how everyone quickly ate up Harrison’s stabbing story, especially Angela, who is in a fast-track to become the worst cop in Dexter’s history since Angel Batista.This week, Mr. Fucking Criminal Case Expert himself, the keynote speaker at a damn missing persons conference:Fuck me sideways, New Blood. I think I’m done.
To be perfectly honest, if the show had some more self awareness, a terrible detective reinventing himself as a public speaker on the back of his proximity to well known cases, to take advantage desperate people with missing relatives, would’ve been a compelling take on Batista all these years later.
I know that’s not how he was presented, but I can dream can’t I?
But then you won’t get to see Ghost Doakes show up!NM, he aint coming. That would be too awesome for this show.
Wow
– I had the exact opposite reaction to Kurt Caldwell’s scenes – for me,
his was easily the best plot in the episode. This episode humanized
him. I’ve been seeing him as just generic, rich, murdering creep, and this is the first
time we’ve seen him looking scared, pathetic and desperate. His
victim’s attempts to save herself were clever and taught us a lot about
Kurt. Why was he so upset that his victim tried using her sexuality to throw him off? Why is his ritual so specific that he needs them to be running away to enjoy the kill? I’m so much more interested in learning more about why he does
what he does after this.
Some of those voice overs were pre-tty lame.
In all the scuttlebutt that trickled out as New Blood went into production, I don’t remember seeing a single headline about David Zayas’ involvement. There have been no Batista rumors, no sightings of Zayas milling around the set, and no ultimatums from Angel’s Angels, which I assume is what his biggest fans call themselves. The reason for the dearth of Batista news is simple: No one cares about Batista.
Eh, the showrunners did hint that someone from Miami would make an appearance (separate from Deb).Granted this doesn’t really take away from the idea that Angel more or less revealing Dexter’s identity was lazy, especially since Harrison just indicated as such at the party.
I didn’t mind the episode, but I also have never viewed Dexter, even at its best, as fine dining. It’s always been a guilty pleasure meal for me (that said, Michael C. Hall is obviously an outstanding actor so that’s not taking anything away from his, or any other performances, such as Lithgow, etc).That said… my goodness, the way Angela got the information about Dexter’s real name was so goddamn clunky. I know they had to find a way to keep Angel in the dark about Dexter still being alive, but good lord.Also, am I crazy or does Dexter have a pretty reasonable explanation for why he changed his identity that he could use with Angela next week? “Well, my wife was brutally murdered by a serial killer. Then my sister was killed. I just felt like I needed a fresh start.” The Harrison part is a little trickier, but maybe “We’d both been through so much trauma that I thought he’d be better off with his stepmom, starting fresh in a new place” would be reasonable enough.
not even just a fresh start, he couldve been like “i just wanted to go into hiding in case I was next!!”
Exactly, a handful of great performances (Dexter, Deb, Trinity, Doakes, Lumen, Dr. Vogel) in dire need of a much better show. Everyone else (Rita, Batista, LaGuerta, Matsuka, Hannah, Jamie, Quinn, whoever Jimmy Smits was playing, the “pardon my tits” lady) knew they were only in a semi-decent show and only acted to that standard (or to the best of their limited ability… Quinn…)
It would have been easier for Batista to see Angela’s cell phone screensaver with her and Dexter (and Dexter is partially obscured), or for Batista to show a squad photo during his presentation (with Dexter and Deborah included), or something more elegant than remembering the name of the nephew of the woman who solved a similar case…….
I was thinking about Angel seeing a photo of Dexter, but that throws too many complications into the mix because then you’d have Angel going to Iron Lake to get all up in Dexter’s business. Your idea of a squad photo would have made MUCH more sense, if done right.
Yeah, but in TV shows and movies, any excuse is basically “YOU LIED TO ME ALL THIS TIME!!!”… and no one is ever forgiven, unless Dexter saves Angela’s life in the final episode.
You just made me realize… Caldwell is DEFINITELY going to put Audrey in danger before the end of the season, isn’t he. Which makes me think… the billionaire they’ve been teasing, they haven’t really done anything with him. He’s just… lingering. There has to be more going on with him, right? And Kurt seemed to doing, like… taxidermy on the previous runaway? And now Chloe “ruined” everything, maybe because she got shot in the face so now he can’t do the same to preserve her? I wonder if maybe the billionaire pays Kurt to pad a sick “collection” for him, or something. Just trying to sort out how the billionaire could factor in. And if Audrey keeps getting into his business, maybe he could have Kurt make her the next victim/trophy, and that’s how Dexter winds up having to save her.
I like this take.
I think we deserve a special shout-out. I predicted exactly how Dexter would explain it, and you predicted exactly how she would react. Are we… are we secretly writing this show?
Please please please just let them turn Harrison into a serial killer and have him kill Dexter. Or have Dexter kill him. Any other ending between the two of them would just suck.
Maybe next season they go on the road together, a Natural Born Killers-type premise.
I totally would not put that past them. Deb’s ghost can harangue both of them, maybe Batista or Doake’s ghost could hunt them down. I can just hear Doake’s voice going “you got your kid into this too, you sick fuckin weirdo creep??? I knew you were fucked up.”
TBH, the edgiest (and probably best) ending they could possibly do would be Dexter killing Harrison. The reverse would just be rather trite or contrived. So yeah, that’s probably what they’ll end up doing.
And that’s a fine place for New Blood to be in as it enters its back half. But man alive, getting to that point requires accepting a Jenga tower of goofy contrivances that harkens back to Dexter’s very worst storytelling impulses.
Unfortunately, I agree. After the last week’s incredible episode, this week does feel kind of like a step back. I was expecting Dexter to reveal himself (or at least in parts) to Harrison, but that was done quite poorly.And Cadwell is going through a sort of breakdown over the loss of his son as well as fear of police closing around on him (which is ironically of his own doing, pretending that Matt is still alive).At least these threads did gave us an interesting and long-waited path to being uncovered as Dexter AND as a serial killer. I loved that scenario with Deb in Season 7, though that didn’t leads to Dexter being publicly outed. Hopefully he would be this time around.
Man. That was dire. How many more episodes are left for this series? I’m not sure how much more I can take.This review pretty much covers it all, but how about how easily this town throws around the “hero” concept. Audrey’s (or “Auds” ugh) “quick thinking” saved Harrison’s life? It doesn’t take particularly quick thinking to to call 911 when someone passes out right in front of you, Logan. And now all of a sudden Iron Lake PD is a crack team, tracking down not one but two drug dealers in a day. And Dexter, yelling at everyone how great a father he is, leaves his less-than-12-hours-ago OD’d kid to get his own ass to therapy so Dad of the Year can go on a killing spree. Fuck this show.
“The reason for the dearth of Batista news is simple: No one cares about Batista.”
Or there’s simply no reason for him to return.
Okay its ridiculous at this point that you think ghost deb and ghost harry are actual ghosts and speak about them as such. they’re the manifestation of his subconscious ‘dark passenger’, they voice his own doubts and assurances, encourage him when he needs it, doubt him when he needs to be doubted. There isnt a literal ghost deb.
How did I not realize that was Jamie Chung playing the blogger for so long?!? I’ve liked her ever since she was on The Real World: San Diego.
Also, it must be kind of weird for all of the actors in scenes with Dexter where Deb is screaming at him and the have to pretend she is not there.
She was great in Lovecraft Country and one of the few good things of The Gifted.
I had high hopes for this season but it’s awful. The writing is just lazy and absurd. If Angela hooking up with Batista wasn’t bad enough, for him to suddenly reel off the Morgan family tree to her like that was just eye rollingly bad. I adore Clancy Brown and I felt for him here, having to deliver that embarrassing dialogue. “NOOO! This isn’t how it’s meant to be!” Oof.Harrison is about the only thing keeping me interested. The actor’s doing a great job. The less said about the supporting cast the better. I just hope when this season is over they bury it under the ocean waves in a garbage bag never to be seen again, because this has done nothing to erase the painful memories of that hideous 8th season. If anything it’s just as bad.
I was laughing all throughout this episode. Like, this was all just so terrible, made so little sense in the ways Dexter used to not. I mean, props to anyone who came up with the idea to have Dexter once again waltz in a police office and sit “very inconspicuously” in a chair opposite of where a critical police interview are taking place, and have the balls to have said interviewer (Logan, who hasn’t made an ounce of sense in the series so far but who is keeping track) just casually waltz out acting like nothing happened and no one is aware about Dexters shady practices. And the drug dealer, wasn’t he injected with Ketamine by Dexter before he got arrested, but apparently that did not even deserve any kind of follow-up even though we’ve seen again and again that Dexter’s dosages knock people out instantly? Wouldn’t it have any effect during the interrigation? But it is not even touched upon. Like, it’s just all so ridiculous and so lazy. And then Angel makes an appearance and gives a lecture and Angela some sage advice on how to catch serial killers which is so misplaced given that he was like the worst detective all through the 8 seasons. All this can only happen in Dexter where everything just comes and goes with the wind and there isn’t any consistency in anything whatsoever as long as it serves whichever way the writers want Dexter to pivot.
situs pragmatic
I thought “you’ve ruined everything” meant he shot her in the face so he won’t be able to take her severely damaged body and pose it at some secret gallery of dead girls. We haven’t seen Kurt dispose of the bodies yet.Also, how did Angela make that connection and find that obituary of Dexter? Did Batista actually mention Dexter; I think he only mentioned Deb’s and Harrison’s names. The writers should have dragged out investigating Dex’s fake identity for another episode IMHO.And… how many seasons have been planned? Should we expect a cliffhanger season finale?
fff
For a second before Batista said “Harrison” I thought they might not do something as dumb as what they used to do in the regular series, but they went and did it. I mean, there were a ton of other ways for her to find out…but she runs into Batista at a conference in New York City? What idiot wrote that?
Dexter’s girlfriend cop going to a “crime convention” and running to Batista, followed by Bastista naming Harrison for no reason, is one the goofiest, most contrived plot points in the series’ history.
Clearly Lithgow is going to be Harrison’s Dark Passenger, right? I keep waiting for one of these reviews or comments to speculate on that.
I have never seen anyone throw a full plate of food including the plate into the trash like Harrison did—except in a movie or a TV show. Always bugs me.
Uniformed cops taking a meal break always means the tacos will not be eaten when they get a call.
I agree that bringing Batista was stupid. I’m pretty sure the podcaster must have seen a picture of Dexter at one point working on Trinity, wouldn’t it be easier to just have her think “wait, I know this guy from somewhere”?
In the Dexterverse, the same people switch between being remarkably skilful and breathtakingly incompetent depending on what the plot needs. I can imagine the writers discussing how Angela would ultimately find him out:- Writer 1: She does a reverse google search on his photograph and that’s it.- Producer: No. Too easy.- Writer 2: Molly Park tells her. I mean, she must know…- Producer: No, she doesn’t.- Writer 3: Why? She travelled to this town for Matt, she must have spent ages in Miami and found out about the husband of Trinity’s last victim, seen photos of him, heard stories about how much Doakes hated him, she’s probably got Astor and Cody on speed dial…- Producer: No. She doesn’t know. She’s thorough, but also quite lacklustre, depending on what we need.- Writer 1: Alright, then… let’s have Angel be the catalyst.- Producer: Great!- Writer 2: He’s doing a presentation, right? He could show a photo of his team in the BHB days and that’s where she sees him.- Producer: No. We can’t have Molly find out.- Writer 1: Maybe they talk, he hits on her, she shows him a photo of her boyfriend.- Producer: No. We need Angel not to find out.- Writer 2: He mentions Deb.- Producer: There you go!- Writer 2: And then Bishop wants her to consult on her case, so she googles her and then sees photos and her obituary and all of that.- Producer: No, it needs to be dramatic.- Writer 3: Batista mentions Harrison for absolutely no reason.- Producer: Sold!
As an Argentinian I find Harrison the most annoyingly unbelievable character. Alledgedly he lived in Buenos Aires for 10 years or so, yet he didn’t adquire the least single cultural characteristic of kids around here. He didn’t speak Spanish with the right accent!
Look at Viggo Mortensen or Anya Taylor-Joy. They spent less years of their childhood in Argentina and they still talk and behave like if they lived here forever. When they switch to their “Argie mode” they are one of us.
On the other hand, Harrison behaves like he had lived in an isolated closed community in Argentina, since he is just another USA kid, with USA customs and a poor “generic Latino” accent.
There is no way he could have blend in so easily, especially being a teen. The cultural clash would have been noticeable.
The hotel thing bugged me for different reasons. I’ve worked the front desk at an upscale hotel in a major city and if a sheriff wanted to check security footage for an open missing person case we would just give it to them. I called the cops on a regular basis, usually because while the hotel was nice downtown in general isn’t and street people would be doing drugs and drinking right outside the front door(on what is technically city property so our security can’t make them leave.) Either you help them verify if the person is ok or you would have confirmed credit card fraud. Though maybe that is why he was hostel, he didn’t check the guy’s ID before letting him stay at the hotel for three days and order a bunch of room service.
blah this episode was pure copagana around drugs and overdoses, hated the depiction of the supplier knowingly killing his customers (that doesn’t happen lol).
wow this review was hot garbage, a goddamn first grader could’ve done a better job, I don’t see what’s so unbelievably about a hotel owner not wanting to have to deal with cops hanging around in the lobby, compared to all the other stuff that happened Dexter that’s the thing you take issue with?
I personally find Molly funny as hell, she knows what kind of show she’s in and embraces it. Only thing annoying here is your lame-ass whining.
I don’t get the argument against killing that drug dealer, you could technically say that about every single person Dexter’s killed in Miami that while he’s off murdering Trinity or whoever some other serial killer is killing off innocent victims, it’s just a dumbass argument that does not make a lick of sense. I actually liked that Caldwell broke down like that, it made him more interesting and points to him as being like Dexter in that he has a certain routine he likes to follow and hates anything that breaks it and it was refreshing to see a victim actually outsmart a serial killer in the Dexter-verse for once.
I don’t see what’s so unbelievable about Harrison’s actions he did learn something- that his did is a lying self-serving hypocrite, so of course he’s going to act out.
Plenty of us do in fact care about Angel, speak for yourself, I was glad to see him show up.