A clear rule seems to be emerging on Dexter: Resurrection. In the grand tradition of Tim “The Toolman” Taylor chatting up his neighbor Wilson, or Gregory House having a conversation about literally anything other than his current case or himself, it’s apparent that Blessing and his family are only here to say things about each other that double as commentary on Dexter and his son. No matter the situation: a wake for Blessing’s mother Prudence where the words “Second chances are for taking” are uttered; a casual comment from his daughter to Harrison about having plenty of time to figure out what he wants to do in life; or Blessing himself delivering a heartbreaking monologue about his mother rescuing him from becoming a child soldier back in Africa (that ends with the rule, “Never, ever let the darkness into my home,” at which point Dexter should’ve looked at the camera and winked). These are the folksy life lessons Dexter then applies to his…

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It’s the halfway point of Dexter: Resurrection, and while this whole thing could certainly still steer itself off a cliff in the next five episodes, it’s genuinely startling how sharp, how engaging, and how satisfying—in short, just how much damn fun—this reboot has been. Even the ways in which it has shaken up the formula with its setting, Dexter’s fractured family relations, and the lingering ghost of Dexter past (a.k.a. Angel Batista) gunning for him, the show is handily servicing all these stories, and making them feel as rich (or at least as sufficient) as the subplots of Dexter in its prime. Clyde Phillips and co. have re-cracked the code, and transformed what looked like the definition of a cash grab into something breezy and compelling.

And once more, a huge chunk of the reason for that is Michael C. Hall. I’ve discussed how Hall how worn this character for damn near 20 years now, and while many actors can slide back into old roles, H…

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What do you do when you need to introduce someone even more evil than a serial killer? Easy: You make them a venture capitalist.

One could easily imagine the weaker version of “Call Me Red,” one that fell into the trap of New Blood: Dexter endlessly haranguing himself about his failings as a parent and his desperate desire to do right by Harrison, with everything else taking a back seat. Thankfully, Clyde Phillips and company have learned their lesson. Dexter is at his best when confronting the evil in others, and being pulled in different directions—trying to satisfy his Dark Passenger while still doing right by his family and those he cares about. Because the character wants to have fun, just as much as we want him to; the series flies when embracing that fundamental duality in Dexter. Too much emphasis on either side of the equation, and it tips into either weightless trash or self-serious hokum.

Instead, this episode gives us Krysten Ritt…

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I’ve been thinking a lot about why this reboot of Dexter is succeeding in ways that New Blood could never quite nail (and Original Sin couldn’t even get close to). Obviously, yes, having Michael C. Hall back in action as Dexter, not having to hide his identity or pretend to be someone else, is helping quite a bit. But I genuinely think the throat-clearing of the first episode, with a little more hindsight, is turning out to be the best thing the show could’ve done. A little confrontation with his demons—and then the exorcising of his guilt—was just the creative reset this series required to shake off the burdens of its past, and instead embrace the lighter tendencies of the character and lore.

Because this show is having fun. It’s not weighing itself down with morose reflections on his past (New Blood’s biggest achilles heel) or getting tangled up in burdensome backstory. Dexter shook off his cobwebs, traveled to New York to help Harrison, and immediately realized he could have some laughs taking down bad people in the big city. His sense of élan transfers well to the audience, who—if they’re anything like me—are relieved to be free of downbeat plotlines and attempts to service the past. And it has remembered the season-long structures that the previous version benefited so well from embracing: A fairly lighthearted Dexter in the early going, bumping off baddies and trying to protect his family, before a larger mystery/threat takes over and drives the rest of the season with increasing freneticism and tension. It remains to be seen if the “dinner party for serial killers” plot introduced in “Backseat Driver” can pull off the back half, but it’s certainly crushing the early going.

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Welcome to Episodic Medium’s coverage of Showtime’s latest effort to make the Dexter franchise happen, Dexter: Resurrection. As always, this first review—which covers the first two episodes—will be free for all, but subsequent reviews will be exclusively for paid subscribers. To see what else we’re covering in the month ahead, check out our full summer schedule.

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Author’s Note: If you’ve only seen the first episode, don’t worry, I’ll tell you where to stop reading if you don’t want any spoilers. [Editor’s Note: I’m struggling to imagine someone stopping after the first episode given how little of the premise is actually revealed, so honestly? Go watch the second episode first.]

You would think, by now, that everyone in Hollywood knows there are certain things you don’t say, at least not if you like money more than you like definitive storytelling. But somehow Clyde Phillips, the creative architect and showrunner behind Dexter: Resurrection, Dexter: Original Sin, Dexter: New Blood, and what most would consider the best seasons of the original Dexter (1-4), didn’t get the memo. Check out his words to Deadline back in 2021, after he ended the New Blood limited series with Dexter Morgan lying dead on the ground, shot in the chest by his now-grown son, Harrison:

I have three words for you: Dexter is dead. I wouldn’t do that to the audience. It would be dishonest. Here, there is no question that this is the finale of Dexter. Dexter is dead.

Whoops.1

Well, if you’re going to sacrifice ostensible artistic credibility on the altar of capitalism and franchise IP, you’d better make sure it’s at least going to be a good time for both you and the audience.2 And while there are plenty of Michael C. Hall interviews that tell you how much fun he still has playing this character, the real question is whether or not a show that ended its initial run feeling like it was wheezing along on the fumes of fumes can recapture any of that old magic. I’m happy to report that, unlike the largely forgettable origin story of Original Sin, Dexter is back, and based on these first two episodes he’s ready to be fun to watch again.

This is pretty much all thanks to Hall himself. It’s easy to forget that the original Dexter was, as I’ve previously said, “a show with an A-plus star surrounded by a B-team.” In other words, it all rests on Hall’s capable shoulders, with the uneven supporting cast only there to facilitate as many scenes as possible with the star. He’s played Dexter for so long at this point (20 years!) that slipping back into character probably comes as naturally as saying, “dark passenger.” [Foreshadowing alert.] And with the exception of some throat-clearing and table-setting to kick things off, once Dexter is back up and on the move the show eases into an enjoyably brisk and pulpy return to simple pleasures: murder, and the plotting thereof.

A quick reassurance for any lapsed fans or curious folks worried about having to do any homework before starting up Resurrection: You don’t need to watch a single frame of New Blood to understand what’s going on here. (And definitely no need to watch Original Sin, although that’s just good advice.)3 This reboot kicks off with the requisite summary of what happened to Dexter in that limited series, up to and including his supposed death at the hands of his son, Harrison. A few labored scenes of exposition wave away the fact that Dexter was previously accused of murder, giving him a get-out-of-jail-free card for his past actions and setting the narrative table for this new story. It’s important information only insofar as it informs Hall’s evolution of the character, and the fact that—for the time being at least—the father-son dynamic forms the emotional core of the character.

Oh, and also because Dexter’s ex-girlfriend from his previous life as “Jim Lindsay” called Dex’s old buddy, Angel Batista, and told him that Dexter was not only alive and well and living under a new name, but was also the Bay Harbor Butcher. That, too. Naturally, once Dexter gets out of his coma, Batista comes calling, under the guise of friendship but pretty clearly ready to nail Dexter to the wall if he can find any evidence to support the accusation. He even fixes Dexter’s death certificate, giving him his old name and life back. (Because, as Dexter notes, you can’t try someone for murder if they’re legally dead.) So yeah, that’s gonna be a problem.

But “A Beating Heart” first wants to offer a reset of sorts to its antihero. By the end of New Blood, Dexter had strayed pretty far from Harry’s Code—the moral compass that had guided his actions and provided justification for his bloodlust by confining it to other murderers—and so the new series spends some time in his head. The goal seems to be getting him to a place of, if not absolution, then at least a chance at redemption. Kicking things off in his hospital bed lying in a coma, we get a series of visions featuring those who most challenged Dexter’s double life as both family man and killer, or at least the ones who could be coaxed back for a cameo appearance in this series premiere. The Trinity Killer Arthur Mitchell (John Lithgow), Miguel Prado (Jimmy Smits), and even good old ridiculous Sergeant James Doakes (Erik King) pop up to talk Dexter through what he understandably feels was his much-deserved death. These visions are his subconscious working through the entirely justifiable guilt over all the deaths that accrued because Dexter wanted to “have it all,” as Arthur tells him: by trying to maintain relationships, friendships, and family bonds while still pursuing his homicidal impulses, he doomed good people to death, collateral damage in his pursuit of eye-for-an-eye justice.

But as he is reminded by these specters (and eventually his OG haunting: dad Harry, played again by James Remar), past failures are no excuse for future inaction when it comes to making amends. So after a little physical therapy and a threatening visit from Batista (smiling as he all but tells Dexter “I’m gunning for you, buddy”), our protagonist is presented with an offer he can’t refuse: Harrison is in trouble. This new series divides our time between Dexter and his son, the latter now living in NYC and working as a concierge at an upscale hotel. Naturally, his efforts to stay out of trouble and reject his heritage almost immediately run aground when he interrupts a sexual assault and ends up killing the guy after they essentially confess to being a serial rapist. Despite doing his best to remember the lessons imparted by his father on How To Get Away With Murder, the body is eventually found—or rather, the body parts, all nine of them, which is how Dexter realizes this mysterious new killer in the city is probably his son.

So after some hand-wringing, Dexter makes a break for it (so to speak—as the sheriff reminds Batista, it’s not illegal to check yourself out of the hospital) and heads to the Big Apple). It’s a fleet, efficient opening episode, albeit occasionally suffering under the weight of trying to resolve all the formerly closed loose ends that got reopened by walking back Dexter’s death. It also makes for nice, straightforward plotting: Dexter is going to try and help the son who presumably wants nothing to do with him—who, in fact, believes him to be dead.

But of course it won’t be that simple, because out of nowhere in the last five minutes, we cut to a scene featuring a black-clad criminal operative, who breaks into the home of some heretofore-unknown serial killer, leaves them a suitcase and a message, then leaves, while making a call consisting of one sentence: “Invitation delivered.” And in a fun bit of unexpected casting, this mystery operative is played by Uma Thurman. Who is she? What does she want? Why is she leaving cash for a serial killer? Tune in next week!

Or rather, just keep watching, because the first two episodes have premiered back-to-back.

“Camera Shy” wastes no time in complicating things by introducing a new target for Dexter’s Dark Passenger, and, in an entertaining twist, it’s a killer the media has dubbed the “Dark Passenger.” We see the guy hop into a rideshare car, start up a conversation with the Haitian immigrant driver, and then proceed to threaten his life in a very unsettling manner. Cut to the next morning, when someone finds that driver with his head severed from his body. It’s a clever way to pull Dexter out of his single-minded desire to help Harrison, literally confronting him with a sentient embodiment of his bloodthirsty impulse. Now, there are two reasons for Dexter to stay in NYC: aid his son, and start taking out killers again. As he says to ghost Harry: “It’s called multitasking.”

Of course, whether or not Harrison would even want his help is still very much up in the air. Dexter’s son isn’t exactly a chip off the old block—he may have learned how to do it, but being a killer is messing with Harrison’s head, and he was already a little messed up from shooting his own father. He’s having visions of the man he killed, haunting him even during daytime. Given that we already saw Harrison have a waking vision during work of the icy setting where he took out dad, this new nightmare popping up is driving him to drinking, drugs, and anything else to try and drown it out. Hell, even the truck he inherited (complete with Dexter’s final letter to him in the glove compartment) is an unwelcome reminder of his bloodline, emphasis on “blood”—and soon enough, he’s selling it to his friend. None of that bodes well for a family reunion.

Luckily, the show doesn’t spend too much time with morose Harrison, because he’s a bit of a bummer, and things slow down whenever we turn away from Dexter to follow around his progeny. Unfortunately, the other non-Dexter pair we spend time with is also a clunkier element. Detectives Claudette Wallace and Melvin Oliva are the ones assigned to the case of the chopped-up body, and while I’m more or less fine with the actors, for some reason the show couldn’t just make them decent detectives. No, Detective Wallace has to be one of those special only-in-screenplays detectives who have a preternatural ability to sniff out clues through unconventional methods. In the premiere, it was by putting on headphones and listening to “Stayin’ Alive” while magically locating all the body parts among hundreds of bags at the dump. Why? Why not just show them doing good police work? The idea that the cop on Harrison’s tail needs to be some oddball super-genius feels a bit hoary. Thankfully, we don’t get much of it, and thereafter her skills are limited to more reasonable achievements, like figuring out the murder weapon in the hotel bathroom and realizing it’s also the scene of the crime.

But mostly, this is a fun installment that showcases Dexter In The Big City™. The best of it is watching Hall turn Dexter into a slightly hobbled gumshoe of his own, trying to put together how Harrison pulled it off and stepping in to try and catch whatever clues his son left behind before the police can. Turns out, abandoning his physical therapy might not have been the best move for his health—the show gets some mileage out of the disjunction between what Dexter would like to accomplish and what he’s incapable of, thanks to his limited mobility. It’s even more fun when the back half of the episode leans into his hunt for the Dark Passenger, tracking down the guy and eventually coming face to face with him. It’s fast-paced, fun, and feels like the Dexter of old, in a good way.

Does the discovery of “Ronald Schmidt”, who works for Bridge Data Network Security, go by a little too fast and coincidentally? Of course. Does Dexter’s tracking him down and immediately marking him as the killer happen in roughly two minutes? Sure. But again, an audience can forgive a lot in the name of artfully crafted entertainment, and this is done well. There’s a fine line between good Dexter and bad—its not like the one-off killers he hunted in season seven, for example, were all that markedly different than past years—but it’s all in the execution (no pun intended), and this is an excellently crafted hour of television. (Episode editor Kate Ennis deserves special recognition here.) After all this time, and a dour (if albeit fitfully satisfying New Blood) belated series wrap-up, is Dexter….fun again?!

Hell, even the world-building isn’t as clunky as it could have been. During his own Uber ride (sorry, “UrCar”), Dexter meets Blessing, a driver who not only befriends our awkward protagonist, but invites him to a party, where Dexter meets the one driver who survived his encounter with the Dark Passenger killer, and learns about the existence of infrared camera identity prevention. More importantly, he gets a new place to stay, in an apartment right below Blessing and his family, now that he’s committed to staying in New York and helping Harrison. Blessing is a fairly one-note character, but his open-hearted goodness makes for a smart and sometimes funny counterpoint to Dexter’s machinations, never a bad thing. (It’s a role that the previous series supporting cast used to pass around like a case-of-the-week virus.) After these two episodes, we’ve got a new home base, new missions, and everything feels ready to roll for an entertaining return.

But then, there’s this new wrinkle that continues to develop. Uma Thurman’s mysterious baddie (named Charley) pops up again this week, and she’s in Michigan to deliver a message to someone we can only assume is another serial killer. “You are out. Never contact us again,” she tells him, and while the full story is still ambiguous, here’s what’s discernible: This guy is a killer nicknamed the “Canton Clubber,” and he's asked for money from her boss. This is a big no-no, so he’s lost his income and whatever nefarious work they asked him to perform. When he tries to plead his case, she uses his own nail-embedded baseball bat against him. This is a big swing, and I have no idea yet if it’s going to pay off or just result in a muddled, overstuffed mess. It’s certainly ambitious, which I admire, especially after the nothingburger stakes of both New Blood and Original Sin (especially the latter).

Plus, it provides a real opportunity for Dexter Morgan to try and showcase what the writers are very clearly hoping is a noticeable evolution in the character’s moral journey. When the Dark Passenger attempts to duck into someone’s UrCar and commit his next murder, Dexter saves the day, pretending it’s his car and interrupting the guy from executing another innocent driver—something old Dexter would likely have let unfold just to confirm he’s really got his guy. It’s not a perfect beat—it’s silly to pretend old Dexter never saved anyone from getting murdered—but the show wants to set it up as such, and in the context of the narrative, it works. “Since when do you care about other people?” Harry asks. “Since now,” Dexter responds. As long as it’s couched in such crackerjack entertainment, we’ll let the retconning slide.

Stray observations

• Since when is Dexter such a fount of needle drops? They’re all over the place in these first two episodes: In “A Beating Heart” we get Parquet Courts’ “Master Of My Craft” scoring Harrison’s rise-and-shine routine, The Strokes’ “Bad Decisions” to his body-evisceration sequence, Ramones’ “Blitzkrieg Bop” for the NYC arrival…even the latest use of Nick Cave’s “Red Right Hand.” (Time for a moratorium on that one yet, TV shows?) And “Camera Shy” literally kicks off with Black Sabbath’s ‘War Pigs,” before giving us Justin Townes Earle’s “The Saint Of Lost Causes” (not a good sign for Harrison?), and more. As someone who is quick to point out a lazy needle drop, I’m skeptical; as a critic appreciating a reboot’s effort to freshen things up, I approve.

• As ever, Dexter isn’t shy about leaning into a goofy smash-cut joke. In this case, it’s the sheriff telling Batista, “Wherever he is, he must be miserable.” Cut to Dexter in the hotel restaurant: “Can I get some more of those sour pickles?”

• Did I laugh a lot when Doakes pulled back the hospital curtain with a “Surprise, motherfucker!” I absolutely did.

• I haven’t discussed Harrison’s work friend, Elsa Rivera (Emilia Suarez), yet, mostly because they have given her nothing to do other than be a potential love interest with a kid, a situation familiar to Dexter fans. If they start to expand it beyond literally the three short scenes in these first episodes, it could be interesting, but so far she’s a narrative placeholder.

• I actually found the reunion scene with Batista to be incredibly well-written. Is he suspicious as hell of Dexter, and ready to pounce? Of course. But he’s also an old friend who feels personally invested, and understands everything his pal says about wanting to disappear: “Grief…does something to you.”

• I’m guessing by now you’ve all seen Peter Dinklage’s name in the credits, even though he hasn’t appeared onscreen yet. Even if you didn’t read anything about this show, it’s not hard to predict that he’s Uma Thurman’s unseen boss, who is somehow employing a serial killer or two in ways we have yet to learn about. I still worry this plot development is going to be the show biting off more than it can chew, but either way, who isn’t excited to see Peter Dinklage?

• Welcome, everyone, to the reviews of Dexter: Resurrection. After the mess that was Original Sin, it’s exciting to have a chance to evaluate what they do with the man himself, rather than a weird young cosplay version of Michael C. Hall’s indelible creation. (No offense to Patrick Gibson, who I honestly think did a great job as the early version of our serial killer.) Looking forward to hearing your thoughts as we get into this—and these were fun episodes, weren’t they?

Well, that was unusual. For the season finale of Dexter: Original Sin, the series does something that has never been done in the history of Dexter, Dexter: New Blood, or this show up until now: it takes narration duties away from Dexter Morgan. Yes, for the opening sequence of “Code Blues,” our voiceover narration is supplied by Brian Moser, a.k.a. Dexter’s long-lost brother, a.k.a the man who will come to be known as the Ice Truck Killer. It begins in the past, with him holding his brother in the shipping container, telling Dexter the story of the three little pigs to distract him while their mother’s dismembered body lies strewn across the floor in front of them, a horrifying tableau. “That was the first time my brother was taken from me,” he intones, kicking off the parallel tale of his young life after being separated from his sibling.

From there, we trace his development through the years, bouncing from one cruel foster home to the next—giving even worse than he got, to be sure—before ending up at a mental hospital. And then, years later, he arrives at the home of a psychiatrist where he’s seemingly made great progress—only to have the good doctor forbid him from seeing Dexter, at which point Brian smashes the guy’s head in and drives away in his car. Cut to the main plot of Dexter giving chase to Captain Spencer, the otherwise logical starting point of the episode. Why do it? As a framing device, it’s a profound rupture of the entire show and its antecedents; we have always followed along from Dexter’s point of view inside his head, not anyone else.

But as a bold attempt to stake out some original creative territory for this series—and announce that not only is it not going anywhere, but it’s actively sticking around to develop a distinctive identity of its own—it works. To say that the show needed a sharp left turn, artistically speaking, is an understatement, the preceding nine episodes of Dexter Babies feeling sorely like a milquetoast version of the original model. This breaks open the reality of the series, giving it a fresh set of eyes, a new voice, and a way of telling stories that firmly shifts the tone and tenor of what we’re watching. In case it’s not obvious, that’s a very good thing in the long run; if Original Sin intends to keep airing more seasons, which seems to be the case, putting someone else behind the wheel and letting them steer our understanding of events each week is an exciting and daring method of creating its own identity. Imagine tuning in never knowing if you’re going to get Dexter or Brian giving you the narration—or better still, someone else entirely. If the creative team is going to break the mold, why not go even farther? Narration from Harry, or Deb, or hell, even Masuka? It’s an interesting choice, show! Own it! Explore it! There’s so much fertile material there.

If nothing else, it’s a fascinating juxtaposition with the rest of this episode, which otherwise plays like boilerplate Dexter season finale, from the eventual capture of Spencer to the denouement rumination on family (the “only thing that could save me,” Dex muses), all of it familiar material, albeit with a fresh-faced cast. That’s not a big complaint, just an acknowledgement that after shaking things up in so compelling a manner during the opening minutes, it was almost a bummer to return to the status quo—even when our season-long story has hit its crescendo and, to quote another noteworthy villain, the status is not quo.

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The original Dexter spent a good portion of its run psychoanalyzing its main character, using all sorts of pop-psychology tricks to examine two central questions: What makes a serial killer, and why do they do it? The second one got all sorts of possible explanations before the final season offered up a fairly convincing one from Dr. Evelyn Vogel. Played by Charlotte Rampling, she was revealed to be the true architect of “Harry’s Code,” who then passed it along to Dexter’s father so he could teach his son how to kill those who “deserve it” and get away with it. What Dexter does, in this latter-day reading, is a form of reenactment trauma: Causing the eruption of blood, the dismembering of limbs, and the snuffing out of another life is what lets him feel alive, because the extreme experience of watching his own mother be dismembered rewired his synapses. It’s all he can do to not feel dead.

The former question, by contrast, remains decided…

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“Business And Pleasure,” the eighth episode of this premiere season of Dexter: Original Sin, is an odd duck. In many ways, this episode was the most fast-moving, plot-filled installment they’ve done. And yet, curiously little actually happens; rather, a whole lot of possible future moments are anticipated. Some of those are promising (serial child murderer Captain Spencer), some of them not so much (get ready to talk Geo!), and some of them are more or less exactly what we expected (the flashback storyline). But there’s one that I’m betting none of us saw coming: that this is also an origin story for the Ice Truck Killer.

Yes, grown-up Brian Moser, previously thought lost to the foster system, reappears in Harry and LaGuerta’s suspect case files. And if we don’t believe in coincidences (this is Dexter, so no, we don’t), that means that the Ice Truck Killer actually began his killing spree way before anyone was on to him. Or rather, before a…

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Let’s start off properly here by again giving credit where it’s due. After last week’s episode, when the son of Captain Spencer was kidnapped, I commiserated with reader Kate in the comments about how our list of potential Big Bads was growing thin—how the show would likely have to toss us some rando late in the game now that both Sarah Michelle Gellar (too physically unlike the kidnapper) and Patrick Dempsey (can’t be him, his own son was kidnapped!) were crossed off the likely culprit list. Yep, you got me, Original Sin; I assumed the Captain wasn’t showing much in the way of remorse because the part was simply not written very well. And that can still be true, but it can also be true that they’re at least nodding toward the idea that something is very, very off about this guy, albeit in the aforementioned clunky manner.

Still, it worked, and now we can get to the heart of the season. Because, in all honesty, the original Dexter wasn’t very go…

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“Killing and romance,” Dexter acidly notes during the final act of “The Joy Of Killing,” in an internal monologue that could have easily slipped out of the mouth of Michael C. Hall in the original run. They’re both “about the build-up…and the happy ending.” It would feel a little hoary even if we hadn’t just watched Dexter get a blow job in the bathroom of a bar—but it’s also not wrong. This show is nothing if not on-the-nose with its dialogue and storytelling.

Yes, this was a horny episode of Dexter: Original Sin. It begins with the flashback to an extended sex scene between Harry and Laura, which doesn’t seem to be there for any reason other than to titillate. (Their brief conversation afterwards, in which she dislikes being the “other woman” and he tries to reassure her that her time as an informant is almost done, felt more like an attempt to justify the sex that came before it, rather than vice-versa.) And then it continues on through…

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At the end of the halfway point, Dexter: Original Sin has done many things, but surprising us isn’t one of them. It’s given us caricatured younger versions of the original series’ characters (and some non-caricatures, to be fair), along with trite dramatic beats, scattershot momentum, clunky family dynamics, and flashbacks that stil haven’t done much to illuminate our protagonists in new and interesting ways (save for the Harry’s-dead-first-child retcon). It’s largely felt inessential, in other words, and other than some fun episodic murder of the week stuff (the bread and butter of Dexter), I have often wondered in these reviews if it will ever justify its creative existence, given said lack of any sense of surprise.

This week, consider me at least mildly surprised. It turns out, if you’re not going to get a bad guy on Dexter’s kill table, you could do a lot worse than have Dexter apply his first-ever dose of etorphine sedative to his own…

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Well, if there were any doubts that Dexter is still very, very bad at this whole serial-killer thing, “Fender Bender” puts them to rest. After a classic Dexter-style episode, where he finds a promising cold-case villain as a substitute for the child murderer the entire police department is hunting, Dexter executes his normal strategy we all know and theoretically enjoy watching. Our protagonist researches the supposedly retired mob enforcer “Mad Dog,” and gets pretty irrefutable evidence of his plan to kill again, so Dex knocks him out, preps a kill room, and then…totally blows it. Dim-bulb rookie mistake stuff, too: He binds Mad Dog’s hands, but not his legs. Yes, Dexter wisely neglects to fully restrain a legendary mafia hitman in his preparations to kill the guy. To quote Dexter at the end of the episode, after he chases Mad Dog down the quiet residential street the killer lives on, only to watch his intended target get hit by a car: “S…

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Okay, before we get to this episode—and it’s probably the best of the first three—there’s something very weird going on that has to be addressed: why is this show fucking up the chronology of their ages?

When flashback Harry takes his new informant Laura Moser back to her home and meets Dexter and his older brother, they are markedly older than in the original series’ timeline. Like, notably so. Why do that? Why create such a disjunction, when anyone can go back and look at the first series and see for themselves? There are entire wiki pages dedicated to this stuff, and this show is nothing if not predicated on the fact that it is telling the same story—same universe, same characters. Not only that, but if you’re going to age up little-kid Dexter (that child looks twice as old as Dexter is supposed to be at the time), why add the even stranger problem of simultaneously changing the difference in Dexter and Deb’s ages? They’re supposed to b…

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Man, I was really hoping for improvement here. The first episode was such a rushed package of, “Okay, here we go, he’s finishing pre-med and Deb is in high school and Harry is still around and now we want to let him get to killing so let’s leapfrog over all this table-setting nonsense.” It felt like episode two would definitely get to the good stuff, right? Nope. Does it identify his next victim? Sure. Does it take the entire episode, interspersed with a lot of additional table-setting and flashbacks to stuff you presumably already know, only to delay any actual killing? Sure. Why the delay? Where’s a Luigi Mangione when you need him?1

“Kid In A Candy Store” at least does the work of showing what an unprepared dork Dexter still is, which is a nice step away from the first episode’s breathless appreciation of his cadaver-cutting skills as a means to inform us just how brilliant the skills are of this budding young monster. His self-presumed smarts at blood-spatter analysis, when he has never done it before in his life, are immediately and properly mocked by the entire Miami-Metro homicide team, a nice intro to his new life that suggests—far better than the pilot did—that this guy has no real idea what he’s doing, yet.

Still, this episode shows there’s going to be a couple of parallel narratives driving this first half of the season: the hunt for the kidnapper of little Jimmy Powell in the present—peppered with one-off manhunts like Dexter’s new plan to take out the brutal criminal Tony Ferrer—and the inevitable tragedy of Harry using Dexter’s birth mother as an informant in the past. The weakness of the flashback storyline is obvious, because it’s the same as its strength: we already know this story. Done well, it could acquire the strength of decent tragedy, as Dexter’s mother climbs the ranks, the danger increases, and it ends in the bloodshed we know is coming.

Unfortunately, thus far, this plot is struggling to gain much traction, simply because we’re not getting enough time to live with these characters and this arc. I called the show’s storytelling “Cliffs Notes” in last week’s pilot, and that still applies; without enough attention and care to building this up, it feels like drama on fast-forward, hitting the most important beats in far too perfunctory a fashion. Christian Slater is doing good work (though I can’t be the only one who finds the de-aging makeup job done on him a bit distracting at times), but it’s just missing depth.

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Welcome to Episodic Medium’s coverage of Showtime’s unavoidably cynical prequel Dexter: Original Sin, which will debut new episodes every Friday. As always, this first review is free for all subscribers, but future reviews will be exclusive to paid subscribers. To keep up with our reviews, become one today!

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Here we go again.

I cannot imagine who asked for this. I don’t mean that statement to refer to the quality, whatever you may determine it to be, of Dexter: Original Sin, the latest brand extension of Dexter, the book-series-turned-TV-series-turned-limited-revival, now back again as a TV prequel that also doubles as a continuation(-ish) of said limited series revival, Dexter: New Blood. I simply mean it in the sense that anyone might wonder, “Why go back and show a pre-serial killer Dexter Morgan learning to do said serial killing? What’s the point? We’ve already been told this story.” Especially if he’s not actually learning to do it; here, he’s already internalized Harry’s Code™, gleaned all the lessons his father imported to him (for the most part), and is basically just a wind-up clock, now going off and beginning his lifelong murder spree.1 If you saw the description for this and didn’t immediately think of Patton Oswalt’s riff on Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (“You like Darth Vader? Well, in the first movie you get to see him as a little kid!”), then congratulations, you have a less jaded view of I.P. extension than I.

But exist it does, and here we are. To be clear, I would consider myself a Dexter fan. (Here’s my retroactive assessment of the whole thing, over at The A.V. Club.) I watched all of the original series, the good seasons more than once (1-4, though strong arguments can be made for 5 and various stretches of the last few), as well as New Blood, which certainly gave the character a far better sendoff than the execrable conclusion of the first run. At its best, the show was a crackerjack powder keg of tension and release, alternating between intriguing setups, exhilarating kills, and edge-of-your-seat, “how’s he going to get out of this jam?” anxiety. (At its worst, it was a dunderheaded disaster, but let’s not dwell on the negative.) Dexter strode a clever line between network-style procedural and lurid pay-cable thrills, so its popularity wasn’t hard to discern.

Yet even at its best, no one would mistake it for one of the all-time greats. At the apex of its quality (season four, for anyone who doesn’t remember John Lithgow’s delightfully scenery-chewing turn as the Trinity Killer), I still remember describing it to people as, “a show with an A-plus star surrounded by a B-team.” Michael C. Hall held it all together with his fantastic performance, while everyone around him was uneven at best (ranging from the strong work of Jennifer Carpenter and James Remar to…well, you’ve probably seen it if you’re reading this, no need to be unnecessarily rude). Hall’s work, when paired with strong scripts, could deliver knockout television.

So when it ended so ignobly (I’ll direct you to Joshua Alston’s very funny and unflinching takedown of the series finale2), I was among those who was actually happy to see the Dexter: New Blood revival take a crack at fixing what had spiraled so depressingly into treacle. If you haven’t watched it, that series takes the ridiculous premise of the original’s epilogue—Dexter changes his identity and reinvents himself as Jim Lindsay, a mountain-man gun shop owner living in upstate New York—and uses it to revisit the ultimate hypocrisy of its hero’s “code.” The expected soap opera dramatics (his son returns and ultimately kills him after realizing what his father is—yes, really) deliver, if not a good conclusion, at least a justifiable one. And Original Sin picks up immediately where that show left off: Surprise! He’s not dead yet! Brought back on the operating table, we’ve got a “life flashes before your eyes” premise that justifies this journey into the early years of Dexter Morgan, budding serial killer. Well, maybe not “justifies,” but provides the requisite flimsy cover.3

So after that preamble4, let’s delve into what’s going on here. And the answer is…exactly what you’d think it would be. It’s Dexter, only younger. Normally, when a prequel happens, it’s because we don’t know what took place, and the story has a Shakespearean bent, beginning from a position of hope only to arc unavoidably into tragedy. (See: Better Call Saul, Godfather Part II, Rogue One, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, etc.). But the original series covered this in flashbacks—a lot. We know what happened. We know how Dexter went from troubled kid to clever killer, aided by his father Harry Morgan (now played by Christian Slater, giving more than is required) and the all-important code that helps keep him safe and free from suspicion.5 We know the family dynamics, the tragic story of Dexter’s mother, all of it. There’s even less reason for this to exist than usual. So what’s the draw?

I think the answer is simple: We like to watch bad people get their just desserts. It’s as clear as that. Dexter is a popular, well-known character who does something we all have a good time watching unfold, and so they’re going to give us more of it, whether there’s an artistically valid reason to do so or not. If you’ve already seen this story (spoiler alert: you have) and you don’t need any more of it, fair enough. I would strongly advise against watching. But for those of us who are fascinated by the mechanics of TV storytelling, intellectual property, and the ins and outs of a weirdly negotiated method of reviving the past of a long-exhausted idea (populated with fun actors!), Dexter: Original Sin is a solid case study.

I’m maybe being too generous with the term “solid.” Throughout “And In The Beginning…”, I couldn’t help but feel like I was watching the Cliffs Notes version of the story—something the creative team felt like they had to address, but didn’t want to, so they rushed through it as quickly as possible, the better to begin the tale of Serial Killer Dexter: The Early Years. Dexter is pre-med, the result of his father’s hope that cutting up bodies would satiate his “Dark Passenger” and preclude the need for any actual killing. Guess how well that works out?

So when Dexter shows an aptitude for detective work (through one of the most ham-handed excuses imaginable6), he’s invited to join the team at Miami Homicide, where the Muppet Babies version of all our old friends are waiting to welcome him. There’s Detective Batista (James Martinez), literally dressed his same duds from the first pilot! LaGuerta (Christina Milian) is here! Masuka! These are only characters insofar as we remember them from the original, which helps explains why the newbies (Patrick Dempsey as Captain Aaron Spencer and Sarah Michelle Gellar as forensics head Tanya Martin) barely register as people yet.7 To be fair, they’re only in this episode to show that police work is happening, Harry Morgan is part of it, and now Dexter is, too, so let’s wait and see how they get fleshed our.

Especially because there are clunky family dynamics to race through at a similarly breakneck, subtlety-be-damned pace. After a brief intro of Dexter being good at cutting open bodies in class (all we need, it seems, to establish that he’s one of the “most gifted students ever”), we get Deborah Morgan (now played by Molly Brown as an extra-annoying teen, which honestly fits the character) being forced to drag Dexter with her to college parties, where he saves her from being sexually assaulted, just in time for Harry to have a heart attack, but not before we see a retcon flashback of Harry losing his first son in a drowning accident while he was drinking beer and watching the big game. Again, subtlety: not this show’s strong suit. This all occurs in maybe 15 minutes? We race from big moment to big moment so quickly that it all becomes a slurry of “Drama! It’s Happening!”

It may sound like all this is pretty dumb, and that’s because it is, but I also can’t help feeling like this entire episode was, as I said before, treated like an ungainly but necessary precursor to the actual narrative showrunner Clyde Phillips and his team want to be telling—Dexter doing his thing. This is evidenced by the fact that the only fun part of this premiere is exactly that—Dexter discovering his dad’s nurse is actually a serial killer who administers slow-acting poison via Potassium Nitrate injections into patients she deems unworthy of survival. There’s a hint of unrealized irony here that Dexter’s first victim is a funhouse-mirror version of himself, playing God as to who lives or dies. But none of that is explored, or even acknowledged, in the rush to get him signed up with the cops and into the familiar orbit of what we theoretically know and want from the character.

All of which is to say that this was a bad episode and a clunky start to Dexter: Original Sin, but also possibly (hopefully?) an admission that the series doesn’t give a fuck about any of this world building, because in their heart of hearts, Phillips and company know we don’t need it. This has all been built out before; no one is asking for the Ultimate Spider-Man version of these events to walk through Dexter being bitten by the equivalent of a radioactive arachnid for the second time. And yet they felt like they needed to do it, which was a dumb choice. I’m very curious to see how the second episode goes, because my hunch is that they could’ve begun there with nary a beat missed, and nobody watching would have minded in the slightest. Whether that will be a good or bad thing creatively, I have no idea; but with luck it will be fun to watch.

Stray observations

• Maybe the most important thing to admit here is that Patrick Gibson has some actual charisma as young Dexter. Most of us probably know him best from either The OA (speaking of shows that actually deserve a continuation) or more recently Netflix’s better-than-expected adaptation of Shadow & Bone, and while I was ready to groan at a subpar Michael C. Hall, there are moments which suggest Gibson is taking his impression-level performance and trying to do something interesting with it. Not that he’s given much opportunity, yet, but the opening is there.

• The music cues are nigh-overpowering at times in their hectoring efforts to let us know THIS IS THE EARLY ‘90s, BABY. “Good Vibrations” is the most obvious, but even here, it’s a little uneven. I’m not convinced the dawn of alternative rock would’ve featured a volleyball team hitting the court to Poison’s “Nothin’ But A Good Time” from 1988. That’s an eternity in teenage pop-culture years.

• If there’s one thing Phillips is an ace at, it’s Dexter’s voiceover mannerisms picking up right where they left off, with the same tone and style, such as after the doctor tells Harry to avoid stress: “Unfortunately, I was the stress.”

• Just a quick note about Easter Eggs. There are a metric ton of them, and the creative team has publicly announced they will be shoveling a boatload more of them down our throats over the course of the season. While I could not possibly care less about that kind of thing (oh, look, it’s a photo that we saw on his desk in season three!), I get that it’s a fun game for some fans, so feel free to call them out in the comments.

• That being said, they’re really hanging a hat on a hat with some of the wink-wink references. “I really hate mosquitos.” You don’t say, Dexter.

• Episode director Michael Lehmann, who helmed a couple installments of the original series, does some nicely elegant work, especially with the cross cutting between scenes—the segue between Nurse Mary’s heart racing and the foot stomping at the volleyball game, for example.

• Welcome to the reviews of Dexter: Original Sin! I want everyone reading, whether they watched the original series or not, to feel like this is accessible. That being said, if you’re watching this without having seen the original, I could not urge you more strongly to at least check out season one to see what a good show it was in the early years—and also to understand why it continually feels like this series is nudging you in the ribs and going, “Eh? EH?!”