Stream It Or Skip It?
Let’s face it: The original Dexter really started straining credulity during its last few seasons, as it seemed like Dexter Morgan continued to get away with murder while also living what seemed like a “normal” life. Now its been over a decade since its questionable finale, and now the character’s history has been extended in both directions, with New Blood updating Dexter for the 2020s and Original Sin showing his origins as a forensic expert/serial killer. Now, there is yet another extension of Dexter’s story with Dexter: Resurrection, a continuation of New Blood that feels like a whole new story.
Opening Shot: We see Dexter Morgan (Michael C. Hall) being treated in the ER after he encouraged his son Harrison (Jack Alcott) to shoot him in the chest. When they shock his heart back into rhythm, we hear Dexter’s inner monologue go, “Ah, a beating heart. I’ll take it.”
The Gist: Ten weeks later, Dexter is still in a coma at the Seneca Nations Clinic. While in his coma, his brain conjures conversations with other killers he went after, like Arthur Mitchell (John Lithgow) and Miguel Prado (Jimmy Smits). He also has plenty of conversations with his father Harry (James Remar). He essentially feels regret about showing Harrison how to kill and dismember victims. Perhaps he was mistaken that Harrison had the same dark thoughts that he had.
During those ten weeks, Harrison has moved to New York City and found a job at a luxury hotel. He’s gotten his GED and seems to be well-liked and good at his job. But the invasive thoughts continue. And when he sees a guest try to take advantage of what is obviously a drugged female guest he met earlier that day, Harrison’s instincts take over.
After bashing the man’s head in with the lid of a toilet tank, another instinct kicks in, and Harrison follows his father’s protocol of cutting a body into nine pieces and disposing of it. However, he certainly isn’t as meticulous about is as his father is, which we see when NYPD detectives Claudette Wallace (Kadia Saraf) and Melvin Oliva (Dominic Fumusa) investigate.
When Dexter finally wakes up, he finds out that Harrison has left. As he’s rehabbing, impatient to leave and go find Harrison, he’s paid a visit from an old Miami PD friend, Captain Angel Batista (David Zayas). Given what Batista found out about what Iron Lake’s former sheriff, Angela Bishop (Julia Jones) was investigating with regards to Dexter’s past, he is keen to keep talking to Dexter. However, Dexter, hearing about the New York finance bro that got neatly cut into nine pieces, decides to leave the hospital and make his way to the city.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Perhaps we can compare Dexter: Resurrection to Dexter? Or maybe Dexter: Original Sin? We can definitely compare it to Dexter: New Blood, as this is a continuation of that spinoff series.
Our Take: Listen, we get why Clyde Phillips keeps bringing back Dexter Morgan; Showtime and Paramount keep asking for it, and it’s definitely a character he enjoys writing for. But as we watched Dexter: Resurrection, we couldn’t help but wonder if that reason just isn’t enough anymore. At this point, the character of Dexter Morgan has drifted so far from what made him so compelling in the first place, that we hardly even recognize him.
It feels like Resurrection is serving two purposes: !) To show Dexter having to finally deal with repercussions from his decades of killing serial killers, and b) to trot out as many big-name guest stars as Phillips and company can write for. By the end of the first episode, for instance, we meet a mysterious agent named Charley, played by none other than Uma Thurman. Peter Dinklage shows up at some point as a character named Leon Prater. Guest stars include Neil Patrick Harris, Eric Stonestreet, Krysten Ritter and David Dastmalchian.
That’s a whole hell of a lot of star power there, and it feels it’s being used as a distraction against fans of Dexter throwing up their hands and wondering exactly why this show was necessary. Yes, New Blood gave them the retconning of the original series’ ending that fans so desperately wanted. But it really didn’t say anything new about Dexter Morgan, and without having him surrounded by support like his sister Deb (Jennifer Carpenter), Dexter feels like a killer without a country, so to speak.
Can the story of Dexter trying to find Harrison in New York and try to dissuade him from doing more killing — as well as keep Wallace and Oliva off his trail — while keeping Bautista at bay at the same time be compelling enough for even Dexter completists to want to stick around? We’re not sure.
Sex and Skin: Nothing in the first episode aside from the attack that caused Harrison to wield that toilet tank lid.
Parting Shot: Dexter drives into New York City and sees Harrison outside the hotel where the dismembered body was reported to be a guest. Knowing that Harrison is the one who killed him, his inner monologue goes, “Damn it.”
Sleeper Star: As much as we’re complaining about the overabundance of guest stars, who doesn’t want to see Uma Thurman in just about anything? Same with Peter Dinklage. And it’s always fun when we see Erik King as Doakes, the only cop in the Miami-Dade PD who seemed suspicious of Dexter.
Most Pilot-y Line: Oliva tells patrol cops at the scene where the body parts were found that Wallace “sees things others don’t”, which seems to be 2020s TV code for “neurodivergent.” Wallace is depicted sifting through garbage bags while wearing headphones blasting “Stayin’ Alive.”
Our Call: SKIP IT. We don’t think even Dexter loyalists will get why Dexter: Resurrection exists, and the first episode doesn’t give us any indication that the season’s story will be at all interesting.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.