Before I start, I would like to give a spoiler warning. If you haven’t seen Dexter I would highly suggest doing it right now. It’s available on Amazon Prime Video, Showtime or you could even borrow my DVD box set (only if you promise to give it back, it was a nice gift from my girlfriend). For those unaware, Dexter is about a blood-splatter expert for Miami-Metro Police Department who, when off the clock, takes it upon himself to rid the city of the criminals who deserve the ultimate punishment: death.

My obsession with Dexter is fairly recent as I binged the entire series in the span of a few months in mid-2020. Each season has its own ups and downs with interesting story lines and character growth, but my favorite has to be Season 4 with John Lithgow as Arthur Mitchell. Up to this point in the series, Dexter has been the quintessential psychopath that we see as heroic for his ability to takeout murderers, rapists, druggies and leave the crime scene sparkling clean. Season 4 offers a foe that matches that same level of psychopath with a bit more of an uneasy feeling and the result is a great story arch and an ending that I didn’t see coming.

Dexter: New Blood is a continuation of the series with Dexter Morgan completely camouflaging himself as Jim Lindsay, an innocent gun salesman living in Iron Lake, NY. Debra returns as the sailor-mouthed comedic relief who constantly reminds Dexter of his past. Another spoiler warning: Debra dies in the end of Season 8 of Dexter, so she comes back as a figment of Dexter’s imagination. Dexter’s new life is going smoothly until a teenaged Harrison returns looking for his father and answers for why he was abandoned.

At the time of writing this we are 3 episodes into Dexter: New Blood and I’m enjoying where this season is going so far. There’s a nice balance of reminding us who Dexter was and who he is trying to be: normal. There’s no pandering to the audience who just came to see Dexter torture and kill. I really like that Dexter has been able to fight off his “Dark Passenger” for so long and hold back from murdering. There’s a sense of happiness I feel for Dexter and it isn’t until Harrison shows up where he starts to think about the past and gives in to his dark urges.

Michael C. Hall returns to form as the titular character with his witty responses and overly kind nature. Hall has been mostly away from the spotlight after Dexter, but has been keeping himself busy playing President Kennedy in The Crown, the Bulgarian in Game Night and being the lead singer in his band Princess Goes to the Butterfly Museum.

Another character I would like to point out is Angela Bishop played by Julia Jones. Some may recognize her for playing Leah Clearwater in the Twilight Saga, her guest spot on The Mandalorian, or as Kohana on Westworld. Angela is Dexter’s girlfriend and is the smart, strong headed Sheriff of Iron Lake. Throughout these first couple episodes we keep hearing about an incident with “Iris” from the locals. We get hints that it was a tragic event that points to this small town not being as innocent as it may seem and we see Angela take responsibility for what happened.

Like previous seasons of Dexter there’s an underlying villain that we don’t see or hear from giving us a sense of wonder and anger. The only thing we know about this person is that they trap women in a room and when the women are weakened, let’s them free just to shoot them with a sniper rifle like a cold-blooded game of Duck Hunt on Nintendo. Could it be a character we’ve met? Or is it possibly someone that we have seen in Dexter? The uncertainty is just another thing that keeps me tuned in every week.

Overall, I’m excited that Dexter is back and I luckily didn’t have to wait that long. Personally, I wasn’t a fan of the ending of the original series and maybe this new series will redeem what went wrong. There is talk of John Lithgow returning as Arthur Mitchell and that has me stoked.

Dexter: New Blood is currently airing on Showtime every Sunday. Episode four of ten, entitled H Is For Hero dropped as of this writing. Check back every week for my spoiler filled thoughts on each episode as the season progresses.

Published by Caleb Ryerson

View all posts by Caleb Ryerson