Dexter: New Blood S1.01 — Out of practice
Spoilers below for Dexter: New Blood S1.01 — Cold snap
I loved Dexter (obviously, not the last season). I wrote my college application essay about Dexter, met a few of the actors, and had a huge Dexter poster in my freshman dorm room. So, when I heard they were rebooting it with the original showrunner and creator, I was cautiously optimistic.
After watching the first episode, my cautious optimism is remaining. While they sadly did not do a winterized version of the opening and the change in setting means we are losing a lot of the fun Latinx flair from Miami, I still enjoyed this episode and the return the darkly dreaming mind of Dexter — or should I say, Jim?
The majority of this first episode is setup as they have to reintroduce Dexter (I’m going to refer to the character as Dexter despite the fact that he now goes by Jim in his new life) and his new life in Iron Lake, New York. He lives in a cabin by himself, ice fishes, runs to meet up with a white deer, works at a fish & game shop, and, most surprisingly of all, doesn’t kill people. In fact, he now says he “has a thing about blood.” Oh how the mighty have fallen…for now.
He’s also dating the police chief, who despite pulling him over and hooking up with him in her cop car, is pretty in touch with the town and people and seems to be good at her job. Is it possible that the Iron Lake police chief is a better cop than all of Miami Metro? We will likely find out in this season, but given how inept Miami Metro was, it honestly can’t be that hard.
Dexter’s new life seems to be going well. He’s sticking to his routines and hallucinating Deb, his sister, instead of Harry, his adopted father. See, that’s growth! However, when “asshole season” arrives, a very rich and drunk young man comes to buy the biggest gun he can from Dexter’s shop. His background check comes up with a hold and while Dexter is waiting the 24 hours to see if he will be approved, he overhears some interesting background info on rich boy Matt.
Turns out, Matt was involved in a boating accident where 5 people were killed. Matt “wasn’t driving” — a likely story that we soon find out is, of course, not true. Even when Dexter isn’t trying to spy and stalk, he’s getting the info he needs. Then, he starts to feel like he’s being watched. When he finds a young man in his cabin, the boy asks “Are you Dexter Morgan?” Dexter denies him because hallucination Deb says that everyone who gets close to Dexter dies. Laughably, she starts the list with Doakes (he died literally because he was too trying to get Dexter arrested, but alright) so Dexter sends Harrison away.
Matt’s background check clears and Dexter is tasked with delivering the gun to his house. While Dexter politely waits for Matt to stop fucking his friend’s girlfriend, the frustrated (and high) friend tells Dexter exactly what happened. Matt purposely crashed the boats and killed those people. You can almost hear the sound of saran wrap being taped to a table as Dexter delivers the gun to Matt and leaves.
The next day, Dexter finally gets close enough to his beloved white deer. They are eye-to-eye, which is honestly weird, but ok, when the deer is shot. Of course, Matt comes running up whooping and cheering. Dexter hits him over the head with the gun, covers the blood spot with the deer’s blood, and sets up the kill room in his shed. We’re back, baby!
In the kill room, Dexter reveals that he’s a serial killer and Matt says that if Dexter kills him, his rich dad will come for him. Dexter doesn’t seem fazed and does his signature kill. Then, he cleans up and realizes the only place to throw the body is under the ice in the ice fishing hole. That won’t come back to bite him, I’m sure.
Once he’s cleaned up, he goes to the bus station and reveals who he is to Harrison. They return to Dexter’s cabin and as the drone camera flies up and over the house, you see bloody footprints in the snow leading to the ice. Come on, Dexter, you really are rusty! Or maybe you just never had to deal with snow before.
General thoughts from this ep and for the season:
- We don’t know yet what Harrison knows about Dexter and we don’t know if he, too, has a Dark Passenger, but I’m interested to find out!
- Dexter returning to his serial killer ways while dating the police chief will certainly complicate things.
- Also, how is he going to introduce Harrison to Angela? Something also tells me Harrison and Angela’s daughter are going to hook up because they love doing that kind of thing in TV shows.
- Something weird is going on with that shelter. The missing girls are probably being pulled from there.
- How will Dexter kill people in such a small town? Or will he go elsewhere to find victims? Or will the rest of the season just be trying not to get caught for Matt’s murder and trying to find the person who is kidnapping those girls?
Originally published at http://lizziekreitman.wordpress.com on November 7, 2021.