Dexter: New Blood S1.03 — Blood is the body’s truth

Spoilers below for Dexter: New Blood — Smoke Signals

Tonight’s episode of Dexter: New Blood was, for sure, a bit clunky. But, I think they are setting up for a few different storylines to take shape, so I’ll let it slide.

Unfortunately, there is something I can’t let slide. The actor who plays Harrison is 22. He is so old! We looked up the actual children who played little Harrison and they (it was a set of twins) are 12. We know that this Harrison is supposed to be 15 and I understand that actors are usually older than written, but come on. He looks so old, especially since they gave him Dexter’s haircut. It is really distracting. Adding to the age distraction, they really write the most ridiculous lines for Harrison. I feel bad for this 22 year old actor pretending to be a 15 year old and saying these silly lines.

Anyway, in tonight’s episode, Harrison scores “higher than any student has ever scored” on his placement test and he’s accused of cheating. He and Dexter argue because Harrison says he didn’t cheat but Dexter says they can administer the test again. Then, Harrison scores even higher than before. Awesome, he’s a genius. Why does this matter?

Harrison also befriends the local loser in the high school and helps him stand up to the bullies (Audrey’s friends). After he does that, Ethan (the loser) FaceTimes Harrison to thank him. He says he’s dreamed of hurting those guys for a long time and then shows Harrison a bunch of drawings he did of shooting and killing the bullies. From the preview for next week, I believe we will have a school shooting situation in Iron Lake.

The majority of this episode, though, is spent on Dexter trying to figure out what to do with Matt’s body. After they call in a CSI expert from Albany who looks like a fumbling idiot until he gets to the crime scene and details exactly what happened, Dexter realizes he’s in a bit of trouble. Also, the dogs are coming in. So, Dexter unearths the body and spreads Matt’s jacket and blood all around the woods to keep the dogs barking up the wrong tree (literally). But, I thought there was a camera right above the spot where the deer was shot, so it seems weird that Dexter did that. Won’t it be caught on camera?

Then, he has a long conversation with ghost Deb in the car after dropping Harrison at school where she suggests, among other things, pulping Matt’s body. He decides, instead, to take the body to the mines. He is about to drop the body down a big hole when a bear wakes up from its hibernation and scares the shit out of him. So, body still under the firepit, he goes to dinner at Angela’s with Harrison and Audrey.

Dexter and Harrison help Audrey and Angela take the white deer to Seneca land so they can do a bonfire. As he watches the smoke, he realizes there is an incinerator in town where he can just burn Matt’s body. Um, why didn’t he think of that before? That is obviously the best plan. Though, it is a little unfortunate that his ashes rained down on the town after he was burned, but still, this was such an obviously good plan.

On his way back from burning Matt’s body, he runs into Matt’s dad who is happy and drunk. He tells Dexter that he just FaceTimed with Matt and Matt’s fine. The episode ends with a voiceover from Dexter asking why Curt would lie. Here’s what I think:

• I think Curt is the serial killer who is kidnapping and murdering the young girls.
• He knows that his cabin is close to Dexter’s and he wants to stop the investigation so they don’t find what he is doing.
• And/or he potentially is suspicious of Dexter and wants to do his own type of vigilante justice? Or something like that.

There are a few other small scenes worth mentioning from tonight’s episode. The first is that the murderer lets the girl from the bar out of the room and then shoots her as she runs away. Dexter hears the gunshot, so we know that the kidnapper’s location is close to Dexter’s cabin. He is an old man with blue eyes but he wears a mask so we’re not sure who he is yet. After he hunts the girl, we see him embalming her body, which is gross and I don’t know I want to know what he does with them after that (but I’m sure we’ll find out).

The sergeant questions Dexter because the camera picked up infrared images of him walking with his rifle towards the white buck right around the time that Matt shot it. Dexter answered sufficiently but it seemed like the sergeant was a little suspicious. Not sure it will go anywhere because Dexter is dating the chief, but something to think about.

The oil kingpin stops by when Audrey is stuck on the side of the road and is fairly weird to her. Basically, he just tells her again that he thinks she’s a hypocrite and naive. He is also a potential candidate for the kidnapper because he’s old and weird.

Final, random thoughts from tonight’s episode:

• There’s also a true crime podcaster who comes to town and I’m sure she’ll make some trouble for our friends because she will for sure get in the way.
• We learn a little more about Iris. Seems like she was a Seneca girl who was friends with Angela and then went missing.
• Harrison calls Dexter, Dad, and Dexter loves it!

Producer who loves TV, looking for my next opportunity to be creative & pet dogs. View all posts by lizziekreitman

Originally published at http://lizziekreitman.wordpress.com on November 22, 2021.