Set 10 years after Dexter Morgan went missing in the eye of Hurricane Laura, he is now living under an assumed name in Upstate New York, Iron Lake, far from his original home in Miami.
I was late to the party when “Dexter” began airing on Showtime in October 2006. I started to take an interest in the show around season four because many of my friends said it was a terrific piece of television. I started watching the first season, and like many out there, I became hooked, right up until the last episode of the final season. You know what I’m talking about if you’ve seen the episode. It was a heavy-handed and unsatisfying ending to a top-notch series with a lackluster conclusion that infuriated many fans.
In 2020, it was announced that Dexter would return in a 10-episode limited series titled “Dexter: New Blood.” Initially, it wasn’t revealed if it was going to be a reboot or a continuation, but shortly after that, news came that it would follow through from the events of the series finale in 2013. And that’s where “New Blood” picks up.
Dexter (Michael C. Hall) has now changed his name to Jim Lindsay and lives in upstate New York in the small town of Iron Lake. As a forensic analyst working in the Miami Metro Police Department, he has left that past behind and now works at a local wilderness sporting gear shop. He is in a romantic relationship with the town’s chief of police, Angela Bishop (Julia Jones), and is a well-respected community citizen. Dexter’s “dark passenger” has laid dormant for ten years, and he is happy to leave him inactive.
However, when Dexter’s long-lost son, Harrison (Jack Alcott), lands on his doorstep one day, he immediately refuses to acknowledge Dexter’s identity, telling Harrison that his name is Jim Lindsay. Disappointed, Harrison leaves, but Dexter quickly realizes that he abandoned Harrison once as a child and wants to try and make amends. He follows him to the bus station, and just as Harrison is about to leave, Dexter approaches him and informs him that he is his father and takes him home with him.
He tells Harrison that after the death of his mother, Rita (Julie Benz), at the hands of the notorious Trinity Killer (John Lithgow) and his sister Deb (Jennifer Carpenter), he lost his mind and needed to start over and moved away from Miami to begin a new life for himself. Harrison tells Dexter that his old girlfriend Hannah (Yvonne Strahovski) took him to South America with her, where Dexter was initially supposed to join them, but a few years later, she died from Cancer. Moving around for years in foster care, Harrison eventually made his way to America and tracked Dexter down.
Dexter asks Harrison not to reveal his true identity to Angela or anyone else in town, and Harrison agrees. As Dexter tries to make up for lost time, it becomes apparent that young runaway girls in town are going missing, and Angela admits to Dexter that they might have a serial killer on their hands. Intrigued, Dexter starts doing some investigating of his own, but when he has a run-in with the precocious and self-indulgent son of a wealthy local and unearths a dark and sinister secret from their past that ended the lives of five innocent people, Dexter’s dark passenger finally rears his head and no sooner has he disposed of the evidence, his life begins a downward spiral, and his past life becomes the least of his worries.
When “Dexter: New Blood” was first announced, fans didn’t know if it was going to erase the sour taste the final season and especially the last episode, left in people’s mouths, and while it doesn’t negate the final season, it simply springs forward ten years and throughout its ten-episode run, you slowly begin to forget the past and accept where Dexter is in his life and deal with the new situation at hand. No apologies are made for the past; instead, we are starting anew, and I have to admit, being reintroduced to an older but not necessarily wiser Dexter was a delight.
Michael C. Hall shines as the titular Dexter, and when we first meet him, his character’s inner monologue is still an integral part of his psyche, allowing us access to the mind and thoughts of a serial killer. When Harrison begins exhibiting symptoms that Dexter fears might be a dark passenger within him, the idea of a father/son duo roaming the United States together, eradicating the existence of bad people, excites him, but it quickly becomes apparent that while Dexter accepted his dark passenger at a very young age, Harrison wants to be a normal kid and get rid of his passenger entirely, thus, creating a fascinating component both father and son can tackle.
Fortunately, “Dexter: New Blood” returns to the ambiance and gravitas of the earlier TV seasons that made it so successful and keeps you guessing until the end. The culmination has both angered and pleased longtime Dexter fans, but since you can’t please everybody, the series could only go in one direction, and I think that trajectory was appropriate. “Dexter: New Blood” doesn’t add anything new to the Dexter Universe, but it is fun getting to know our favorite serial killer all over again and watching him reconnect with his dark passenger.
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