by Austen Terry, Contributing Writer
As a fan of the original series, I was wanting to scream from the mountains that Dexter: New Blood is absolutely amazing. There were parts where this new mini-series was better as it went to new levels and did things different from the original series, but the ending was not there.
The new series felt so new and seemed different in the beginning in several key areas: tone, story, and cinematography. This caused me to research if it was made by anyone new or not attached to the original series. New Blood felt so much like Dexter season four in its mystery of who the new season’s big villain was that I was drawn back to the series wanting to know more. Director Marcos Siega did direct some episodes of the original series, and it was the same with writer Clyde Phillips who wrote a few episodes of Dexter. Showtime mostly brought in new people, and it can be seen throughout these 10 episodes, as new life was breathed into this franchise. But just like with the original, they could not land the plane.
Dexter: New Blood tells the story of Jim Lindsay, a.k.a. Dexter Morgan (Michael C. Hall), who is living in the small town of Iron Lake, New York, after faking his death to leave Miami and escape his serial killer past. But your past can’t stay dead forever, because after 10 years, both Dexter’s Dark Passenger and his son Harrison (Jack Alcott) return. Dexter has been living in this town where no one suspects his past, is dating the town’s chief of police Angela (Julia Jones), and is working as a sales associate — in every aspect, he’s faking his normal day-to-day life. But like all things with Dexter, his normal routine is thrown out of sync and he must figure out what to do.
Debra Morgan (Jennifer Carpenter) is also back in a role I will speak on more later, but she is Dexter’s Dark Passenger in some form. The town is full of new people whose stories you want to be a part of like Sgt. Logan (Alano Miller), Kurt Caldwell (Clancy Brown), Molly Park (Jamie Chung), and many others who bring a sense of life and mystery to this small town.
Dexter: New Blood brings an intriguing story that will keep you wanting to come back for more and more as the mystery unravels. The camerawork and cinematography are top-notch, as you have something other than the Miami skyline to look at in b-roll footage. The casting choices of the new players are interesting. Alcott plays his role extremely well and you can pick up the father-son chemistry between him and Hall. Harrison gets a lot to work with in this series besides just being a return character (played by a new actor), as he deals with seeing his dad again, a new school, a relationship with Audrey (Johnny Sequoyah), Angela’s Daughter, and just navigating life in this new climate. Carpenter seemed to have a lot of fun with her new role this season — she’s not just playing Debra, but is trying to keep Dexter on this new path. With Carpenter and Hall’s past, I can almost guarantee she was loving all the things she gets to do this season. They are great on screen together and have amazing chemistry.
Hall and Jones have chemistry, but not enough to convince you that they are dating. It feels like they tried to make Angela look like a Debra clone, and in many scenes that’s who she was, instead of being built into a new, interesting character. She has development in her own story, but that’s mostly without Dexter. Audrey and Harrison meet, and within a few days within the show, they have more chemistry than Dexter and Angela, who have been dating for a while. Dexter is faking it differently in Iron Lake than in Miami, which works, but in spots he feels like a different character than the one we left in Dexter. This show would definitely benefit from two more episodes, unlike its predecessor, in which each season got 12 episodes. Instead, New Blood only gets 10 episodes.
All in all, there are things that work in this show and things that don’t. When we do finally see Dexter kill someone, the person is someone who thought needed to be on his table before it’s even revealed they fit Dexter’s code. There are several things that begin to unravel Dexter’s routine, but it doesn’t feel like anything he’s hasn’t already dealt with before. The show felt like season four because we got to see the killer and what he does before Dexter realized who he was. The killer is shown killing someone in similar shots to how we see Trinity (season four killer) kill for the first time. Plus, like Trinity, this season’s killer is loved by everyone in their life. There is a lot that happens off-screen that probably fell to the shortened season aspect, but it left a lot to be desired. With so much happening off-screen, it can leave the viewer confused as to how certain conclusions are drawn. With everything happening in a small town where everyone should know everyone’s business, it’s hard to pick up that so much can happen without someone knowing.
Harrison gets a job at a truck stop and there’s a clear scene shot for the trailer that has stuck with me. It’s a very stylized shot of Harrison putting on gloves, an apron, and boats that in a trailer would leave viewers to think he is a killer just like Dexter. It looks like he is getting a kill room ready. In reality, Harrison was putting that gear on for the job of cleaning the trucks that come into the truck stop. Jack Alcott hasn’t been in much, but hopefully this is his major break — in these 10 episodes, he leads you to believe he is Harrison due to how he remembers what Trinity did to Rita, and you can feel his pain of being abandoned by Dexter. Jack clearly deserves an award for this performance alone.
With the pandemic, they probably couldn’t shoot any more or bring more people on board. They keep referencing the previous series with some flashbacks, but they never mention people Harrison and Dexter should talk about. They never once mention Rita’s other kids or explain why Harrison went into foster care. There are several plot holes like these that don’t get answered, and they probably never will be answered, as this is intended to be a miniseries to bring closure to fans of the original series. Overall, there is some good stuff here, and I wanted it to be great, but it fell short and ultimately landed just under great and closer to mediocre.
Grade: C+
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