Dexter: Resurrection Season-Premiere Recap: Generation Dex

Dexter
Risky Business
Season 11 Episode 1
Editor’s Rating ★★★★
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There’s a certain irony in Dexter Morgan having a midlife crisis. Yes, it feels a little late — like Michael C. Hall, Dex is now 55 — but it’s more that Dexter the series is thriving. The first season of Dexter: Resurrection (really just the tenth season of Dexter) was a wildly satisfying return to form for a show that had long ago lost its footing. Let us forget the dreadful Dexter: New Blood, the uneven Dexter: Original Sin, and yes, that whole lumberjack thing. Last year, the franchise hit heights not seen since the Trinity Killer stalked Miami in 2006, and while that makes for a tough act to follow, we’re off to a promising start with the season premiere. Dexter himself might feel aimless and underappreciated, but Dexter is in a creative renaissance, and long-suffering fans can remain grateful.

Aside from setting up the presumably seasonlong thread of Dexter’s discontent — he’d like a little recognition for 35 years of saving lives through serial killing, please! — “Risky Business” ties up loose ends and gets the new plots moving. Dexter is still plagued by nightmares about Batista’s death, even as Harry generously insists, “Angel’s death wasn’t your fault.” And the work of the Bay Harbor Butcher isn’t hitting the way it used to. Following the NYPD’s discovery of Leon Prater’s vault, Dex has been tracking down and offing the remaining members of the serial-killer club. He reasons that taking out the Midnight Mangler and the Yonkers Slayer saved over 50 lives, but what good is that if he’s not getting any credit for it? “This is hardly the life I imagined I’d have in my 50s,” he laments.

It doesn’t help that Dexter’s day job is shuttling around entitled assholes for UrCar. When a particularly obnoxious passenger hits him with a “What a life you live, boomer,” all Dex can offer is a weak “Generation X, dipshit” once he’s out of earshot. (The Code precludes further intervention, even for bros who rate him two stars.) The one bright spot in Dexter’s life is Harrison, who is now 21 and graduating from the police academy. The two are closer than ever, in fact — Dex even suggests they share their locations with each other (terrible idea) and promises he’ll be there for Harrison’s gun-and-shield ceremony. We know he’s almost certainly going to flake, but let’s appreciate this healthy father-son bond while we can.

Prater’s vault has also forced the NYPD into action, namely by revealing the identity of the New York Ripper to be Don Framt. (Remember when we thought he might be a character we already knew? We were so young once.) When we catch up with detectives Wallace and Oliva, they’re interrogating Framt for the ninth time. The iconic Brian Cox joins the Dexter: Resurrection cast to play the Ripper, who has put down his manhole hook but is still leaving taunting voice-mails for his victims’ loved ones. Though this isn’t the first time Cox has played a serial killer — his Hannibal Lecter remains tragically underrated — Framt feels like something we haven’t seen from him before. There’s a real sense of whimsy to this monster who gleefully spits in his coffee cup in case the cops want to test his DNA again. We meet Captain Mixon, played by new regular Bokeem Woodbine, as he reminds Wallace and Oliva that they need real evidence to put the Ripper away. For the time being, they’re going to have to stop hauling in Framt, especially after his lawyer calls the repeated interrogations “full-blown harassment.” But Wallace, who has been working this case for 23 years, is determined to put the Ripper behind bars while he’s alive. There’s some compelling overlap between Dexter and Wallace, both of whom worry their decades of effort won’t amount to anything.

It turns out the NYPD has more urgent problems than a retired octogenarian in an electric wheelchair. There’s a new serial killer in town: the self-proclaimed Five-Borough Killer, played by newcomer Dan Stevens. While I’ll admit to feeling trepidatious about all the series regulars Dexter: Resurrection has added, I’ll never complain about a show making room for Stevens, who is at his best when he’s playing a homicidal psychopath. (And also his hottest. Watch 2014’s The Guest if you don’t believe me.) FBK — I feel like we’re already on an abbreviation basis — calls the precinct and informs them he’ll be killing one New Yorker at tomorrow’s baseball game. “Consider yourself warned,” he says. But despite the extra two dozen officers Wallace sends to Citi Field, the fledgling serial killer easily follows through on his threat. Is this the show’s progressive commentary on more cops not making the city safer? When the game is rained out, FBK wanders through the parking lot wearing pervert glasses (I don’t think this is official Meta Glasses sponcon) and shoots a woman getting into her car. “Nobody cares” is the only hint he offers as to motive. Later, he AirDrops his snuff film to unsuspecting parkgoers, and we see him cross Queens off a map. There are at least four more murders on the horizon — unless somebody stops him. Will the NYPD or Dexter get there first?

Given the show we’re watching, my money’s on Dex, but our hero seems determined to let himself get distracted by side quests. To be fair, he’s had a Rapunzel problem ever since Al bailed on the second act of Hamilton and left town last season. Once Dexter realizes Al is still actively murdering women and stealing their ponytails, he tracks him down and hightails it to Pennsylvania. There are a couple of problems here. One, Al is on an extended cross-country RV trip with his family, which will make killing him a challenge. Two, Dexter has promised to be at Harrison’s police-academy graduation. When Harrison clocks his dad’s location — told you that was a bad idea — he calls to confront him directly. To his credit, Dex is up-front about what he’s doing in the Keystone State, but he insists he’ll be back in time for the gun-and-shield ceremony, an obvious impossibility. Both Harrison and Harry try to convince Dexter he’s being overly impulsive about killing Rapunzel. “It just feels like you’re taking on more risks than necessary, especially for someone …” Harrison says, letting the unspoken “your age” linger in the air. But as Dexter later reminds Harry, “I’m not even supposed to be alive, Dad. Let me live a little.”

And yes, Rapunzel is going to kill again. When Dexter arrives at the campground, he finds Al enjoying a bike ride with his family while also covertly eyeing a possible next victim. I’m glad to see Eric Stonestreet back on the show, however briefly, and he gets to play a different side of the character here. The moment he sees “Red,” his guard is up — the members of Prater’s serial-killer club knew better than to impinge on one another’s personal lives, and that was before the added danger brought on by the vault discovery and Prater’s disappearance. Dexter, still pretending to be Red, tries to smooth things over by telling Al he’s been scared and misses connecting with like-minded individuals. There’s probably a bit of truth to this and to his admiration for Al’s apparent ability to be a loving husband and father. “I hope to find out his secret to a happy family life tonight,” Dex admits to Harry. On that front, it would help to not bail on Harrison’s graduation at the last minute. I’m confused how Dexter thought he could be in two places at the same time, but surely, he realized he was going to flake well before sending Harrison — seconds from graduating! — an all-caps “NOT GOING TO MAKE IT, BUDDY” text. It took so long for these two to find their way back to each other, and Dex is already blowing it.

At least he didn’t drive to Pennsylvania for nothing! Dexter lures Al to an abandoned auto body shop that he’s transformed into a kill room. After a brief moment of friendly banter, Al drops the mask. Turns out he’s more like Trinity than Dexter realized, revealing himself to be exactly the kind of sociopath his crimes would suggest. When asked how he persuaded his family to hop in the RV for an endless vacation, he coldly answers, “I tell them what to do, and they do it. Basically they’re mine.” Al’s also no dummy, and he knows Red has rummaged through his RV and stolen his ponytail trophies. Dexter is completely unprepared for a fight, and the situation looks dire as Al knocks the etorphine needle out of his hand and tackles him with a “You fucked with the wrong cheesehead, motherfucker!” Dex is eventually able to get the upper hand, though, revealing his true identity as the Bay Harbor Butcher and hanging Al with a hydraulic chain rather than following his standard M.O. In another change of pace, he decides to leave Al hanging in the shop. “Fuck it,” he reasons. “I’ll let the world know Rapunzel is no longer a threat.” 

But Dexter’s true motives here aren’t as noble as he’s pretending. Once he’s back in New York, it’s clear the lack of credit for his crimes is driving him to be noticed. He bristles when a Google search for “rapunzel serial killer dead” comes up short. “It’s like you’re trying to prove something, that you’re as good as or better than you’ve ever been,” Harry tells him. “I am,” Dexter answers. And no one (minus the audience at home) knows it. His slides are works of art he can’t display. His kills are a net good for which he’s never been thanked. Instead, he’s living an anonymous life and getting two-star ratings as a rideshare driver — can anyone blame him for this midlife crisis? Harry is right, however, that no matter how justified Dex’s attention-seeking behavior may be, it’s a dangerous path to go down. Just because Wallace and Oliva already have two serial killers in their sights doesn’t mean they can’t also pursue the Bay Harbor Butcher — particularly given the sudden arrival of Miami Metro’s Joey Quinn. 

Blood-Spatter Analysis

• I’m thrilled to be back recapping Dexter: Resurrection and theorizing with you all in the comments. (I left off last season predicting Dexter tracking down Rapunzel, Quinn moving to New York, and the show introducing the New York Ripper — not to toot my own horn.)

• Though I’m delighted to see Desmond Harrington joining the show in a full-time capacity, I hope the writers don’t just give us a retread of the Batista story line here. 

• With apologies to Emilia Suárez and Emily Kimball, writing off Elsa and Gigi was the right move. The show didn’t know what to do with either character. 

• Besides, Harrison has a new love interest! The cop he hooks up with is Detective Fiona Mixon, who also happens to be Captain Mixon’s daughter. And yes, Nona Parker Johnson is our fifth new series regular. 

• Speaking of love interests, are Wallace and Oliva going to be a thing? There was a definite vibe in last season’s finale, and Oliva mentioning his ex-wife getting remarried in this episode felt … pointed. 

• Dexter’s communication skills remain strained at best. After a passive-aggressive text from Harrison, he wonders, Why would he send a thumbs-up if he didn’t mean it?

• We’ve got new opening titles! And they’re a delightful New York–themed homage to the old opening titles, which makes sense. Whatever subtitle they slap on this reboot, it really is just Dexter. Why shy away from that?