The Apple Doesn't Fall Far From the Serial Killer in the Best 'Dexter' Episode Yet

By Dustin Rowles | TV | November 29, 2021 |

By Dustin Rowles | TV | November 29, 2021 |

This season of Dexter: New Blood has been so increasingly good that I’m already sad about the end of its run and potentially the finality of it. For a show that ended so horribly the first time around (and limped for three seasons leading up to the last one), I can’t believe that I am pre-missing a show I wasn’t even sure I wanted to return in the first place. But the new setting, the new characters, and Harrison himself has made it a worthwhile return to form.

Then again, I don’t know how Dexter escapes this one. Part of that is because of Jamie Chung’s character, a true-crime podcaster by the name of Molly, who was introduced last week. She’s smart, she knows her stuff, and now she’s working with the chief of police (and Dexter’s girlfriend), Angela. The problem is that Molly devoted an episode to the Trinity Killer, a case that she is clearly familiar with, so much so that she knows that he killed in fours (and not in threes). In fact, Harrison listened to an old episode of hers that covered the Trinity Killer and his final victim, his mother Rita. How long before Molly sees Dexter and puts the pieces together? She can blow his cover as Jim Lindsay, which I suspect would mean the end of Dexter, or at least in Iron Lake, NY.

I wasn’t certain what Harrison was thinking last week when Ethan — the classmate who has been bullied his entire life — showed Harrison the pictures in his notebook that looked like a school shooting, as well as his kill list. We know now because Harrison used that notebook to justify stabbing Ethan and then himself and making it appear as though he were doing so in self-defense. Harrison’s school — and the town — anoints him a hero, but Dexter knows better. Blood doesn’t lie. Dexter uses his blood-spatter skills to determine that Harrison stabbed Ethan unprovoked and then turned the knife on himself to cover it up. Ethan’s notebook and the kill list, however, undermine the story of Ethan (who didn’t die), who tries to tell Angela that Harrison stabbed him for no reason.

Note that Harrison stabbed Ethan in the femoral artery, which is where his mother was stabbed. Even if the audience didn’t pick up on that, Dexter did. He knows now Harrison has his own Dark Passenger, and his Dark Passenger is the Trinity Killer, which explains why and how John Lithgow will return this season. Dexter obviously has some concerns, but it seems obvious that he’s mostly thrilled by this prospect. Killing people will give Dexter something with which to bond with his son. He can teach him the code. First, though, Dexter needs to find a way to broach the topic without it blowing up in his face.

Harrison, meanwhile, has to rely on the incompetence of the police (namely Angela), her decision not to question Harrison’s story, and Ethan’s lack of credibility to save him from an attempted murder rap. Even if no one else believes Ethan, I suspect his parents will, and that could create some headaches for Harrison should they decide to press charges.

Elsewhere, there’s no question now that Kurt Caldwell is behind Iron Lake’s missing women. It’s why he concocted the story about his son still being alive. He wanted Angela to call off the search because it was endangering his operation, which we got to see in action this week when Kurt took another transient girl back to his kill shack’s cellar under the guise of giving her a place to stay.

In this regard, at least, Angela hasn’t quite given up on the Matt Caldwell case, and she notices that Kurt is twisting himself in knots to keep her from finding out that Matt is dead. Kurt, meanwhile, did a little fishing in an attempt to get Dexter to take the bait and connect himself to Matt’s death. Dexter deftly evaded a connection. This time. However, the case of the missing girls is exactly what Molly is going to help Angela with. Angela doesn’t have the resources to investigate the cases on her own, while Molly has hundreds of thousands of podcast listeners who can crowdsource evidence. Molly’s presence puts Dexter’s cover in danger.