Eight years later, Dexter Morgan returned to the screens – one of the most charming killers in the history of television. But he returned not in the ninth season of “Dexter”, but as part of the formally new show “Dexter: New Blood” – this immediately hinted that the creators conceived some kind of trick.
And so it happened!
The finale of the new show pissed off viewers so much that ratings dropped to nearly the level of the highly controversial ending of the original Dexter. It’s time to figure out what is wrong with the series finale and why it was needed at all. Of course, with maximum spoilers, there is nothing to talk about without them.
What is Dexter: New Blood about?
In the finale of the original series, Dexter Morgan nevertheless left the suspicions of his colleagues, faked his own death and disappeared from the radar. Ten years have passed since then, now the hero lives under the name Jim Lindsay in the small New York town of Iron Lake. And he lives as quietly as possible: he works at the checkout in the gun store, runs through the woods and meets with the girl Angela, the local police chief.
However, the “dark companion” has not gone anywhere and from time to time Dexter feels a thirst for blood. As a result, it leads to the fact that the antihero commits murder again – he kills Matt, the son of the local rich man Kurt Caldwell. At the same time, Matt is a complete asshole and deserves death – he fits perfectly with Dexter’s code. Pretty soon it turns out that the father of the major, Kurt, is a serial killer himself, who has been hunting young girls for a quarter of a century. Between him and Dexter, of course, a “spark” flares up.
In general, the first episodes do not make you think about why you need to return Dexter to the screens. It’s like a soft restart and at the same time a return to the roots – everything is like in the first, best seasons, only in a new place. Any fan of “Dexter” will be thrilled to see how he again prepares the scene of the murder, tightening everything with plastic, and even thinks of taking the victim’s blood on a glass as a trophy, like in the good old days. Well, the newcomer, if there are any such among the viewers of the new show, may well be interested in the still fresh concept of “serial killer killers”.
But much more important is the appearance of Harrison, Dexter’s own son.
As it turned out, Garisson’s adoptive mother died long ago and he has been wandering around orphanages for many years. There he behaves mostly aggressively and also feels a “dark fellow traveler”, completely uncontrollable. How my son found Dexter is not really clear, but for the series it doesn’t matter, the main thing is that the door also opens for the topic of “fatherhood”. As a result, Dexter is drawn into a real whirlpool: his own new murders, during which he spoils and substitutes surprisingly a lot, a conflict with a new maniac, a cop girl and a son who already managed to cut a kid at school with a knife just like that and generally clearly makes it clear that he, too, is a future maniac worse than daddy.
By the middle of the season, there are too many paths and characters, screenwriters more and more often hammer on logic, leave plot holes and throw out minor characters, without finishing their story. However, we can forgive all this – thanks to the powerful cliffhangers and the cozy-disturbing atmosphere of the original “Dexter”, which is still strong in the “new season”. And the charisma of Michael Sea Hall not only did not weaken, but also intensified many times over, we were bored!
But then the ending happens, proving the importance of a good or at least acceptable ending for the series. It would seem, well, that the ending is not very good, but the viewing experience, then no one can take away, and it was pleasant. But no. The denouement is so controversial that it makes you look around and properly reflect what you see, delve into the details. And “New Blood” does not stand up to such an analysis – it turns out that white threads stick out from everywhere from the very first episode, and a good half of the scenes exist only for stretching the timing.
So how did the show end and what’s wrong with the ending?
Dexter trifled up in several murders and burned his real name. Despite the sad convincing story about why he was hiding his past, Angela suspected him, and even guessed that he was the same maniac from Miami. Formally, all those crimes in the original were blamed on Dexter’s colleague Sergeant Doakes, but the “new season” constantly insists that very few people believe in this. Dexter is locked up in a cell and promised to be sentenced to lethal injection. He, confident that he will get out, agrees with his son that he will pick him up from the hotel in a couple of days and they will go away.
At this moment, Angela is seized by some kind of obsession. She forgets about everything – both how she saw a wonderful person in Dexter for many years, and that a maniac is operating in her city, who once killed her friend. Moreover, at the time of Dexter’s arrest, it should already be clear to any fool in the Iron Lake precinct that Kurt Caldwell is a murderer. A little earlier they even try to plant him, but they fall apart on a lack of evidence (and this does not teach the local cops anything).
Dexter behind bars – the moment is not as exciting as you might think. Only very circumstantial evidence points to him. Angela insists that everything must be done cleanly, otherwise the jury will acquit, but there is such a case that it obviously will not reach the court at all. Literally every point of accusation is scattered. Cold-blooded Dexter should look at all this with a grin. But suddenly he panics, kills the policeman guarding him and in panic runs after Garrison, who is not even threatened. A stupid reference twist, as if the creators of the series needed to urgently come up with something SHOCKING for the final twenty minutes and immediately add it to the script.
Well, yes, after that, Dexter will not wash off in any way. The son, instead of escaping with the batya, shoots him in the heart, before blaming him for all his troubles. His father had already told him who he was, they even committed a righteous murder together, but he was suddenly unable to survive the death of an innocent Harrison, who had recently tried to stab a classmate himself. Boy Angela forgives and lets go, but warns: don’t come back here. Here is your redemption. Everything goes to the fact that we will be shown a sequel, but with Harrison in the lead role. However, does anyone need Dexter without Dexter? Or worse, with Dexter in the form of an annoying voice in his head?
The main problem of the series is that he simply mocks Dexter – this is very dirty and it is not clear why the necessary deconstruction of the cult hero
Even the “paternity” storyline in the show is only needed to poke Dexter Morgan with his face in the dirt. Look, your son is a maniac – and it’s all because of you! But what does Dexter have to do with it, it does not become clearer – the boy’s inclinations appeared before the reunion with his father. The orphanages are to blame, but did he get into them because of Dexter? Also no, the series says that Garrison’s brains were wedged due to the fact that he saw the death of his mother in infancy, and the maniac Trinity killed her. To ascribe Dexter here too – like putting an owl on a globe.
Throughout the show, Dexter communicates with his deceased sister Deb, who has settled in his head. All she does is to shower Dexter with shit, you can’t say otherwise. Five times per episode, she says what Dexter has a miserable life, what a disgusting killer he is, how he ruined his son’s life and now makes it even worse. And Dexter’s stupid death in the finale is kind of a relief for everyone, including himself. And his escape from the cell is a manifestation of his essence, the exit of a killer, who really doesn’t care who to kill. So that the viewer will surely learn that such scum does not deserve anything good.
And yes, Dexter has always been that way. He just wants to kill, but thanks to the code, he learned to control this feeling and distinguish between good and bad better than many “normal” people. Dexter got it wrong, but over the course of eight (okay, nine) seasons of killing maniacs, he also saved hundreds of lives, which Garrison even tells him, comparing his father to Batman. Dexter’s only bad thing in the new season is killing a police officer. The same contrived and sucked from the finger, like the whole “new season”.