Dexter: Resurrection

In Dexter: Resurrection, Dexter Morgan, presumed dead after the events of Dexter: New Blood, resurfaces in a new city under a fresh identity. Haunted by his past, he struggles to balance his Dark Passenger with a desire for redemption, while a new series of gruesome crimes draws the attention of local law enforcement, pulling Dexter into a dangerous game of cat and mouse. As old enemies and new threats converge, Dexter must confront his demons to protect those he loves and avoid exposure.

Before we get too deep into this review, I should tell you that I thoroughly enjoyed the early seasons of the original series, but I dropped it without looking back after they killed his wife. She was the emotional center of the program and had added such a lovely dimension that their desire to move on past her, and continue the status quo, rather than continuing an exploration of Dexter’s emotional evolution, rankled me to no end. So, my experience with the character is limited to those four seasons and this one.

Dexter: Resurrection Review

Dexter: Resurrection doesn’t quite recapture the dark intensity of the original. Dexter, himself, spends much of the season unsure of himself as he works through his latest evolution. As always, Michael C. Hall masterfully walks a tightrope of teetering between psychopath and  sympathetic anti-hero. It’s a shame that aside from some success in the early 2000s with HBO’s Six Feet Under and Dexter, the ginger tar heel hasn’t made much of an impact in Hollywood. His ability to engender sympathy for a character who exhibits none of his own is borderline wizardry.

                   

Resurrection is also aided significantly by the estranged father-son dynamic. It provides an almost universally relatable emotional anchor to a premise that, on its own, is far-fetched, but in this particular season of television, stretches credulity to the breaking point.

The premise is that of Peter Dinklage’s billionaire Bond villain “collecting” a cadre of serial killers and their trophies as part of his own psychopathy. He seeks them out, invites them to lavish retreats to spend time in fellowship and camaraderie, as each wows his peers with tales of his latest evil. It’s laughably ridiculous and such a contrived departure in tone from the original that, were it not for Hall’s complete devotion to the integrity of his character, as well as the aforementioned emotional anchor, fans would likely abandon Dexter in droves.

Nothing is helped by a completely miscast Uma Thurman, who spends her brief time on screen doing a bad impression of an aging (though not aware of it) Beatrix Kiddo from Kill Bill. At nearly 60 years of age, and sans her Hattori Hanzo, Thurman sternly looks on like a six-foot-tall willow branch, doing her best to RBF a believable ex-Delta Force operator.

Fortunately, the good outweighs the bad, and while it is not the original, Dexter: Resurrection is a passable way to spend some downtime.

WOKE REPORT

Fabulous Vacation

• Dexter’s son is a bellhop at a posh NYC hotel. At the end of his introduction in the initial episode, the first hotel guests who gain entrance are a gay couple. There’s nothing narratively relevant about them or their sexuality.
  • Box checked.

Where Have All The Cowboys Gone

• The lead detective throughout the season is a woman. At first, it seemed as though she was going to be a typical tough modern chick, but she was instead odd (maybe autistic). It was a well-used device to explain away her atypical behavior rather than simply filling a man’s role with a woman. I didn’t mark the Woke-O-Meter down at all for her.
• Uma Thurman was distractingly miscast as Peter Dinklage‘s character’s head of security. She was great in Kill Bill, but her performance was bolstered by Quentin Tarantino’s exquisite writing and superior direction, not to mention his style.
  • This role is far more straightforward, and the writing, while perfectly adequate, is ordinary. Had she been a large and intimidating man, the dialogue would have been fine. As it stands, her time on screen was distracting.
    • Finally, and this is why her casting is woke, it is utterly obvious that her role was originally written for a male actor. We are told that she is a former Delta Force operator. It’s true that women have been members of Delta Force since the 90s, but in supporting roles, not operators.

Cover Girl

• The girl whom Dexter’s son likes invites him to watch Drag Race. The impression given is both that this is a regular event for the two and that he likes the show, not that he’s watching it for her benefit.
  • The program itself isn’t shown or talked about after this.

Clowning Around

• Dexter spends a significant portion of the first or second episode rehabilitating at a reservation hospital. The Indian physical therapist, conversing about serial killers (of course), says, “…crazy white men running around chopping up bodies. No offense, serial killers always seem to be white men. Just a fact.”
  • I didn’t mark down the Woke-O-Meter for this. My impression was that, rather than a woke dig at white men, it was innocently an inelegant line meant to make Dexter feel uncomfortable.

Blue Lives Matter

•  During an interview, a journalist asks Peter Dinklage’s character about the annual police fundraiser he’s coordinated for a decade, pressing whether it’s still a moral good to support families of fallen officers given “recent criticisms of police departments.” He sidesteps the question, she drops it, and the program never again raises the subject of policing controversies.