1x01 Cold Snap

I am part of the misunderstood minority who was quite pleased with how the show ended, back in season 8. But getting some more Dexter Morgan is genuinely something I cannot say "no" to! I really missed him and his Dark Passenger.

I was expecting Debra to replace Harry and I wasn't disappointed. Looking forward to see how much of a moral compass and influence she'll be to Jim — sorry —, to Dexter.

Having our favourite inconspicuous serial killer living a peaceful, normal life in a small town is absolutely lovely, and it makes for a really good setting for when things will start to go sour (because we all know they will, we've watched Dexter before). Seeing Dexter wrapping a room in plastic, just like in the old days, gave me a comfy and warm nostalgic rush, as if everything is now in its right place. However, the setup to the killing and the killing itself felt all bit clumsy, and I don't mean it in the sense that Dexter is out of practice. Something about the scenes and the dialogue didn't feel quite right... Still, I guess it fits the tone of the show, given its current context.

Also, a quick shout-out to this episode's soundtrack, which was really enjoyable, taking into account both the tunes I recognised and the ones I didn't.

This was a solid season opener, Dexter's still got it, and I am bloody excited to devour this new season of the man giving in, once again, to its primal urges.

Before the sixth season, Dexter was one of the most interesting series on television. My favorite season was the second because its climax was one of the few surprising moments when television felt more than it actually was. Once the sixth season started, Dexter slowly plummeted in quality until the much-discussed finale. The prospect of Dexter: New Blood is a unique one because it appears to be a call of action for fans. The same fans who still think about how terrible the ending is. On the surface, Dexter: New Blood could venture into intriguing places narratively. While I cannot fairly judge the upcoming episodes, this pilot is a disappointment because of how it relies on the same formula with lesser characteristics. As the original series evolves, Dexter Morgan is not the only fascinating character. From Angel Batista to Harry Morgan, these characters were fresh spins on television archetypes, and they had a significant amount of personality. While it is only the first episode, the supporting characters in Dexter: New Blood feel fully archetypal as if they are chess pieces in a game. The first kill——an entitled college drunk——is a lousy cliche considering the number of horror movies with obnoxious frats. In Dexter’s terms, the rich kid is silly and lazy due to its lack of inspiration. Another ineffective choice is for Debra Morgan to be Dexter’s new Harry. While James Remar’s Harry is convincing with his gruff voice, Debra is merely a complainer who does not fit into the narrative’s atmosphere. Jennifer Carpenter is a fine performer, but her Debra’s ghost detracts viewers from the storytelling. Character issues aside, one of the major problems with this pilot is its plot holes. What happened to the lumberjack gig, Dexter? Why does your son, Harrison, know where you live? Do you think it is necessary to be dating an officer after your chaotic past? One could argue the third question is for Dexter to be closer to his enemy, but this would, in my opinion, turn him into a caricature. Even with a nice return from Michael C. Hall as the indelible killer, the first episode of Dexter: New Blood feels less promising due to how unimpressively glum it is.

[5.9/10] I don’t know what to do with Dexter. It’s one of the shows that sparked my interest in the prestige drama. Dexter Morgan’s largely gotten lost in the sea of other “difficult men” of the 2000s premium cable landscape, but for we humble denizens of the time, the notion of following a murderer who only murdered other murders, was a novel one. More to the point, the notion of getting in his head, exploring what made him tick, even empathizing with him as committed his murders of the week and tried to unspool a large mystery, pushed boundaries and came with extra intrigue. For four seasons or so, with original showrunner Clyde Phillips, the series earned that excitement and fascination, by and large.

But then Phillips and others left. Four seasons of variable at best quality ensued. And the last season in particular was a steady stream of awful characters and worse story choices, until the series finale seemed to put the last, terrible but merciful nail in the coffin. It left a sour taste in the mouths of fans like me who still felt a connection to these characters and the storytelling world they’d inhabited, to where many justifiably washed their hands of the whole thing. I myself have occasionally mused about the show ending with the poetry of season 4, and pretending the rest never happened.

But here comes Dexter: New Blood, which returns Phillips as showrunner, but treats those seasons like they very much did happen. Deb is dead, and has occupied the space Harry once did in Dexter’s mind. Harrison has ventured away from Hannah (thank heaven) and is back in his father’s life. And Dexter himself is holed up in some small town in the frozen part of New York state. It’s a tough meld, to see the captain who steered the ship of Dexter through the series’ high tide have to navigate the detritus of the shipwreck that followed his departure.

In an ideal world, I would have had the time to go back and revisit Dexter’s original run (and the stomach to weather its back half) before watching this revival. I’d like to think my appreciation and understanding for television and storytelling has evolved since I saw those episodes live. And I’m loath to slate New Blood for problems now that may have always been problems with the series then, but which have faded away to the gauzy hues of nostalgia.

And still, “Cold Snap” the premiere of New Blood, is a challenge, rather than a tonic for stalwart fans. Dexter’s new town is filled with stock, nondescript, uninteresting characters. The script is full of info-dumps and clumsy dialogue. The teased arc mystery of missing women and a “drilling billionaire” rich asshole doesn’t inspire much intrigue or investment. The CGI deer looks abominable for a premium cable show in 2021. The literal personification of Dexter’s Dark Passenger dragging Deb back beneath the depths in a dream is cornball to the extreme. The on-the-nose needle drops are incessant. And everything about this opening hour feels blunt and ham-handed.

You can feel the show trying to set up familiar rhythms. Dexter is dating a single mother again. He’s returned to being the friendly guy about town who brings pastries to the office. He’s police adjacent, albeit not working for the cops. Some of the point here is to serve the theme of Dexter steadily falling back into old habits. But some of it, surely, is also to give longtime viewers a taste of the familiar for Dex, even if it’s in an unfamiliar setting, only the reheated leftovers seem to have suffered some freezer burn in the meantime.

Or so I think. Again, maybe it was always this way, and I was just too naive a viewer to notice at the time. There were always parts of Dexter that were a little outsized or unbelievable. Maybe it just stands out more to me now as a (hopefully) more discerning viewer.

Those substantial gripes aside, I like the bigger picture character exploration that Phillips and company bring to Dexter in this one. Framing him as an addict (much as the show did in season 2), who has gone a decade without engaging in his vice of choice, but feels the universe compelling him to relapse, is a strong choice. “Cold Snap” deals largely in feints, with teases that Dex could be up to his old tricks, only for it to be a fake out or for Dexter to keep his cool. The sense of the pressure building, the spirits all but calling him to return to his former vocation, while he tries to resist, makes for a compelling dynamic.

The only problem is his victim-to-be, Matt Caldwell, an asshole so cartoonishly villainous that he should be a bad guy in a Captain Planet cartoon. Matt is an entitled rich kid prick who thinks the rules don’t apply to him, sleeps with underage girls, tries to one-up everyone, is reckless with deadly weapons, and just exudes the unctuous unearned confidence of someone who thinks he deserves everything he wants.

There is no nuance to him. No interesting wrinkle to why he’s worthy of Dexter’s blade. No cleverness to his best friend just spewing the convenient information that he’s responsible for five people’s death. Matt is just an over-the-top, contrived magnet for Dexter’s disdain, who makes every scene worse by how obvious it is that he’s a device rather than a character.

But true to the old formula, I do like that he’s serves some purpose here, the same one many weekly victims did -- to give Dexter an epiphany. When on Dexter’s table, Matt blames bad parenting for the way he is. And as thin an excuse as that is, it reminds Dexter that he had Harry to guide him and, despite their struggles and revelations, he would have been lost without that.

So Dex decides to take in Harrison, who’s gone looking for his father. There’s meat in that idea The poetic but tragic suggestion of Dexter’s fourth season finale and creative high water mark, is that Dexter had inadvertently recreated the same conditions for Harrison that spurred his own pathological need to kill. Following up on that idea in some way, whether Harrison would be better off with his father’s influence or without it, is a worthy tack to take all these years later.

Hell, they even manage to use Deb well, which was not always a consistent thing in the show’s original run. Head Harry represented a guide, a mentor, helping Dexter work through problems and keeping him attuned to his code. Head Deb represents his guilt and sense that everyone who gets close to him dies. She represents the steadfast part of him that wants to conquer the Dark Passenger and has managed to resist it for this long. Having both those things tested by Harrison’s return, and an impulse he can't ignore to deal death in the name of justice, is a hell of an emotional hook.

I just wish the execution was better. I can't deny that there’s something nostalgic, cathartic even, to see Dexter “take out the trash” again, to watch him construct a makeshift blood slide, to hear his voiceover and listen to the word’s “Tonight’s the night” and “Hello Dexter Morgan” again. Michael C. Hall is as good as ever, and gives a performance that can elevate even not great material, just like he could in the old days. Dexter is back, “evolved monster” or no, and seeing the old routine pushes the nostalgia buttons for those of us who made our T.V. drama-watching bones on his epic but disappointing journey in the original series.

To sustain ten episodes, though, New Blood is going to have to deliver more than nostalgia. It’s going to have to provide a character exploration worth sticking around for, a world and new set of characters worth spending time with, a mystery worth spending time on, and exchanges that provoke more than eyerolls. “Cold Snap” does a little of this, but not much. If this were a brand new series, and this was its introductory pilot, I can't say I’d continue with it, despite some glimmers of hope.

And yet, here I am, with plans to see the next nine episodes come hell or high Bay Harbor water, much like I trudged through Dexter’s abominable final season. What can I say? Despite its flaws, Dexter still means something to us. For some of us, the first cut remains the deepest.