Dexter Resurrection: A Beating Heart...

"Talk about a curtain call."

After ten weeks in a coma jam packed with delightful hallucinations, Dexter woke up in the Seneca Nation Clinic. I didn't think they would find a way to explain how he survived the bullet Harrison put in his chest, or why he didn't wake up in a prison hospital, but they did. Moving right along.

Those hallucinations were more fun than I've had with this show in a long time, and look at how they were evenly divided into different aspects of Dexter's personality – because of course, they were all Dexter talking to himself.

— Trinity told Dexter that he had messed up by trying to have a normal life, while Dexter blamed Trinity for Harrison's trauma. Trinity brought religion into it, because of course he did, saying that Dexter had to go through Hell in order to be resurrected.

— Miguel Prada pretty much expounded on the same theme as Trinity, but with gravestones as his Power Point slides, that by pretending to be a normal guy, Dexter caused the deaths of innocents like Maria, Deb, Rita, Doakes. Miguel also said there was nobility in killing killers. It's unanswerable, but I've always wondered how many innocent lives Dexter has saved.

— The ghost of Harry took another tack, insisting that Harrison desperately needed his father. It was nice to see Harry again.

— Doakes, echoing Harry about Harrison, said that Dexter has a "kernel of good" inside of him. Of course he does, or this series would never have worked in the first place.

The hallucinations were followed up by two visiters that were real people. Teddy Reed, the inept but now acting sheriff from New Blood, showed up to ask Dexter if he wanted to press charges against Angela, and Logan shot at you and you were defending yourself, and gosh, Dexter, you're the best. Dexter always was a lucky guy.

But of course, Angel Batista was not as inept. No one had to tell him twice that Dexter was the Bay Harbor Butcher... no, actually, that's just what happened. Dexter managed to get away from Angel because of the convenient old man with no next of kin who drove his own truck to the clinic and promptly died, but Angel is a smart detective and I'm sure he'll be on Dexter's trail.

I loved that Angel was channeling Columbo. "But I'm a little confused!" And that he cleverly resurrected Dexter legally because he wouldn't be able to prosecute a dead man. Angel's only mistake was in leaving the hospital for the night. Maybe deep down, he still can't help but think of Dexter as his friend.

Dexter didn't actually kill anyone in this episode. But oddly, Harrison did.

It started out looking like Harrison had landed on his feet. Working as a bellhop at the Empire Hotel, sleeping in vacant rooms with the help of a maid named Elsa, for whom he babysits. Much like his father, Harrison was super accommodating and super friendly with his workmates, always on the lookout for a buck, and pretending to be a native New Yorker. He even got his GED in his spare time.

But "Harry" and "Doakes" (in other words, Dexter) were right. Harrison was deeply traumatized by Kurt Caldwell, and by what Dexter did to Kurt Caldwell. Presented with genuine evil, an unrepentent hotel guest named Ryan who drugged and tried to rape an innocent woman, Harrison completely lost it and beat him to death with the top of a toilet tank. No symbolism there, huh?

And here we are again with the reason why I keep writing about this show. Ryan was a serial rapist, but not a killer. Is what Harrison did wrong? Well, yeah, he should have found a way to let the police handle it, but Ryan was a rich guy accustomed to getting away with everything, and Harrison saw Kurt in Ryan and couldn't help himself.

At any rate, Harrison learned clean-up from the best. Nine pieces, oxygenated bleach. But he left a spot of blood on the hotel kitchen ceiling. And clearly, Dexter taking out the trash was never meant to be literal. Throwing out the body parts in the trash was a huge mistake. Maybe he should have double bagged.

Actually, he should have triple bagged. Because clever, filterless detective Claudette Wallace and her partner are already on the case.

Bits:

Uma Thurman was introduced as quite possibly this season's big villain as she broke into someone's apartment and left an invitation in that person's secret drivers' license stash in the ceiling. Peter Dinklage was listed in the cast but we didn't see him.

The flashback to the cargo container showed the same young actors who played little Dexter and seven-year-old Brian in Dexter: Original Sin. Why not?

Dexter faked a call from Detective Quinn at Miami Metro. I wonder if Quinn is still there?

There were a few easter eggs: A drawing of a white deer on the wall of the clinic. Uma opening up and searching the air conditioner. Dexter passing a Paramount sign in New York. What did I miss?

One of the rooms Harrison slept in was 237, which is the famous hotel room from The Shining. The movie, not the book.

Interesting use of all kinds of music. I especially liked Claudette searching for body parts while listening to the Bee Gees "Staying Alive," and Uma Thurman searching the apartment to "Red Right Hand," a song I will always associate with Peaky Blinders.

I was hoping for Jennifer Carpenter. Guess we'll see.

The final credits were a wow, with shots of Iron Lake mixed with New York and dripping blood, and the original Dexter minor key closing music but broken up.

I have a request. Please, show, don't kill off Angel Batista. He was always a character I enjoyed, a flawed but genuinely good human being. We've lost too many good long running characters already.

Quotes:

Doakes: "Surprise, motherfucker!"
Dexter: "Isn't there some rule about these things ending after the third ghost?"

Dexter: "My son. I could cry. Actually, I can't cry. Damn it."

So I have to give them credit. They took it slowly, step by step, hallucination by hallucination, answer by answer. I didn't think they could make resurrecting Dexter work, but they did. Does that make it four out of four spots on the ceiling?

Billie
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Billie Doux loves good television and spends way too much time writing about it.

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