Stay Tuned #63: Dexter - Resurrection

Article by Sean Wilkinson,

a.k.a. The Dark Ticket-Ripper.

It's going to happen tonight.

I don't know what it is,

But it's going to happen.

Or maybe it's going to happen in two weeks.

Anyway, that's my segue from a Dexter reference to me bringing a meme back from the dead so I can beat a dead horse with it.

I'm not the only one who's tried and failed to beat the Annoying Orange to death with dead horse memes, but it hasn't worked yet and it doesn't hurt to try (it just drives you insane).

Also, it's still April, and Easter was last week, so I'm reviewing Dexter: Resurrection today.

We didn't get a second season of Original Sin (probably for a good reason), but we did get a return to, and escalation of, formula with Dexter: Resurrection, which is getting a second season at an unspecified point, with Brian Cox taking a break from narrating McDonald's commercials to play the forthcoming season's main villain, though, whether his duck impression is on point remains to be seen.

Picking up after Dexter (Michael C. Hall) is shot by his son, Harrison (Jack Alcott), at the end of New Blood and spends Original Sin on an operating table with his life flashing before his eyes, Resurrection's first season follows the two surviving Morgans to New York, where Harrison is working in hospitality (with a co-worker/love interest who looks disturbingly similar to his aunt because this franchise loves reminding us of the worst subplot of one of its worst seasons), dealing with his own possible dark side when he commits a crime of passion and uses The Code to cover it up, and planning his future beyond his no-longer-safe safety job at the hotel (going to college for forensics and meeting a considerably less incestuous-looking girlfriend), and Dexter (deciding he now has Big Helicopter Dad Energy) is doin' what Dexter be doin' to protect his son and his personal branding from the shadows while legal forces new (two NYPD detectives designed in the "strict male/eccentric female" mold of every modern procedural mystery show, played by Nurse Jackie's Dominic Fumusa and Law & Order: SVU's Kadia Saraf, respectively) and old (David Zayas returning as Ángel Batista) attempt to complicate matters and fail because of their own vices and stupidity (Saraf's character literally lets Dexter escape because she hears a Bee Gees song and feels compelled to rope her sidekick into a viral dance scene in the middle of a murder investigation in a roomful of cops so I can injure my spine suspending my disbelief).

Speaking of murder investigations and Dexter's personal branding, our favorite double-Uno-Reverse-anti-herovillain moves in with a rideshare driver named Blessing (Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine, Blood Diamond) and gets a job as one himself so he can hunt a serial killer who goes by "The Dark Passenger" (which pisses him off here despite finding it flattering in the main series when someone made a comic book with that title about the Bay Harbor Butcher). He soon learns that "The Dark Passenger" (Marc Menchaca, The Retaliators) is a member of a serial killer cult including the misnamed "Lady Vengeance" (Krysten Ritter, Jessica Jones), the disturbingly gleeful "Rapunzel" (Eric Stonestreet, Modern Family), the sigma douchebag "Tattoo Collector" (Neil Patrick Harris, How I Met Your Mother), and the self-important "Gemini" (David Dastmalchian, Ant-Man), so I get to do these memes together, as well:

Leading (or more precisely, collecting and extorting) the killers' club are affluent philanthropist Leon Prater (Peter Dinklage, The Toxic Avenger) and his cold-hearted fixer, Charley Brown (Uma Thurman, Pulp Fiction). Yes, I'm serious.

As is expected of the Dexter franchise, he infiltrates the club by pretending to be "The Dark Passenger," in search of "like-minded individuals" (or a buffet for his kill table, whichever comes first, and you should know by now which comes first), somehow avoiding detection through a re-hash of the Trinity, "Hello...Dexter Morgan" moment and the rest of the club being killed off one by one because, while the cast and performances are enjoyable, the writing is the wrong balance of stupidly convenient and conveniently stupid.

Resurrection feels like a natural, big city progression of the Dexter formula and narrative, and it's far from the worst that the series has to offer, but if you're not a fan or follower (and let's be honest, even if you are), prepare to roll your eyes when you look at what's been done.

Please Stay Tuned and remember to Become A Ticketholder if you haven't already, leave a comment at the bottom of this post and any others you have opinions about, help out my ad revenue as you read because the city's breakin' and everybody's shakin' and we're stayin' alive, and follow me on BlueSky, Tumblr, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, and LinkedIn to like what you see and receive the latest news on my content.

73

Ticketmaster,

Tuned Out.