Hall is playing our favorite serial killer of killers, Dexter Morgan, as a man living under a different name in a very different town.
Indeed, “Jim’s” interaction with the butcher epitomizes the series’ habit of playing with audience expectations — showing Dexter sneaking up behind him with a meat cleaver unsheathed, ominous music rising, only to hand him the newly-sharpened tool as a friend.”You’re a lifesaver, Jimmy,” the butcher says, turning to resume cutting his meat.
It’s a new environment for Dexter, who – in the world of the show – was last seen 10 years earlier during the events of the program’s widely-panned series finale .Back then, he was working as a lumberjack in Oregon, after successfully convincing his friends on Miami’s police force he had died on a boat in a storm, setting up his son to be raised elsewhere by a girlfriend who knew his secret.Dexter: New Blood is supposed to provide a better ending for a popular character.
I don’t think she’s the infamous “dark passenger” that embodies his murderous urges; instead, she acts like a combination scold and conscience, lying in bed next to him in one sequence, soothing him with kind words.”If you had died first, I would have been lost in the world without you,” she tells him.
Do they think he deserves a medal? Deb is played by Jennifer Carpenter, who was once married to Hall while they were portraying brother and sister on the original show.
As a Florida resident and fan of the old show at its height, I miss seeing Dexter in his original Miami environment.
Too much of this new series asks the same questions as the old one: Can Dexter direct his murderous impulses constructively? Is everyone close to him destined to die? Is he inherently bad in a way that can be passed down to his son?It’s the same problem that challenged the old show and, eventually, Lindsay’s books.