Dexter: New Blood Review: Unfair Game (Season 1 Episode 8)
Please note this review contains spoilers for Dexter: New Blood Season 1 Episode 8.
The return of Dexter was always about his relationship with his son.
On Dexter: New Blood Season 1 Episode 8, “Unfair Game,” Dexter’s chance to bond with Harrison is nearly taken away. He wakes up in the back of a truck, having been kidnapped by Elric (Kurt’s employee), and that begins a fight for his life with an urgency to also get to his son.
Once again, the setting for the series is extremely significant. Getting away from his captor is all the more difficult thanks to the snow, and the image of blood on snow returns, this time, as a way to mark for danger for Dexter. The bitterness of the cold, the quiet — it all makes it that much more ominous as well.
But the thing is, even though Dexter has proven to be a bit he’s rusty, he’s still as smart as he ever was — and just as ruthless when he needs to be.
Because this is about his saving his son, he’s even more driven. Though I suspect that the lack of care he takes when it comes to killing Elric is going to come back to bite him.
Meanwhile, Harrison has no idea the danger he’s in when he spends this time with Kurt. It all seems so innocent at first — as though Kurt is just trying to take Harrison under his wing a bit. And knowing what he knows about his own son, that may even be true on some level.
It does seem strange that Harrison would be so naive after everything he went through before arriving in Iron Lake, though Kurt is also, in his eyes, providing something that his own father can’t and won’t.
I do also wonder how things might have gone had Kurt not figured out how his own son died, and at one point he felt the need to bond with Harrison. It’s all very elaborate and calculated, with Kurt judging Dexter’s parenting skills at every beat.
Then Kurt prepares a meal for Harrison at his cabin, just before changing into that horribly creepy mask and hunting gear.
He’s breaking his pattern to try to make Harrison his next victim, and he nearly succeeds, with Harrison about has vulnerable as we’ve seen him all season. But of course, as suspenseful as the scene is, we expect Dexter to show up just in time — which he does. But boy, is it a close call.
This version of Dexter Morgan is the most enjoyable to watch — protective, focused on family. It’s incredibly satisfying to see him speed straight toward Kurt, dodging bullets along the way, just in time to rescue his son. It’s a heck of a moment.
But what’s more satisfying is his confession.
Everything that’s transpired is somehow as predictable as it is surprising. There was no other way this could have gone — Harrison had to find out about his father’s “dark passenger” somehow. Yet still, hearing him say it out loud, even in this vague way, feels shocking.
This is probably the most vulnerable we’ve ever seen Dexter, and I have to say, I don’t know that I’ve ever rooted for him more than I do now.
What this new installment of Dexter has done is add an entirely new layer to who Dexter Morgan is, and while yes, there was always a reason we wanted to root for this serial killer, you can’t help but feel even more like you’re on his side now.
That makes it even more difficult knowing that Angela is close to figuring everything out.
Angela starts putting everything together just a little too easily, but I’ll buy it because her character has been established as extraordinarily skilled right from the start.
Dexter’s had these close calls before, but it’s never felt quite so unsettling. He’s been generally trying to do better, having gone years without a kill. And now that Dexter has finally managed to bond with his son and is about to truly open up to him, and be able to help him (for better or worse — that’s a whole other thing, I know), it’s even more tragic to think about him getting caught.
I’m nervous.
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Dexter: New Blood airs Sundays at 9/8c on Showtime.
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Ashley Bissette Sumerel
Ashley Bissette Sumerel is a television and film critic living in Wilmington, North Carolina. She is editor-in-chief of Tell-Tale TV as well as Eulalie Magazine. Ashley has also written for outlets such as Rolling Stone, Paste Magazine, and Insider. Ashley has been a member of the Critics Choice Association since 2017 and is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic. In addition to her work as an editor and critic, Ashley teaches Entertainment Journalism, Composition, and Literature at the University of North Carolina Wilmington.