Review: Dexter: Resurrection, "Live Free And Die" | Season 2, Episode 3
Kill with the one that brought you
Everyone needs readers, eventually.
Even though there's no real moment of "aging Dexter" during his chase of the Five Borough Killer in the opening sequence—despite what would clearly be an exhausting workout up multiple flights of stairs!—it's only minutes before we're back to the issue of what it means to grow older, even without the whole serial-killer element. Like so many of us (sadly, I hit this point in my late 20s), Dexter has blurry vision and needs reading glasses. And while that gives us a very entertaining montage of him trying on various spectacles while thinking pithy asides for each rejected pair ("Too thick...too Dahmer"), it also keeps our thematic core front and center. Sure, there may not be any big heart-to-heart with Harry this episode about getting older and the problems that come with it; the season is still intent on exploring "what's changed," for better and—unfortunately, this time—for a little worse.
Not that it hampers the episode as a whole. Things are still lively as ever, with Dexter taking out the Sleep-Eyed Stranger and saving a potential victim, thanks to both Charley and his old buddy Quinn. But before we unpack all that, let's address the midlife crisis in the room. This week, at least, it didn't look much different than old Dexter. Let's call it the House Conundrum: When a series that mixes serialized and procedural elements in equal measure goes on for long enough, there won't be an endless well of new tensions and interpersonal dramas for its flawed antihero. People may contain multitudes, but after a hundred-plus episodes of lather-rinse-repeat when it comes to character issues, the best most shows can hope for is to keep finding new angles into the old problems. Thus far, Dexter: Resurrection has done a damn good job of that.
