What I’m Watching: Dexter: New Blood

Dexter: New Blood: Season 9, Episode 3 “Smoke Signals” (B+)

Say what you will about the necessity of this show, but it manages to get some great talent involved. I was immediately intrigued to see Molly Park show up as an alleged volunteer activist, and her later-revealed identity as a true crime podcaster makes her even more interesting. I first saw Jamie Chung in her role as Blink on “The Gifted,” and she’s since made memorable appearances on “Lovecraft Country” and “Mr. Corman.” It’s clear that Harrison has inherited a number of Dexter’s tendencies, putting his hands on the throat of one of the boys he saw tormenting and catfishing Ethan, and hopefully, like his father, he wants to help exact justice in a better way, keeping careful watch on Ethan’s violent inclinations and taking care of the bullies himself. There is absolutely something suspicious to his high scores and his response to being accused of cheating, but maybe it is superintelligence, which he’ll surely use to questionably noble aims. Dexter is hallucinating an increasingly violent Deb, who constantly threatens him and imagines using a woodchipper outside of the school, and that definitely offers a more severe image of what Dexter is doing than Harry’s careful, sophisticated guidance. Dexter didn’t end up being identifiable in the video footage of Matt shooting the deer, but now he’s about to give Kurt a ride home, very puzzled about why he would lie and say that Matt called him when he knows him to be dead. Edward Olsen’s roadside run-in with Audrey was a tense and memorable scene, and I still want to know more about who Iris was and what happened that has so affected everyone who knew her.