Dexter: Resurrection Review 2025 Tv Show Series Cast Crew Online
It really is amazing to consider the possible lifespan of an entirely fictional character. Setting aside the nearly infinite existence afforded icons like Odysseus and Wile E. Coyote, whose lives are extended with each new generation of fans, even those made-up characters confined to their original era can survive for such an absurd length of time their sheer accumulation of years insists we consider whether they’re really, somehow, alive.
Take Dexter Morgan. He’s been skulking around since 2004, when Jeff Lindsay wrote “Darkly Dreaming Dexter.” Two years later, he was embodied in the Showtime series “Dexter” by (eventual) seven-time Emmy nominee Michael C. Hall. He thrived there (more or less), concurrently with Lindsay’s subsequent novels, until the open-ended series finale in 2013 and the more definitive final novel, “Dexter Is Dead,” in 2015.
Except on TV, Dexter wasn’t dead. Not only did he survive his fateful outing at sea, but he also reappeared eight years later in “Dexter: New Blood.” Also created by Clyde Phillips and also airing on Showtime, the revival was more of a redo, a one-off limited series that would give Dexter Morgan the ending the original series couldn’t quite provide. And it did! “New Blood’s” finale wasn’t an all-time ending, but it did the one thing it could to provide closure: Dexter died! Not only did he die, but he was shot in the heart by his own son — a fitting finale for an antihero who loved to bring up how he was “born in blood.”
Welp, you’re reading this review, so you know how that turned out. Ratings were high, Paramount+ was hungry, and that meant even if Dexter was dead, “Dexter” couldn’t be. The franchise’s next extension came in the redundant prequel series, “Dexter: Original Sin,” but even that irrelevant entry served a greater purpose: to walk back Dexter’s death. Opening after the events of “New Blood” before flashing all the way back to before “Dexter,” “Original Sin” (are you keeping your “Dexters” straight?) teased how the Bay Harbor Butcher would return for one more slice.
Frankly, the “how” doesn’t matter — not just for “Original Sin” (which relied on the flash-forward preface to explain how Dexter/Michael C. Hall was narrating his Intro to Mass Murder studies), and not really for “Dexter: Resurrection,” either. The latest improbable yet inescapable sequel series premieres 21 years after Dexter first emerged, and like most Floridians who just reached legal drinking age, there’s nothing sober about it. Anyone clearheaded enough to remember every minute of his journey from page to screen (or just from Showtime to Paramount+ with Showtime) wouldn’t be able to explain how he survived a bullet to the heart — which was suffered hours from a hospital and left unattended for many onscreen minutes after the blood started to pour from his body — so rather than overwork the point, Phillips just says, “Fuck it.”
Technically, what Dexter says is, “I’ll take it,” referring to his revived heart, post-surgery. Never mind the operation was so miraculous it would make Dr. Robby look like Dr. Frankenstein; all that matters is Dexter is alive. Again. He’s back. He’s on the prowl for Bad Men™️, and everything is back to normal. Maybe he can even hang around long enough to give Wile E. Coyote a run for his money.
As staggering as that sentence reads even to me, dear readers, what’s next may knock you over (or send your phone flying across the room): “Dexter: Resurrection” may actually be… good?
OK, thank you for sticking around, and to honor your trust, let me assure you there are plenty of caveats: Only four episodes were screened for critics, so there’s plenty of time for “Resurrection” to run afoul. (“Dexter” has a history, after all, of starting strong and fading fast.) The first 40 percent of the “new” series also isn’t “good” in the ways that the first four seasons of “Dexter” were good. (Those don’t need quotations, for instance.) “Resurrection” retreads plenty of worn territory (including a cameo-heavy opening episode) yet shows little interest in examining the ethical quandaries inherent to Dexter’s “code,” let alone the line between sympathizing with a sick man and rooting for his ritualistic bloodshed.
Instead, “Resurrection” asks the same question “30 Rock” posed to Liz Lemon: Can Dexter have it all? After a hurried recovery period in his upstate hospital, Dexter heads to New York City, where his son Harrison (Jack Alcott) has moved. He wants to make sure his son is doing OK after murdering his own father (or so Harrison still thinks). Once he sees that the boy has a job (as a lobby boy at The Empire Hotel) and friends (or co-workers who look like friends from afar), he then has to decide whether to stick around and try to be a better dad, or run away and start a new life somewhere else (again).
For now, at least, the answer is given clarity in the form of a curiosity-spiking club for serial killers. Teased over the first few episodes by watching a sleek Uma Thurman (who goes unnamed long enough for you to accept it’s the actual Uma Thurman) deliver messages via breaking-and-entering and breaking a man’s face, the biggest hook in “Resurrections” is billionaire Leon Prater (Peter Dinklage) and his dinner parties for sickos. I don’t want to give too much away, but Dexter’s fascination with Prater’s assembled gang of fellow assassins is hard to resist: Each psycho killer — including Mia, aka “Lady Vengeance” (Krysten Ritter), Lowell “The Tattoo Collector” (Neil Patrick Harris), and Al “Rapunzel” (Eric Stonestreet) — piques Dexter’s interest in different ways, even if he tells himself he’s only attending Prater’s get-togethers to gather names for his kill list.
In addition to the silly fun offered by these comical recurring characters, “Resurrection” also revives Dexter’s sense of humor. The dilemma about his son provides the bare minimum of drama to chew on, allowing Dexter’s focus to shift toward playful topics like his new cold-blooded buddies and the peculiar nature of his new playground, New York City. Dexter stares blankly at the parking signs telling him when he can and cannot leave his car unattended. He sneers at a little boy stealing all the pancakes from his hotel’s breakfast buffet. He’s proud of his first rating as a UrCar driver — “three out of five stars, not bad” — until a fellow chauffeur informs him a score that low could cost him his gig.
Yes, Dexter is a rideshare driver now, and you know what? It’s kind of great! OK, good, not great, like the rest of “Resurrection,” but those little flourishes — the new setting, the old humor, the new killers (who are just goofy enough to evoke the excellent killers of old) — are enough of a hook to reward anyone still eager to engage with their favorite aughts era mass murderer. It may not be enough to sustain an ongoing series, but Dexter’s new lease on life may actually be worth waking the dead.
