Warning: Contains spoilers for Dexter: New Blood episode 4.
The end of Dexter: New Blood episode 4, “H is for Hero,” implies a revelation about Iron Lake’s serial killer and in doing so sets up Harrison’s second victim. After almost ten years without a kill following the finale of Dexter season 8, Dexter gets dragged back into killing again by Matt Caldwell. With Harrison on the scene, the series is teasing that he will follow in his father’s bloody footsteps.
Early in Dexter: New Blood episode 4, Dexter (Michael C. Hall) rushes to the school when it is locked down to find that Harrison (Jack Alcott) has been stabbed, reportedly while defending himself from Ethan, who was planning a school shooting. Dexter’s examinations reveal that in reality Harrison cut Ethan first and then stabbed himself to make it look like he was attacked. Meanwhile, Dexter: New Blood shows the actions of Kurt Caldwell (Clancy Brown) as he takes a runaway from his diner out to the cabin that is used by the serial killer to murder Lily in Dexter: New Blood episode 3, “Smoke Signals.”
As Dexter: New Blood episode 4 closes there is an indication that Dexter plans to teach Harrison Harry’s Code, or at least some version of it. The decision to embrace this side of Harrison means that he will need to find his second victim after having attacked Ethan and according to the code he will need to find a bad person to kill. As Kurt Caldwell will likely be killed by Dexter Morgan himself based on the episode 5 teaser in the credits, Harrison will need to find his own victim. His perfect choice has been telegraphed since episode 1: Edward Olsen (Frederic Lehne).
Dexter: New Blood’s small town of Iron Lake has relatively few people to choose from, and Harrison’s connection to Audrey Bishop (Johnny Sequoyah) makes Olsen a particularly likely target for Harrison. In episode 1, Audrey leads a protest against Olsen for the damage that he does to the planet with his oil company, and she regularly brings him up as an issue. If Harrison is looking around Iron Lake for someone to release his urges upon, the one most likely to fit the bill is Edward Olsen.
This makes a lot of sense for Dexter: New Blood as it returns in 2021. In the years since Dexter was off the air, concerns over climate change and wealth inequality have only grown with a swell of support for environmental reform and wealth redistribution. Therefore, a climate-destroying billionaire feels like a natural choice to have a character symbolically targeted as a bad person. This also promises to complicate the lives of Harrison and Dexter going forward as a billionaire going missing is likely to draw a lot of attention and there are very few places to hide in a small town like Iron Lake.
Dexter: New Blood releases new episodes Sundays on Showtime.
No comments:
Post a Comment