RECAP: ‘Dexter: Resurrection’ Season 2 Episode 1 — “Risky Business”

Dexter: Resurrection Season 2 Episode 1, entitled “Risky Business,” is the long-awaited premiere of the series’ sophomore showing after the slam-dunk success of its first season. Directed by long-time series director Marcos Siega and written by showrunner Clyde Phillips, the inaugural installment of Dexter: Resurrection Season 2 has plenty of exciting developments for fans of the series, but a slow-moving subplot involving Dexter’s son Harrison and a few too many moments of misjudged tone make it less of a glorious return than it should be. 

Dexter: Resurrection Season 2 Episode 1 opens up with by far its worst scenes. In a fantasy, killer of killers Dexter Morgan (Michael C. Hall) teams up with his deceased former comrade at the Miami-Metro Police Department, Angel Batista (David Zayas), to take down the New York Ripper, played here by Friday the 13th actor Kane Hodder. 

The tone is immediately all the way off, with “The Heat Is On” by Glenn Frey (as made famous in the Beverly Hills Cop franchise) playing as they go to get their perp. It’s corny stuff that only gets worse when Dexter plunges his knife into the Ripper, only for the Ripper to turn into a pleading Angel.

Dexter’s going after the remaining serial killers from Leon Prater’s society.

This sort of fake-out sequence is broad in a way that the show usually avoids. It’s not to be outdone, though, when Dexter wakes up and picks up a rideshare customer who insults his driving and calls him a boomer when he drops him off at the wrong location.

The question “What show am I watching?” popped into my head more than once during these back-to-back duds of scenes. Thankfully, Dexter’s conscience, in the form of his deceased father Harry (James Remar), shows up to tell him he’s getting older. Perhaps a little too on the nose? Maybe, although Remar and Hall slink back into their roles with ease.

The opening of Dexter: Resurrection Season 2 Episode 1 picks up in a big way when Dexter tells the audience via voiceover that he’s going after the remaining serial killers from the society Leon Prater (Peter Dinklage) formerly curated. This leads to a quick montage of Dexter killing New York serial killers played by wrestler Chris Jericho and System of a Down bassist Shavo Odadjian. This sequence is good, stylish fun that plays into the camp that hallmarked the first season of Dexter: Resurrection in all the right ways. 

Dexter’s already met one of the serial killers last season.

After the bad first impression of the first few scenes and the montage’s saving grace, long-time Dexter fans get a huge treat when something they’ve been begging for finally happens: the iconic Dexter intro returns. As small a gesture as it is, the glorious recreation of the original show’s intro, with the Rolfe Kent music and Michael C. Hall in his older age taking us through the iconic “morning routine” that used to open every episode, feels like being home. Better yet, it speaks to the intended longevity of the series. 

Following that trip down memory lane, Dexter meets up with his son Harrison (Jack Alcott). Their relationship is in a good place, with Harrison about to graduate from the New York Police Academy. Dexter is thrilled for Harrison, thinking, bittersweetly, about how he felt when he started at Miami Metro. This is a sweet scene, made sweeter by Dexter offering to co-sign on Harrison’s lease and keep him on their phone plan, promising to be at his graduation. Of course, in classic Dexter fashion, we know that’s not going to happen.

The real meat of Dexter: Resurrection Season 2 Episode 1 is when Dexter realizes that one of the serial killers he befriended last season, “Rapunzel,” known for murdering women and cutting off their ponytails, is active again. He tracks down Rapunzel, also known as Al Walker (Eric Stonestreet), on a family vacation in Pennsylvania.

Dexter’s best moments come when one of his carefully crafted kills goes wrong.

It’s a thrill to see Dexter slip back into his incognito persona, Red, aka the “Dark Passenger,” that he used to infiltrate Prater’s society. Rapunzel’s squeaky-clean family-guy act drops immediately, and in a terrific bit of acting from Stonestreet, he threatens “Red” never to come near his family. 

Dexter, the master of deception though he is, plays it off, saying that he feels messed up after what happened to all of his other serial killer buddies. He begs Rapunzel to meet him for a beer later at an abandoned auto shop. Rapunzel obliges, and while the two’s meeting- where Dexter has put a sedative in Al’s beer to knock him out- starts off amicable, Al quickly susses out something is wrong. He attacks Dexter immediately, and the two struggle in the kill room Dexter has set up in the garage. 

Dexter’s best moments come when one of his carefully crafted kills goes wrong, and this scene is the epitome of that. The two struggle on the ground, with Rapunzel almost killing Dexter multiple times, until Dexter wraps a chain around his neck, pressing a button that lifts the chain into the air, killing Rapunzel for good.

Harrison’s subplot is easily the weakest of the episode.

Unable to dispose of the body, knowing he made a mess of the scene, Dexter instead decides to frame it as a suicide. This will inevitably create some exciting dramatic tension for the season if and when the police investigate this “suicide,” which I’m thrilled to see come to fruition. 

When Dexter gets home, Harry on his shoulder notices that Dexter’s bloodlust has increased, and he’s trying to rid the world of as many serial killers as he can. He sees it as a dangerous midlife crisis, setting up Dexter’s narrative arc for the season. Now that we’ve tackled Dexter’s main plot this episode, let’s dive into the subplots of Dexter: Resurrection Season 2 Episode 1.

Harrison’s subplot is easily the weakest of the episode. Naturally, he’s sad about his dad not making it to his graduation, so he goes out to drink with his fellow police academy graduates. There, he catches the eye of Fiona (Nona Parker Johnson). They sleep together, then it’s revealed that Fiona is with the NYPD. One can see the eye-rolling developments this will entail from a mile away. Knowing it will play out for the whole season is an unfortunate prospect.

Brian Cox plays Framt as loud, obnoxious, even taunting of the detectives.

In better segments of the show, we’re introduced to two new serial killers. One is Don Framt, played by Succession’s Brian Cox, who we know from the Dexter: Resurrection Season 1 finale is the New York Ripper. Detectives Claudette Wallace (Kadia Saraf) and Melvin Oliva (Dominic Fucasa) bring in Framt, and if he is indeed the New York Ripper—I have my doubts—then what an introduction.

Bound to a wheelchair, Cox plays Framt as loud, obnoxious, even taunting of the detectives, getting off scot-free once again as he’s seen laughing in his apartment at old news reports about the Ripper’s exploits. What we get of Cox is very brief, yet enticing to see what he gets up to.

The episode’s other new serial killer introduced, The Five Borough Killer (Dan Stevens), may be its best aspect. Cold and observant, The Five Borough Killer calls the NYPD and lets them know that during a baseball game that night, someone will be murdered. During the Mets game that gets rained out, he dons a pair of Meta glasses, recording as he goes up to a woman, saying “nobody cares”, guns her down in cold blood, and walks away.

Dexter: Resurrection Season 2 Episode 1 is a good return for the series overall.

In a park the next morning, the killer airdrops the video to a random person as panic ensues and a devilish grin comes across his face. Now that’s a way to introduce a new killer for the social media age. I can’t wait to see what Dan Stevens does with this character. Dexter: Resurrection Season 2 Episode 1 also throws longtime fans a bone by featuring the return of Joey Quinn (Desmond Harrington), walking into the NYPD for information about the death of Angel Batista. 

And thus concludes Dexter: Resurrection Season 2 Episode 1. Before we wrap up, I do want to discuss a few theories for this season. As mentioned before, I have my doubts that Don Framt is indeed our New York Ripper. It feels too convenient, as if they’re teeing us up for a big twist regarding The Ripper’s identity. If this is indeed our New York Ripper, then I wonder, since Dexter and Harrison’s father-son dynamic is so essential to our story, could it be possible that the Five Borough Killer is Don Framt’s son? 

Perhaps this is just me extrapolating a lot on a little, yet seasons of Dexter have their ways of starting off with several disparate threads only to come together in unexpected ways. I wonder, as well, with Dexter’s “mid-life crisis,” if we’ll see him fully give in to his Dark Passenger and his semi-heroic killing of killers gets warped into something darker. Either way, exciting times are ahead.

Dexter: Resurrection Season 2 Episode 1 is a good return for the series overall. While I have serious concerns about the Harrison storyline or the tonally confused first 10 minutes, there’s some seriously exciting stuff for fans that promises a compelling story to come. We’re still in the set-up phase, but for now I’m cautiously optimistic about where we’re going from here.

Dexter: Resurrection Season 2 Episode 1 is now streaming on Paramount+.

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