Editor’s note: The below contains spoilers for Dexter: Resurrection Episode 3.
Dexter: Resurrection has been a refreshing surprise thus far, as our favorite serial killer returns yet again after seemingly being killed by his son, Harrison (Jack Alcott), at the end of Dexter: New Blood. That series showed how Dexter’s (Michael C. Hall) sins had been passed down to his son, and no matter if you liked how the series ended or not, that emotional impact added to a series whose main protagonist feels so little.
This becomes the best part of Dexter: Resurrection. Harrison has run away and moved to New York, living a different life as a concierge at an upscale hotel. He is haunted by a past he is trying to escape from, but when he kills a criminal in the first episode and disposes of the body like his dad taught him, we can see that there is no way out for him. It’s not just the Dark Passenger that has been passed on; it’s also the relationships both men choose. In the original Dexter, our anti-hero took up with a single mother named Rita (Julie Benz). This led to the birth of Harrison, but in the darkest turn of the series, Dexter’s ways got Rita killed, with a baby Harrison there to see it all. Now, he too, is getting close to a single mother. Will the Morgan curse be passed down to this unsuspecting soul?
Rita’s Death Is the Most Heartbreaking Moment in the Dexter Franchise
From the very first episode of Dexter, we learn this serial killer can’t feel. Outside of the very act of killing itself, he has no emotions. Still, he needs to fit in with the rest of society so he can hide and not get caught, so he starts a relationship with Rita, a single mother of a young son and daughter. Dexter might not love Rita, exactly, but he does care about her and absolutely adores her kids as much as he can. When Rita’s abusive ex-husband, Paul (Mark Pellegrino), shows up and causes trouble, Dexter stands up for the young family, setting up Paul with a crime which sees him killed in prison.
Rita is a sweet, kind soul, but she’s also a little oblivious. For the longest time, she’s convinced that Dexter disappears because he’s a drug addict. She ends up marrying Dexter and having a son named Harrison with him. They have as nice of a life as you can together when one has a double life as a serial killer, but in Season 4, Dexter’s greatest villain brings the series’ most gut-wrenching scene. After taking out the Trinity Killer, Arthur Miller (John Lithgow), a seemingly victorious Dexter returns home to find Rita dead, her lifeless body bleeding out in the bathtub as a baby Harrison bawls beside her. Trinity had one last victim before landing on Dexter’s kill table. Rita never knew it, but she was doomed from the very moment she met her future husband.
In ‘Dexter: Resurrection,’ Harrison Gets Close to a Single Mother
Image via Paramount+ with SHOWTIME
There are a few generational curses in the Dexter world. Young Dexter Morgan’s violent ways were born in blood when he saw his mother brutally murdered in front of him when he was just a toddler. The sight of all that blood warped his psyche; now, he spills the blood of criminals who fell through the cracks of justice as a way to feed his urge. Harrison, just like his dad, ends up going through the same tragic event, and in Dexter: New Blood, the father tries to teach the son his code. Instead, Harrison rejects it, shooting Dexter and running away, because he doesn’t want to kill.
This is not the only way that their lives are repeating. Harrison is picking the same type of woman that Dexter did two decades earlier, a woman so much like the mother he doesn’t remember. In Dexter: Resurrection, we see Harrison being close friends with a young woman his same age named Elsa (Emilia Suarez). Just like Rita, she is a single mother of a small child. And just like Dexter was with Rita’s first two kids, Harrison adores Elsa’s son, going so far as to bring him Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic books when he babysits.
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Is Dexter starting to feel?
The major difference is that Harrison and Elsa are not a couple, but they could be something more. Elsa celebrates with Harrison when he gets his GED, and knowing that he’s homeless, she helps him stay in unused rooms at the hotel where they work. They also spend time together at Elsa’s place, where she opens up about her son being the result of a one-night stand. Harrison and Elsa are not together, but with the way he smiles at her, we can tell he feels for her. That could end up being the worst thing possible for Elsa.
This New Relationship on ‘Dexter: Resurrection’ Is Doomed From the Start
Image via Paramount+
Much of the first few episodes of Dexter: Resurrection have Dexter watching Harrison from afar, trying to protect his son as detectives close in on him as the prime suspect in the murder he committed. In one scene, he watches Harrison alone at a diner. The ghostly conscience of his dead father, Harry (James Remar), tells Dexter to go to his son, and he almost does until he sees Elsa walk in. Noticing how happy Harrison is with this woman, Dexter changes his mind about approaching him, saying that his son needs someone, but it looks like it doesn’t have to be him.
Without knowing it, Harrison is repeating the same emotional patterns. He has inherited not only his father’s psychological need to kill, but also to be close to lonely, single mothers who might find safety in his presence. It made Dexter feel special in some way with Rita, and it makes Harrison feel useful and not so alone with Elsa. Unlike Dexter, however, Harrison can feel, which can either lead to Elsa’s demise or be what saves her. Harrison has the moral challenge of breaking generational cycles. He has already failed when it comes to killing someone. Even if he didn’t feel the excitement his father did when he did it, what matters is that he is still a murderer working by a well-developed code.
So what will Harrison do? The walls are closing in with the New York detectives, but when Elsa stands up for Harrison, she tells the cops that she only helps good people and not assholes. Just like Rita thought that Dexter was a drug addict trying his best, the optimistic Elsa looks at Harrison and sees a good but broken young man trying to make it through his own struggles. She could never imagine that the nice guy who brings her son comic books is also a killer. At some point, Harrison is either going to get caught or be pushed closer to the brink when Dexter re-enters his life. When that happens, will he cling to Elsa even harder, putting her in danger, or does he feel enough to know that he must let her go so she doesn’t get hurt? That test is just as big as standing up to any underlying murderous rage.