New Blood's twist with Harrison's safety brings back a familiar situation from Dexter season 6, but works to redeem the show's worst villain.
Warning: SPOILERS for Dexter: New Blood episode 8.
Dexter: New Blood episode 8’s twist for Kurt and Harrison repeats the best aspect of the original series’ worst villain, the Doomsday Killer, and redeems his failed impact. Dexter has had plenty of terrifying villains, with the best of all being season 1’s Ice Truck Killer, season 4’s Trinity Killer, and Dexter: New Blood’s Kurt Caldwell/Runaway Killer. There have been a few, on the other hand, in Dexter’s original series that didn’t land with audiences, including Dexter season 6’s Travis Marshall, better known as the Doomsday Killer. He’s not well-regarded as an enticing villain among fans, but the Dexter: New Blood reboot has taken one of his best moments and redeemed it.
In Dexter: New Blood episode 8, Kurt acts on Dexter’s worst fear by putting his son, Harrison, in danger. After forming a father-son bond with Harrison over New Blood’s series, Kurt brings him back to his secluded cabin where he offers him scotch and venison. Kurt has secured the boy's trust, only to return back to the dinner table in his serial killer hunting gear, informing Harrison that, sadly, he’ll be suffering from the sins of his father. Kurt tells Harrison to run into the woods just as he had with the rest of his Runaway Killer victims, but Dexter arrives just in time to subdue Kurt and save his son’s life.
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This set-up of New Blood’s Runaway Killer taking Harrison as his final victim while attempting to have Dexter killed or captured elsewhere is familiar, as it calls back to Dexter’s season 6 finale with the Doomsday Killer. Repeating an old Dexter setup may seem unoriginal on the surface, but it actually makes the show’s Doomsday Killer villain mistake much better. Ever since Harrison was born, Dexter has declared that his worst fear is both Harrison being taken as a victim for his own crimes or having Harrison develop his same Dark Passenger. Both have now happened by Dexter: New Blood episode 8, but the stakes are far higher than they were with the Doomsday Killer.
Out of the many serial killers and villains that Dexter has faced, season 6’s Doomsday Killer/Travis Marshall was the worst in terms of quality, pacing, and intrigue. While the premise of Dexter's Doomsday Killer rituals was interesting as he followed a religious doctrine that would bring about the apocalypse and destroy the world, the confusing execution of the character failed to make him a captivating foe. While DDK provided plenty of elaborate and well-planned kills, Miami Metro had a fairly nonchalant response to crimes compared to Dexter’s past villains, which left viewers with the idea that he wasn’t a great threat.
While his story ran parallel to Dexter’s in terms of religion and his sister, the two really didn’t interact until the final stance in which he tried to kill both Dexter and Harrison. Travis as a Dexter villain was quite boring in execution, with no sense of urgency or personal threat to Dexter or Miami Metro until the season 6 finale. Additionally, he didn’t feel like a villain in the same way that the rest of Dexter’s Bay Harbor Butcher opponents did, as he truly believed in his religious delusions and hallucination of his deceased professor—plus he had a history of seeking medical and psychological help. Colin Hanks gave a superb performance as Travis Marshall, but he wasn’t as compelling a villain as Dexter’s other foes, thus making his climactic capture of Dexter and Harrison less impactful than it could have been.
After several episodes of establishing a trustworthy and bonded dynamic, New Blood twists Kurt’s alliance to betray Harrison as a way to get revenge on Dexter. While Harrison becoming Runaway Killer’s victim was widely theorized, the circumstances were much more dire considering Kurt had one of his goons capture Dexter elsewhere. Kurt intended to subdue Dexter and bring him to the cabin to watch Harrison die, but Dexter escaped and killed Elray just in time to stop his son from being hunted down. Dexter doesn’t have time to kill Kurt as he runs down into a ditch, so he quickly escapes in the truck with Harrison instead. The suspense of this situation was one of Dexter: New Blood’s most captivating moments yet, but it actually repeats the circumstances and twist of Dexter season 6’s finale episode.
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In the Dexter season 6 finale, Dexter has already discovered that Travis Marshall is the sole Doomsday Killer, and Travis already knows that Dexter is on to his lies. Travis has labeled Dexter as “The Beast” in his apocalyptic symbolism, and thus had already attempted to sacrifice him in season 6’s penultimate episode. Believing Dexter to be dead, Travis takes Harrison, who he knows to be Dexter’s toddler son, as “The Lamb,” intending to make him his final apocalyptic sacrifice. Dexter miraculously escapes his sacrifice by DDK, and makes it to the skyscraper that Travis has taken Harrison to just in time to knock him unconscious. Dexter and Harrison escape, and he laters takes Travis to the church to finally kill him. This entire setup is oddly similar to Dexter: New Blood’s Runaway Killer scheme, but the execution was far less compelling in Dexter’s original series.
Kurt’s twist of attempting to take Harrison as his final victim is genuinely suspenseful, and proves that Dexter’s season 6 finale had much more potential had the villain been more captivating. Part of the reason why Travis’ plan to kill both Dexter and Harrison wasn’t as suspenseful was that the Doomsday Killer was far more pathetic as a villain, partially because he wasn’t intending vengeful malice to the Morgans. Kurt, on the other hand, has a personal vendetta against Dexter for exposing him as a killer and murdering his own son Matt, and even built up a trustful relationship with Harrison to end in a purposefully malevolent twist. Kurt’s plan works as a truly terrifying prospect of Dexter and Harrison’s New Blood deaths, and proves that the Doomsday Killer’s final act could have worked had he been a more convincing villain.
The stakes were also far higher in New Blood than in Dexter season 6 because Harrison went with Kurt on his own accord, and Dexter had to save Harrison while the two were increasingly at odds with one another. Additionally, repetition of these events leads to a much better resolution for Dexter’s character. While the Doomsday Killer’s twist led Dexter to be more protective of Harrison, New Blood’s Kurt twist brought Harrison and Dexter much closer together, officially resolving the division that had built up during the season. By Kurt's Runaway Killer putting Dexter and Harrison both in such extreme danger, Dexter: New Blood’s version propelled Dexter to finally tell Harrison the truth about his own dark passenger and strengthen their bond, thus making the execution much more satisfying on all fronts.
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Jordan Williams is a Movie/TV Feature Senior Staff Writer for Screen Rant. She graduated from the University of Oregon in 2020 with a B.A. in Psychology and a minor in Media Studies. Jordan is based in Seattle, Washington and enjoys exploring the natural beauty the PNW has to offer. She runs on coffee and classic movies, taking pride in having watched every film on AFI's 100 Greatest Films list and every Best Picture Oscar winner.