Dexter: Resurrection 1.8: The Enemies, an Evaluation

Checking in with a late (5 days after its streaming) review of Dexter: Resurrection 1.8.   For me, the episode indicated two things:

1. Dexter has three people or groups of people out to get him.

2. It's not clear, at this point in the season -- with just two episodes left -- which of these enemies if any will succeed.

It looked, at the end of episode 1.7, that Batista had a pretty good shot.   I thought, then, that Dexter would see he had no choice but to kill his former colleague from Florida.  But Dexter does a pretty good job of confusing and eluding Batista in 1.8, which leads me to think that Dexter may not need to do the worst to survive this danger.  Good news for people like me who enjoy even when Cuban food is just talked about.

That leaves Leon Prater (played by Peter Dinklage) and Charley his deadly sidekick (played by Uma Thurman).  In addition to being played by top-notch power-exuding actors, and even though they clearly don't agree on everything, the two are beginning to close in on what Dexter is and what he has done to Prater's precious club.  Charley is already telling Prater about her suspicion of Dexter, and judging by the closing scene, Prater is beginning to act on this.  And--

There's a third group: NYPD Detective Wallace and her associate Detective Oliva. Their wheels grind more slowly than Prater's and Batista's, who have personal grievances against Dexter (to say the least) and have no need to respect the law in New York City.  If I was forced to choose, I'd say this last group is mostly likely to succeed, or come closest to succeeding.

Dexter dying seems out of the question, first because it happened already and he survived, and second, Paramount surely wouldn't want to cancel such a superb series.  On the other hand, looked what just happened to Dexter: Origin Sin, which I'm still hoping will find a life elsewhere.

See also: Dexter: Resurrection 1.1-1.2: The Imposter ... 1.3: Killers and Prey ... 1.4: The Nefarious Club ... 1.5: Father and Son and the Watch ... 1.6: What's Half of Gemini? ... 1.7: Batista and Dexter in the Car

And see also Dexter: Original Sin 1.1: Activation of the Code ... 1.2-1.3: "The Finger Is Missing" ... 1.4: The Role of Luck in Dexter's Profession and Life ... 1.5: Revelations and Relations ... 1.6: On the Strong, Non-Serial-Killer Parts of the Show ... 1.7: First Big Shocker ... 1.8: Dexter's Discovery ... 1.9: Brian's Story ... Season 1 Finale: Satisfying

And see also Dexter: New Blood 1.1: Back with a Vengeance ... Dexter: New Blood 1.2: Dark Tendencies ... Dexter: New Blood 1.3: Fathers and Sons ... Dexter: New Blood 1.4: Harrison and Kurt ... Dexter New Blood: 1.5: No Satisfaction for Serial Killers ... Dexter: New Blood 1.6: Breaks and Arm Breaks ... Dexter: New Blood: 1.7: Dexter vs. Kurt ...Dexter: New Blood 1.8: The Hug in the Car ... Dexter: New Blood 1.9 One Down, One To Go ... Dexter: New Blood Finale: Superb, and I Didn't Like It All

And see also Dexter Season 8 Premiere: Mercury in Retrograde, Dexter Incandescent ... Dexter 8.2: The Gift ... Dexter 8.3: The Question and the Confession ... Dexter 8.4: The "Lab Rat" and Harry's Daughter ... Dexter 8.5: Just Like Family ... Dexter 8.6: The Protege ... Dexter 8.7: Two Different Codes? ... Dexter 8.8: "A Great Future" ... Dexter 8.9: The Psycho Son ... Dexter 8.10: Watch Out, Buenos Aires ... Dexter 8.11: "Not the Old Dexter" ... Dexter Series Finale: Solitude, Style, and a Modicum of Hope

And see also Dexter Season 7.1-3: Sneak Preview Review ... Dexter 7.4: The Lesson in Speltzer's Smoke ... Dexter 7.5: Terminator Isaac ... Dexter 7.6: "Breaking and Entering" ... Dexter 7.7: Shakespearean Serial Killer Story ... Dexter 7.8: Love and Its Demands ... Dexter 7.9: Two Memorable Scenes and the Ascension of Isaac ... Dexter 7.11: The "Accident" ... Dexter Season 7 Finale: The Surviving Triangle

And see also Dexter Season 6 Sneak Preview Review ... Dexter 6.4: Two Numbers and Two Killers Equals? ... Dexter 6.5 and 6.6: Decisive Sam ... Dexter 6.7: The State of Nebraska ... Dexter 6.8: Is Gellar Really Real? .... Dexter 6.9: And Geller Is ... ... Dexter's Take on Videogames in 6.10 ...Dexter and Debra:  Dexter 6.11 ... Dexter Season 6 Finale: Through the Eyes of a Different Love

And see also Dexter Season Five Sneak Preview Review ... Dexter 5.4: Dexter's Conscience ...Dexter 5.8 and Lumen ... Dexter 5.9: He's Getting Healthier ... Dexter 5.10: Monsters -Worse and Better ... Dexter 5.11: Sneak Preview with Spoilers  ... Dexter Season 5 Finale: Behind the Curtain

And see also Dexter Season 4: Sneak Preview Review ... The Family Man on Dexter 4.5 ...Dexter on the Couch in 4.6 ... Dexter 4.7: 'He Can't Kill Bambi' ... Dexter 4.8: Great Mistakes ...4.9: Trinity's Surprising Daughter ... 4.10: More than Trinity ... 4.11: The "Soulless, Anti-Family Schmuck" ... 4.12: Revenges and Recapitulations

And see also reviews of Season 3: Season's Happy Endings? ... Double Surprise ... Psychotic Law vs. Sociopath Science ... The Bright, Elusive Butterfly of Dexter ... The True Nature of Miguel ...Si Se Puede on Dexter ... and Dexter 3: Sneak Preview Review

Reviews of Season 2: Dexter's Back: A Preview and Dexter Meets Heroes and 6. Dexter and De-Lila-h and 7. Best Line About Dexter - from Lila and 8. How Will Dexter Get Out of This? and The Plot Gets Tighter and Sharper and Dex, Doakes, and Harry and Deb's Belief Saves Dex and All's ... Well

See also about Season 1: First Place to Dexter 

Suspicion 1.4: Surprises and Invincibility

First, let me say that I'm really liking Suspicion on Apple TV+.  It has great ambience, including the music, fine acting (including now Tom Rhys Harries as Eddie Walker), and a plot that keeps slapping you in the face with unexpected developments, often lethal.  Episode 1.4 was the best so far, excelling in all of those pulsing qualities.

[Spoilers ahead ... ]

Sean nearly kills Tara, who's saved not by the UK police, but a bullet-proof vest.  Sean is not invulnerable, but pretty close to it.  He's stabbed but gets the better of his stabber, and after killing his stabber, Sean dresses his own wound with crazy glue.   Later, the episode ends with Sean rescuing our four other, often hapless, suspects, and killing all of their attackers in the bargain.  These, by the way, have American accents, and sound like Scott on a bad day -- which indeed he had -- but I'm guessing/hoping he wasn't among them.

So who sent the attackers?  Likely Katherine, Leo's mother, but we can't be sure of that.  We do get to see a lot more of Uma Thurman in this episode, but the true intentions of Katherine in this narrative remain a mystery. It's too easy to believe that she's behind the kidnapping, though I suppose that can't be discounted.

Meanwhile, the relationship between Sean and the other four is still not clear.  Why try to kill Tara and then rescue her?   Did he know she was wearing a bullet-proof vest?  And I have to say that Sean does seem a little too invincible to be completely believable.  His escape from the UK police was a little too impressive, unless the UK police are just not that good at catching a killer like Sean, which I'd also find hard to believe.

But these kinds of flaws in the story don't distract from its power in any way, and I'll see you back here next week with my review of the next episode.

See also Suspicion 1.1-2: Excellent Start, But Is It Four or Five? ... Suspicion 1.3: The Fifth

 

Suspicion: Excellent Start, But Is It Four or Five?

Just saw the first two episodes of Suspicion on Apple TV+.  Looks to be a top-notch crackling whodunnit, with all the trimmings.

Here's the crime: four people in a big New York midtown hotel, wearing British royal family masks (the Queen, Prince Charles, Prince Andrew, and Kate) kidnap the son of the biggest American media operation.  (For some reason, the promotion for the show talks about five suspects not four -- Wikipedia says "Five people - three men and two women - have their lives turned upside down after being identified by London police as suspects in the kidnapping" -- and the above picture shows five.  I have no idea why.  Maybe that's part of the mystery?)  The FBI and their British counterparts soon discover four Brits living not too far from one another in London were in New York the very night of the kidnapping, in the very hotel where the kidnapping occurred.  Three protest their innocence and are convincing, at least to me, under intense questioning.  The fourth, Sean, is apparently not only one of the kidnappers, but definitely a murderer, blowing up his girlfriend on a boat offshore in his smooth and so far successful attempt to elude capture.

So the question is: who among the other three are also guilty?  All three?  That would be an Agatha Christie move, but I'd say unlikely.  But I'd say it's equally unlikely, though not impossible, that none of these three donned a royal mask and helped kidnap the kid in New York.   So the question is which one or two?  And the narrative is doing a fine job at this point in not giving us a clue.

About the acting, all of that is good, too.  Among the actors I know, Uma Thurman plays the kidnap victim's mother, but so far we've barely seen her on the screen.  Noah Emmerich plays the American FBI agent.  First time I've seen him since he did a great job in the same job on The Americans, and he's off to an excellent start here.   The London scenes work well.  All we've really seen of New York after two episodes is the hotel.  But there's clearly a lot more to come, and I'll be on top of this series, adapted from the Israeli False Flag series (which I haven't seen), with weekly reviews after every showing.