Summary
Dexter: Resurrection proves slicker than your average in Episode 6 with high-quality character writing and performances bolstered by a great last-minute twist.
Dexter has always been about death in one way or another, but its spectre is felt more acutely than ever in Episode 6 of Dexter: Resurrection, and not just in the usual sense. Dexter has cause to spend some time around a dead body that he isn’t personally responsible for, which brings some unexpected emotions that help to clarify his relationship with Harrison, but the main takeaway of “Cats & Mouse” is a brilliantly executed last-minute kick-yourself twist that’ll definitely have fans eagerly anticipating the next episode.
I know I said it way back in the premiere, but it’s worth repeating — this is a really good spin-off, and impressively, it just keeps getting better the deeper it goes. With Dexter and Harrison’s stories entangling more and more and the NYPD, with help from Batista, inching closer to the truth, the back half of the season is off to a fine start already and only looks to be improving. But let’s return, briefly, to death.
As was suggested in the previous episode, Prudence has, sadly, passed away. Blessing invites Dexter to the wake, and when he calls on Harrison to bring him some appropriate attire, he tags along too. Blessing is happy to see both of them, and the entire event is unashamedly a celebration of Prudence’s life rather than a lamentation of her death. It’s a lot for Dexter to take in, and Harrison too, since he’s thrown by the found family that his father has already discovered in New York, whereas he has been there much longer and barely knows anyone.
And Dexter learns something, too. He sees the love that Prudence’s family had for her, sees the value of being surrounded by people you love, and it helps him to clarify how he feels about Harrison. He even finds himself moved by his own tribute to Prudence, which is stilted and awkward but brings Blessing and Joy to tears. It’s a degree of emotional vulnerability that we rarely see from the character. But don’t worry — Dexter is far from reformed.
After Charley visits Red’s apartment and finds all the fruit rotting, she relays the information to Leon, who calls Dex at the wake, requesting his presence ASAP. With one of their inner circle missing and Mia still in custody, it’s cause for an emergency meeting, during which Gareth, the so-called Gemini Killer, worries that his coveted position atop the FBI’s Most Wanted list might be compromised if Mia talks. Gareth, a murderer of pairs — siblings, parents and children, husbands and wives — with a notorious reputation, is extremely full of himself, which puts him at the top of not just the FBI’s list but also Dexter’s.
It’s a joke in itself how easily Dexter is able to lure Gareth into his lair and dose him with a spiked gin and tonic; he even anticipated the old-fashioned switcheroo, correctly guessing that a man with such an outsized ego would assume someone was trying to poison him. It’s perhaps the easiest of Dexter’s kills this season, but he’s doing it on his doorstep, so when Blessing comes by to apologize for snapping at him earlier, Dexter is forced to hastily shove Gareth in the bath and hide him behind the shower curtain.
This scene is tense because you know that if Blessing finds Gareth’s body, Dexter will have to kill him, and Blessing is a supremely nice guy. He shares some of his backstory in Dexter: Resurrection Episode 6, having been conscripted as a child soldier in Sierra Leona and saved by Prudence, who took him to start his life from scratch in the United States. I’m reminded again that Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine — please go and watch Smoke — can act his ass off. Luckily, Blessing lives to fight another day.
While this is going on, Harrison agrees to babysit Elsa’s son, Dante, whose severe asthma has been worsened by black mould that an uninterested landlord is refusing to address. Elsa is withholding her rent until the problem is solved — a legal right, I might add — so while she’s at work, the landlord himself shows up to threaten and cajole her. Harrison tries to argue her case, but the guy doesn’t wanna know, so Harrison briefly imagines stabbing him in the eye with a fork. He holds back, but the vision worries him, since it implies that being a serial killer may indeed run in the family. But not quite. When he talks to Dexter about it, his dad suggests he has inherited his Aunt Deb’s keen sense of justice, not his father’s bloodlust.
It’s a reassuring thought, but it’d likely do little to dissuade Claudette. With Mia’s would-be victim saved, she handles the interview, and when he specifically mentions that Mia claimed he’d be her first victim in New York, that only solidifies Claudette’s private theory that she wasn’t the one who murdered Ryan Foster. The arrival of Batista only confirms this. He gives Claudette a rundown of the Bay Harbor Butcher, his theory that Dexter Morgan was the real killer, not James Doakes, and reveals the fact that Dexter has a son — Harrison Morgan. That’s all she needs to hear. Batista wants to sit in on the NYPD’s interview with Mia, and Claudette agrees, but by the time they manage to see her, she has hung herself in her cell. One of the prison guards was seen earlier talking to Charley, so it’s becoming quite obvious how Leon Prater deals with potential problems.
Speaking of Leon, at the end of the episode, he picks the inner circle up in his private helicopter. When he mentions that they’re waiting on the Gemini Killer, Dexter starts to panic, since it’s becoming increasingly difficult for his sudden arrival coinciding with all these killers disappearing not to look mightily suspicious. But Gareth makes the appointment. How can that be, given that Dexter killed him earlier? The answer was staring you in the face all along. The Gemini Killer. He’s a twin!
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