TV Talk: Dexter lives in ‘Resurrection,’ but should he?

Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen offers a viewing tip for the coming week.

Maybe Dexter shoulda stayed dead.

Alas, you can’t keep popular IP down. Despite serial killer Dexter Morgan (Michael C. Hall) dying at the end of 2021’s “Dexter: New Blood,” Showtime reanimates him in “Dexter: Resurrection,” streaming its first two episodes July 11 on Paramount+ Premium and airing on cable’s Paramount+ with Showtime at 8 p.m. July 13.

The opening minutes of “Resurrection” offer some fun nostalgia for fans of the original series as Dexter, in a coma from when son Harrison (Jack Alcott) shot him, encounters multiple deceased characters from the show’s original run.

Getting out of the corner the writers painted themselves into at the end of “New Blood” requires some hard retconning conveyed through copious exposition. What follows feels more like “Dexter” fan fiction as Dex heads to New York to watch over Harrison.

In “Dexter: New Blood,” Dexter’s conscience evolved from his dad (James Remar in the original series) to his dead sister, Deb (Jennifer Carpenter). Without explanation, in “Resurrection” Deb vanishes and dad returns, which makes some thematic sense given the emphasis on fathers-and-sons but that theme was also paramount in “New Blood.” (Best guess: Carpenter didn’t want to return and/or Remar was cheaper.)

Somewhat hilariously, dad is constantly advising Dexter on his relationship with Harrison, saying, “The boy needs his father.” Where was that concern in Dexter’s subconscious during the run of the original series when Harrison disappeared from the show?

OG “Dexter” character Angel Batista (David Zayas) is back — along with cameos from two other OGs in episode three — and he’s following up on his late ex-wife’s correct suspicion that Dexter was the Bay Harbor Butcher.

Harrison follows in his father’s murderous footsteps, repeating beats from the original series: Harrison missed a spot of blood and he’s going to get caught! He lies to a cop on the autism spectrum and it comes back to haunt him! Of course, like his father, Harrison manages to wriggle out of each conundrum through four episodes (of 10) made available for review.

“Dexter: Resurrection” proves most interesting when Dexter meets an elite collective of serial killers who convene at the home of a wealthy admirer (Peter Dinklage, “Game of Thrones”) and his henchwoman/enforcer (Uma Thurman). It’s the only element of this season that feels like new, semi-unexplored terrain.

It’s a diverse crew of killers — sexual predator-killing Lady Vengeance (Krysten Ritter, “Jessica Jones”), a suburban dad with murderous urges (Eric Stonestreet, “Modern Family”), a Barney Stinson-like playboy who targets tattooed women (Neil Patrick Harris, “How I Met Your Mother”) — and Dex is agog, fascinated by them even as he intends to enforce his code of killing killers. How that plays out remains to be seen but this storyline seems a little less redundant than the Harrison-as-killer plot.

There’s no doubt the first season of “Dexter” was one of the best in TV history. But after that? Some seasons were better than others — John Lithgow’s Trinity Killer in season four was a high point — but generally the show offered diminishing returns.

“New Blood” was a successful attempt to salvage the original series’ disappointing conclusion — Dexter fakes his own death and moves to Oregon to become a lumberjack! — and trod new ground with Dexter’s relationship with Harrison while providing an earned conclusion for the Dexter character. But “Resurrection” undoes all that and repeats the father-son beats. Coupled with prequel series “Dexter: Original Sin,” it’s hard to see the franchise as anything other than a money grab at this point.