When Dexter: Resurrection premiered, I wrote that Paramount+ had an opportunity to fix a long-standing flaw in Dexter: New Blood’s plot. Instead, the series ignored it, and according to showrunner Clyde Phillips, I’m not holding my breath for it being addressed in season two.
I’m talking about the whereabouts of Dexter’s stepchildren and Harrison’s step-siblings Cody and Ester.
If you need a refresher, Cody and Ester were Dexter’s stepchildren from his marriage to Rita Bennett. After Rita’s death, Cody and Astor left Miami to live with their grandparents in Orlando, but returned to Miami occasionally to visit Dexter and his younger half-brother Harrison.
When a teenage Harrison appears in Dexter: New Blood, he tells his father that he spent years in Miami’s foster care system. This raises the question why his elder siblings did not take care of him. They certainly appreciated him in the original series. This also raises the question of why Harrison did not locate Cody and Astor when he was hunting Dexter.
Whatever the reason, New Blood ignored it and the absence of Cody and Astor in Resurrection was even more strange. There is a scene in episode 5 ‘Murder Horny’, where Harrison and Dexter say that they are the only family he has left. This is on brand for Dexter, who was quick to push Cody and Ester aside in the original series, but Harrison is another story.
Cody and Ester Harrison are real siblings. Whenever he appeared in later seasons of the original series, he made it a point to ask about his younger brother. There is no way that Cody and Astor, now grown up, would have left Harrison as vagabonds in New York City. With the death of Debra Morgan, Cody and Astor are the last surviving family that Harrison and Dexter have left.
If Harrison and Dexter aren’t thinking about Cody and Astor, they’re not alone.
“To be completely honest, we don’t even think about them,” Dexter Resurrection showrunner Clyde Phillips tells Love It Film. “They’re not part of our internal conversations in the writers’ room. I know everyone online has all these theories that Cody is going to come back and he’s really the bad guy you want to think about, or he’s going to kill Dexter or whatever. Those are not in our thoughts.”
With all due respect to the Phillips & Dexter: Resurrection writing team, this is a huge mistake. A line of dialogue would go a long way in answering some of the questions fans have been asking since New Blood. Additionally, Resurrection aims to bring back countless characters from the original series as ghosts, including James Doakes, Miguel Prado, Arthur Mitchell, and Brian Moser. Would it be that hard to bring back two characters who are still alive?
Obviously, the answer is yes.
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