Dexter: New Blood Is Finally Fixing A Deb Problem After Her Death

Debra Morgan’s story arcs in Dexter season 7 and 8 were flawed. Dexter: New Blood is working to repair that with her new role as his Dark Passenger.

Warning: Contains spoilers for Dexter: New Blood episode 5.

Almost a decade after the controversial conclusion to Dexter, Dexter: New Blood is redeeming Debra Morgan after her death. Dexter: New Blood has taken on a lot of issues from the concluding series of Dexter and worked to fix them, and Deb is the biggest one. The limited revival series is set almost a decade after the original Dexter and is finally correcting the show’s legacy, which was tarnished by the finale of the original series run.

Debra Morgan (Jennifer Carpenter) was a central character in the original seasons of Dexter as Dexter Morgan’s (Michael C. Hall) sister. Deb became the target of criticism in the later seasons when she was revealed to have feelings for her adoptive brother beyond a sibling relationship and discovered that he was a serial killer but did not turn him in. While at first, she thinks that she can get Dexter to stop killing as a parallel to Harry Morgan, she crosses a line at the end of Dexter season 7 when she kills Maria Laguerta herself to protect Dexter from being arrested. In the finale of Dexter season 8, Deb dies of complications from a gunshot wound.

Related: Dexter Theory: Harrison’s Dark Passenger Is The Trinity Killer

Dexter: New Blood brings back Jennifer Carpenter as Deb despite her death in Dexter season 8. Deb replaces Harry as the voice in Dexter’s ear and he acknowledges that the memory of her is always with him. The new series is giving the character of Deb the payoff that she deserved from the original series by having her be Dexter’s voice of reason. Before he starts killing again, she urges him against it and when he does kill Matt Caldwell she mocks him for the mistake and his struggle to find somewhere to dispose of the body safely. Crucially, however, in Dexter: New Blood episode 5 Deb calls Dexter out for abandoning Harry’s Code when he goes after the man that originated the drugs that Harrison overdosed on, noting that it is driven by vengeance–a point that he admits to.

Deb’s presence in Dexter: New Blood and her pressure against Dexter killing helps to highlight how dark the road he is going down truly is. He regularly twisted the precise nature of the code in the original Dexter and went after criminals before the justice system had a chance to handle them. However, her protestations illustrate that he is becoming a more traditional killer and risks bringing pain upon himself and those he loves through his actions.

The replacement of Harry with Deb also works to demonstrate just how much Dexter has changed in the aftermath of Debra Morgan’s death. Deb, the voice of Dexter’s own subconscious, refers to the manipulation of Dexter by Harry into being his tool of a certain type of justice as child abuse. When Harry had appeared to Dexter it had been as a reminder of how to kill. When Deb appears to Dexter it is to push him not to kill, suggesting that her death truly left him in a position of wanting to not kill again and suggesting that he might be a better person one day. Whether this comes to pass in Dexter: New Blood or not, the series is giving Deb a second chance to redeem herself and stand by her original values in a way that Dexter seasons 7 and 8 failed to honor.

Next: How Dexter: New Blood Set Up Harrison’s Second Victim

Dexter: New Blood releases new episodes Sundays on Showtime.

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