TL;DR for the Click-Scroll Crowd: Episode 5, “Murder Horny,” is the most unhinged, awkward, and morally messy installment of Dexter: Resurrection so far. It’s an hour where Dexter Morgan tries to save his son from confessing to murder, rebounds into the arms of another serial killer (Krysten Ritter’s Mia, a.k.a. Lady Vengeance), and ends up framing her for Harrison’s crime instead of killing her himself. It’s equal parts tragic family drama and twisted dating comedy, capped with a rare moment of genuine vulnerability from Dexter to Harrison. The result? A strange, fascinating, and sometimes frustrating step forward that proves the show is still willing to gamble with tone and character.

Now… here’s the full deep-dive.
Brace yourself — we’re going long.

The Knife, the Gun, and the Gap Between Them

I’ve been watching Dexter Morgan dodge morality for so long that I sometimes forget what the show used to be about. When the original Dexter premiered in 2006, it was a procedural in disguise — a weekly murder-of-the-week that dressed itself in philosophy about “the code” and whether nature or nurture could ever rewire a killer’s brain. Somewhere along the way, it morphed into something more Shakespearean: a story about a man who desperately wanted to connect with the people he loved but could only do so by lying to them.

By the time we got to Dexter: New Blood, the game had changed. Harrison wasn’t just another side character to manipulate; he was the first person who might truly understand Dexter’s darkness — and the first to reject it outright. That’s what made the Season 9 ending sting so hard: Harrison literally shot his father in the chest and walked away, carrying both the bullet and the weight of their history.

Cut to Resurrection, and Dexter’s back from the dead, not in some campy soap opera way, but in a bruised, limping, “I’ve lost everything and I don’t know how to be” way. He’s not chasing kills so much as chasing the idea that he can be a father again. Which brings us to Episode 5 — an hour that starts with him yanking Harrison away from a police station confession and ends with him admitting, in actual words, “You’re my reason to live.”

For a character who spent eight seasons barely able to say “I care about you” without sarcasm, that’s seismic.

The Almost-Confession That Could Have Ended the Show

The cold open of “Murder Horny” is peak Dexter-as-father-drama: Harrison, wracked with guilt over killing Ryan Foster, is about to walk into the NYPD and give himself up. It’s not bravado — it’s exhaustion. His moral compass, already fragile, is spinning wildly, and the only way he can think to stop it is to turn himself in.

Then Dexter appears like a ghost from every bad dream Harrison’s had since Iron Lake. Michael C. Hall plays it with that perfect deadpan disbelief, the kind that says, “Yes, I’m alive, no, I’m not here to haunt you, but also… maybe I am.” The reunion isn’t cathartic; it’s awkward, bitter, and underscored by Harrison’s mix of relief and horror.

When Harrison compares Dexter to Michael Myers and Jason Voorhees, it’s more than just a meta joke — it’s a reminder that Dexter’s whole shtick is surviving what should kill him, both physically and morally. He’s a slasher who thinks he’s a hero, and Harrison sees the flaw in that equation.

The conversation that follows is messy and human in a way Dexter sometimes struggles to pull off. Harrison admits that killing Ryan has broken something inside him, that the sound of Ryan’s watch ticking is driving him insane. Dexter offers one of those lines that would sound hollow from anyone else: “You’re more than your worst moment.” But Harrison isn’t having it — not when he can still name the bodies in Dexter’s wake: Debra. LaGuerta. Rita.

It’s a rare moment where the son doesn’t just reject the father’s comfort — he throws his history back in his face like evidence in court.

Loneliness as a Serial Killer Pickup Line

After Harrison bails, Dexter spirals. This is one of those plot beats that makes longtime fans squirm — because instead of processing his pain in any healthy way, he does what Dexter Morgan does best: finds a distraction with a body count.

Enter Mia (Krysten Ritter), a.k.a. Lady Vengeance, introduced earlier this season as a fellow predator who only kills “bad men.” Or so she claimed. The two have a mutual attraction built on shared pathology, which is honestly the most Dexter thing ever — he’s never been more flirty than when talking about corpse disposal techniques.

Their bowling date is absurdly charming, and I hate myself for enjoying it. There’s banter, there’s lingering glances, and there’s that undercurrent of “we could be Bonnie and Clyde if they also owned a chest freezer.” For a second, you almost believe Dexter might open up to her in a real way — but Harry (James Remar, still playing the ghost of Dexter’s moral tutor) hovers to remind him that teaming up with another killer has never gone well.

The Mask Slips

And then Mia drops the hammer. She doesn’t just want to kill another predator. She wants to kill anyone. A random rideshare driver. A stranger on the street. Her code, if she ever had one, is gone.

This is where Dexter’s moral superiority complex kicks in — because while he’s a murderer, he’s not a murderer of innocent people. At least, not intentionally. Mia’s giddy amorality disgusts him, and it’s one of the rare times we see him genuinely rattled by another killer’s lack of rules.

The solution? Frame her for Ryan Foster’s murder and let the police take her down. It’s both brilliant and cowardly — a win-win for Dexter’s survival instinct and a loss for his so-called moral code.

Father and Son, Again

By the end of the episode, Harrison comes back. Not because Dexter manipulates him into it — but because the alternative, being alone in this storm, is worse.

And here’s the shocker: Dexter actually apologizes. He admits fault for Rita’s death. He tells Harrison he doesn’t want him to be a killer. And when he says, “You’re my reason to live,” it’s the most human thing he’s said in the entire franchise.

It’s enough to make you wonder if Resurrection isn’t just about Dexter coming back from the dead, but about him learning, however late, to be alive.

The Verdict

“Murder Horny” is uneven but fascinating. The tonal shifts — from dark family drama to serial killer dating comedy to tense moral standoff — shouldn’t work, but they do, mostly because Michael C. Hall sells every beat like it’s Shakespeare in bloodstained flannel.

It’s a pivotal hour that deepens the Harrison-Dexter relationship, sets up Mia as both a threat and a red herring, and hints that Batista’s slow-burn investigation is going to hit hard.

Messy, bold, and weirdly heartfelt.