Film Review: Shoot to Kill (dir by Roger Spottiswoode)

Posted on January 5, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

I am not one for camping.

I’m actually kind of alone amongst my family as far as that’s concerned. All three of my sisters enjoy spending the night outdoors, listening to sounds of nature and looking up at the stars. They know how to set up tents and make campfires and they enjoy hiking and rafting and exploring the great outdoors. Myself, I do enjoy occasionally spending the weekend up at Lake Texoma and I like the fact that, even though we live in the city, we still occasionally get to see wildlife running around. I think possums are cute. A few days ago, I squealed with delight when I saw that there was a raccoon hanging out in one of our backyard trees. (“Don’t go near that thing, Lisa Marie!” Erin snapped as I reached for the den door.) Growing up, I spent time in both the country and the city. While I love living in the city, there’s still a part of me that’s still a country girl. That said, I definitely prefer sleeping inside to outside. The inside is safe. The inside is comfortable. The inside is free of creepy bugs that crawl on the ground.

Watching 1988’s Shoot to Kill definitely did not do much to change my opinion about camping. In this thriller from director Roger Spottiswoode, Sidney Poitier plays Warren Stantin, an FBI agent who is obsessed with capturing a sadistic criminal who blackmails people into doing his work for him. At the start of the film, the extortionist has forced a jeweler to break into his own jewelry store by taking the jeweler’s wife hostage. Stantin’s attempt to capture the extortionist leads to the jeweler’s wife taking a bullet in the eye. (AGCK! Seriously, this guy is mean!) Stantin traces the man to Washington State, where he discovers that the extortionist has committed another murder and stolen the victim’s identity. The extortionist is now a member of a five-man fishing party that is being led by a local guide, Sarah Renell (Kirstie Alley). Stantin teams up with Sarah’s partner, Jonathan Knox (Tom Berenger), and the two of them attempts to track down the group before the murderer among them makes his move.

The action cuts back-and-forth, between Sarah’s party and Knox and Stantin. Most viewers will probably be able to quickly figure out which member of Sarah’s party is the killer but director Spottiswoode still creates a little suspense by casting actors like Richard Masur, Andrew Robinson, and Clancy Brown as the suspects. All three of the actors have played their share of sinister characters. (Andrew Robinson was the Scorpio Killer, for God’s sake!) While Sarah leads the murderer though the wilderness, Knox teaches Stantin how to survive in the great outdoors. As is typical with films like this, Knox and Stantin go from disliking each other to depending on each other. Have you ever wanted to see Sidney Poitier get into a verbal altercation with a bear? This is the film for you!

Shoot to Kill is a superior genre film. The story’s predictable but it’s told so well that it doesn’t matter. Kirstie Alley, Tom Berenger, and Sidney Poitier all give good performances as sympathetic characters. As for the actor who turns out to be the killer, he gives a performance that is, at times, absolutely terrifying. Shoot to Kill is an entertaining thriller. Just don’t watch it if you’re going camping the next day.

THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION (1994) – In honor of our son’s birthday, I review his favorite movie!

Posted on January 3, 2025 by Bradley Crain

I sent our son a text the other day and asked him if he had an answer for the question “What’s your favorite movie?” I thought I knew the answer but it turns out I was only half right. I expected his answer to be THE HATEFUL EIGHT. Rather, the answer I received back was “The Hateful Eight or Shawshank Redemption!” Since I recently wrote about the time that he and I attended THE HATEFUL EIGHT roadshow in Dallas, I decided I would write about THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION this time around. It doesn’t hurt that it’s one of my favorite movies as well. It also doesn’t hurt that it’s the very top rated film on the Internet Movie Database.

Based on Stephen King’s “Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption,” the story is well known… hot shot banker Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins) is convicted of the murder of his wife and her lover, and gets sentenced to life at the Shawshank prison. Once on the inside, we meet a variety of characters that you expect in a prison movie. We meet Warden Norton (Bob Gunton), the hypocrite who speaks of the Bible while hiding a corrupt, evil spirit. We meet Captain Hadley (Clancy Brown), the brutal chief prison guard, who rules over the inmates with intimidation and a real willingness to inflict violence and pain on anyone who shows the least bit of independence. We meet Red (Morgan Freeman), the long-time inmate who has the ability and connections to get you anything you need. We meet other inmates like Heywood (William Sadler), the inmate who seems like a jerk when you first meet him but turns out to be a pretty good fella; Tommy (Gil Bellows), the young guy who comes into prison and may know something that proves Andy’s innocence; Brooks (James Whitmore), the old man who gets released after almost a lifetime in prison, and doesn’t know how to adjust to life on the outside; and Bogs (Mark Rolston), the sadistic prisoner who wants to force himself on Andy, and is willing to kill to get what he wants. Life isn’t easy at all in Shawshank, but Andy’s intelligence and ability to prove himself useful to Warden Norton and Captain Hadley allows him to finds ways to make life more bearable for him and his friends. After nineteen years in prison, even though he maintains his innocence, it appears that Andy is content to live out his remaining years in prison. Or is he??

I’ll never forget the first time I saw the movie THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION. I didn’t see it until a year or two after its initial release in 1994. I was one of those guys who figured a movie that praised by the critics was probably not something that I would like that much. Plus, at the time, the title of the movie just seemed kind of weird. But I kept hearing about how great it was, so I finally decided to give it a viewing. I agree with my son, I think THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION is one of the most emotionally uplifting movies ever made. Why is that you might ask? My answer would be because there’s something profoundly satisfying about people who persevere through the worst times imaginable and continue to find hope where most of us would be hopeless. Prison life is shown as horrific. One prisoner is literally beaten to death by Captain Hadley on his first night in prison for crying. Andy fights off the sadistic Bogs as much as he can, but he is unable to completely fight off his advances. But no matter what he goes through, Andy Dufresne is able keep moving forward, and he does not allow the prison life to completely crush his spirit. He keeps finding ways to persevere. Andy’s actions and endurance turn simple acts like listening to Mozart or having a beer into overwhelming emotional highs for us as the audience. The film also maintains a realistic sense of humor, which might seem difficult under the circumstances. This sense of humor is found in such mundane tasks as creating a prison library, providing tax prep services for the guards, or attending multiple parole hearings over the years. These comedic moments are earned by the way the movie takes it’s time letting us really get to the know the characters and then laugh with them as the individual moments occur. And the friendship between Andy and Red is something that deeply resonates with me. I think we all would like to have that kind of friendship. These kinds of friendships aren’t built overnight, and often they require a level of shared experience that is almost impossible to find. But they find it behind Shawshank’s prison walls, and it connects them for life. In my opinion, the friendship between these two characters leads to one of the most emotionally satisfying endings to any film, ever.

Director Frank Darabont was able to obtain some of career-defining performances from his cast. As good as Tim Robbins is as an actor, in my opinion, he has never been better than he was as Andy Dufresne. And I say this knowing full well he won an Oscar for MYSTIC RIVER. He maintains his dignity against all odds and only appears to break down a time or two. Morgan Freeman is great as always as Red, but his character is so important because we see him go from a hopeless skeptic, to a man who truly has hope thanks to his friendship with Andy. Freeman seems to handle this transition effortlessly. I’m going to give a shoutout to James Whitmore as well. With a career going all the way back to the 1940’s, his performance as Brooks Hatlen is one of the more touching and heartbreaking performances of the film. I haven’t seen all of his work, but I have never seen him better than he was in THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION. Each additional cast member, from Bob Gunton, Clancy Brown and Mark Rolston, to Willam Sadler and Gil Bellows all have powerful moments that add to the overall effect of the film.

Looking back now, it’s hard to believe that THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION did not win the Academy Award for best film. It lost to FORREST GUMP when the awards were handed out in 1995. It’s even harder to believe that the film did not win a single Academy Award even though it received seven nominations. But at the end of the day, that doesn’t really matter to me. I just know that it’s a great film, and it reaches emotional heights that very few movies, if any, have ever reached before. That’s a pretty damn good legacy.

STARSHIP TROOPERS and Hell’s Half Acre – Taking my love of the movies on down the road (Part 4)!

Posted on December 28, 2024 by Bradley Crain

2022 was a big year for my wife Sierra and I when it comes to “movie tourism.” I’ve already discussed our trips to Pennsylvania and Colorado to celebrate my healthy obsession with the late, great action movie icon Charles Bronson. In that same year, we spent some time in the beautiful city of Casper, Wyoming. About 40 miles from Casper is a place called “Hell’s Half Acre.” Sierra lived in Casper for 18 years, and she told me that the movie STARSHIP TROOPERS was filmed there. I had no idea. I had watched the movie way back in late 90’s because it was directed by Paul Verhoeven, the Dutch director who had made a star out of Rutger Hauer before coming to America and directing films like ROBOCOP, TOTAL RECALL, and BASIC INSTINCT. I remember it being graphically violent, but I honestly didn’t remember much about it. The fact that it was filmed out in the middle of nowhere outside of Casper piqued my interest, and I was determined to know more.

In a nutshell, STARSHIP TROOPERS stars Casper Van Dien as Johnny Rico, a young man who joins the military after graduation to become a citizen, and because of his love for his high school sweetheart Carmen (Denise Richards). As part of his service, he finds himself in a war against the bug aliens of Klendathu. Every day is a battle for survival as the soldiers try to save the human race. Aside from Van Dien and Richards, director Verhoeven has assembled an excellent supporting cast that includes veterans like Michael Ironside, Clancy Brown, and even Rue McClanahan. Maybe it’s because I visited the location, but I enjoyed the movie much more now, than I remember enjoying it back in the 90’s.

Hell’s Half Acre stood in for the alien planet of Klendathu in STARSHIP TROOPERS. It’s an interesting looking area that reminds me of the look of the Grand Canyon when viewed from afar. It turned out to be the perfect place for an alien planet, even if there was always a chance that the cast and crew might run into a rattlesnake or two. Here’s a picture I took of the sign on the premises that tells you a little more about Hell’s Half Acre.

The picture at the top of the article shows how Hell’s Half Acre is used in the movie to represent the alien planet of Klendathu. Here’s an image of the movie’s star, Casper Van Dien, on location. I met several people in Casper who remember when the actors and the crew were staying in Casper during filming, and they all spoke very positively of Van Dien. I also find it interesting that Casper Van Dien is filming this movie just outside of Casper, Wyoming. What are the chances?

Here are few of the pictures we took on our visit. I sent the picture below to my son while we were out of town and asked him if he knew where we were. His guess was The Grand Canyon!

Making movies is one hell of a business, and visiting Hell’s Half Acre was a great reminder of the imagination it takes to create movie magic. It was also a fun way to spend part of day, especially for a movie lover like me!

14 Days of Paranoia #9: Chappaquiddick (dir by John Curran)

Posted on February 24, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

On July 18th, 1969, while American astronauts were preparing to land on and then take their first steps on the Moon, a 28 year-old woman named Mary Jo Kopechne attended a party on Chappaquiddick Island in Massachusetts.

A former aide to Robert Kennedy who was reportedly devastated by his assassination, Mary Jo was one of several former campaign workers who gathered at an isolated cabin that night. According to the others at the party, Mary Jo (who was described as being a devout Catholic who rarely drank) was one of the first people to leave the party. She left with another guest. The next morning, that guest’s car was found overturned in Poucha Pond. Dead in the backseat was Mary Jo Kopechne, who had suffocated as the car slowly filled up with water. It was later determined that she had been alive and trapped in the car for hours before dying. The owner of the car was back at his hotel. He had returned there after crashing his car and, while he had taken a shower and combed his hair and called his father, he had not bothered to call the police.

Normally, a driver in this situation would be in serious legal jeopardy. Along with having left the scene of the accident, he also left Mary Jo to die. It was generally agreed that if he had called the police within an hour of the accident occurring, Mary Jo could have been saved. However, because he was Ted Kennedy and the last remaining of the fabled Kennedy brothers and a man who many expected would someday be president, he was given a slap on the wrist and the death of Mary Jo would be forever described as being a “Kennedy tragedy” as opposed to a Kopechne tragedy.

Not surprisingly, there has been a lot of speculation about what had happened in the moments leading up to the crash. Like his brothers, Ted Kennedy was a notorious and reckless womanizer. Unlike his brothers, Ted also had a reputation for being a heavy drinker. Some went as far as to accuse Ted of deliberately murdering Mary Jo, as if the actions that Ted later admitted to were not, in themselves, already bad enough. While people may disagree on the circumstances that led to the accident, it is generally agreed that, if Ted had been anyone other than a Kennedy, he would have served time in prison. The incident ended Ted’s presidential dreams but it didn’t keep him from being described as being the “lion of the Senate” when he died in 2010. Indeed, when Ted died, many people on twitter expressed their shock as they read or heard about Mary Jo Kopechne for the first time in their lives.

(In 2010, Mary Jo would have been seventy years old.)

Obviously, no one was going to make a movie about Mary Jo Kopechne’s death while Ted was still living. Indeed, even after Ted died, it still took seven more years for the story to be turned into a film and producer Byron Allen struggled to even book the film in theaters. 2017’s Chappaquiddick stars Jason Clarke as Ted and, briefly, Kate Mara as Mary Jo. The film speculates as to what happened that night and it probably gets fairly close to the truth. The accident is an accident, a result of Ted freaking out when a cop stops him for speeding and sees him with a woman who isn’t his wife. Ted, who is portrayed as being an immature manchild, turns to his handlers and then his family for help. His fails to call the authorities because, to Ted, there is no greater authority than his abusive father (Bruce Dern).

For the most part, Ted passively sits by as associates of his late brothers — including Ted Sorenson (Taylor Nichols, giving the film’s strongest performance), Joe Gargan (Ed Helms), and Paul Markham (Jim Gaffigan) — take over his defense and carefully craft his every response. Ted’s attempts to provide input are shot down and it’s made clear that his job is to shut up and concentrate on returning the Kennedys to the White House. The film’s best scenes feature Sorenson growing frustrated at all of Ted’s mistakes. Very little concern is shown for the fact that Mary Jo Kopechne, a Kennedy true believer, is dead due to Ted’s recklessness. When she was alive, Mary Jo was held up as a symbol of the Kennedy youth. When she died, she was just viewed as being an obstacle to keeping the Kennedys from reaching the power to which they felt entitled.

As you can probably guess, Ted Kennedy does not come off particularly well in this film. At his best, he’s a wimp who is struggling with a legacy of which he knows he’s not worthy. At his worst, he is pathologically self-absorbed and incapable of feeling empathy for the woman he left to drown in the backseat of his car. Both he and Mary Jo and ultimately the voters who are expected to reelect him even after he leaves Mary Jo to die are ultimately portrayed as just being pawns of the shadowy men who lurk behind the scenes of every political operation.

It’s not a happy film and it certainly has its flaws but it provides an important service, reminding viewers that death of Mary Jo Kopchene was more than just as a “Kennedy tragedy.”

14 Days of Paranoia:

Film Review: John Wick: Chapter Four (dir by Chad Stahelski)

Posted on August 8, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Yesterday, I finally watched the hit film of March 2023, John Wick: Chapter Four. It left me overwhelmed and I mean that in the best possible way.

The film picks up where the last film left off. John Wick (Keanu Reeves), the dog-loving, formerly retired professional hit man, is still traveling the world and killing the leaders of the High Table. As becomes apparent from the start of the film, it’s a bit of a fool’s errand as killing one leader only leads to another leader being installed. When John travels to Morocco to kill the leader known as “The Elder,” he discovers that the Elder he knew is gone and has been replaced with a new Elder. He still kills the new Elder because that’s what John Wick does. He kills people. He’s a literal killing machine, one who audiences like because he loves dogs, is still mourning for his dead wife, and he’s played by Keanu Reeves. On paper, the relentless and ruthless character of John Wick is horrifying. But, when he’s played by Keanu Reeves, he becomes the killing machine that audiences can’t help but love.

The arrogant and brilliantly named Marquis Vincent Bisset de Gramont (Bill Skarsgard, giving a wonderfully hissable performance) is currently in charge of the efforts to track down and kill John. The Marquis establishes himself as being evil by not only killing Charon (Lance Reddick) but also blowing up the Continental. Upset by the murder of Charon and the destruction of his business, Winston (Ian McShane, playing his role with the perfect amount of wounded dignity) tells John that he can end his entire war with the High Table by challenging the Marquis to a duel. Unfortunately, to do that, John has to convince another criminal organization to sponsor him and just about criminal organization on the planet wants John did. To make things even more difficult, the Marquis has brought the blind assassin, Caine (the incredible Donnie Yen), out of retirement to track down John. Caine and John are old friends but Caine knows that his daughter will be killed unless he kills John.

Clocking in at 169 minutes, John Wick: Chapter Four is a big, flamboyant, and at times overwhelming production. John Wick travels across the world and every country in which he finds himself is home to someone who wants him dead. And since everyone that John Wick knows seems to have a unlimited supply of guards and henchmen, the fights are nonstop and the violence is over the top but the film is so energetic and cheerfully excessive that it’s never boring. Each fight scene feels like it could be a separate film on its own, with each member of the cast getting a chance to show off what they can do. The water-filled fight in a Berlin night club is the film’s best moment but it’s closely followed by an extended combat sequence that’s set in a hotel in Japan. With its vivid cinematography and ornate production design and its spectacular stunts, John Wick Chapter 4 is a work of pure cinema, an thrill ride of glorious excess. Along with providing an ending to John Wick’s story, it also pays tribute to everything that audiences love about action cinema. It’s a film for people who love action and, even more importantly, it’s film that has as much love for its audience as it does for itself.

The film ends on a note of apparent finality, one that becomes more ambiguous the more that one examines it. This may be the last chapter of John Wick’s story or it may not. (Considering the film’s box office and critical success, I suspect that it will not be the last.) John Wick Chapter Four serves as a fitting (if perhaps temporary) end to the saga and also a tribute to both the action aesthetic and Keanu Reeves’s innate likability.

Blue Steel (1990, directed by Kathryn Bigelow)

Posted on May 11, 2023 by Jedadiah Leland

On her first night on the job, rookie cop Megan Turner (Jamie Lee Curtis) blows away a robber (Tom Sizemore) who was holding up a convenience store. The robber was holding a gun when he was shot but, right after his body hits the ground, the gun is stolen by a stockbroker named Eugene Hunt (Ron Silver). Somehow, no one notices Eugene grabbing the gun from the floor and he improbably gets away from the crime scene without any of the investigating officers noticing that he’s concealing a gun in his suit.

Because Eugene stole the gun, Megan is accused of shooting an unarmed man and she is suspended from the force. Meanwhile, Eugene becomes obsessed with the gun, hears voices, and starts to shoot random people. He even carves Megan’s name on one of the bullets. When the bullet is found in the body of one of Eugene’s targets, Megan becomes the number one suspect even though it wouldn’t make any sense for a murderer to carve their name on the evidence. This isn’t The Wire. None of the dead are going to be found with a note in their hand that says, “Tater Killed Me.” It should be obvious to everyone that Megan is being set up but instead, everyone just assumes Megan is a stupid murderer who doesn’t know how to cover her tracks. Eugene also starts to date Megan but when Megan rejects him after he confesses to being the murderer, Eugene starts to stalk her and her friends. Not even Megan’s new boyfriend (Clancy Brown) can keep her safe from a stockbroker with a grudge.

Blue Steel benefits from Kathryn Bigelow’s stylish direction and Jamie Lee Curtis’s dedicated performance but it suffers because Eugene is so obviously crazy from the get go that it never makes sense that he would be able to get away with his crimes for as long as he does. Even after Megan realizes that Eugene is crazy, she can’t get anyone to believe her even though everything about Eugene suggests that he’s the murderer. Not even confessing to the crime is enough to keep Eugene in prison. Somehow, Eugene is able to commit multiple murders and attempted murders right in front of Megan and then escape before Megan or anyone else can even react. Megan’s been trained at the Police Academy while Eugene has no criminal training whatsoever but he’s still always able to outthink and outrun her. It makes it seem as if Megan just isn’t a very good cop. Luckily, Bigelow, Curtis, Silver, and Clancy Brown would all be involved with better movies in the future.

Keanu Reeves returns in the John Wick 4 Trailer!

Posted on November 10, 2022 by Leonard Wilson

The High Table would like a word with John Wick.

I’m surprised there’s anyone left to fight, but on hand, we have Natalia Tena (Game of Thrones), Bill Skarsgard (Barbarian), Hiroyuki Sanada (The Wolverine), Scott Adkins (Accident Man), Clancy Brown (Thor: Ragnarok) and the legendary Donnie Yen (Ip-Man, Rogue One). They join the original cast that includes Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Lance Reddick, & Ian McShane.

John Wick: Chapter 4 is set to release in theatres on March 24, 2023.

TV Review: Dexter: New Blood 1.9 “The Family Business” (dir by Sanford Bookstaver)

Posted on January 5, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

We all knew that, at some point, Dexter would have to welcome Harrison into the family business. It finally happened on this week’s episode of Dexter: New Blood.

Set on Christmas day (but, oddly enough, airing during the first week of January), the ninth episode of Dexter: New Blood found Dexter and Harrison finally bonding. Dexter told Harrison the story of Wiggles the Clown though, at the insistence of Ghost Deb, Dexter said that he just told Wiggles to stop doing what he was doing. Even when Dexter was telling the story, it was obvious that Harrison knew there was more to it than just Dexter giving a stern lecture.

Harrison also told Dexter that he had stabbed his friend and that he wasn’t the hero that everyone made him out to be. Yeah, we all figured that out a while ago, Harrison! Still, it was interesting to watch Harrison discover what the rest of us take for granted. We’re so used to the idea of Dexter tracking down serial killers and murdering them that it’s easy to forget just how weird and traumatic it would be for someone to learn about it or witness it for the first time. One of the big problems that I had with the final season of Dexter’s original run is that Deb never seemed to be truly shocked at the discovery that her brother was a serial killer. Fortunately, the reboot did a better job with Harrison than the original did with Deb.

And yes, Harrison did learn the truth. He and Dexter tracked down Kurt’s secret lair and saw Kurt’s “trophies.” And when Harrison announced that Kurt needed to die, just the slightest smile came to Dexter’s lips. Dexter managed to bring Harrison over to his side without actually having to confess to all of the people that he had killed. Only after Harrison had announced that he was on board with the idea that some people deserved to die, did Dexter admit to killing Wiggles the Clown and Arthur Mitchell.

Kurt met his end in this episode. Harrison watched as Dexter killed him and then, somewhat ominously, had a flashback to Rita’s murder. Is Harrison going to realize that, for all of Dexter’s rationalizations, his father is a serial killer as well? If Harrison truly buys into the code, then Dexter could be in some trouble.

Actually, Dexter might be in trouble regardless. Angela appears to have figured out that Dexter killed the drug dealer. And, at the end of this episode, she received a letter telling her that “Jim Lindsay Killed Matt Caldwell” and one of the titanium screws that was left behind after Dexter burned Matt’s body. If Angela learns the truth, will she arrest Dexter or will she let him and Harrison go free? Angela has sworn to uphold the law but Kurt also murdered Angela’s best friend. And, as we learned on Sunday, Kurt also murdered Molly. Angela might be tempted to let Dexter escape. I guess we’ll find out next week.

It was an excellent episode, though I have to admit that I was really disappointed when Molly showed up as one of Kurt’s trophies. When Molly first appeared, her character annoyed me but, as the season progressed, I came to appreciate both the character and Jamie Chung’s performance. In many ways, she was the stand-in for the viewers. It was hard not to feel that she deserved better than to be killed off-screen. Indeed, considering that she knew that Kurt was probably a killer, you have to wonder how he managed to ever get to her in the first place.

Still, that aside, The Family Business was Dexter at its best. The deliberate pace and the atmospheric direction all reminded of the classic early seasons of Dexter. Michael C. Hall perfectly captured Dexter’s love of his work while Jack Alcott played Harrison with the right mix of fascination and fear. Still, I have to wonder what the show’s end game is going to be. Ghost Deb was pretty adamant about Dexter not bringing Harrison into the family business and Ghost Deb usually know what she’s talking about.

We’ll find out next week!

TV Review: Dexter: New Blood 1.8 “Unfair Game” (dir by Sanford Bookstaver)

Posted on December 28, 2021 by Lisa Marie Bowman

So, Dexter is going to teach Harrison “the code.”

Wow, who could have predicted that!?

Okay, okay …. I know it’s not good to gloat but let me have my moment. From the minute that Harrison showed up at Dexter’s cabin, I’ve been waiting for him to take up the family business and it would appear that’s what is about to happen. My prediction was correct and it’s actually kind of rare that happens so I’m definitely going to take a little bit of pride in this moment.

Kurt definitely had his chance to bring Harrison over to his side but he ruined it by snapping and trying to kill Harrison. Big mistake there, Kurt. Harrison is now back with Dexter and, judging from that big hug he gave him, it appears that there’s no longer any doubt in Harrison’s mind as to which father figure he should follow.

It was an exciting episode. Along with Kurt’s attempts to bond with Harrison, we also got a lot of scenes of Dexter and the truck driver chasing each other through that abandoned summer camp. (“Perfect place for a serial killer,” as Dexter put it.) Why didn’t Kurt take out Dexter personally? That was my only real question. I get that Kurt wanted to bond with Harrison but he could have easily killed Dexter and the bonded with Harrison later. It’s not like Harrison has anywhere to go. Instead, Kurt made the mistake of outsourcing the murder of his biggest enemy. Entrusting a job that important to a random truck driver doesn’t really make that much sense. Kurt screwed that one up because, despite being shot in the leg, Dexter managed to kill that truck driver and save Harrison. In the past, Dexter has spent so much time in its lead character’s mind that it was interesting to see that Dexter can take care of himself physically as well.

Dexter and Harrison appear to be ready to go to war with Kurt but it also appears that Angela has figured out that Dexter murdered that drug dealer a few episodes back. Will Angela arrest Dexter? Will Dexter have to fake his death yet again? Let’s hope not. There’s only so many times that one character can successfully fake his death before it starts to challenge the viewer’s suspension of disbelief.

That said, I don’t see Dexter sticking around town, regardless of how everything turns out. I’ve seen some speculation that Dexter will sacrifice his life to save Harrison and then Harrison will be the “new” Dexter. I don’t think that’s going to happen just because I don’t think Showtime is going to want to abandon the character of Dexter after this miniseries ends two weeks from now. If nothing else, Dexter: New Blood has proven that there is still a sizable audience that’s interested in Dexter’s adventures. Ask me to look into the future and I see Dexter and Harrison going on the road together and hunting killers. It’s the family business.

Am I right? We’ll find out in another two weeks!

TV Review: Dexter: New Blood 1.7 “Skin of Her Teeth” (dir by Sanford Bookslaver)

Posted on December 21, 2021 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Occasionally, while watching an episode of the original run of Dexter, I would sometimes wonder, “What if Dexter didn’t kill this latest serial killer? What if he actually did step back and just let the police do their job?”

Well, the latest episode of Dexter: New Blood answered my question for me. Even after he had all of the evidence that he needed to believe that Kurt was not only the sniper but that he was also responsible for the decades-old murder of Iris, Dexter still tried to play by the rules. He extracted a tooth from Iris’s mouth and, seeing that she had bitten her attacker, he gave it to Angela so that she could run a DNA test. He also told Angela about the murder cabin to which Kurt had previously tried to lure Molly. For once, Dexter stepped to the side and tried to let the system do its job.

Why did Dexter do this, despite Ghost Deb literally ordering him to kill Kurt? Dexter’s pursuit of Kurt has been complicated by Kurt’s pursuit of Harrison. With Harrison obviously growing more and more unstable, Dexter didn’t want to have to keep another secret from his son. He didn’t want Harrison to make a martyr out of Kurt. Dexter wanted to make sure that his son would eventually look up to the right serial killer. Good for Dexter!

Unfortunately, it turns out that the system doesn’t work. It didn’t work in Miami and apparently, it doesn’t work in upstate New York either. Yes, Kurt is arrested and he’s taken off to jail. But, after he concocts a story framing his abusive father and after the DNA on Iris’s tooth turns out to be just a 67% match, Kurt is set free. However, while he is in jail, he’s visited by Dexter. The two of them, obviously no longer pretending to be friends, find themselves discussing whether or not titanium can melt. Earlier in the episode, a slovenly truck driver gave Harrison an envelope for Dexter. Inside the envelope was a titanium screw, one that Dexter soon learns came from Matt’s body. In short, Dexter knows that Kurt is a murderer and Kurt knows the same about Dexter. However, others may soon be finding out as well. With Kurt out of jail, Molly and Angela talked and realized that there were holes not only in Kurt’s story but Dexter’s as well.

Meanwhile, Harrison finally revealed the truth to Dexter. As Harrison explained it, he has always had nightmares but now he realizes that the nightmares were actually memories of Rita’s murder. (John Lithgow makes a cameo appearance as the Trinity Killer and is quite chilling, despite only being onscreen for a minute or two.) Harrison announced that he was leaving town. Just as Dexter tried to follow his son, he was attacked by the same trucker who gave Harrison the screw. And then …. the episode ended!

This was a seriously good episode, probably the best of the season so far. The episode opened on a properly macabre touch (with Dexter and Angela investigating Iris’s mummified corpse) and it ended on a moment of genuine suspense. In between, Michael C. Hall and Clancy Brown both did compelling work as two guys who have a secret that only they can truly understand. The scene were Dexter and Kurt faced off in the jail was wonderfully acted and directed. As played by Clancy Brown, Kurt is the first Dexter villain to truly feel like a worthy adversary since the Trinity Killer. Indeed, it seems somewhat appropriate that the same episode that featured a flashback to Kurt’s first kill also featured a flashback to Trinity’s final murder.

So, what can we expect to happen next week? Dexter getting attacked by that truck driver would seem to suggest that Kurt has more allies that Dexter imagined. What if Kurt is not working alone? What if his truck stop is actually some sort of serial killer hang-out? It’s possible and it would certainly explain why Kurt was so eager to have Harrison working there. It would seem that Kurt might want to hunt Dexter next.

But here’s the thing — there are three episodes left. Seeing as how Kurt and Dexter know the truth about each other, you have to wonder what they’re going to be spend the next three hours doing until their final confrontation. Next week’s episode is called Unfair Game. Could that be a reference to The Most Dangerous Game, the short story that Kurt seems to be trying to recreate with each of his murders? The final two episodes are entitled: “Family Business” and “Sins of the Father,” which would seem to indicate that Harrison is going to play a key role in whatever happens. Personally, I’m still expecting Edward Olsen to be revealed as Kurt’s partner. Olsen hasn’t been in the last few episodes but he was prominently featured at the start of the season so it just seems like there has to be more to him beyond just being a wealthy land developer.

We’ll see what happens!