In Dexter: Resurrection Episode 7, Dexter does some Zen-like course correcting as Dark Passengers make some unexpected revelations.
Showrunner: Clyde Phillips
Genre: Crime Drama, Mystery
No. of Season 1 episodes: 10
Episode 7 Release Date: August 15, 2025 on Paramount+ with SHOWTIME
I can’t tell you how many times I watched Dexter: Resurrection Episode 7; it’s magically exciting. It’s also shocking and infused with so much of Dexter’s deadpan sardonic wit, you can’t help but get a little of it on you before the party ends.
Last week, Dexter took down the Gemini Killer, only to discover in a shocking twist that Gareth (David Dastmalchian) had a twin. Episode 7, “Course Correction”, features an explosion of fireworks with unexpected revelations from not one, not two, but three of our main characters—one being our Dark Passenger—and a most genius murder that makes Dexter look like a hero. Honestly, this episode should’ve been titled “Zen and the Art of Dexter Morgan”.
Okay, enough of the foreplay. Let’s devour this week’s recap and review.
Harrison looks to the future
After the events of Episode 6, Harrison is thinking about his future, specifically going to school. So, he tours a local community college, where he not only meets a girl and makes a new friend but also gets to audit a forensic psychology class. It’s there that, after hearing a lecture from the one and only Det. Wallace on what drives the New York Ripper, Harrison decides he wants to be a cop.
It’s an awkward moment for both him and Dexter when they lock eyes with her, but it’s also a perfect moment for Harrison to throw her off his trail. After her lecture, when she corners them, Harrison tells her that her passion to seek justice for the victims makes him want to do the same. Really, he’s inspired by his father, but she doesn’t know that.
Angel tracks down Dexter
After Mia’s shocking suicide occurred within minutes of Angel and Det. Wallace’s arrival at the prison, Angel is suspicious it wasn’t a suicide at all. The cameras on her cell block failed at the exact moment she hung herself. Shocker. We questioned last week, or at least I did, why she’d kill herself, so it’s no surprise that this week, others are doing the same.
Angel makes a big reveal and mentions that all of Mia’s trophies had her fingerprints on them except for one: Ryan’s (Bryan Lillis) watch. He’s convinced Dexter had something to do with it, but Wallace doesn’t buy it. Angel knows he’ll have to prove this theory alone. Before he leaves, though, he gets Dexter’s address and, when he shows up, meets Blessing (Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine).
Since Dexter isn’t home, it couldn’t be a more perfect opportunity for Angel to learn all he can about what Blessing knows. It also couldn’t pose a bigger problem for Dexter, and he is pissed when he sees Angel with his host family. Now that Angel has found him, he plans to tail him and drops his Airpods in Dexter’s car.
Show-and-tell yields unexpected revelations
Episode 7 opens with Prater whisking his guests away to his private castle for lunch and another show-and-tell, in honor of Mia. Dexter wonders if she chose to leave or if she was taken out. I’m going with taken out.
Up first at show-and-tell is Al, who presents a video of himself hunting and killing a victim. He straps a camera to his bike helmet and sets out for a ride, where he comes across a woman with a long ponytail out for a jog. Ponytails are his fetish.
It’s a hard moment for Dexter to watch. As the others revel in what’s happening, he’s grossed out. Prater is salivating, Gareth is bored, and Al is aroused at reliving this moment. Dexter knows they all have to die, but for now, he, as Red—The Dark Passenger—is up for an impromptu show-and-tell. His only problem is, how do you convince a room full of psychopaths that you fit their code?
He takes a different approach and makes an unexpected revelation, getting vulnerable about his real identity and the draining process of having to wear a mask, as well as the freedom he feels during those moments he removes it to kill. Everyone in the room sees him as The Dark Passenger revealing his identity as Ronald Schmidt, but we know the truth. It’s a beautiful moment of situational irony.
Dexter’s words are more than just revelations, though. They’re also objects poking at others’ vulnerabilities. Everyone can relate to what he’s saying, even us viewers. Masks prevent us from ever being whole. They allow us to think we’re in control when our truth is what pulls the strings, essentially making us puppets, implying that he, as Red, as Ronald Schmidt, is just a puppet—a serf to his Dark Passenger.
While everyone else is unnerved, Prater is moved. He’s blown away at Red’s relatability, and in turn, returns the favor with an unexpected revelation to Dexter.
Leon was in the car when his parents were hit and killed. A child left alone to make sense of what happened, he reached out to their killer in an effort to understand. He wanted to know what the man felt upon seeing him in the back seat, having just watched his parents die. Leon realized, over time, that the man saw himself: someone alone in a cruel, confusing world. It became a fascination for Leon … an obsession. So, he started visiting the guy in prison, which is where he learned his parents weren’t this guy’s first victims.
He was the first serial killer to share his story with Leon, who felt more connected to the killer and what drove him than he did to his parents. Knowing what the killer was thinking gave Leon the power he needed never to be afraid again. But, once he died, Leon’s loneliness returned, so that’s when he started collecting killers and their trophies.
Dexter’s vulnerable presentation reminded him of that bond and, in return, he gives Dexter his first trophy: the first letter his parents’ killer ever wrote to him.
It’s a really sweet moment, but then you realize our serial killer/MurderCon foundation, and the creepiness just bleeds on through, kind of like the series’ fresh title sequences. That’s something I love about this show: Moments like this are created and captured so eloquently, so creatively, so beautifully, and so morbidly. It’s absolute genius.
Zen and the art of Dexter Morgan
Dexter: Resurrection Episode 7 features the most badass Dexter Morgan takedown of the entire Dexterverse. It’s brilliant, Zen, and absolutely genius.
At the opportune moment, Dexter catches Gareth alone and drops a shocking revelation on him: “I know you’re a twin.” Gareth denies it, but Dexter doesn’t let up. It’s clear how different this Gareth is from the Episode 6 Gareth: This Gareth isn’t arrogant and instead freaks out. Prater can’t know. Dexter plays to his ego and manages to get unexpected revelations out of the Gemini Killer. Not only does he confirm Dexter’s theory, but he also exposes the top rule he and his brother operated by: Never be seen together.
Dexter, in his rapid retelling of his events with the other Gareth, asks him if twin pain is real and if he felt a sting in his chest around 8:20 the night before.
“That’s when I stabbed your brother! You see, I have my own thing, and that’s killing killers,” Dexter says forcefully but quietly as he moves in close to Gareth, where he breaks a glass and stages a fight. To the others, it looks like Gareth snapped and was trying to kill Red. In reality, Dexter’s Dark Passenger was making one of the sweetest kills of his career, staged as self-defense … and it worked!
Dexter tells everyone that Gareth was talking about proving he was a visionary by taking out Lowell, Red, then Al. On that day, Prater saw the Gareth Dexter wanted him to see, and Dexter course-corrected by taking out three birds with one stone. Boom. Zen and the art of Dexter Morgan.
Dexter: Resurrection Episode 7 Review
Episode 7 of Dexter: Resurrection, to me, is genius television. Dexter’s course correction is a full-on chess game in which he makes the king of all moves by committing a murder and making it look like self-defense. How? By remaining Zen and using the art of misdirection. He knows how and when to push a button, and he does it with such eloquent monstrosity that it’s excitedly (and morbidly) admirable.
Furthermore, the episode attempts to establish that Harrison is healing and going after a future. The only problem is, he’s kind of taking a path similar to Dexter’s: law enforcement. However, each Morgan has different motives. The only question here is, will Harrison’s motives stay where they are, or will they evolve into something that satiates his own Dark Passenger?
With only three episodes left, you won’t want to miss what’s coming.
Episode 7 of Dexter: Resurrection is currently streaming on Paramount+ with SHOWTIME. New episodes will be released weekly every Friday through September 12, 2025.
