While it’s not surprising that New Blood is giving Dexter and Harrison romantic interests, the series is tiredly repeating the worst TV relationship trope. Although Dexter continually resolved himself as unable to feel deep emotions and love, he ended up having plenty of intimate, emotional relationships in the original series. His relationship with Harrison’s mother Rita began as a cover-up, but he truly grew into loving her. While Dexter’s romances took the backseat of the show’s focus compared to his murderous lifestyle and serial killer hunting, he had plenty of meaningful relationships with characters like Lumen and Hannah, with Dexter: New Blood now pairing him with Iron Lake’s police chief Angela Bishop.
By introducing Harrison as Dexter: New Blood’s second main character, the new series features an entirely new dynamic from the original. Aside from Dexter’s killings and worries about his son, New Blood follows distinct storylines of Harrison’s life as a teenager, featuring youth-based arcs that the original never explored. As such, Dexter Morgan’s romances aren’t the only ones the series focuses on, with Harrison having equal stakes in establishing a fake life and finding love in Iron Lake. Unfortunately, the way in which New Blood explores Harrison and Dexter’s dual romances follows a tired TV cliché.
Right off the bat, Dexter: New Blood reveals Dexter has a new love interest: Angela Bishop. The series establishes that they’ve been dating for a while, which makes it more complicated when his Dark Passenger-ridden son Harrison returns, and happens to be the same age as Angela’s teenage daughter Audrey. From the moment Harrison meets other teens in Iron Lake, it’s clear that New Blood is setting up him and Audrey as love interests. While the two do have chemistry, it becomes unsettling when realizing their parents are already dating. This has been a rehashed dynamic in plenty of TV dramas that focus on both the parents and teens, with uncomfortable romances that have the parents romantically linked while their children, who could end up becoming step-siblings, are also love interests.
Dexter: New Blood isn’t the first TV show to introduce this fraught dynamic, and it (unfortunately) won’t be the last. The core teen romance also having their single parents dating has been making TV shows’ relationships uncomfortable for decades, with recent examples being Gossip Girl and Riverdale. In Gossip Girl, Serena and Dan are posed as the show’s core couple, but just so happens that their parents have a long romantic history, with Serena’s mom and Dan’s dad secretly having had a baby before eventually getting married. Serena and Dan also end up getting married, which means they’re also married step-siblings, so it’s not the kind of relationship that’s easy to support. Riverdale then repeated this same trope, with Jughead and Betty being a core romance just as their parents are revealed to have a long, torrid relationship history.
Harrison’s teen storyline is an interesting direction for New Blood to follow, but it was a mistake to have his romantic interest be Dexter’s girlfriend’s daughter. Audrey just as well could have been another student or daughter of Logan that still keeps her close to the action, but strays from the unconventional parent-kids dating dynamic. The romantic aspect of Harrison’s New Blood story also wasn’t necessary, with his more interesting relationship being between him and Dexter. New Blood’s romances don’t detract too much from the core storytelling, but repeating the uncomfortable dual parent-child dating trope wasn’t a path the series needed to take.