Warning: SPOILERS ahead for Dexter: New Blood episode 7.
Dexter’s wife and Harrison's mother, Rita.
In Dexter season 4’s finale episode, Trinity discovered that Kyle Butler, who had recently become close with his family, was actually Dexter Morgan. He and Dexter struggled as the blood-spatter analyst tried to stop his ritual, but Arthur decided to take one more life before he planned to escape. Dexter finds Trinity trying to leave town and finally kills him, but not before he comes home to find Rita murdered in their bathtub with an infant Harrison crying in a pool of her blood. Rita’s death was one of the most tragic murders in Dexter’s original series alongside Deb’s, but, out of character for Dexter, Rita’s murder was never actually shown; Dexter just found the aftermath.
Although Dexter killed the Trinity Killer back in season 4, John Lithgow’s Arthur Mitchell was announced to return for Dexter: New Blood, along with Dexter, Deb, and Harrison. The circumstances of Trinity’s cameo were unknown until he appeared in Harrison’s flashback in Dexter: New Blood episode 7. Harrison recalls the moment he was “born in blood,” telling Dexter that he re everything about Rita’s murder, with the series showing a flashback from Harrison’s point of view in which Trinity, naked, walks over to comfort Harrison after brutally murdering his mother in the bathtub. This was an extremely important scene that was never shown in Dexter’s original series, and its inclusion in New Blood fills in context for Harrison’s trauma while also making Rita’s death much darker.
Dexter: New Blood Shows A Missing Scene From The Original Series
Considering how significant Rita’s death was to Dexter’s life moving forward, the possibility of Dexter’s original series was more about how these moments affected Dexter.
New Blood, however, takes Harrison’s trauma, feelings, and memories equally into , thus making it important that this scene is finally shown on-screen as a flashback for Harrison. This is about Harrison’s “born in blood” moment, and makes it so much more traumatizing when the point of view is coming from an infant in his mother’s blood instead of a third-person perspective. However, Rita actively being killed is never shown, simply the moment right afterward when the blood-filled tub overflows and a naked Trinity comforts Harrison. Just as Dexter's flashbacks of his mother’s murder never actually depicted her death, Harrison is also repressing the most brutal and traumatizing moment.
New Blood Flashback Hints Harrison Knows Dexter Is Connected To Trinity Killer
While depicting Rita’s death from Harrison’s perspective revealed why he’s so fixated on Trinity and has the same razor blade, the New Blood's Harrison and Dexter storyline has them drifting further apart, but this may all be underscored by Harrison blaming him for Rita’s murder.
How Harrison's Flashback Makes Rita's Death In Dexter Darker
Harrison is truly his father’s son, and his Dark enger origin went back to being found in a pool of Rita’s blood after she was brutally murdered by the Trinity Killer in Dexter season 4. Dexter was quite a bit older than Harrison when he saw his own mother’s death, so he had hoped and figured that Harrison didn’t anything. He was told as much when Harrison was an infant, but Dexter still wondered whether just knowing that his mother was murdered by Trinity and being found in a pool of her blood would be enough to incite Harrison’s Dark enger. As Dexter: New Blood episode 7 proves, Harrison re everything about this moment, which makes Rita’s death much darker.
In Dexter’s original series, everyone expected Harrison to have no recollection whatsoever of the event because of how young he was, which somehow made it a tiny bit less tragic than it could have been. Now that Dexter: New Blood has shown that Harrison re every detail, the brutality of Rita’s death is much worse, as her son would go on to relive this moment for the next 15 years. Harrison’s flashback also relives the extremely disturbing aspects of Rita’s murder that were unknown, revealing that Trinity truly kept to his routine when killing her. Harrison watches the Trinity Killer get out of the bathtub naked and covered in his mother’s blood with a smile on his face, making the moment all the more unsettling as Trinity thinks of her death as gratifying both for his urges and his revenge against Dexter. Considering Trinity is expected to appear again in Dexter: New Blood, even darker details of Rita’s death may be uncovered in the series.
Dexter: New Blood releases new episodes Sundays on Showtime.