Dexter: New Blood episode 3 recap: Why is Kurt lying about his son?

It feels just like old times in Dexter: New Blood episode 3, “Smoke Signals,” as Dexter tries to stay ahead of the investigation into Matt Caldwell’s disappearance. At the behest of Matt’s dad, Kurt Caldwell, Angela has widened the search radius and doubled down on her efforts to find Matt. People don’t just disappear, but Dexter wishes they would.

Iron Lake might be a small, relatively sleepy town, but Angela is a dedicated cop who intends to find out what happened to Matt. That includes calling in the CSI and the search dogs, oh, and surprise! There were cameras in the woods this whole time!

Luckily for Dexter, the cameras are designed to detect animal heat signatures for tracking purposes rather than for surveillance. Riddled with blind spots, they’re far from high-tech. That said, they do detect Dexter’s presence in the woods. Of course, the cops can’t see it’s Dexter, but the footage confirms another person was in the woods at the same time as Matt and gives them a potential suspect.

That, combined with a CSI guy who is pretty good at his job despite his bumbling appearance, helps the cops figure out that Matt shot a buck and then the other guy attacked him, causing Matt to fall backward and his head on a rock (Dexter moved the rock but forgot to clear its imprint in the snow!). Then the assailant mixed Matt’s blood with the deer’s to try and throw off the scent. And we know that the CSI tech is correct. That’s exactly what happened.

With the case developing rapidly, Dexter must act fast to remove Matt’s body from beneath his firepit. He starts by creating a false scent trail to lead the dogs toward the highway where Fred “found” Matt’s glove previously.

As for moving the body, with mounting pressure from hallucination Deb, Dexter tries to find a spot that’s just right for long-term purposes. Long-term, as in, he plans to kill again? Supposedly no, but then Dexter starts to wonder if not killing for so long is what got him into trouble. He got rusty during his period of abstaining.

Dexter: New Blood episode 3 recap: Why did Kurt lie?

Dexter considers a few spots to dispose of Matt for good. The iron mines seem like the right fit until a massive grizzly quickly changes his mind.  Dexter ultimately decides to cremate Matt, sending a rain of his ashes showering down on the Iron Lake town square, where Dexter finds Kurt drunkenly celebrating. Why would a grieving father be getting drunk and happy at the local tavern?

Wondering the same thing, Dexter pulls over on the way home from the crematorium to check on Kurt, who is bursting with excitement that his son called him. He’s safe! Not only did Matt supposedly call Kurt, but they FaceTimed, confirming that his son is alive and safe. Except, we know that Matt is dead. Dexter knows that. Kurt might even know it. So, why is Kurt lying? Why would he change gears, seemingly out of nowhere, and start claiming that his son is fine?

His motivation would appear to be so he can get the cops to end their search party. But Kurt spent significant time convincing Angela and the cops to keep looking around, including berating Angela and her skills over the phone. This lie changes everything we’ve seen about Kurt thus far.

Could petro billionaire Edward Olsen be behind this? I’m pretty sure he’s the guy who kidnapped Lily. Maybe he forced Kurt’s hand to keep the cops from stumbling upon his killing grounds.

Dexter: New Blood episode 3 recap: Did Harrison just make a few enemies?

Harrison gets off to a rocky start during his first day at Iron Lake High School. Not long after dropping him off, Dexter gets a call from the principal asking him to come in. It turns out that Harrison somehow scored higher than any other student on his placement test. Seeing as the proctor left the room for 15 minutes, the principal assumes Harrison cheated by looking up the answers on his phone.

Dexter doesn’t exactly have his son’s back. Yet when Harrison retakes the test without his phone, he scores even higher. That’s one smart kid. And Dexter does apologize for not standing up for him, vowing to be on his side from that point forward. For his apology, Harrison calls him “dad.” “‘Dad,’ my new favorite word.” So cute.

Apart from the testing snafu, Harrison signs up for the wrestling team at the behest of a local cop, Logan, the team’s assistant coach. We don’t see him wrestle in this week’s episode, but Harrison is already at odds with a few of his teammates, the oafish jocks we met in the second episode, Zack and Scott.

It shouldn’t come as much of a shock that they’re bullies, regularly antagonizing another student named Ethan (Christian Dell’Edera). Part of their bullying tactics includes creating a fake girlfriend and catfishing him. Harrison catches onto this and helps Ethan stand up against them, immediately winning Ethan over.

Dexter: New Blood episode 3 recap: Will Ethan become a school shooter?

That night over a FaceTime call, Ethan expresses his gratitude to Harrison for helping him out and offers to show him some artwork he’s made about Zack and Scott. It’s extremely disturbing, to say the least. All of the images show Zack and Scott dead in increasingly violent and bloody ways with Ethan standing over them, a variety of weapons strapped to his ink-drawn figure. We’ve heard this story before and it doesn’t end well.

Judging by the preview for next week’s episode, Ethan might try to turn his dreams and drawings into reality, as the high school is put on lockdown. Is Ethan going to become a school shooter? Will Harrison stop him? Will Dexter?

Odds & Ends from Dexter: New Blood episode 3

• Jaime Chung arrives in this episode as notable true-crime podcast host Molly. She gets involved in the search for Matt and it looks like she’ll have a more significant role to play as the season progresses.
• Update on Lily: whoever kidnapped her (which is looking more and more like petro billionaire Edward Olsen) appears to be a twisted hunter who read The Most Dangerous Game one too many times. He lets Lily “escape” only to shoot her in the woods with a sniper rifle.
• Harrison has a near-violent altercation with Zack and Scott, threatening them if they mess with Ethan again with a smooth chokehold. He’s clearly experienced in violence. In the same way as his dad? It remains to be seen. He mentions to Ehtan that Zack and Scott know nothing about real violence, which is an interesting choice of words. Although, Harrison could also be referring to his memories of Rita’s murder at the end hands of the Trinity Killer.
• Audrey hates seeing the white buck killed by Matt hanging in a butcher shop like any old venison. With Harrison’s help and Angela’s permission, they plan a ceremony on Seneca land with other members of the reservation to honor the animal with a bonfire.

New episodes of Dexter: New Blood air Sunday nights on Showtime.