Dexter on Paramount+ review: One of modern pulp TV's great creations is still tremendous fun
Paramount+
, Friday), which relocates
Michael C Hall
's charming chopper to New York, where he crosses paths with a coven of serial killers.
It's grippingly giddy viewing – and the ever-reliable Hall is joined by a high-wattage cast including
Uma Thurman
,
Krysten Ritter
and
Peter Dinklage
. There are also cameos from various figures from Dexter's past – fans of the original show, which blazed a bloody path from 2006 to 2013, are sure to have fun ticking off the returning names.
Dexter arrived during the glory days of prestige TV – it debuted four years after The Wire and 12 months before Mad Men. But it never quite had the quality to rank alongside such classics, and its charms were generally of the ludicrous variety before it ultimately went off the rails – a decline in quality that has gone down in the annals of popcorn television.
Rock bottom came in the 2013 finale when Dexter vanished from his hunting ground in Miami during a hurricane, faked his death, and relocated to upstate New York. That's where Resurrection begins after Dexter begged his son Harrison to kill him last season. That was to help Harrison expunge his own murderous instincts. He failed, however, and Dexter wakes in hospital with his child having vanished.
READ MORE
He is happy to recuperate while interrupted by demons from his past. But when Dexter hears of the killing in New York of a sexual predator, he recognises the murderer's methods as his own. Harrison (Jack Alcott) is on the prowl and seemingly continuing Dexter's mission of using his gory gifts not for evil but good (by taking out the genuine monsters in society). And so it's off to New York in search of his son – only to discover more than he bargained for.
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Hall is solid as the blankly suave Dexter and delivers an impressive portrayal of a man with plenty bouncing around inside his head but with a cold emptiness where his soul should be. As with previous incarnations of the franchise, the going is thoroughly hokey – but it's still tremendous fun. One of modern pulp TV's great creations has never felt more alive than in the enjoyable Dexter: Resurrection.
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Irish Times
12 hours ago
- Irish Times
Katie Taylor erases all the question marks with her third win over Amanda Serrano
The trilogy ends. And there were hints, too, in the sweet early hours of Saturday morning that this might be all she wrote for Katie Taylor as well. After a raucous night on the fringes of Hell's Kitchen, Taylor closed the books on her riveting series of fights against Amanda Serrano and finished with an unblemished record. Just as she had promised during the week of promotion in New York, she got it done. These athletes will age and finally retire, and the record books will record that the Irish fighter ended with a perfect three wins from three against the Puerto Rican. That bare statistic reveals nothing of the closeness or true controversies or the mutual respect contained within these encounters. It was a lofty sports rivalry. But in the end, Taylor managed to erase the question marks and silence the grumbles after their previous two battles to finish with a supremely controlled performance. She owned the night. Taylor has pioneered what has been a marvel of a fighting life by executing it precisely on her own terms. So it went in New York. Madison Square Garden was something to behold. That area around Eighth and the lower 30s is a 24-hour confluence of extreme tourism and city poverty and grit. All of human life was outside the arena on Friday night. Inside, a wildly partisan and noisy sell-out crowd filled with Puerto Rican and Irish fans, both in a mood to celebrate. The previous encounters had led them to expect something primal. READ MORE 'The atmosphere was absolutely electric tonight,' Taylor said when she sat down late into the night, Madison Square Garden low-lit now and empty except for the staff who were locking up. 'And to be headlining an all-female card was an absolute privilege. These are the sort of opportunities that people didn't even think possible a few years ago. The two fights previous ended up complete wars and I came out the ring battered and bruised, and I was thinking, why am I just standing there fighting her? I knew I was capable of moving my legs and just outboxing her. And I was just happy that I was able to execute the game plan Ross [Enamait] was telling me to do all along. I used the ring a lot better tonight. My feet were a lot better tonight. I felt it was my kind of fight, and my kind of pace as well.' [ Tuning out the noise, Katie Taylor steels herself for last dance with Amanda Serrano Opens in new window ] Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano embrace after the fight. Photograph: Gary Carr/Inpho Taylor looked at peace as she spoke. In Texas last winter, her face was swollen and cut after her war with Serrano. This time, a single bruise to her cheekbone where Serrano's head actually glanced against hers. She finished the fight fresher, gliding on the edges of the danger zone and comprehensively outscoring the Puerto Rican, who was exhausted from trying to make her punches land against the elusive Irish woman. Listening to her, it was hard to predict if she will fight again. 'I don't know,' she said of the future. 'I am just going to enjoy this victory right now and sit back and reflect. I am very, very happy with tonight's performance and just the amount of work I am doing over the past few months, myself and Ross, it was a gruelling few months of preparation and I'm so glad I was able to showcase what I could do tonight.' Katie Taylor in action against Puerto Rican American boxer Amanda Serrano. Photograph: Sarah Yenesel/EPA Make no mistake, the crowd in the Garden came in the belief that the fight would break into a gladiatorial brawl as soon as the first bell sounded and would move into uncharted country from there. As it turned out, the flashpoints of furious engagements were periodic and brief but with each one, the decibel level in the arena turned deafening. It's hard to imagine the noise levels had the athletes just forgotten their instructions and submitted to the crowd instincts and wish for a schoolyard brawl. In the second round, a familiar pattern began to establish itself: Serrano hunting, Taylor circling the ring, avoiding trouble and seeking to pick off clean punches. The dam threatened to break with 45 seconds remaining in the third, when Taylor, leading with the ultra-accurate left jab, landed three quick punches on the Puerto Rican. Serrano countered with a flurry of her own but Taylor, at 39, has lost little of her ability to become a ghost in the ring: she was gone. On it went, Serrano in the middle of the canvas, searching out Taylor, who used that wonderful footwork and pure boxing supremacy to guide her through the 10 rounds of two minutes. Judge Mark Lyson scored the fight a draw but the other two, Steve Weisfeld and Nicolas Esnault, had it emphatically in Taylor's favour, 97-93, and, in or around midnight, Taylor was still the undisputed super featherweight champion of the world. Katie Taylor makes her entrance to the fight at Madison Square Garden. Photograph: Gary Carr/Inpho The Irish crowd was delighted and it was impossible to hear what Taylor said in the ring afterwards. But she was effusive in her praise of Serrano, and of her faith, and struck an uncertain note when asked about what the future holds now. 'Maybe Croke Park?' she laughed when asked if she could promise her Irish supporters at least one more bout. 'That would be unbelievable. I said it in the ring earlier – these people are spending their hard-earned money to come over and support me. It means the world. And I can't believe this is my life – I'm heading a show in Madison Square Garden, an all-female card. Looking back at the whole journey – what an amazing ride. These are the nights I dreamed of a kid, and I am just so happy and so grateful. What an amazing champion. We created history together three times. My name will always be embedded with hers and I am very happy about that. It's amazing to have a rival like that in the sport.' Katie Taylor celebrates winning alongside her mother, Bridget. Photograph: Gary Carr/Inpho As an event, the Netflix-streamed all-women's card was a glittering success, drawing a close to sell-out crowd and giving the women's fight game an unprecedented stage. Afterwards, Taylor's promoter, Matchroom chief Eddie Hearn, beaming and wearing an Emerald green bucket cap, made the reasonable point that Taylor has been the alchemist for all of this. 'I'm not speaking on Katie's behalf, but I know she's always wanted female boxing to sit alongside men's boxing. It's not two codes. And I've always said that Katie Taylor is not just one of the greatest female fighters of all time but one of the greatest fighters of all time. And that was the barrier that she broke. 'So, we don't compare the female and the male code. It's just boxing. But. What they did tonight was give so many opportunities to so many great female fighters and big pay-days and she won't say it: it is down to her.' Katie Taylor greets fans after winning her bout with Amanda Serrano. Photograph: Gary Carr/Inpho [ Shaping the Century: 25 brilliant Irish women in 2025 Opens in new window ] Whether the sport can produce a rivalry as compelling and high-quality as Taylor and Serrano remains to be seen. Both have earned six-figure pay-days from their rivalry and thrust the women's fight game into a spotlight that would have seemed fanciful when Taylor set out on the professional circuit nine years ago. The Irish crowd stayed to give her a deafening ovation before heading back out to the delights of the island. 'I don't think anybody could deny I won tonight's fight, so it is very satisfying,' Taylor said finally. 'There was a controversy in those decisions, so I feel very, very satisfied right now that it was lights-out.'
Irish Times
a day ago
- Irish Times
Scarlett Johansson has set a box office record. But could the movie star be out of a job?
Somewhere out there, a Statler or a Waldorf is arguing that Scarlett Johansson is no Clark Gable. She's not even a Myrna Loy. They don't make them like that any more. Blah-blah. We will get to the relevance of those particular veterans in a moment, but, whatever one's feelings about Johansson, it cannot be denied that she has claimed one high-profile record all for herself. This week it emerged that she is now the highest-grossing lead actor of all time. This is not to say she is the best-paid actor. (Last year that was Duane 'the Rock' Johnson.) But movies starring Johansson have made more than movies starring anybody else. The co-lead of the current smash Jurassic World: Rebirth passes out Samuel L Jackson with her lifetime total of $14.9 billion, or about €12.7 billion. Robert Downey jnr , Zoë Saldaña and Chris Pratt complete the top five. [ Jurassic World: Rebirth review – the plot is mid-level dumb but 'good film' belongs among its keywords Opens in new window ] Words can scarcely express what a flawed metric this is for establishing the biggest – not to mention the greatest – movie star of all time. Inflation strips the figures of some relevancy, but, when it comes to the all-time box-office charts, the unadjusted number one remains something worth fighting over. Avatar, the current champ, is, astonishingly, still number two when you tweak for inflation. READ MORE No, the real issue is to do with the withering potency of the movie star. Almost none of the films that got Johansson to the top was sold on her name. This is no slight on an eminently likable and charismatic actor. The same can be said of the four who complete that top five. Scar-Jo gets there thanks to her role as Black Widow in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and, now, as gun-toting team leader in that Jurassic World movie. The stand-alone Black Widow film, released as we were coming out of Covid, is the lowest-grossing of her MCU flicks. Jackson and Downey jnr are also Marvel alumni. Saldaña registers for the MCU and the two Avatar films. Pratt scores for the MCU and the previous three Jurassic World films. So registering on this list is all about getting yourself signed on for the biggest franchises of the day. It has been said before; it will be said again. The intellectual property (as we grandly label familiar source material) is now the real star of the movie. What the hell is the name of the guy in that new Superman flick ? Dirk Cornswoggle? Doug Clangpiglet? Never mind. It's Superman, baby. At the risk of encouraging Statler and Waldorf, let us note that it was very much not this way in the old days. In 2000, TLA Releasing set out to tabulate the stars who had sold the most tickets at the box office through the decades. This is obviously a better model than highest grosser, as inflation has no bearing. [ Scarlett Johansson: 'I had a very formidable grandmother who I was incredibly close with' Opens in new window ] The results bring us back to a whole different universe. If you wished to be cynical you could still see this as a chart of brands, but the brand – honed and primped by the studio system – is the actor, not what then was not called a franchise. Gable, star of the annihilating Gone with the Wind, is at number one with 1.2 billion tickets sold. John Wayne is there at number two, with 1.1 billion. Everyone in that top 10 had an easily summarised type – avuncular Bing Crosby, homely Jimmy Stewart, suave Cary Grant and so on – and each knew not to swerve too far from that template. The only one who points towards our current compromised future is Harrison Ford, at number nine. True, he had already clocked up a bunch of Star Wars and Indiana Jones flicks, but, even in those, he felt like a craggy visitor from the golden age. The bad news for sentimental old fogeys is that no woman makes the top 10. It is, indeed, Myrna Loy who scrapes in first, at number 11, a few places ahead of Bette Davis and Judy Garland. All recognisable brands. Each the most saleable aspect of the films in which they starred. For all that sighing towards a supposedly golden past, one would have trouble arguing that Johansson is an unworthy candidate for stellar elevation. If not her then who else? True, she can't open a film like Bette Davis once did. But nobody can do that any more. Everything else about Johansson radiates vintage glamour. When she graduated from juvenile roles to adult lead, with Lost in Translation, in 2003, it was immediately apparent that we had a movie star on our hands. The worry is that the job of movie star is now as redundant as that of lamplighter, crossing sweeper or court jester. That Superman guy's name will come to me in a minute.
Irish Times
a day ago
- Irish Times
Austin Taylor: ‘I found it so fascinating and poignant how we portray women in the media, especially powerful women who make mistakes'
Austin Taylor is speaking to me from her parents' attic in the farmhouse where she grew up in rural Maine. The 26-year-old is the picture of vibrant youth – glowing skin, a long mane of thick blonde hair and an easy-going demeanour. She is about to begin a law degree at Stanford University and has already completed a double degree in chemistry and English at Harvard – they call it a double concentrator. She has also just published her debut novel, Notes On Infinity , which she sold in the US for a seven-figure sum. You could call her an over-achiever, but I'm not sure she'd agree. In fact, not too long ago, she felt like a failure. 'I certainly felt intense pressure at Harvard. You're surrounded by people doing incredible cutting-edge work, especially in the sciences. You're surrounded by the legacy of people who have come through the institution before you who have done incredible things. You're surrounded by professors who are doing amazing research and teaching, and your peers who have amazing ideas and are working on really cool stuff in addition to taking five classes a semester and doing really well. There's a sense that if you're not doing something absolutely incredible, you're falling short or failing. I certainly felt that way.' It's something she wanted to explore in Notes On Infinity, particularly around the 'move fast and break things' culture that exists at the nexus of scientific research and venture capital-funded biotech start-ups. The book tells the story of Zoe and Jack, two brilliant Harvard students whose breakthrough scientific discoveries prompt them to drop out and set up a biotech company that claims to have found the cure for ageing. It's a classic Icarus tale of young idealism warped by greed and ambition. 'The dollar amounts are just unimaginable,' she says of biotech VC funding, 'especially for really young people. I think the incentive structures that that amount of money creates are often problematic and scary, especially in science, because science is fundamentally such a slow, iterative, uncertain process and business, especially in pitching a start-up, is all about positive spin. And that's a fundamental tension. And sometimes that creates awesome innovation and other times it creates fire and broken glass and damage.' You can probably guess which of these paths her book follows. READ MORE [ Rethink needed on meeting the demand for Stem graduates Opens in new window ] The novel was somewhat inspired by the scandal surrounding Elizabeth Holmes and her blood-diagnostic start-up, Theranos. Holmes, a brilliant and beautiful scientist, was the face of the company but was eventually jailed for defrauding investors in a spectacular fall from grace. In Notes On Infinity, Taylor's protagonist Zoe is a beautiful, brilliant young woman who also becomes the face of her and Jack's start-up. 'One of the things I was interested in exploring was the obsession with women in [ Stem ] spaces and the tokenisation of women in these spaces. Elizabeth Holmes was lauded for her gender during Theranos's rise, then after its fall she was demonised for her gender. I heard a disturbing number of comments about how she must have used her sexuality to manipulate male funders. That fixation on gender and self-presentation and hair and clothes and make-up, I do think it's heightened by the fact that women are such a minority in science. Former Theranos chief executive Elizabeth Holmes leaving court in San Jose, California, in March 2023. Photograph: Jeff Chiu/AP/PA 'I did consume a lot of the reporting on the Holmes case because I found it so fascinating and poignant, particularly on issues of gender, how we portray women in the media, especially powerful women who make mistakes.' Taylor's path from growing up as the only child of a dairy farmer in rural Maine to taking a double degree at Harvard to becoming a sought-after debut author about to embark on a legal career is remarkably grounded. 'I had a pretty idyllic, rural childhood. I rode horses and worked on the farm in the summers, milking cows. But I was also very invested in school and I played a lot of sports and I had access to lots of great opportunities.' Her decision to go to Harvard was motivated by the pursuit of academic excellence, but when she arrived on campus, she felt out of place. 'That transition was pretty jarring, which is something that comes out in the novel. I didn't realise the extent to which most people at Harvard would have already been embedded in that sort of community of people who will go to Harvard. There are lots of ways that you can be in that pipeline, so I'm not talking about legacy or family connections, but people had gone to the same summer camps, or done the same competitive academic things like debate or math olympiad, or they had played sports together, and I truly had no connection to the institution at all, so when I showed up on campus for the admitted students weekend it was like everyone else already had friends and they knew how to act and they knew where things were and what parties were going on, and I was like how am I already not a part of this? " Her choice of degree – chemistry – reinforced that feeling of being an outsider. 'I was convinced I needed to do something practical with my college time. There were lots of people questioning my decision to even go to Harvard. I think this is really common in rural areas actually. You can go for free to your state university so people are like, why would you choose to go to this elite university that feels very other to our community, particularly when you're going to be paying an amount of money, that seems silly? That divide and that perception is only worse now, given all of the things that are going on in America. I think that and coming from a farming family gave me this fixation that I needed to do a hard science, be practical and have a skill.' When she took some English classes, it reignited her childhood love of writing. 'If you had asked me when I was 10, 'what do you want to be when you grow up?', I would have said 'writer'…but I came to realise that was a not a particularly stable or likely career path. In fact, I think it seemed like a total pipe dream, so I turned away." After college, she worked for a non-profit in New York for a year before returning to her family home to take a year out in an attempt to recover from debilitating migraines. 'I had some time and I thought, what I've actually always wanted to do was to be a writer, so let me try.' But it wasn't all smooth sailing. She wrote a novel, and submitted it to publishers but couldn't find a home for it. 'Which was very upsetting,' she says. But even as that first novel was dying on submission, she had already moved on to Notes On Infinity . Where did she find the determination to push on with another book in the face of that early rejection? 'I think it was mostly that I was really compelled by the idea for Notes. And I was really convinced that it could be special. Then there was a degree of stubbornness, which is part of my personality for better or for worse, and also a degree of naivety, which was necessary for me to do the whole thing. I think if I had thought too hard about how likely any of this was to work out, I simply wouldn't have done it because the odds are so low.' [ Pat O'Connor: 'Why would girls study Stem if they have no career path afterwards?' Opens in new window ] The book deals – in addition to the American deal, the book has sold for six figures in the UK, and at auction in Germany – have changed her life, she says. They've given her the time and space to get better at writing, although she says she has not yet touched any of the money. 'I don't think I've ever had a phone call where there was a 'you-should-sit-down' moment. Even the first payments are more money than I've ever seen in one place, ever.' She is planning on working as an attorney with an interest in the interface between AI and media and arts. 'I recognise we must make space for AI's vast potential but, as a firm believer in the power and importance of good storytelling, I am concerned that existing legal frameworks provide inadequate protection for writers and the publishing ecosystem.' She has no plans to stop writing – a double concentrator in life too, it seems. In fact she has already finished a draft of her second novel, which will centre around a similar subculture of very powerful young male tech founders and a young woman's relationship with an older, more professionally powerful man. But she is very excited to be going to Stanford – to study law, and for the weather too, which is balmier than the northerly climes she is used to, but also for another reason … 'I've started drafting my third novel…" she says. 'And it's going to be set in Silicon Valley.' Notes on Infinity by Austin Taylor is published by Michael Joseph.
