Dexter: Resurrection's Kadia Saraf, Dominic Fumusa Talk Detectives' 'Moonlighting Energy' And Suspicions Of Harrison
The following contains spoilers for Episode 3 of Dexter: Resurrection!
Harrison Morgan may have taken out a predator and attempted to cover his tracks, but he's not out of the woods yet. Not by a long shot.
When Ryan Foster's dead body surfaces in the city — in pieces, nonetheless — Detectives Claudette Wallace (Kadia Saraf) and Melvin Oliva (Dominic Fumusa) begin to circle the Empire Hotel. Wallace is a shark, a woman who's able to see and deduce things way faster than the average person. She's highly observant, picking up on clues and details that most others would miss. While she may have an unconventional approach to crime solving, she's sharp, methodical and not who you'd want on the other side of things if you were to, say, murder a guy in a hotel bathroom and chop his body up into parts.
"Claudette sees things in ones and zeros," Saraf tells TVLine. "She sees it as black and white because there's so much over-complication of things. I think in the world of nuance, where everything exists in the world of Dexter, it's all in the gray area. She's able to take in every detail of that nuance by being very hyper-focused and simplifying things. So everybody else is complicating the world and she just sees it as, 'This is what it is.' She's not trying to be anything or prove anything. She just is."
In the series' third episode, Wallace grills Harrison on his relationship with Foster and the "errands" he ran for the newly deceased. Even though the detective is armed with hotel footage, Harrison tries to stay calm, downplaying his role as Foster's bellhop and knowledge of the drugged woman Foster was parading around. Harrison says he didn't enter the guest's hotel room, he simply exited via the service elevator and headed to a bar. Though Harrison lies about having an alibi, Wallace confirms that he's "not not a suspect."
When the detectives question Harrison a second time, Wallace tells him everything she figured out, and she's pretty spot-on. Harrison pivots by telling them he has a confession: He didn't leave the hotel that night (as he originally told them) because he lives there. And he has Elsa corroborate that.
Despite wiggling out of the detectives' grasp for now, Harrison should be worried. Very worried. Wallace's keen eye for details won't likely rest any time soon.
"She calculated it," adds Saraf, about Harrison's involvement in the murder. "She put the numbers and clues together and saw it right away. Again, simplifying it, right? It's simplifying everything."
"And yet that murder remains a mystery," says Fumusa, whose character is willing and able to play second fiddle to Wallace's masterful skills and hunches.
"Oliva has tremendous respect for Claudette, and I think the relationship works because he understands her in a way that most people, let alone most cops, do not," he says. "He gives her space to do her work the way she needs to do it. There's a real yin and yang going on, and there's a bit of a Moonlighting energy to it.
"What's brilliant is Clyde Phillips, our showrunner, and [executive producer] Scott Reynolds and the writers — they made these guys so interesting, and there's humor in their relationship," Fumusa adds. "They feed off of each other well. So even though they're technically looking for Dexter, perhaps there's somebody you can root for along the way."
Are you worried for Harrison now that he's squarely in Wallace's crosshairs? Sound off in the comments!