In early 2021, titular star Michael C. Hall told The Daily Beast about the reboot, “I think in this case, the story that’s being told is worth telling in a way that other proposals didn’t, and I think enough time has passed where it’s become intriguing in a way that it wasn’t before.” The original series followed the life of Dexter Morgan (Hall), a blood-spatter analyst by day, vigilante serial killer by night, who relies on his late father’s strict moral code to keep his murderous urges in check. Motivated to stop killing by the love for his son, Harrison, and his sister Deb (JenniferCarpenter) but unable to deny his “dark passenger,” Dexter must protect his image in the Miami Metro Police Department. Hall added, “And let’s be real: People found the way [the] show left things pretty unsatisfying, and there’s always been a hope that a story would emerge that would be worth telling. I include myself in the group of people that wondered, ‘What the hell happened to that guy?’ So, I’m excited to step back into it. I’ve never had that experience of playing a character this many years on.” Here’s everything you need to know about Dexter: New Blood!
Is there a Dexter: New Blood trailer?
Fans were treated to the first exclusive sneak peek trailer of New Blood in July 2021. In the trailer, we see Dexter Morgan seemingly talking to a therapist about how he “went away” in order to escape his demons. Working in what appears to be a knife-and-gun-shop in a small, reclusive town, Dexter narrates over the trailer about how he fakes his life and denies his urges to kill. But as the text overlay says: You can hide from your past but you can’t run away. And while the trailer offers several glimpses of knives, guns and other various weapons meant to tempt Dexter, there’s only a single shot of blood at the end. For a show that has revolved a lot around blood, that feels particularly ominous.
Is Dexter coming back in 2021?
Yes! Dexter first premiered on Showtime 15 years ago and ran for eight seasons before ending with a question-raising series finale in 2013. Now, in 2021, Hall, original showrunner Clyde Phillips, and executive producer-slash-director Macros Siega are reuniting for New Blood, which is set to premiere on Sun, Nov. 7 at 9 p.m. ET on Showtime and will feature 10 episodes.
Is Dexter coming back for Season 9?
The new installment—with the full title of Dexter: New Blood—has been referred to frequently as the ninth season of Dexter. However, Phillips wants viewers to remember that it’s not as much a Season 9 as it is a miniseries or reboot. “One of the things that Michael insisted on, and he was completely right, was that this not be Dexter Season 9,” Phillips told Variety. “This not the next moment after the lumberjack moment… We pick up with Dexter in another place, in another world, actually, as far away from Miami as possible.”
When does Dexter: New Blood premiere?
You can catch the Season 9 debut on Showtime on Sunday, November 7 at 9 p.m. ET.
Are there any Dexter: New Blood spoilers?
Yep! The show’s official Twitter account has revealed that this time around, Dexter will be going by a new alias: James (or more casually, Jim) Lindsay. The show’s also shared “Jim”’s driver’s license—which, as one fan account noticed, shaved a few years off his age. Back in July 2021, Phillips also told The Hollywood Reporter, “We basically do get to start from scratch… Ten years, or however many years, have passed by the time this will air, and the show will reflect that time passage. So far as the ending of the show, this will have no resemblance to how the original finale was. It’s a great opportunity to write a second finale.”
Is Jennifer Carpenter coming back to Dexter?
Jennifer Carpenter played Debra Morgan (also known as Deb) on Dexter and though she portrayed Dexter’s sister on the show, Carpenter and Hall were actually a married couple in real life. Despite their 2011 divorce (which took place while the show was still going on), they continued to co-star. Now, sources for The Hollywood Reporter have confirmed that Carpenter is returning for New Blood. Back in 2013, after insisting that her own character be killed off the show, Carpenter said, “[It would take] an extraordinary script many, many, many years from now. I don’t know if that’s possible because people don’t come back from the dead.” While Carpenter makes no appearance in the New Blood trailer and she’s also not mentioned by name or even subtly referenced, it’s quite possible that she turns up in the reboot.
Is John Lithgow in the new Dexter?
The Hollywood Reporter has also claimed that JohnLithgow, who played Arthur Mitchell, will also reprise his role in NewBlood. Like Carpenter, his character is expected to appear in flashbacks or dream sequences, given that (spoileralert!) Hall’s character offed him in the show’s Season 4 finale. However, it’s possible that Lithgow’s participation on the project will be relatively minor; in June 2021, Deadline reported, “Lithgow is expected to only film for about a day or so on the L.A.-set production.” That seems to be corroborated by the Dexter: New Blood IMDb page, which only notes Lithgtow as appearing in one episode.
Where did Dexter leave off?
Avid fans of the original series may remember that the Season 8 finale left things in Dexter’s world pretty tenuous. Entitled Remember the Monsters?, the final episode culminated with Deb, Dexter’s sister, getting shot and then suffering a fatal stroke at the hands of Dexter’s own mistake and Dexter committing apparent suicide. In the final minutes of the Season 8 finale, we learned that Dexter’s sometimes-girlfriend and accomplice-in-murder Hannah and his son Harrison escaped to Buenos Aires, where they get word of Dexter’s death. However, the viewers see that Dexter isn’t dead—he faked his suicide and abandoned his son in order to save them. Now, he has assumed a new life and a new identity working for a lumber company in Oregon while Hannah raises Harrison overseas.
Why did Dexter kill Deb?
In the penultimate episode of Season 8, Dexter called Deb—who was then privy to his murderous urges—to arrest Saxon. While on her way to arrest the detained Saxon, things got convoluted: Clayton followed Debra, then Saxon killed Clayton and also shot Debra. In the finale, Deb successfully underwent surgery for her gunshot wound, but suffered a stroke that left her in a permanently vegetative state. Before faking his own death and escaping to live a new life in Oregon, Dexter went to the hospital to remove Deb’s life support. He then took her body from the hospital, piloted his boat out to sea, and dropped Deb’s body in the ocean. This has led many Dexter fans to question: Why did Dexter choose to take Deb off life support? Why did he end her life? While there’s no easy answer, many infer that the stroke left Deb in a permanently vegetative state, and seeing that his sister would have a difficult “life” spent on a ventilator ahead of her, Dexter chose the compassionate route. Of her character’s Season 8 death, Carpenter once said, “The only thing I didn’t want was for Dexter to kill her. In a strange way, I wanted her [death] to be a suicide. I wanted Deb to take the one thing that was totally alive in his life away. But how it played out was much better. Deb deserved to die an organic death. Yes, she was shot, but it was something that she signed up for long before she ever joined the force. I was really satisfied. It was incredibly cathartic for me as an actor to set it down in such a way. The way Dexter sets her body in the water is how I felt like I was able to let it drift.”
Where to watch Dexter: New Blood
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