Stream On! ‘Dexter’ sequel and prequel, done right
Dexter moves to upstate New York, and recalls his early life, in two recent spinoffs.
When we first met Dexter Morgan, in 2006, he was a fully formed thirty-something serial killer that narrated his own story, occasionally referring to his childhood. Then the saga was interrupted, as sagas are … until we picked it up again in 2021 and continued, in New Blood, until it was apparently terminated. Then in 2024 came a prequel, Original Sin. Both new series are worthy of the name “Dexter.”
/Streaming /Amazon /🍅77%🍿74% /Trailer /2021 /TVMA
Dexter Morgan (Michael C. Hall, Dexter, Six Feet Under) has moved from Miami to Iron Lake, New York, under the pseudonym of Jim Lindsay. There he works at a local wilderness sporting gear store. He has a romantic relationship with the town's chief of police, Angela Bishop, and has been successfully suppressing his serial killing urges. Dexter's sister Debra (Dexter), is an imaginary presence he often speaks to.
In the first episode, Dexter's estranged son from his previous life, Harrison Morgan, arrives unannounced with mysterious motives. There’s some luggage for you! A string of incidents around Iron Lake causes Dexter to fear that his “Dark Passenger” will reveal itself also in Harrison.
A reckless local named Matt Caldwell pushes Dexter to sell him a high-end hunting rifle. Dexter learns Caldwell once ran his powerboat into another craft, killing five people. While it was reported as an accident, Caldwell's friend assures Dexter the act was intentional. When Caldwell then illegally shoots a white deer that Dexter frequently sees during his daily excursions, Dexter's own “Dark Passenger” begins to resurface.
The Rotten Tomatoes critics consensus reads, “Anchored by Michael C. Hall's still-compelling portrayal of the title character, Dexter: New Blood helps restore some of the luster lost by the [Dexter’s] contentious finale.”
DEXTER: ORIGINAL SIN
/Streaming /Amazon /🍅68%🍿76% /Trailer /2024 /TVMA
The first episode of the prequel picks up from the finale of Dexter: New Blood, where after being apparently fatally shot, Dexter Morgan (Michael C. Hall) is taken by the police to a hospital, where his “life flashes before [his] eyes” to when he first began working as a forensic blood spatter analyst at the Miami Metro Police Department. So Dexter in the present is like Schrödinger’s Cat, which can be thought of as both alive and dead (before we can observe him and find out).
The rest of the narrative is set when Dexter was a teenager, fifteen years before the events of the original series. He’s played here by Patrick Gibson (The Tudors), who, like others playing younger versions of Dexter characters, has studied Michael C. Hall’s mannerisms and body language well. Michael C. Hall still voices the first-person narration. (Others in the cast are Molly Brown as young Deb Morgan, James Martinez as young Angel Batista, and Alex Shimizu as a young, not bald but yes, creepy, Vince Masuka, complete with machine-gun laugh.)
Christian Slater (Mr. Robot) plays a younger Harry, Dexter’s adoptive father who tries to give him a moral outlet for his serial killer urges. Slater doesn’t look much like the original “Harry” actor, James Remar, but hey, it’s Christian Slater, so—fine!
Further flashbacks to the 1980’s, before Dexter’s mom (played by Brittany Allen) found herself in the fateful shipping container, are color-graded like the super-saturated Polaroid snapshots of the time, a very good idea. In Dexter, Harry tells Dexter some of this story, his story; in Original Sin we learn a lot more.
And we see Dexter’s first kills, before he tweaked his system to its peak efficiency, and his first days as a new hire with the Miami Metro Police Department. It’s as much fun as Dexter was; maybe a little more, because the audience knows how things will turn out.
Upon its release Dexter: Original Sin became Showtime's most streamed premiere with over 2.1 million global cross-platform viewers.
Sources include Wikipedia (Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License); The Wrap
Pete Hummers is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to earn fees by linking Amazon.com and affiliate sites. This adds nothing to Amazon's prices. This column originally appeared on The Outer Banks Voice.