Michael C. Hall Talks Dexter’s Midlife Crisis in Resurrection Season 2

Everyone just wants some acknowledgment for a job well done. Even, it turns out, serial killers.

Since Dexter first premiered on Showtime in 2005, the titular Dexter Morgan (played by Michael C. Hall) has been hard at work making the world a safer place… in his own roundabout fashion. Through eight seasons in Miami (Dexter), one in upstate New York (Dexter: New Blood), and now two in New York City (Dexter: Resurrection), the blood splatter analyst has put his own murderous impulses and his dead father’s moral code to good use by killing other serial killers.

This intractable, if perverted, sense of justice has turned Dexter into a hero for TV-watching utilitarians across the globe (even if the most annoying among us occasionally have to point out that extrajudicial murder is usually bad). But that level of fame and acclaim is not something that Dexter himself often gets to enjoy. With few exceptions, the innocent people who learn of Dexter’s true nature react with horror and must be removed from the plot judiciously to keep the show going. Even though Dexter Morgan doesn’t kill the innocent, Dexter very much does.

Going into the second season of Dexter: Resurrection, the only person who knows the truth about Dexter and still accepts him for it is his son, Harrison (Jack Alcott). According to star Michael C. Hall, that level of isolation is finally starting to get to Dexter and manifest in an unusual, if predictable way: He’s experiencing a good-old fashioned midlife crisis.

“I think Dexter’s midlife crisis has to do with assessing where he’s been and what he’s done and realizing that he’s completely alone in his awareness of it,” Hall tells Den of Geek. “He’s not appreciated besides maybe his son who has his own sort of complicated, complex misgivings about what his father’s up to. The world doesn’t know how many people Dexter’s killed, how many lives he’s residually saved, and I think he craves witnesses and appreciation.”

Though some may balk at what Hall refers to as Dexter’s “spreadsheet sort of justification” for murder, the Bay Harbor Butcher will have plenty of opportunities to add to his moral ledger in Dexter: Resurrection season 2. In addition to returning season 1 killers Rapunzel (Eric Stonestreet) and Lady Vengeance (Krysten Ritter), the season is set to introduce other colorful criminals like the New York Ripper (Brian Cox) and the Five Borough Killer (Dan Stevens) for Dexter to contend with.

Of course, even if Dexter successfully dispatches the Ripper, the 5BK, and any other Big Apple-themed monster, he is still unlikely to get the recognition that he’s always craved. And that frustration only grows more acute as he ages.

“I’ve always imagined that a character like him entertains the idea of being known for what he does,” Hall says. “It’s always been the back of his mind, but it’s kind of knocking him on the head now as he gets older and finds himself on the other side of this new lease on life. He’s like, ‘Okay, now what?’ Is it that he’s a hero and he knows he’s not seen as one? ‘I can’t reveal who I am because I’ll be thought of as the opposite of what I know myself to be.'”

Perhaps one day Dexter Morgan will have his moment in the sun. It’s just going to take many more crises – midlife or otherwise – to get there.

Dexter: Resurrection premieres Friday, October 30 on Paramount+. New episodes debut weekly on Fridays.