Michael C. Hall Views Dexter: Resurrection As a “Second Chance”

As it turns out, the name of Showtime’s latest Dexter spinoff is pretty literal.

Following the events of 2021 miniseries Dexter: New Blood, iconic fictional serial killer (who kills other serial killers) Dexter Morgan was in need of a resurrection. That’ll happen when your own progeny shoots you in the chest upon experiencing a “Take Your Son to Work Day” gone horribly wrong. That revival now arrives in the series fittingly titled Dexter: Resurrection.

How, exactly, can a blood splatter analyst/serial murderer who evaded Miami homicide detectives for eight-plus seasons cheat death once again? Eh, don’t worry about that. Not even Dexter’s would-be killer is super clear on the details. Upon receiving a phone call from Dexter and New Blood showrunner Clyde Phillips about returning for a fresh spinoff, Harrison Morgan actor Jack Alcott was surprised to hear that he didn’t successfully take out his dad.

“I was like ‘What … woah! How? He’s not dead? I didn’t get him?’ If any show can pull that off it’s Dexter. As I got the scripts and sort of got to dive in I realized this totally works. It’s nice to read it and be like ‘oh this tracks.'”

What’s important is that Dexter Morgan is back and the actor who plays him is ready for a fresh start with a character he’s portrayed for close to 20 years.

“I was compelled by the idea that if Dexter didn’t die from this gunshot wound, he would be waking up to a life that was genuinely a second chance,” Hall says. “You can’t go back in time to right the wrongs but you can move forward. It’s about a more potent sense of what is and isn’t important and who he is and who he isn’t and who he wants to be.”

Dexter Morgan certainly has a lot to answer for. Introduced by writer Jeff Lindsay in the 2004 novel Darkly Dreaming Dexter, the character would go on to star in several more book stories and receive an eponymous pay cable TV adaptation in 2006 that thrust him into the all-time canon of TV antiheroes. After slaying countless murderers who slipped through the cracks of the justice system, however, Dexter Morgan faced his most challenging nemesis yet: the simple passage of time.

It’s easy enough to suspend one’s disbelief that that a single vigilante can find and eliminate a handful of serial killers in South Florida while avoiding detection of his Miami Metro Homicide coworkers for a couple of seasons. It becomes significantly harder to suspend that disbelief when the number of episodes of killed killers reaches the dozens. Dexter concluded in a season 8 “series” finale that found the Bay Harbor Butcher faking his own death to retire to a life of lumberjackin’. That era of quiet contemplation in upstate New York was interrupted with New Blood and now, according to Hall, it’s time to put all that introspection to good use.

“For many years, the character has been doing a kind of penance. He was in self-imposed exile. He was carrying around a heavy weight of the collateral damage that all his mistakes created. And he doesn’t forget about these things, but I think he’s ready to put them down and move forward with more lightness. Obviously it’s still a very dark world but he’s not as burdened as he has been.”

Though Dexter is largely unburdened by the past this time around, Dexter: Resurrection still finds a way to bring back some ghosts – both literal and metaphorical. Following in the footsteps of the departed Maria LaGuerta and James Doakes, Angel Batista (David Zayas) becomes the latest Miami PD detective to belatedly realize something is up with that weird guy from work and tracks Dexter down to New York City, which served as a homecoming for the actor portraying him.

“It’s interesting because this is my home,” Zayas says of Resurrection‘s setting and filming location. “The area where we shot is where I’ve spent much time in my life. But the challenge was to not play that because Angel Batista is from Miami. I really dug in to try and play the cold crowdedness of it. How the police department in New York deals with certain things, he might have dealt differently with in Miami.”

James Remar returns as Dexter’s deceased father and creator of his serial killing code of conduct, Harry Morgan. Joining him are other familiar faces from days gone by.

“It was amazing to spend time with those characters from Dexter’s past and those actors from my past,” Hall says. “It just sort of roots the character and me in a real sense of the rich mythology of this world. Starting there was like a fertile soil from which this new story could grow.”

See? The title is super literal.

The first two episodes of Dexter: Resurrection premiere July 11 on Paramount+. Both episodes will air on Showtime on Sunday, July 13 at 8 p.m. ET.