How ‘Original Sin’ brings Michael C. Hall back from the dead

(This story contains major spoilers from the premiere of Dexter: Original Sin.)

Last time Dexter viewers saw Dexter Morgan, the serial killer played by Michael C. Hall was dead.

In the final episode of Showtime’s 2022 Dexter revival series, Dexter: New bloodDexter asked his grown son Harrison (played by Jack Alcott) to kill him in hopes of stopping the cycle and giving Harrison a better life. So Harrison shoots him in the chest. “You did good,” were Dexter’s last words as he bleeds in the snow in upstate New York. “Let me die so my son can live,” Hall said in voiceover to close the series.

When he subsequently talked about why he killed his anti-hero in the finale, called “Sins of the Father”, Dexter‘s former showrunner and New Blood creator Clyde Phillips, who left the original series halfway through its eight seasons, explained why they owed it to Dexter audience to kill him.

“After the bad taste in a lot of people’s mouths at the end of season eight — what we call ‘the first finale’ (of Dexterwhich ended in 2013 and saw him fake his death and disappear to the middle of nowhere with a new identity) — we knew that to have Dexter escape and have him continue to do this, the show was done. The storytelling of that was done,” Phillips explained The Hollywood Reporter then. “The legitimacy, the honesty, the dignity and the integrity of the character of Dexter that we so painstakingly built over almost a decade almost demanded that we end the show this way. We wanted viewers to hopefully be sad about this loss and feel satisfied and understand that this had to happen; that this was inevitable.”

So Dexter is dead, right? Well, not anymore.

The first minutes of Dexter: Original Sin reveal that Dexter Morgan is alive. The Showtime prequel series, which began streaming its weekly 10-episode season on Friday, follows Dexter (played in a cameo by Hall) as he is transported from the snow to a hospital, where doctors bring him back to life after a catastrophic blood loss from a gunshot wound.

“I’ve experienced death so many times, but never my own,” Hall says as Dexter in voiceover as his heart starts beating again. “It really is as they say: Your life flashes before your eyes.”

The prequel series was first announced in early 2023 amid Showtime’s plans to expand its successful franchises. As the series began to take shape, Hall, who is an executive producer, began Original sinwas confirmed to return to voice the inner monologue of Dexter, played by star Patrick Gibson in the prequel series.

But the fact that future Dexter is actually alive and well was kept a secret until now.

speaks to THR now years later, Phillips gives a simple reason why he and Hall decided to change Dexter’s fate and reopen the franchise’s legacy. It also involves the sequel series, Dexter: Resurrectioncoming in the summer of 2025, with Hall once again playing the lead role of Dexter.

“When I wrote it (New Blood) finale — which, by the way, was the most-watched single episode in Showtime history — the internet went crazy over it. Because they loved Dexter so much and they love Michael Hall so much,” Phillips recalls of the outpouring of reaction to Dexter’s death. “I wanted to take out ads at the time that said, ‘I only had Michael Hall for a year.’ Back when we did it New BloodI only had him for a year.”

He continues: “I didn’t want him to go to jail or disappear into the fog or anything like that (in the finale), so I decided to be bold about it. The internet hated it.”

Then he got a call from Hall.

“Michael came back to me and said, ‘You know what, Dexter is in my bones; Dexter is in your bones, Clyde. Let’s keep going. Can you figure out a way to make it happen?’ And I did,” he says.

Phillips even shares a scientific explanation for how Dexter survived the gunshot. “As we will learn at the beginning of Resurrectionif Dexter had been shot on a summer day, he would have died. But he was shot in zero degree temperature in the snow. He didn’t bleed out and they were able to save him. That’s how we were able to revive him.”

So if Original sin is the flashback that now plays out in present-day Dexter’s mind, Resurrection will be what happens when Dexter sits up in that hospital bed.

“You could almost consider it Resurrection next season of New Blood,” says Phillips.

After the opening of the current flash-forward, Original sin goes back to 1991 Miami, where viewers meet the younger 20-year-old Dexter Morgan played by Gibson. Molly Brown takes on the role of her sister Deb, which was inhabited by Jennifer Carpenter in the first two series; and Christian Slater plays his father, Harry, previously played by James Remar. All the other familiar ones Dexter Characters are also there: Detective Angel Batista (James Martinez), Coroner Vince Masuka (Alex Shimizu) and Detective Maria LaGuerta (Christina Milian). There are also several new characters in the Miami Metro offices played by Sarah Michelle Gellar, Patrick Dempsey and Reno Wilson.

“What a challenge to find someone to play young Michael C., Hall, to play young Dexter,” says Phillips, who credits casting director John Papsidera (Yellowstone, 1883, 1923) to make a worldwide sweep to find Gibson, the 29-year-old Irish-born actor viewers will recognize from OA, The darkest minds and Shadow & Bone. “We watched tapes until we went blind and (Paddy) just popped out. I brought him straight into the studio, sat with him for about an hour. He looked good. He’s in good shape; he’s Michael C .Hall’s size. And he’s a big fan of the show. We knew we had what we were looking for. I’ve never been able to say this before in my career. We got our first pick.” .”

The first episode of Dexter-the-killer’s origin story is an endless callback to the original series that is sure to please the most devoted Dexter fans. From the first swipe at the mosquito in the updated title sequence, which pays homage to the original opener frame-by-frame, to the introduction of Dexter’s birth mother, his and Harry’s “code,” and even his first kill (which prompts Gibson’s first fourth-wall break to look at the camera) Dexter nostalgia is everywhere.

“We had this canon of lore from nine seasons of the show that we could draw from, and if people like Easter eggs, this show will be an Easter egg hunt,” says Phillips. “We’d write the shows, start shooting them, and somebody would come in and say, ‘I’ve got this great story about an Easter egg,’ and we’d run down to set and put a picture on somebody’s desk or whatever it is that fans will just love.”

Viewers will soon realize that the show is set in two timelines. Original sin set mainly in the 1990s, Dexter, the budding serial killer, takes a forensic internship at his father’s Homicide Unit, Miami Metro, under the supervision of Unit Manager Tanya Martin (Gellar) and Captain Aaron Spencer (Dempsey). But the series also follows a younger Harry (still played by Slater) in a different timeline two decades earlier.

“We don’t look at them as flashbacks,” Phillips explains. “We look at it as the show taking place in two time periods: 1991, when Dexter was 20, and 1973, when Harry was doing the undercover case where he met Dexter as a 2-year-old.”

The 1973 timeline is where Harry meets and establishes his relationship with Dexter’s biological mother, Laura Moser (played by Brittany Allen), who would go on to be brutally murdered in front of Dexter and his brother as young boys, leading to Harry adopting Dexter, which is a core memory in the Dexter cannon. “This story from 1973 reinforces the information about what’s going on in the 1991 part of the show,” adds Phillips.

The biggest reveal in the 1973 timeline comes when viewers learn that Harry had a biological son who tragically drowned in the family swimming pool under Harry’s watch before 2-year-old Dexter entered his life. It’s something that viewers, and even adult Dexter, never knew about.

“It would affect every decision you make for the rest of your life, and you would do everything you possibly could to protect and save your child in the future,” says Slater THR about how learning about how this tragedy helps explain why Harry risked everything for his son and developed “the code” (for Dexter to kill people who deserve to be eliminated from society and never be caught). “It was certainly one of the strongest motivating factors for choices that Harry makes.”

Slater says he has yet to speak to Remar but has always been a big fan. “What he did with this character has made what we do possible,” he says, adding that Original sin is now “an opportunity to learn so much more about Harry. To learn about his traumas and the guilt and shame he feels for some of the choices he makes when he was a younger man. All of those choices and decisions lead to , how he feels about his son and the direction he’s pushing him in, but he’s a character that expresses unconditional love.”

If all goes well, Phillips says he plans to do both Original sin and Resurrection to drive for several seasons. “The buzz is very good and I’m hopeful,” Phillips says Original sin. Resurrectionmeanwhile, production starts in January. It’s a rare feat for a prequel and a sequel to be released so closely together, let alone for both series to enjoy alternating runs if renewed. “It would be a push-me, pull-you of basically having to be on two coasts at the same time,” he says, expressing his optimism, “but I’m privileged to do this for a living, and I’m happy to do it.”

Gibson says he would be “thrilled” to continue playing his young Dexter for several seasons to come, which is why this first season of Original sin can be seen as a coming-of-age serial killer story. The first episode sees Dexter fan-boying over famous serial killers like Ted Bundy, Night Stalker, BTK and the Zodiac Killer as he struggles with the two sides of himself that he so skillfully treads in the later Dexter (until it all works out). Despite succeeding in his first, very bloody kill – and keeping a trophy that will surely come back to haunt him – Dexter also uses his bloodthirsty urges to save his drunken sister from possible sexual assault.

“Even though there’s so much going on and there’s a real arc this season, it was important to me that there was still a long journey for Dexter to become the Dexter we know,” Gibson shares THR. “You’ll definitely see him learn the lessons. I don’t think he’s one to make the same mistakes twice; he’s very thorough. But there’s still an abundance of lessons waiting for him.”

He continues: “He has not fully developed his personality. Because when you’re a psychopath, it’s really an act you work on and refine. And the mask you’ll see as the show goes on starts to become a little more like the Dexter we know, but still has a ways to go.”

Seam Original sin continues, watching the prequel feels like watching an old episode of Dexterbut with new faces. “There’s not a kill in every episode, but there’s someone who’s about to be killed in every episode. There’s a killer in almost every one,” Phillips says of what viewers can expect from the rest of the season. “There’s what we call the Big Bad terrorizing Miami, and Dexter ends up taking that person out. Kind of like how John Lithgow was the Big Bad as the Trinity Killer. There’s always a big bad.”

***

Dexter: Original Sin releases new episodes weekly, streaming Fridays on Paramount+ With Showtime followed by a linear premiere Sunday night at 10pm on Showtime.