After Showtime broke the news a few days ago that their beloved serial killer would come out of the woods for one last blood-splashing dance, much speculation has circled around regarding what kind of approach Dexter’s reboot will take. For that purpose, there is no better source than Clyde Phillips, who carried Dexter up to its fourth season and will return as showrunner in this final outing.
In a recent interview during The Hollywood Reporter’s TV’s Top 5 podcast, Phillips made clear that Dexter’s revival is not meant to be a season 9 of any sort, but instead very much its own thing that will allow him to write a second, but not alternate, finale.
Phillips went on to say that when audiences tune in to watch Dexter again for the first time since 2013, Dexter Morgan himself will have aged 8 years to reflect the time that has gone by in the real world after the series’ protagonist went full-on Unabomber. He bluntly said, “We’re not going to betray the audience and say, ‘Whoops, that was all a dream.’ What happened in the first eight years happened”.
While it’s no secret Dexter’s fate did not satisfy most viewers, even the show’s star Michael C. Hall isn’t shy about admitting his disappointment towards the vigilante’s choices. The same is probably true for Phillips, who left his duties as executive producer when Dexter had reached peak viewership and critical reception.
Dexter is based on the Darkly Dreaming Dexter novels written by Jeff Lindsay, who published the likely final entry to his saga, Dexter is Dead, two years after the series’ finale. The similarities between the TV show and the novels only carried on up to the first book and season, after which both took very different approaches and plots, with merely the core cast of characters remaining somewhat constant, mostly in name only.
Widespread opinion on Dexter points to the show starting to fall apart since season 5, right after Phillips’ departure. With that in mind, it’s a fantastic opportunity for both the showrunner and fans to be treated with 10 more episodes that promise to stray from that decline and allow Dexter’sDark Passenger to flourish like before.
Dexter is scheduled for production in early 2021 and release for fall that year.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter