This assessment accommodates full spoilers for Dexter: Original Sin Season 1, episode 1, “And within the Beginning”
How do you kill that which gained’t die? That appears to be the query going through Dexter, a once-highly acclaimed sequence that was sadly deemed one thing larger – a full-fledged franchise – by its company overlords and now simply gained’t go away.
Yes, Dexter Morgan is again once more (earlier than the subsequent time he’s again, which is already within the works) in Dexter: Original Sin. This time, he’s taking the prequel route, with Patrick Gibson enjoying a youthful model of everybody’s favourite blood spatter analyst/assassin of murderers circa 1991. The premiere episode – Paramount+ didn’t make screeners of the season accessible for advance assessment – is watchable sufficient and boasts a few appreciated touches. Yet it additionally, maybe inevitably, feels prefer it’s going by way of the motions, repeating beforehand established details about the person who would turn into The Bay Harbor Butcher.
Rank Every Season of Dexter
Rank Every Season of Dexter
At this level, Dexter is simply graduating faculty, and by the top of the primary episode, he’s beginning as a paid intern within the forensics division at Miami Metro. And wow, have a look at that, it’s a lot of the of us we all know from the unique sequence of their youthful days, together with Angel Batista (James Martinez) and Vince Masuka (Alex Shimizu), with Maria LaGuerta (Christina Milian) on her method in future episodes. Try to not dwell on Gibson solely being about six years youthful than Michael C. Hall was when he started enjoying Dexter or Milian truly being a couple of yr older than Lauren Vélez was in 2006 when she started enjoying LaGuerta and faux all of it tracks. Nothing towards these proficient actors, who’re doing what they’ve been requested to do, however once we hear Shimizu mimic C.S. Lee’s Masuka snort or see Martinez put on the acquainted Batista hat (seems Batista has at all times been a hat man), there’s an odd and amusing feeling that we’re watching some high-production-value cosplay. We’ve already seen these characters work together a lot on this Miami Metro setting, and seen them be oblivious to their coworker’s true nature for thus lengthy, that it’s exhausting to beat the anticipatory exhaustion. Dexter: Original Sin feels intent on returning us to dynamics that already performed out 100-plus episodes of different Dexter reveals.
Meanwhile, Dexter’s house life is represented by his sister, Debra (Molly Brown) and father, Harry (Christian Slater), with Harry in fact additionally very a lot a part of the cop story as a Miami Metro detective. The busy premiere episode entails Harry having a coronary heart assault that sends him to the hospital, resulting in Dexter’s first kill when he realizes Harry’s nurse, Mary (Dead Space’s Tanya Clarke) is poisoning him – which is straight away the place a sense of déjà vu units in, as a result of Dexter followers have fairly actually seen this story earlier than. In the unique present’s third episode, “Popping Cherry,” flashbacks confirmed Dexter killing Nurse Mary (there performed by Denise Crosby). Dexter: Original Sin replicates a number of scenes from that episode, with a few of the dialogue recycled verbatim and a few contradictions that may now drive continuity-obsessed viewers loopy. (Couldn’t they’ve not less than put the Morgan household in the identical outfits they have been sporting in “Popping Cherry” once we see the identical scene of Deb spinning Harry in his wheelchair?)
Sure, each Dexter fan has joked about Michael C. Hall’s horrible wig in these flashbacks to college-aged Dexter. But extra to the purpose: Dexter’s origin was very nicely advised all through the unique present. There are so many flashbacks to totally different components of his life and a lot info given over time that Original Sin was at all times sure to inform and present us issues we already knew. It turned out it solely took one episode to fall immediately into that lure. At this level, Dexter Morgan is simply not a personality with gaps in his historical past which might be begging to be stuffed in.
“And within the Beginning” additionally introduces new-to-us Miami Metro characters Bobby Watt (Reno Wilson), Aaron Spencer (Patrick Dempsey), and Tanya Martin (Sarah Michelle Gellar). The present definitely did nicely when it comes to casting actors with notably iconic backgrounds within the type of Slater, Dempsey, and Gellar. And it’s on this Miami Metro realm that we’ll presumably get the largest ongoing storyline and real new info, because you probably don’t forged Dempsey and Gellar with out desiring to do some notable issues with them – which additionally means we will begin guessing which ones will change into a killer and/or sufferer by the top of the season.
In its early seasons, Dexter was a first-rate instance of a dawning prestige-TV period. But then it went on for much longer than felt snug, collapsing right into a shell of itself with some actually cringeworthy storylines culminating in a disappointing eighth season and finale. (Lumberjack Dexter, anybody?) Keeping Dexter alive was rumored to be a Showtime mandate, which is smart given community execs instantly spoke about their want to have a Dexter spinoff about… Dexter. When it lastly occurred, 2022’s Dexter: New Blood wasn’t superb, but it surely was first rate – and much better than Dexter’s previous couple of seasons. More importantly, it gave Dexter Morgan, the character, a significantly better and seemingly ultimate send-off.
But they simply couldn’t depart nicely sufficient alone, and so not solely do we now have this prequel sequence, it’s already been introduced Michael C. Hall will likely be starring within the “Nah, he’s not useless in spite of everything” Dexter: Resurrection. Original Sin kicks off with a teaser for that 2025 sequence – it truly seems to be a bridge between New Blood and Resurrection, since that is kinda/sorta a sequel sequence too, with a framing gadget displaying Hall as Dexter being rushed to the hospital after being shot by his previously estranged son, Harrison. The character’s life flashing earlier than his eyes offers Original Sin a framing gadget and an excuse to maintain Hall narrating the onscreen motion.
Is Hall’s voice a comforting presence in Original Sin that evokes reminiscences of Dexter at its greatest? To some extent, sure, and Hall nonetheless appears to have enjoyable and provides his all. However, the narration got here to be a hand-holding, exasperatingly redundant image of the present’s decline. And even in “And within the Beginning,” there are tinges of that, akin to Tanya telling Dexter that Harry taught him nicely, and Hall’s narration saying “She had no concept” in a method that almost requires Gibson to provide a Jim Halpert look to the digital camera.
Gibson will get off to a stable begin enjoying Dexter, evoking the identical coldly indifferent perspective Hall was so nice at. A few the little smirks he offers present uncommon, amusing indicators of precise delight – by way of killing or the considered killing, in fact. Playing Deb is extra of a thankless job, since Jennifer Carpenter’s supply and foul-mouthed perspective within the function have been so particular and humorous, leaving Brown feeling like she’s mimicking Carpenter. Hopefully she will be able to make the character really feel like her personal in future episodes – and hopefully Dexter: Original Sin can someway cease feeling like such an echo of one thing that was as soon as nice.
Other ideas:
- The premiere’s one huge addition to Dexter lore is the reveal that Harry and his late spouse Doris (Jasper Lewis) had a son who died previous to Harry adopting Dexter. The son’s demise by drowning (beneath Harry’s watch) is clearly there so as to add one other layer to why a guilt-stricken father would shield Dexter (and his murderous urges) in any respect prices. But it additionally feels pointless. Couldn’t Harry simply have been a loving father along with his personal tousled concept of the way to cope with a tousled child?
- In Dexter canon, Harry dies a yr after Dexter kills Mary, so if this present continues, Christian Slater would possibly finally be enjoying the identical imaginary/”ghost” Harry that James Remar did. That’s fairly humorous given Slater’s function on Mr. Robot.
- Dexter’s urge right here is portrayed in nearly supernatural phrases, particularly when he tells Harry that seeing the blood of the man he fought at that commencement get together introduced it ahead. This nearly makes Dexter sound like a vampire, which is an entertaining strategy.
- Though we noticed Dexter kill Mary already in that 2006 episode, we hadn’t seen him get rid of her physique, nor that he took her earrings from her. If we’re going to search for new info, it seems to be like this present will fill in additional of the blanks to how Dexter finally ends up in the end taking a blood slide from every of his victims and disposing of their physique components within the water, somewhat than feeding a corpse to gators. But as a result of the unique present confirmed us a lot in flashbacks, we all know this must be Alex Timmons. Timmons was already established as the primary Dexter sufferer he took the blood slide from, as established within the Dexter Early Cuts net sequence again in 2009, following his look in flashback kind in Season 1’s “Return to Sender.”
- The director of Original Sin’s first episode was Michel Lehman, who final labored with Slater on 1989’s all-time traditional Heathers.
