Who’d have thunk it? Eight years after its infamous finale, Dexter is returning to TV this year for a limited series that endeavors to provide a new, more satisfying ending to the serial killer’s story. Given how season 8 did its best to tarnish the show’s image, the network has tried to get a revival off the ground in many ways since 2013, but it’s taken until now for it to happen. And star Michael C. Hall recently explained why 2021 is the perfect time for Dexter to return.
While speaking to ET, Hall revealed that he’s been approached a few times about reprising his most famous role, but he’d always turned it down.
“I’ve been approached, unofficially, many times in the streets by people who have ideas,” Hall revealed. “But… I think there have been probably, before this, three legitimate ideas or concepts of what we might do, and none of them felt right.”
When he was pitched what ultimately became season 9, though, Hall felt that enough time had passed to make it worthwhile. Especially as key crew from the series’ glory years are back alongside him, including original showrunner Clyde Phillips, whose exit is generally agreed to coincide with Dexter‘s downturn in quality.
“This one, a lot of it has to do with time passed,” Hall continued. “This is going to happen in real-time, as if as much time has passed since the finale happened. And yeah, we kind of just got the creative band back together again. Clyde Phillips is back, who was the showrunner for the first four seasons, running the show. And Marcos Siega, who is one of the directors. He’s like, ‘We’re gonna shoot it like a long, 10-hour movie.’ It was a combination of the scripts and the timing. I always thought maybe the time will reveal itself when it’s the right time to do it and it did. And I’m excited. I was just visiting the sets the other day and it’s real. It’s really happening.”
Dexter season 9 will consist of 10 episodes. Kicking off around a decade after we left him living a new life as a lumberjack in Oregon, the limited series will find Dexter Morgan in a small town in upstate New York, far away from his former home of Miami, where he’ll get caught up in the dark secrets at work there. Clancy Brown has signed up to play the season’s villain, while Julia Bishop, Johnny Sequoyah, Alano Miller and Jack Alcott round out the new regular cast.
Hall has promised that the revival will make up for the original series finale, though he’s also defended the episode – which has gone down as one of the most hated endings to a TV show of all time – as “justifiable.” As the actor reminds us in his above comments, production is on the cusp of getting started ahead of its arrival on Showtime in the fall, so hopefully we’ll learn more about what’s in store for Dexter soon.