Photo: Patrick Wymore/Paramount+ with SHOWTIME
The show that came to mind the most while I was watching Dexter: Original Sin — aside, of course, from Dexter, the foundational Showtime series that ran from 2006 to 2013 — was Muppet Babies. Here in the new prequel are all the characters we know and love, except younger. There’s Dexter Morgan (Patrick Gibson) himself, graduating from medical school and struggling to keep his Dark Passenger in check. There’s his well-intentioned (and still alive!) cop father, Harry (Christian Slater), and his foulmouthed high-schooler sister, Debra (Molly Brown). There are junior versions of our old friends at the Miami Metro Police Department, Angel Batista (James Martinez) and Vince Masuka (Alex Shimizu). We can never go back to 2006 — or to 1991 when Original Sin takes place — but close your eyes and make believe, and you can be anywhere.
As far as shameless brand extensions go, this series feels mostly harmless, and it’s off to a promising enough start that we can overlook how desperately Showtime is determined to squeeze the life out of this franchise. (Another spinoff, Dexter: Resurrection, premieres next year.) In an era of endless IP, Dexter: Original Sin is at least entertaining, and that’s more than can be said for countless other recent cash grabs. But before we get to the fun stuff, we have to retcon the 2022 finale of Dexter: New Blood, in which our favorite serial killer was shot and killed by his grown son, Harrison (Jack Alcott). Or was he? Original Sin begins with grown-up Dexter (Michael C. Hall) somehow clinging to life as he’s treated for his wounds, which also allows for a helpful frame narrative to justify heading back to the ’90s. “It really is like they say,” Hall’s familiar narration tells us. “Your life flashes before your eyes.”
Cut to the opening titles, a clever riff on the original Dexter credits, this time with Gibson as the title character and Harry and Deb included. As we touch down with young Dex, he’s closing out his med-school career, and probably just in time: His classmates have already identified him as an emotionless freak. When he’s told to smile for his graduation photo, he imagines something that makes him happy: Bret Easton Ellis’s American Psycho. (Dexter will one day use Patrick Bateman as an alias.) Dexter’s narration in these scenes — it’s always Hall doing it, presumably from the future where he’s bleeding out — is exactly as silly as it was in the original series. It’s not clear how intentionally funny it’s meant to be, but when he calls a body “heartless like the Tin Man, and maybe … like me,” I think it’s safe to say there’s some deliberate camp happening here.
The Morgan home is probably as peaceful as it could be under the circumstances (overworked single father, psychopath son). Harry is doing his best to keep Dexter from killing people, though Dex acknowledges that slicing into cadavers and taking hunting trips aren’t really cutting it in terms of suppressing his urges. We know a lot of this backstory from Dexter’s original run — that was an overwhelmingly flashback-heavy show — but Gibson and Slater do a good job of keeping the father-son dynamic fresh, even with Gibson doing an eerily accurate Michael C. Hall impression much of the time. Thankfully, we’re spared any of the terrible flashback wigs that were a hallmark of the OG series. Debra is a more challenging character to connect with, which has been pretty consistent across this franchise. Brown does the best she can, but it’s a lot of cursing and whining in the series premiere. Her central conflict here is that she wants to be a normal teenager and is being held back by her weirdo brother. Case in point: Harry will let her go to a college party if she takes Dexter along.
Meanwhile, Harry has concerns outside of his would-be serial killer at home — there’s an active serial killer doing home invasions and murdering families. The Miami Metro of 1991 brings us some new characters, including Harry’s partner and best friend, Bobby Watt (Reno Wilson), and no-nonsense police captain Aaron Spencer (Patrick Dempsey). Dempsey has proven himself to be adept at playing over-the-top in recent years, whether in Ridley Scott’s Ferrari or Eli Roth’s Thanksgiving, and his Original Sin scenery chewing is a blessing to this show. It helps that he gets lines like, “I’m not a proud mama, fellas; I am one pissed-off menopausal bitch.” (It’s the ’90s!) We also meet Sarah Michelle Gellar’s Tanya Martin, introduced by Masuka as “the boss lady of forensics.” Given the close relationship she’ll be forced into with Dexter and the fact that SMG is listed as a “special guest star,” I fear she may not be long for this world.
Dexter and Debra go to the college party, where we meet Deb’s bestie, Sofia (Raquel Justice). Otherwise, it’s the expected collection of drunk and rowdy young adults, including a frat boy named Andy with heinous vibes who takes a special interest in Debra. Dexter is repulsed by the whole scene, and really who can blame him? You can sort of understand why Harry thought this would be good for him, but it’s hard to imagine how he ever could have fit in here, homicidal urges or not. It’s lucky that Dexter is there, though, because he comes to Deb’s rescue when Andy tries to sexually assault her in an upstairs bedroom. Dex beats the crap out of him, a useful outlet for his violent desires, but comes very close to taking things too far when he spots a knife nearby. Thankfully, Debra stops him, and after yelling at him for ruining the night, acknowledges that he saved her from a terrible situation.
On their next hunting trip, Dexter tells Harry how close he came to throwing it all away by killing Andy. Harry reiterates that once he does the deed, he won’t be able to undo it — but before he can finish imparting that lesson, he has a sudden heart attack. Dexter picks up his dad and carries him in his arms, and you have to appreciate the way Original Sin is leaning into melodrama. It’s at this point that we shift from prequel to remake: The story of Harry’s hospitalization and Dexter’s first kill were dramatized in “Popping Cherry,” the third episode of Dexter, so this is familiar terrain. Some lines of dialogue are lifted almost verbatim from the original series. But after watching “And in the Beginning …” and revisiting the now 18-year-old (!) “Popping Cherry,” I was impressed by the choices Original Sin makes in retelling the story, which also reveals a lot about the tone the newest iteration of Dexter is going for.
In the hospital, Harry seems to be recovering from his heart attack, until he begins to take a turn for the worse. No one can explain why his condition isn’t improving, but Dexter begins to pick up on some clues, namely that Nurse Mary is clipping obituaries from the newspaper. He realizes pretty instantly that she’s a serial killer, too, an angel of death who is intentionally murdering her patients — or relieving them of their pain, as she sees it. This plays out mostly as it did in the original series, though Dexter is given a bit more agency here, doing his own investigation to discover what Mary is injecting Harry with (potassium nitrate) and explaining the situation to his dad. Harry also spots the Dark Passenger in his nurse, and gives Dexter the go-ahead to stop her before she kills again.
We get a repeat of another pivotal scene from the original Dexter, as Dex ambushes Nurse Mary in her home and straps her to his very first kill table. There’s humor in both versions of the scene, but Original Sin has some real fun with it. “You can never forget your first time,” Dexter recalls. “Mine was with an older woman.” The song “Nothin’ But a Good Time” starts playing as we cut between Dex’s clumsy attempts at doing the deed and Debra’s volleyball game. The pounding of Mary’s heartbeat becomes the stomping feet of the crowd at the high school. As Deb scores, the announcer at the game shouts “It’s Morgan for the kill!” and we cut back to Dexter stabbing the nurse. This is what I want from any version of Dexter, past or present — a serial killer who only kills other serial killers is one of the silliest conceits imaginable, and the less seriously we take it, the better.
Naturally, Debra is very upset about Dexter missing her game, but her bad mood lifts quickly enough when Harry gets to come home from the hospital. He challenges Dexter on whether there were any witnesses to the murder and how he disposed of Nurse Mary’s body (good ol’ Alligator Alley). Harry seems satisfied with the answers, but once Dex leaves the room, he breaks down in tears. Fans of the original series will recall that the weight of his son’s deeds weighs heavily on Harry until he reaches a breaking point. For the time being, at least, he’ll be able to keep a close eye on things. Dexter casually spotting a link between two crime-scene photos at a career fair impressed Masuka enough to talk him up to the boss lady. Martin offers him a paid internship with forensics — and while Harry doesn’t approve of his son joining Miami Metro, Dexter is eager to start his new life.
• As a Dexter fan and victim (anyone who made it all the way through to the lumberjack finale should be entitled to compensation), I’m excited to be back in this world and recapping the season here. For those who haven’t recently brushed up on the original series, I’ll try to avoid too many “spoilers” when it comes to things we learned about Dexter’s early ’90s from the original series.
• Speaking of, there’s quite a bit of canon in terms of Dexter’s first few kills. I loved revisiting Nurse Mary, but I’m personally in favor of more retconning if it keeps the show surprising.
• So far, the music choices are on point. In addition to “Nothin’ But a Good Time,” we get to hear the 1990 classic “Ice Ice Baby.” It’s refreshing that Original Sin is being treated like the period piece that it is.
• Dexter hiding serial killer clippings in dirty magazines is a fun detail. The future Bay Harbor Butcher name-checks the Night Stalker and BTK before wondering if he’ll ever have a nickname of his own.
• Looks like we’ll be getting flashbacks within flashbacks, including to events Dexter wasn’t present for. Here, we learn that Harry had a biological son named Harry Jr., who died by drowning in the pool while Harry was watching a football game.
• Dexter casually eating a full-size Butterfinger in the hospital waiting room is more disturbing than anything else he does in this episode.
