We just cannot get enough of Dexter Morgan, the henley-sporting serial killer of the strict moral code and sassy internal monologue. So far, we’ve gotten the OG series “Dexter”; the reboot “Dexter: New Blood”; and a prequel, “Dexter: Original Sin.” Now we get to find out what Dexter’s been up to over the past few years in “Dexter: Resurrection,” debuting Friday on Paramount Plus.
After Dexter (Michael C. Hall) didn’t, apparently, meet his demise at the end of a rifle at the end of “New Blood,” he leaves the frozen environs of upstate New York to track down his offspring (Jack Alcott) in the Big Apple. There he resumes his side hustle of murdering murderers — and quickly stumbles into the milieu of Leon Prater (Peter Dinklage), a venture capital billionaire weirdo with a terrifying henchperson played by Uma Thurman and a fondness for curating serial-killer dinner parties (attendees include Krysten Ritter, Eric Stonestreet, Neil Patrick Harris and David Dastmalchian). Could Angel Batista (David Zayas) and his late wife’s Dexter-is-the-Bay-Harbour-Butcher theories be far behind?
We spoke to star Hall about what scared him about returning to the Dexter universe, the one accessory that gets him in the Dexter mindset — and why this instalment just might be the funniest one yet. (Spoilers for “Dexter: New Blood” ahead, in case you’re not caught up.)
Why is it meaningful for you to have a beloved signature role you can return to?
It’s a unique thing as an actor to be able to spend this much time with the character and in real time. He’s evolved, time has passed, characters have been born and grown into adulthood. So I have a lot of gratitude around the chance I’ve been given to inhabit this character lo these many years.
What frightened you the most about returning to the role of Dexter?
It’s always a dice-roll to tell more story. Initially I wondered if audiences would accept the idea that he wasn’t done in by that gunshot, though I came to appreciate that people seem to think it was, to some degree, more plausible that he didn’t die than that he did, and that has to do with the audience’s relationship to the character and his fundamental resiliency; people seemed ready to accept that.
He was very compromised by that gunshot, but it didn’t hit him in the head. It liberated him in a way. This second chance at life allows him to put his past down in a way that he hasn’t been able to for quite some time. I think he’s been brooding over it and preoccupied with all the collateral damage that his missteps have resulted in and, while he doesn’t forget any of those facts, he’s not burdened by it in the same way. He’s able to move forward with a vitality and a sense of his own identity that he’s been craving and the only way to get him there is the way we got him there, you know, with his self-imposed exile and his protracted abstinence and penance, and his inviting his son to do him in and make him pay the price for his missteps all lead him to the place where we find him at the top of this.
What kind of sort of non-serial-killer lessons can people take away from Dexter’s personal growth?
An increased capacity to allow seemingly oppositional things to be simultaneously true. That’s a part of growing up and learning about what it is to actually be in the world and to be a human being. Dexter sets himself apart from humanity, but the ways that he sets himself apart are fundamentally human: his preoccupation with his authenticity, or lack of it, that’s something we all (deal with).
What scene or emotion or onscreen relationship stretched you the most as a performer in this new series?
The relationship between Dexter and his son; there’s a lot of wreckage for them to sift through and climb out of. That was really challenging and rich.
Also encountering all these other killers: on the one hand, Dexter has a fundamental affinity with them, he wants to connect with these people. He also wants to do them in. It’s Dexter’s victims with whom he has probably the most authentic interactions, and to have a whole buffet of them before him was really challenging for him as a character to negotiate and for me as an actor to play.
Do you have your own rituals that you do that help you get into the Dexter mindset?
Getting in the makeup chair, putting on the wardrobe, there’s always something about lacing up Dexter’s boots. I mean, it was a part of that initial title sequence of the original show. When I do that, I try to just take my time and pay attention as I lace up my boots; it feels like I’m putting Dexter on, planting my feet in his world.
How would you describe the vibe of the new series? How is it different from the other series?
It has an effervescence that maybe the show hasn’t had. Without those opportunities for levity and humour, I don’t think it would be palatable, and this new incarnation of the show doesn’t shy away from those opportunities for levity and humour, But yeah, I think it has a buoyancy to it.
Plus, Dexter as a character is like, “I shouldn’t even be here. I shouldn’t and yet I am. I have this second chance.” He’s honouring the code in a new way, or an old way, in that he’s getting back to those basics, but he’s also taking risks that we’ve never seen him take before. He has an appetite for those risks and an addiction to the adrenalin that taking those risks creates for him, so all those things are in play and feel fresh and new.
As we enter this new “Dexter” era, how have you been spending your time these days? What makes you happy?
Spending time with the people I love, feeling the sun on my face: the little things that are the real things.
Speaking of spending time with the people you love, if you had to take a Dexter character on a fishing trip who would you take? And who would you take on a fun trip to New York?
On a fishing trip, I’d take Deb and Batista and the Trinity Killer. And on a fun trip to New York, I’d take Masuka, Miguel Prado — and my son.
