[This story contains spoilers from the sixth episode of Dexter: Original Sin, “The Joy of Killing.”]
Perhaps you’ve heard the good news: Dexter: Original Sin is a ton of fun. Even if buried in a body bag — considering where the Showtime prequel just left off on its midseason break.
Featuring voiceover narration from original series lead Michael C. Hall, but otherwise starring an all-new lineup of actors playing an old-school array of fan-favorites, the prequel series Original Sin has taken the Dexter franchise (which is yes, a full-on franchise now) back to its familiar roots. Think Muppet Babies, but make it Miami Metro PD (and don’t even attempt to besmirch Kermit Jr.’s good name, he and the other babies were saints).
Same deal here in Original Sin, where all of the original Dexter favorites — Dexter himself (Patrick Gibson) and sister Deb (Molly Brown), Miami’s finest Angel Batista (James Martinez) and Maria LaGuerta (Christina Milian), just as some examples — are back in action, with different actors inhabiting the roles, but somehow completely channeling the original cast’s spirit. Ask anyone who’s watching, and they’ll giddily tell you about new young Dexter actor Patrick Gibson’s status as a full-on Michael C. Hall doppelgänger, in facial ticks but most especially in voice; go ahead and say the same for Christina Milian as LaGuerta, doing a subtle but spot-on Luna Lauren Velez, and any other number of folks on the cast.
While it’s impressive to see a new guard so faithfully render the old guard, Original Sin only works as well as it does because it emulates the original show’s tone and style, down to the letter. Kill room scenes, stalking scenes, blood spatter analysis scenes… all hallmarks of the original series, brought back to note-perfect life here in Original Sin, and thanks in no small part to the person playing maestro over the proceedings: Clyde Phillips, original Dexter architect, and the architect of Original Sin as well.
“I’m the luckiest guy in the world,” Phillips tells The Hollywood Reporter in the chat below. “This is the only time in my career I’ve been able to say this, but I got all my first choices for this extraordinary cast. They’ve bonded together and created such a warm, kind set, even as the show gets darker and darker and darker — which it does.”
Below, Phillips joins THR for a quick chat to shed light on some of the darkness ahead in Dexter: Original Sin, now that it’s past the midpoint of season one.
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Episode six ends with Dexter on his way to the swamp to deposit his latest victim, serial killer Levi Reed (Jeff Daniel Phillips). Before he can do the job, he runs into police, who are already on the scene having unearthed some of Dex’s previous victims. We know one day Dex will start using the Bay Harbor as a dumping ground. How did you decide on “prequelizing” that aspect of Dexter’s killer career?
First of all, “prequelizing” is a good word for it! But we looked at everything as an opportunity. When you watched the OG Dexter, he was fully formed. He killed someone within the first few minutes and knew what to do with the body and everything. There are mistakes, and mistakes lead us to cliffhangers and drama, and you’re getting more of that here. He’s made a couple of big mistakes with the dumping ground. He didn’t know any better. He took earrings off the nurse, which end up in Deb’s hands, which end up in her friend’s ears. It’s this idea of taking trophies, which he shouldn’t be doing, and it gives him this chance for Harry to mold, scold and influence him.
Speaking of Harry, just one episode earlier, Dexter’s father (Christian Slater) winds up wrapped in plastic on the kill table. It’s one of my favorite scenes of the show, because of how well it inverts what we expect from this set-up. Normally, if you’re on Dex’s kill table, you’re not getting up. Here, though, Dex is flexing his tactics as a way to show Harry he knows what he’s doing. I can imagine a world where this was one of the very first scenes you envisioned.
In the writing room, we have what we call an NPO board: no particular order. Scenes we would like to see. We put them up there, and about half of them make it onto the show. This was one of the early ones that got up on the NPO board, and we knew that it was important and iconic, and we had to just figure out where in the storytelling to put it. Dexter is proving that he’s capable, by taking down his own father, a homicide cop. He’s basically saying to him: “See? I know what I’m doing. I can do this.”
There’s a moment in episode six where Dexter’s crossing the street, and he gets cut off by a certain ice truck…
You saw that?
Of course!
Great! I’m so glad. We just threw that away! We didn’t do a close up or anything. It looks like it’s the same ice truck, too. I’m really, really pleased you saw that.
That has to be the fun of having all this mythology you can call forward to, right?
Yes. This season’s a whole Easter egg hunt. You’re paying the right amount of attention. There’s a lot of chatter on the internet already about what we’re putting in here, and why. It’s also just so fun because this season is a period piece, within a period piece. We have all of this great imagery we get to use from the ’90s, but also from the ’70s, with Harry’s storyline. We get to lay in all these wonderful wall phones, the first car phone, whatever it is. We’re having so much fun watching people watch out for all of that.
Was Harry’s storyline, in which we see how he met Dexter’s mother and fell for her, an “NPO,” or was this part of the earliest pitch?
We always knew it was going to be in the show. When you watched the first episode of Original Sin, nobody knew that Harry had lost his son in a drowning accident, right? That changed him forever. It changed his marriage forever. And on some level psychologically, it made him want a son even more. It’s not a small moment. It’s a simple moment, one that basically changed everything for Harry, created his personality, and created this need to have Dexter in his life.
We didn’t know all of that about Harry, and we don’t know everything about many of the other figures on the show, such as Patrick Dempsey as Captain Spencer. How important is it to balance out including original characters like Batista, whose fate we mostly already know, versus introducing new folks whose fates are much more in the balance, like Spencer?
There’s Sarah Michelle Gellar’s character, too, and what’s interesting to me, is the internet is already guessing that either Patrick or Sarah Michelle will wind up getting killed, or maybe they’re even the bad guy, because they’re not in the canon of the original show. But that’s why this is the “origins,” because people get to travel through the show. Some survive. Some don’t. That’s the best I can put it. But people should strap in. It’s a great ride.
You have a litany of characters from the franchise you can bring in here some day on Original Sin. Who are you most looking forward to introducing eventually… and why is it Doakes (Erik King)?
(Laughs) Well, I think you’re right! I think that’s the most powerful presence, who saw through Dexter, or at least looked at Dexter and saw something else that no one else saw. That Dexter wasn’t as blended in as he thinks. That whole, “I’m watching you, mother fucker!” I can’t tell you when that will happen, but to answer your question, that’s probably the most exciting thing that has to happen.
My humble request is, whenever it does happen, somewhere in his first scene, before we even get his name, he just has to say, “Surprise mother-fucker.” We’ll fill in the rest.
You’re absolutely right. And he has to do that thing with his eyes, too.
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Dexter: Original Sin streams new episodes Fridays on Paramount+, with linear releases Sunday nights at 10 p.m. Read THR‘s in-depth feature on the return of Dexter with Original Sin and follow along with all the season one Easter eggs.
Read the full article here
