Will Showtime’s ‘Dexter’ Revival Resurrect The Gruesome Alternative Ending?

Last week, Showtime revealed that Dexter, the popular drama series starring a serial killer, is being brought back from the dead, with one final season (consisting of ten episodes), aimed at righting the perceived wrongs of the previous finale. 

The original Dexter finale has become legendary since airing, boasting an absurdly unsatisfying resolution and abrupt tonal shift; the level of disappointment was almost unmatched, that is, until the flaccid finale of Game of Thrones swooped into first place.

It’s easy to view nostalgia reboots with cynicism, but the revival of Dexter seems promising, as original showrunner Clyde Phillips (who left the series after season 4), is returning to complete his vision, alongside star Michael C. Hall. 

The revival is set to deliver a more satisfying conclusion, without erasing the events of the previous season. Phillips stated:

“We’re not going to betray the audience and say, ‘Whoops, that was all a dream. What happened in the first eight years happened in the first eight years. 10 years, or however many years, have passed by the time this will air, and the show will reflect that time passage. In so far as the ending of the show, this will have no resemblance to how the original finale was.”

Interestingly enough, Phillips originally intended to finish Dexter on a more macabre note, with Dexter finally facing the consequences of his actions. 

“In the very last scene of the series,” Philips explained, “Dexter wakes up. And everybody is going to think, ‘Oh, it was a dream.’ And then the camera pulls back and back and back and then we realize, ‘No, it’s not a dream.’ Dexter’s opening his eyes and he’s on the execution table at the Florida Penitentiary. They’re just starting to administer the drugs and he looks out through the window to the observation gallery.”

“And in the gallery are all the people that Dexter killed—including the Trinity Killer and the Ice Truck Killer (his brother Rudy), LaGuerta who he was responsible for killing, Doakes who he’s arguably responsible for, Rita, who he’s arguably responsible for, Lila. All the big deaths, and also whoever the weekly episodic kills were. They are all there … That everything we’ve seen over the past eight seasons has happened in the several seconds from the time they start Dexter’s execution to the time they finish the execution and he dies. Literally, his life flashed before his eyes as he was about to die.”

Personally, I like this ending (it’s certainly better than Dexter spending his remaining years slicing through tree trunks, instead of human flesh), but obviously, it can no longer be done – the cat’s out of the bag now.

That being said, a Dexter revival could easily incorporate some of those ideas. For example, the narration in Dexter’s head, combined with the ghostly presence of his father, could well be replaced by the various murderers and innocents that Dexter has slaughtered over the years. 

This could provide an excuse to bring back many of the original cast members, without outright resurrecting them. And let’s face it, Dexter’s dreary inner monologues were becoming stale, long before the series finale; giving the man some undead personalities to argue with might provide an interesting way to explore Dexter’s feelings, without him directly telling the audience. 

Not to mention, the old cast members were absolutely stellar, and kept being killed off due to the nature of the show, but their performances are what helped make Dexter so compelling in the first place; I don’t think the show ever really managed to restore the tension that Doakes brought to the story. 

We’ll soon see where the revival goes (the tentative premiere date is set for the fall of 2021), but whatever direction the limited series ends up taking, it can’t possibly be worse than turning Dexter into a lumberjack.