Even though Dexter: Original Sin is a prequel, set 15 years before the events of the original series’ premiere, the first order of business for the new Paramount+ series is to answer a question Dexter fans have had ever since the announcement of a second new spinoff, Dexter: Resurrection: How is he still alive after the events of the last spinoff, Dexter: New Blood?
In the premiere, Dexter Morgan (Michael C. Hall) is in the backseat of an emergency vehicle rushing through the snow and says in voiceover, “I’ve experienced death so many times, but never my own.” At the hospital, he is narrowly resuscitated through extraordinary measures and says to himself, “Ah a beating heart, I’ll take it… It really is like they say, your life flashes before your eyes.” After that, the story moves back in time to the start of Original Sin‘s timeline. That settles the cliffhanger left open by New Blood after he was shot by Harrison and left bleeding out in the snow.
So why did the creatives decide to put that question to rest first thing? Creator Clyde Phillips told TV Insider (in the video interview embedded above) that the request to make this happen was actually two-pronged. “I was having dinner with Chris McCarthy, who co-chairman of Paramount … and he said, ‘Can you figure out a way to get Michael Hall into the beginning of the show so that the audience [knows] first of all, they’re going to be hearing his voice narrating, and second of all, so that we can look forward to doing another show with Michael?’ Michael by then, had come to me and said, ‘You know what? Dexter is in my bones. Clyde, Dexter is in your bones. Let’s keep going. Can you figure out a way?’ So that opening scene in Original Sin, I wrote in 15 minutes, it was just there was begging to be released, and then that led us to being able to understand how Resurrection can indeed happen.”
Phillips also offered a bit of a preview for what’s ahead in Resurrection and how its own intro will align with this one: “In the beginning of Resurrection, the doctor says to Dexter, Michael Hall, ‘Had you been shot in the summertime, you’d be dead, but you were shot in zero degree weather, and we ripped you open, and we’re able to get you’ minutes before he died, and you … see police SUV is speeding as fast as it can. And it’s a race against time to save a life, and he did it,” he explained.
So there we have it. Dexter lives to see another day — which means a lot of other people probably won’t. Dun dun dunnnn.
Dexter: Original Sin, Fridays and Sundays, Paramount+