Highlights
- Dexter: Original Sin will explore Dexter Morgan’s formative years, including his very first kill in 1991.
- The prequel series will feature Patrick Gibson, Christian Slater, and Molly Brown as key characters.
- Filming for Dexter: Original Sin started in Miami in June 2024, set to debut on Paramount+ in 2025.
Dexter: Original Sin is Showtime’s upcoming prequel series to the famed series Dexter, starring Patrick Gibson as the serial killer with a code, Dexter Morgan. It will also star Christian Slater as Harry Morgan and Molly Brown as the expletive-ridden Debra Morgan. It was revealed in February 2023 that Dexter’s prequel series was officially in the works, with original showrunner, Clyde Phillips, on board to lead the show. The main casting announcements were made last month, and the first season will feature 10 episodes. Michael Lehmann will be a director, and will also serve as an executive producer.
Fans are eager to see Dexter’s formative years on screen. Considering the series will explore his backstory, Dexter’s very first kill is an important milestone that needs to feature in the new prequel series.
Who Was Dexter’s First Kill?
Dexter’s deadly urges were evident in his early childhood years, after witnessing his mother being murdered and being left in a pool of her blood. Harry Morgan adopted him, and soon realized Dexter wasn’t like other children. This is when he created ‘the code’ for Dexter to live by: Dexter would only kill people who deserved it. However, Dexter didn’t commit his first murder until he was 20 years old, in 1991.
Audiences get to see Dexter’s first kill in a flashback in Season 1, Episode 3 of the original series, (“Popping Cherry”). Dexter’s first victim was Nurse Mary, the woman who tended Harry when he was hospitalized with heart problems. It turned out that Nurse Mary was poisoning him with overdoses of morphine and an unidentified substance, and Dexter was onto her. He also discovers that Mary, the ‘Angel of Death,’ had already killed five victims, meaning she was suitable for Dexter to kill under Harry’s strict code.
In the flashback, Dexter breaks into Mary’s home and creates a kill room with plastic sheets. He waits for Mary to return, with his famous syringe ready to put her to sleep with horse tranquilizers. However, Dexter’s inexperience is evident as he fails to sedate Nurse Mary. He ends up being embroiled in a physical fight, though he manages to overpower her. Dexter strips her, covers her in shrink wrap, and uses duct tape to secure her to the table. When Mary wakes up, Dexter explains what he’s doing and uses her scrapbook, which features all her victims’ obituaries, to visualize why she had to die. Mary claims she was trying to take the pain away from her victims, but Dexter gags her and stabs her repeatedly. He cuts up her corpse using a hacksaw, and disposes of her body in the Everglades.
The upcoming Dexter spin-off will begin in 1991, so Dexter’s first kill needs to feature in Dexter: Original Sin. However, this also means that Harry Morgan doesn’t have much time alive in the new prequel series. As fans of the show will know, he commits suicide a year after Mary’s murder, after witnessing the true horror of Dexter’s ‘dark passenger.’ It’s important that Dexter: Original Sinfollows the timeline correctly and doesn’t change Dexter’s first kill to fit in with the prequel series’ new plot.
What Is Known About Dexter: Original Sin?
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Dexter: Original Sin |
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Starring |
Patrick Gibson, Christian Slater and Molly Brown |
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Created by |
Clyde Phillips |
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Directed By |
Michael Lehmann |
The prequel series will follow Dexter Morgan as he starts up a forensics internship at the Miami Metro Police Department, where his father, Harry Morgan, works as a detective. Set in 1991 (15 years before the original series began), Dexter is 20 years of age, and he learns to follow the code his father set out for him, as he battles his urges to kill. Harry helps Dexter find people deserving of his kill table, without drawing the attention of law enforcement. The new series will also see a teenage Debra Morgan come of age as she considers following her father into law enforcement.
Filming on Dexter: Original Sin began in Miami, Florida on June 5, 2024. The plan is to shoot exterior scenes that need to authentically look like Miami. This part of shooting set to be complete on June 15, before the production moves to Los Angeles to film the rest of season 1. The show is set to debut exclusively on Paramount+ with Showtime. As there is no official air date yet, it’s likely it’ll be out sometime in 2025.
The original Dexter series ran between 2006-2013 on Showtime, with a spin-off continuation limited series called Dexter: New Blood airing in 2021-2022. Dexter was eventually killed by his son, Harrison, in the finale, when the ex-forensics expert was outed as a serial killer. It proved to be a definitive ending for the series, but there was an initial plan to create a Harrison spin-off series centered around Dexter’s son. However, this was shelved in favor of the upcoming Dexter origin story.
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