Everyone Involved In Dexter Seems To Agree The Original Ending Was Very Bad

When it comes to fandoms, it's often pretty hard to find something everyone will universally agree on. That is, of course, unless you talk to Dexter fans. It's hard to find someone who actually likes how the Showtime series ended in 2013, with the titular serial killer becoming a reclusive lumberjack in the woods. In fact, even those involved with making the show seem to agree that ending is a dud, with series star Michael C. Hall saying at Comic-Con 2021 that the story "deserved a better ending."

With Dexter getting a revival in Showtime's Dexter: New Blood, Showtime Networks president of entertainment Gary Levine made it clear during the network's TCA summer press tour panel that they were hoping to fix an ending that most consider broken. "Dexter is a jewel in the crown of Showtime and we didn't do it justice in the end, I think," he said. "We've always wanted to see if there was a way to do it right, and it took a long time to figure out what that was."

This new take on the series picks up a decade later, with Hall back in the titular role. He's joined by Clyde Phillips, who served as showrunner on the first four seasons. Along the way, they're hoping to write the wrongs of the original finale.

"I think the way the series proper ended has a great deal to do with why we're revisiting the show and the character," Hall explained during the Dexter: New Blood panel. "I think a lot of what was mystifying or dissatisfying to people is a lot of what creates the appetite that we're hopefully satisfying now, you know? The show did not end in a way that was definitive for people or gave anybody a sense of closure. We didn't hear from Dexter, he didn't say anything to us when the show ended and I think it left audiences in, if nothing else, a sense of suspended animation."

According to Phillips, it's something the duo has wanted to tackle since the show ended. "Over the years, Michael and I have chatted," he said. "Occasionally he would be interviewed somewhere and somebody would ask about Dexter coming back and he wouldn't deny it and then I would see it and I would call him and we would talk about a couple of things. But the timing was never right for Michael and it had to be right for Michael's psyche, Michael's character, Michael as an actor, as a man."

Now that filming on the series has wrapped and the first episode will arrive November 7 on Showtime, they are ready for the world to see Dexter to get the ending they believe it deserves. "There's been a sense of it being unfinished business," Hall said.

Will business be finished by the end of New Blood, though, or is there potential for even more Dexter in the future? While Phillips and Hall wouldn't confirm whether this is a close-ended series, Levine seems to look at it as the end.

"For me, it is the revisiting of Dexter and I think, for me, a proper finale for a brilliant series," he said.

Dexter: New Blood premieres on November 7 on Showtime. In addition to Hall returning, both Jennifer Carpenter (Deb) and John Lithgow (the Trinity Killer) will be reprising their roles on the new series, which should be interesting since both of them are dead.