During the recent Comic-Con@Home livestream event last weekend, Dexter actor Michael C. Hall revealed the reason for everyone’s favourite vigilante serial killer’s small-town move. The actor shared that the upcoming ninth season of Dexter will see the killer struggling to abstain from murder, and attempting to adjust to a new rural lifestyle, trying to escape all his bloodthirsty urges.
Based on Jeff Lindsay’s best-selling novels, the TV series Dexter follows a forensic scientist who murders serial killers in his spare time. The award-winning show has gathered a huge following since its 2008 debut, making a name for itself with its fresh take on the crime and thriller genre. Initially running for eight seasons, the series maintained its quality over the years, until its controversial original series finale.
Season eight of Dexter ended with the killer faking his death and beginning a new life as a lumberjack in Oregon. The long-awaited conclusion left fans wanting more, and in 2019 it was announced that Dexter would be returning in a new limited series. During a virtual panel at Comic-Con, Hall shared that he hoped the series’ revival would finally give fans closure, and gave some explanation to what we can expect for Dexter’s character development in the upcoming season.
“I think, you know, going back to the way the show ended, I think we see Dexter having made a choice to go into a sort of self-imposed exile,” Hall said. “And I think he’s doing a very, very long protracted penance for the people who’ve died who were close to him and not intended victims because of how he’d been living.”
“I think, as far as abstinence goes, as I imagined it, I think Dexter is maybe exercising the power of his restraint, you know, that his ability to not do it is something that he fixates on as a new kind of power. It’s the only way I can imagine him living without killing, if in fact he hasn’t been killing,” the actor explained. “But yeah, I think choosing to live in an environment that is not as sort of chock full of potential victims might indicate that he’s attempting to do that. He’s hoping to abstain.”
Dexter season 9 starts airing November 7 on Showtime in the US. No UK release date has been confirmed yet; however, we will update you as soon as we know more details. In the meantime, read our list of the best thriller movies to get your suspense fix.