During a Sunday San Diego Comic-Con panel, Showtime revealed the official title (Dexter: New Blood) for the return of everyone’s favorite serial killer and the fateful date (November 7). The new trailer declared that “the Dark Passenger awaits,” so yeah, things are gonna get bloody, and the show suggested that a lot of knife play was to come. Not only that, but we’ll be seeing Jennifer Carpenter and John Lithgow return as Debra Morgan and the Trinity Killer, respectively, and they’ll presumably only do so in flashback form, which should be just fine for the audience.
While discussing the show’s return, star Michael C. Hall went deeper on his previous statements of understanding on why fans felt furious about the original show’s ending. That sentiment, of course, referred to how people felt let down by watching Dexter inexplicably dump Debra’s dead body into the ocean before sailing into a massive hurricane and somehow surviving to swap out coasts for the lumberjack life. To Hall, the fan reaction and the desire to revamp the show’s legacy (as affected by the ending) led to the decision to revive. Via Comic Book:
“It was a huge part of it. I think the ending was mystifying at best to people, confounding, exasperating, frustrating, on down the line of negative adjectives. I think this is a show that’s very important to all of us and the chance to revisit it and maybe in the process, redefine the sense of the show’s ending and the sense of the show’s legacy more broadly was certainly a part of our motivation. No doubt.”
Dexter: New Blood will run for 10 episodes, officially. However, Hall hinted during the panel that he’s not closed off to more episodes if things go well. Fingers are still duly crossed here for a flashback appearance by Doakes that goes something like this:
You can watch the full SDCC panel discussion below.