During Dexter: New Blood’s Q&A at the Television Critics Association (TCA) summer press tour, it was confirmed that Jennifer Carpenter will be returning as Debra Morgan as a series regular in Showtime’s continuation of the award-winning crime drama series (via TVLine). The character will not be returning as the Deb we know and love, however, but instead as Dexter’s new Dark Passenger in an “imaginary iteration of Debra.”
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“I love the concept of the Dark Passenger and being invited into Dexter’s psyche,” Carpenter revealed during Showtime’s TCA virtual presentation (via Deadline). “I feel like sometimes the Dark Passenger and the passenger is almost directly behind the wheel and it was an opportunity not to be an angel or devil on his shoulder, but to jerk the wheel to the left or right against his will. And to manipulate him, to navigate him, to abuse him, to save him. I felt like it was something entirely different than some sort of ghost entity.”
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The Dark Passenger is evolving. What are you hoping to see in #Dexter: New Blood? pic.twitter.com/L3qkaZeWt3
— SHOWTIME (@Showtime) August 25, 2021
Dexter star Michael C. Hall added: “Harry [James Remar] was like Dexter’s north star in his consistent point of view, whereas Deb, in the context of this world, coming from everywhere. In that, she’s an internalized character for Dexter that represents just how far he’s come or how far he’s fallen — internally reeling and without a compass in a sense as much as he’d like to have one.”
Showrunner Clyde Phillips also attended the virtual panel and added that Deb’s return represents “more than the Dark Passenger.”
“She represents a corner of Dexter’s mind that we all have in our own heads that says, ‘Well, wait a minute, if you do this, then there are consequences.’ If you notice at the very beginning of the show when we introduce Deb, it’s very quiet and it’s very still. They’re talking about how he is the one who chose that place. They’re sitting at the table and Deb has her head down and Dexter almost touches it but he can’t because she’s a part of him.”
Harrison, is that you? #Dexter pic.twitter.com/gYWUEK2WPP
— SHOWTIME (@Showtime) August 24, 2021
Additionally, Showtime revealed a first look at Dexter’s son Harrison, played by newcomer Jack Alcott. In the premiere, Harrison has tracked down his father in a “sleepy New York town and wants to rejoin his life.”
“We sat down and figured out what were going to do and quickly decided on the theme of fathers and sons,” said Phillips. “We can’t do a show about Dexter without bringing back his son, who he left when he was 5 years old. His son thinks he’s dead but then finds him alive and he’s full of resentment. Dexter will have a lot of work to do to win his son back and prove that he’s a good father and I think we get there.”
“That goes to the other parts of the theme of the season: sins of the father and how these things are passed down to our kids. There’s a great deal of support there,” added executive producer Scott Reynolds.
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Dexter: New Blood will premiere on November 7. The revival is set 10 years after Dexter Morgan went missing in the eye of Hurricane Laura. Along with Hall, Morgan, and Alcott, the cast includes Clancy Brown, Julia Jones, Michael Cyril Creighton, Alano Miller, Johnny Sequoyah, Jamie Chung, and Oscar Wahlberg. It was announced in June that John Lithgow will also be returning as the Trinity Killer in the series.
