Dexter: New Blood creator Clyde Phillips (Feed The Beasts, Dexter: Original Sin) has finally explained why the main character of the series, Dexter Morgan, has been killed in the series finale, Comicbook.com exclusively reports. Dexter is Showtime’s biggest series and has released various revivals and spinoffs throughout the years, including Dexter: New Blood, the most recent Dexter: Original Sin, and the upcoming Dexter: Resurrection. This has created a real Dexter multiverse! The original series, Dexter, ended in 2013 as Dexter faked his death and ended up running away to the Pacific Northwest as a lumberjack with no internal monologue present. This was ranked one of the most unsatisfying TV endings in various ranking lists. A huge plot twist was the decision to resuscitate Dexter in the newest Dexter: Original Sin, which made fans ecstatic and opened doors to new revivals in this universe.
However, according to Comicbook.com, Phillips never wanted to bring Dexter back to life in the first place. In various previous interviews, he explained that the finale of Dexter: New Blood was meant to be as such, with Dexter dead, to conclude his journey. To be precise, the showrunner explained to The Hollywood Reporter that he decided to kill the character of Dexter because the series was meant to last only one season, and he didn’t want to leave the series with another unfulfilling open-ended again.
“When I wrote that [New Blood] finale — which was the most watched single episode in the history of Showtime, by the way — the internet went insane over it. Because they loved Dexter so much and they love Michael C. Hall (Six Feet Under, Safe) so much,” Phillips explained via Comicbook.com. “I wanted to take out ads at the time that said: ‘I only had Hall for one year.’ Back when we did New Blood, I only had him for one year. […] I didn’t want him going off to prison or disappearing into the fog or any of that business [in the finale], so I decided to be bold about it. The internet hated it.”
Dexter: New Blood is now streaming on Paramount+ and Showtime. Dexter: Original Sin releases weekly episodes on Paramount+.