Image via Paramount, ShowtimeHall and his co-stars Jack Alcott and Krysten Ritter break down the humanity, horror, and heartbreak of ‘Dexter: Resurrection.’
Published Jun 17, 2026, 12:00 PM EDT
Tania Hussain is an Executive Editor at Collider responsible for creative, editorial, and managerial duties. In addition to leading content ideation and development, she works to generate innovative and compelling ideas for feature articles and reviews with her editorial team across Features, Lists, Reviews, and Interviews. She also serves as the primary editor overseeing Collider’s Signature Series profiles, spotlighting some of the most influential voices in film and television. Tania has helped cover and ideate content for major events for Collider, including the Toronto International Film Festival. She has also conducted more than 100 interviews since her start in the business more than 15 years ago. Some favorites include Joel McHale, Charlie Cox, Jennifer Garner, Tina Fey, Kate Winslet, Bob Odenkirk, Andy Richter, Jordan Schlansky, Jamie Dornan, Yeardley Smith, Rafe Spall, Esther Smith, and a reasonable toss-up between Cookie Monster and Kermit the Frog. She has covered set visits, in-person junkets, and red carpets for several films and TV shows, including most recently, The Sheep Detectives, Masterchef, and Star Trek: Starfleet Academy.
Editor's note: The following contains spoilers for Dexter: Resurrection Season 1.
On paper, Dexter: Resurrection feels like the biggest swing the Showtime series has ever attempted. It moves Michael C. Hall’s titular antihero Dexter Morgan out of Iron Lake and drops him straight into New York City with a hodgepodge of serial killers led by Peter Dinklage, Krysten Ritter, Neil Patrick Harris, David Dastmalchian, and Eric Stonestreet. And yet, it somehow still finds room for Dexter’s ghosts of Miami Metro’s past with a devastating reunion that changes everything. Yet when Collider sat down with Hall, Ritter, and Jack Alcott after the season finale, none of them were interested in the kills.
Instead, the three keep circling the ideas that define the revival’s premiere season once all that blood dries up, asking who Dexter is now, who Harrison is becoming, and what happens when someone like Mia turns performance into survival. Sure, the kills give Resurrection its pulse, but it’s the people that give it its wound.
For Hall, that actually meant he got to unpack a version of Dexter who is no longer trapped by the same questions that defined him for almost two decades now. For his on-screen son, played by Alcott, it meant exploring a young man in Harrison who is still very much terrified of becoming his father, even if we learn by season’s end that he’s nothing like him. And for Ritter, it meant digging into a character who spends so much time performing a specific version of herself that it’s hard to know where Mia ends and the mask begins.
Over the course of our conversations, what emerges isn’t a story about serial killers but one mostly about identity, thanks to some very sharp, strategic writing that leans into the stories we tell ourselves about survival. After nearly 20 years with Dexter Morgan from sunny Florida to concrete jungle New York, this is what makes Dexter: Resurrection feel so different.
Dexter Morgan Finally Stops Looking for Answers in ‘Dexter: Resurrection’
Dexter’s second chance pushes him past the question of whether he is human and toward the people who make him feel real.
Across eight seasons and a short-lived revival in 2021, the question that always popped up was about Dexter’s authenticity: Is he human or always just pretending? In Dexter: Resurrection, which is now returning for Season 2 this fall on Showtime, the series does something much sneakier. It never once erases that question, but it does make it feel less interesting.
Looking back on the return, Hall tells Collider that Dexter has “a newfound, OG vitality about him that he didn't quite have access to, probably once Trinity [John Lithgow] killed his wife, Rita [Julie Benz].” For the 55-year-old award-winning actor, that comes from “the story that they created and the circumstances that Dexter finds himself with this literal new lease on life,” especially after waking up from what should have been the end. “He doesn’t have amnesia, he remembers it all,” Hall says. “But I think getting shot and waking up and still being alive and feeling like he’s not even supposed to be here, his life is just gravy. He’s unburdened by it in a way.”
That, obviously, doesn’t make Dexter safe. But it does make him different. Hall says he liked that Dexter: Resurrection pulled his character out of “this deliberative mode of, ‘Do I really love my son? What’s the story?’” and forced him to act instead. “He just found out his son was in New York, and he went there,” Hall says. “There was an impulse that sort of overrode the weighing of his monstrousness versus humanity that kind of puts some things to bed in a way.”
In a season filled with serial killer clubs and basic New York chaos, that might be the most important change. Dexter is not standing still long enough to explain himself out of sheer care, but rather moving toward Harrison for connection. It’s this that is also part of Dexter’s overall evolution. “I think he’s put away the fetishization of being a human being and playing at being a human being and indulging in relationships,” he says. “He’s had experiences that have taught him that he needs to take more responsibility for the fact that relationships are actual, they’re real. They’re not just playing out on some screen in front of him.”
That is a component that makes Resurrection feel sharper than a simple comeback, too, as Dexter is still who he is, but Hall is clear that “he’s as reconciled as ever to his compulsion.” Except this time around, the performance has shifted because the character has shifted. “I think he's put away some of his sort of detached musings about himself and what he is and isn’t, and is more of an agent in the world,” Hall says.
The More Dexter Learns About Harrison, the Less He Sees Himself
Harrison’s fear of becoming Dexter matters because ‘Resurrection’ keeps proving he may be nothing like him.
Image via Zach Dilgard/Paramount+ with SHOWTIMEFor years, Dexter has looked at Harrison through the lens of his own darkness. It makes sense, of course, because the father-son relationship was built around the dread that whatever lived inside Dexter had somehow been passed down to his child. While New Blood leaned into that a bit, Resurrection spends its first season challenging it.
Hall believes Dexter slowly comes to recognize that projecting himself onto Harrison was not something that would earn him the respect and connection he wanted from his son. “Projecting himself onto him, I think he realized, was a mistake in terms of who Harrison is,” he says, adding how it was also “a mistake in terms of Dexter’s own well-being.” For Dexter, Harrison was never just his child, but rather a mirror — “born in blood” as the show has fixated on. But Hall argues that was the last thing his character needed.
“To stare into his son and have reflected to him the most potent sense of humanity, embodied by his relationship with his sister, is a lot healthier and also a lot more accurate,” Hall says. It is one of the most thoughtful observations to come out of the season, especially as Dexter starts comparing Harrison to his sister, Debra (Jennifer Carpenter). Hall doesn't frame it as wishful thinking, either. “I think his observation that he's likely more like her than him is legit.”
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‘Dexter: Resurrection’ Showrunner Clyde Phillips Reveals the Vision Behind Season 2
Show creator Phillips says Dexter Morgan will continue to struggle with age, emotional connection, and boundaries with his son Harrison.
Alcott arrives at a similar conclusion from Harrison's side of the story. One of the things he loves most about the character is that the answer never stays fixed. “We spend all of New Blood going, ‘He's just like his dad. He's just like his dad. He's just like his dad.’ And then when we finish, we go, ‘Is he?’” Alcott says in a sit-down with Collider. “Then we go all of Resurrection going, ‘He's not like his dad. He's not like his dad. He's not like his dad — is he?’”
That uncertainty is what makes Harrison even more interesting. Unlike Dexter, who often approaches the world through compulsion, Harrison is deeply affected by those around him. “Harrison, while he clearly has the capability to commit some pretty unspeakable acts of violence, cares deeply,” the 29-year-old explains. “He is very much somebody who cares about human life and about justice.” The actor points to the fact that Harrison’s struggle is bigger than avoiding consequences. “It's ‘I’m scared of becoming my father. I’m scared of becoming what is maybe a monster.’”
For Hall, that realization becomes one of the season’s most important developments. Harrison is not evidence that darkness is inherited. If anything, he becomes proof that people can make their own choices. “I think over the course of Resurrection, he comes to appreciate how much he thrives on and needs connection to people who maybe are less burdened by his affliction,” Hall says.
Everyone in ‘Dexter: Resurrection’ Is Performing a Version of Themselves
Ritter says Mia was never “just” a serial killer, which is why the role feels so deliciously dangerous.
Image via Showtime, Paramount+One of the most fascinating things about Dexter: Resurrection is how often its characters are pretending to be something they’re not. Some hide from the police, while others hide from each other. But more often than not, they are all hiding from themselves, and no character embodies that better than Mia, played by Ritter.
The bestselling author and actor tells Collider that part of the challenge of playing the killer known as Lady Vengeance was understanding that Mia is constantly adjusting depending on who she’s with. “Part of the action for the character, as well, was always playing a different version of who she needs to be for who’s in the room,” Ritter explains.
At the same time, Mia is “keeping one eye on everybody else in the room,” while “not trusting anybody” and constantly trying to stay one step ahead. Whether she's sitting across from Dexter, working her way through Prater’s circles, or just hunting her next victim, Mia is always performing.
That performance becomes even more gripping when Mia seems convinced she understands herself. Ritter notes that Mia once had something resembling a code, much like Dexter did, but not for long. “Given what she went through with her stepfather and her younger sister, you can kind of wrap your head around her entry point,” Ritter says. “She sort of did have a code like Dexter, and at some point, she just went from that to a real cold-blooded killer.” But what makes Mia unsettling is not that she lies to other people. It’s more of how she has spent years building a story that allows her to live with who she is.
Dexter has spent much of the franchise doing something similar. The difference is that Resurrection finds him moving away from performance while Mia doubles down on it. Ritter believes that care is also why the season was able to attract such a stacked cast. “They were able to get such amazing actors to do this season, because these were juicy, juicy roles that were very multidimensional,” she says. “We weren't just serial killers for the fun of it or telling it. We saw everything, and we heard backstory, and we spent time with that, and I think that's what makes it so delicious.”
No One Survives Alone in ‘Dexter: Resurrection’
Dexter and Harrison are moving toward connection, while Mia shows what happens when trust disappears.
For a show built around a serial killer who insists he is different from others, Dexter has always been weirdly obsessed with connection. The antihero may have started the original series seeing relationships as camouflage, but the people around him were never just props. Between his sister Deb and his late wife, Rita, they both really mattered — just as much as Harrison. But by Resurrection, the lie that Dexter can survive alone feels thinner than ever.
Hall says Dexter comes to understand that most clearly through Harrison. “Dexter has had connections with other people in his life that have been legitimate, most notably his relationship with his sister,” Hall says, “but he’s never had responsibility or a sense of responsibility for another person's well-being or their life.” That is new, terrifying territory for him. Hall calls it “new and scary and vitalizing in this new landscape,” which feels right for a season where Dexter is more alive because he has more to lose.
Alcott sees that same emotional legacy through Deb. Speaking about what it means for Harrison to be compared to her, he says, “She tethers him to humanity.” For Alcott, Deb was not just another person Dexter loved in his own complicated way, but rather a part of what made him more than the monster he believed himself to be. “In this show, we start with a monster that becomes this complicated man who evolves,” Alcott says, “and I think Deb played a massive, massive part in that.”
That is why Harrison’s place in Dexter’s life feels so important now. Alcott puts it plainly: “I think Harrison does, too… I think Harrison and Harry, ironically, the Morgans, really do keep him a human.” It is a precious idea, but not always a realistic one. In Resurrection, connection does not make anyone safe. As we have learned through all the blood, it makes everything more dangerous as the characters have something to lose.
That is also where Mia becomes an interesting contrast to the Morgans. Ritter describes her as someone who survives by being in control, not trusting others. As she puts it, Mia is “maneuvering, cat and mouse, and chess,” while “being one step ahead” and “having a little bit of information in the pocket.” While she doesn’t let anyone in, she does study them, use them, and test their merit. But Mia is not cut off from connection entirely, which is what makes Ritter’s work more fascinating than a straight femme fatale turn. She says Mia is “definitely drawn” to Dexter, describing the two as having “a sort of magnetic electricity between them.” That pull matters as Mia recognizes something in Dexter, even if her instinct is still to turn recognition into control.
While Dexter is slowly rediscovering the people who tether him to humanity, Mia is moving in the opposite direction. Ritter says Mia “doesn’t trust any of those motherfuckers at the dinner party.” For the actor, that kind of constant suspicion is part of what keeps her character so vibrant and layered on screen. “All of those colors are incredibly fun to play,” Ritter says, “but they’re choices that are very active, so it keeps you very busy, and that’s the kind of work that I love to do because I get so encompassed into it.”
It’s in that difference that the show plays ball with. Dexter and Harrison are messy, damaged, and dangerous, but they are moving toward each other. But Mia keeps watching the exits through a bit of derangement. It’s those “little cracks of psychotic derangement coming through” that made Mia so fun to play, per Ritter. “She really enjoyed hitting that guy in the head with the wine bottle,” she laughs. “And the line, ‘And that is why you have to die,’ just enjoying that line a little too much was really fun for me.”
Batista’s Death Changes Everything for ‘Dexter: Resurrection’
Dexter may have survived death, but Batista’s loss proves ‘Resurrection’ still comes with a cost.
Image via Paramount+ with ShowtimeFor all its talk of second chances, Dexter: Resurrection never pretends that being able to reinvent oneself comes for free. Dexter might be getting a new lease on life while Harrison finds his footing, and even Mia spends a lot of the season hiding behind a carefully constructed version of herself. Yet, every transformation in this show comes with a cost, and nobody understands that better than the people trying to outrun who they used to be.
Hall sees Dexter as a man fundamentally different 20 years later. “It’s freeing,” he says of exploring this new, layered version of the character. “It does feel like a legitimate rebirth and revitalization of the character. He feels new in a way, and the stakes of his life feel different.” Dexter may be older and carrying more scars than ever before, but Hall believes his character also has “a more genuine openness and a more vulnerable and consequential connection to the world around him and to the people he, as much as he can, loves.”
Harrison’s evolution feels no less significant. Alcott says his character enters the season running from everything he has experienced, but leaves with a different understanding of who he can be. “I think an answer's forming,” he says. “He’s been running and in the dark, running from himself, from his father, from his past.” By the finale, however, “Harrison sees a little bit of light. He’s still running, but I think there’s a little more direction in where he’s headed.”
Mia’s story arrives at a much darker conclusion, especially after she is killed on the orders of Leon Prater (Dinklage) in prison by a federal prison guard. Looking back on the character, Ritter says the most interesting question is not who Mia became, but when she crossed the line. That distinction is key for the actor, because her character’s horror is not that she began as evil, but that something changed over some circumstantial events. “There’s something that happens along the way where the lust and the power take over,” Ritter says, adding that Mia “has lost her initial reason why she became a killer.”
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Ritter adds that if there was more story to share about Mia, “the most fun thing to explore would be the moment where she went from a vigilante killer to a monster,” asking what that could look like or what that moment was. As a question that lingers over the entire season, especially as Resurrection repeatedly asks whether people are defined by their worst impulses or the choices they make after them.
And then there is Batista, played by the incredible David Zayas. The friendship between Dexter and Batista has existed for nearly the entire life of the franchise, which is why Hall says filming the ending was “heartbreaking.” But more importantly, he wanted audiences to understand “what [that loss will] cost and will likely continue to cost Dexter” going forward into Season 2, as his former Miami Metro colleague and longtime friend dies on his watch after becoming entangled in the investigation around Dexter.
For years, Dexter convinced himself that relationships were something he could observe from a distance and not be a part of, but Batista's death shatters that illusion. “It’s not a theoretical loss. It's real,” Hall says. “It's something that he carries now, and something that humanizes him all the more.”
That pain carries directly into the season's final moments. Hall recalls feeling that Dexter's anguished scream after Batista's death needed to happen. “I have to release this. Can we try that?” he remembers thinking on the day. The moment ultimately stayed in the episode, becoming what Hall describes as an expression of “the simultaneous grief and rage at life having once again gotten away from his control.”
Dexter survives death and finds his son alongside a new purpose, but Hall believes “moving forward, I think Dexter will be newly haunted.” For a series called Dexter: Resurrection, that feels like the perfect place to leave him.
For more with Michael C. Hall and Jack Alcott, watch the full interview with the pair above. Dexter: Resurrection is now streaming on Paramount+.
Dexter: Resurrection
Release Date July 13, 2025
Network Paramount+ with Showtime
Directors Marcos Siega
Writers Scott Buck
English (US) ·