Like Luigi, 'Dexter' has pretty privilege
Looksmaxxing killers were always a thing since Miami's *finest* blood spatter expert Dexter Morgan first rolled out the clear plastic. Now he's back in a '90s twunk's body.
IN SHOWTIME’S INSISTENCE, Dexter Morgan — Miami PD’s ostensibly puppy-coded forensic pathologist — joins the ranks of horror’s most unsinkable bogeymen (sorry, Voorhees). Like the Shape1, there’s just no killing Dexter. Last we checked in Dexter: New Blood, his similarly dark passenger-bearing progeny, Harrison, sniped a bullet hole through his chest and left him for dead in the winter.
And for a while, that was it. Then, like any TV exec sensing a far-from-dead fandom (New Blood kinda ate ratings-wise), Showtime execs quickly switched gears and went like “issa prank!” and ordered for more seasons of Dexter. This prequel series titled Original Sin and another titled Resurrection, which continues Dexter’s fantastic life in plastic (wraps).
The prequel series, Dexter: Original Sin, diddles the VHS pinch rollers back to the early ‘90s, where Oakleys were all the rage and The Morgans were a family of three instead of two: Harry (Christian Slater), a good-doing detective living in Miami with his two kids, an angsty, foul-mouthed sweetheart named Deb (Molly Brown), and a perfectly well-adjusted guy named Dexter (Patrick Gibson). Just kidding. Dexter is one brawl away from personifying Ted Bundy (in the words of Kendrick: “he a fan, he a fan, he a fan.”). But Harry, as we all know, deludes himself into thinking “ok, but wait, I can fix him,” and imposes on his serial-killing adoptive son a code by which he must abide whenever he offs other “bad people.”
Since this is pretty much set in the same story, you’re reminded of the moral holes in Harry and Dexter’s setup: Which bad acts deserve the ultimate bad act as punishment? And at which point does murder morally trump another murder? It’s all very topical, what with the ongoing murder case of United HealthCare CEO, whose suspect is also a righteous guy who constantly mews and has optimal body-fat ratio (he’s hot2, in short). What does this seemingly endless well of empathy for white male suspects? Before Morgan and Mangione this year, the internet lit ablaze for Ryan Murphy’s salacious true crime-based Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story.
The series kinda sidesteps that conversation and opts to distract us with out-of-place ‘90s needledrops. The first three episodes all feel neatly wrapped in a package that will speak to a specific sample of the ‘90s baby population: I mean, apart from casting three hot ‘90s icons (Slater, duh…but also Sarah Michelle Gellar and Patrick Dempsey? Showtime is doing crazy work!), the format, the visuals, and the scripting go incredible lengths to resemble the O.G. show.
The production design dresses the show’s soundstages to look almost exactly like the Miami PD we know from the late oughts’, washed-out grading notwithstanding. The casting goes hard too. James Martinez looks eerily like his David Ayaz, goated goatee and all. The Morgans are amply reminiscent of their O.G. counterparts. Gibson, in particular, nails many of Michael C. Hall’s micro-expressions and mannerisms — except, maybe, Dexter’s inner voice, which Showtime cleverly defers to Hall’s now-iconic and irreplaceable voiceover performance (sorry, You). And maybe his penchant for Henleys.
These are all acceptable fan fodder; sure to satiate viewers’ thirst for callbacks and easter eggs. Original Sin’s opening credits — a mostly point-for-point recreation of the original’s — want to assure fans that it’s basically the same show.
But there are a few new things at least. Dexter is kind of a noob now, and is so socially inept he thought the best way to a colleague’s heart is through their love of crudités. Spoiler: Sweet pastries work better…always. Through seemingly random vignettes we also get more screentime for Dex n’ Deb’s mom, but three episodes in, and there hasn’t been plenty of new things to gnaw at. It feels like we’ve covered much of what Original Sin is tackling. And we’ve yet to have any inkling of a central antagonist (well, apart from Dexter).
Which is to say I’m having a tremendously difficult time understanding who Dexter: Original Sin is for. Why have we double-backed from Dexter’s seemingly final demise? Isn’t a villain antihero entitled to their reckoning? Dexter far too pretty to close the casket, or sumth? I don’t know, but between Slater, Gellar, and Dempsey’s line reads and the somewhat self-aware camp of Original Sin, I guess I don’t mind not thinking too hard about it.
ABOUT THE SERIES
📼 Dexter: Original Sin
shw. Clyde Phillips | Horror, Thriller, Comedy | 🇺🇸Miami, 1991. When his bloodthirsty urges can't be ignored any longer, young Dexter Morgan must learn to channel his inner darkness as he transitions from student to avenging serial killer with the guidance of his father, Harry.
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Annoyingly, David Gordon Green definitively — spoiler alert! — killed off Michael Myers in the aptly titled Halloween Ends.
Bro casually got a low taper fade and fully looksmaxxed in his mugshot, knowing full well all the gays and the gals will be shaking in their groins.