Stay Tuned #57: Dexter - Original Sin
a.k.a The Ticketmaster.
Because it's March 11, get it?
Anyway, Ticketholders, I'm writing this two weeks after the "airing" of the final episode, and a week before publication, following a particularly physically demanding day at work, so it would make me very happy if you would please, for once in this slice of life, remember to Become A Ticketholder for real if you haven't already, comment your thoughts at the bottom of this post, help out my ad revenue so I don't become a Florida Man, and follow me on BlueSky, Tumblr, Reddit, Facebook, YouTube, and LinkedIn to like what you see and receive the latest news on my content.
Now, let's pop some smelling salts, open our eyes, and look at what the Dexter crew have done.
Now, let's pop some smelling salts, open our eyes, and look at what the Dexter crew have done.
The second (which is only important for the purposes of this review, which isn't that important in the macro of things, but I hope you keep reading and invite others to read and engage anyway because technology has turned life into an RPG where we farm attention to make numbers get bigger) is the sheer amount of original and prequel media these days that take place in modern day but flash back to the 90s, or take place in the 90s and flash back to the 70s or 80s, and overuse nostalgic music cues (often the same ones) to make sure the audience knows when the series takes place. Subtle.
Yellowjackets does it, Goosebumps did it, Fear Street did it, the good Transformers movies did it, Stranger Things practically invented streamable nostalgia-pandering content, and now, Dexter: Original Sin has also committed the aforementioned unoriginal sin, as well.
Picking up in the aftermath of New Blood (and nodding to a scrapped ending concept for the original Dexter), Original Sin is framed as a "life flashing before my eyes" prequel, narrated by Michael C. Hall as the mortally wounded Morgan undergoes a life-saving operation.
When the series does its 70s flashbacks, the focus is on Harry Morgan (here played by Christian Slater rather than James Remar, and the substitution works fairly well once you get used to it, even though Remar had a bit more emotional depth and fatherly energy) as he navigates old trauma and the undercover operation/affair with Dexter's birth mother (Brittany Allen, Jigsaw) in the days leading up to her death, then the aftermath of Harry and Doris (Jasper Lewis, V/H/S) adopting Dexter and attempting to adopt Brian (Roby Attal, Hell Fest in the 90s; Five Nights At Freddy's extra Xander Mateo in the 70s). The expected attempts at using hairstyles, fashion, makeup tricks, and saturation and temperature filters to de-age characters and capture the feel of the era are employed in these parts to decent effect, and we get little nods to the first season like the boys painting their mother's fingernails different colors, "oh, yeah!" character names, and the chillingly familiar Moser house. If there's one thing Original Sin does well, it's the callbacks and recreations of iconic scenes...for the most part (I'll get to that later). And if there's another thing Original Sin does well, it's casting and characterization...for the most part (I'll get to that shortly, and later).
In the "present" 90s setting, Original Sin covers a ton of ground, following a young adult Dexter (Shadow and Bone's Patrick Gibson, who looks the part and nails every mannerism and delivery cadence like he had Dexter Clockwork Orange'd into his brain and broke into Michael C. Hall's house to watch him sleep; give this man an Emmy now!) as he evolves through his early kills (the recreation of the first, where he dispatches the black widow nurse who tried to kill Harry, was a solid piece of nostalgia), adapts to his job at Miami Metro (with Buffy herself, Sarah Michelle Gellar, as his boss in forensics, and Patrick Dempsey of Thanksgiving as the maritally challenged captain). And Batista (Love, Victor's James Martinez, who sounds like David Zayas doing ADR on low-dose helium) is also there.
Throw in awkward sibling shenanigans with Debra (Molly Brown, Bloody Axe Wound, doing her character's profanity gimmick and looking the part, but not bringing much else to the role that isn't presented better in the writing) and Dexter Dorkily Dating her friend Sophia (Raquel Justice, Finding Tony), a subplot where Harry and a young Maria LaGuerta (a picture-perfect casting in Be Cool star Christina Milian) investigate a possible serial murder case that lands closer to home than expected, and a series of child abductions that may or may not have ties to cartel activity (and serves as the season-long villain mystery, the reveal for which is made stupidly obvious by the casting and doesn't entirely make character sense, as if late-stage meddling led to eleventh hour script changes and reshoots), and there's plenty for fans and casuals to keep track of.
Unfortunately, Original Sin also commits the common prequel sin of compulsively tying things together too quickly and providing explanations for things that don't really need them (how did Dexter get his boat‽), creating new inconsistencies and destroying the source material's themes in the process. Stuff like Masuka (played here by Alex Shimizu of The Terror, and because Masuka was a gimmick character in Dexter, I'm more disappointed Shimizu didn't commit to the bit for the full season, but when he does the laugh and the pervy jokes, it hits right and he looks and sounds the part) being the one to get Dexter his Patrick Bateman ID even though it never came up in the Bay Harbor Butcher investigation when they discovered the alias attached to M-99 purchases in Season Two, the scene of a pre-trauma Brian ripping the tails off of lizards (showing that Brian was always "evil" and Dexter was always "good" - or right, if you want to get all Latin and punny about it - and completely negating the "Brian is what Dexter would have become without a code and a family," nature vs. nurture dichotomy of the first season), and LaGuerta knowing about Harry's history with the Moser family before the Ice Truck Killer investigation in Season One (again, with no future acknowledgement there) don't work for this reason, and the finale backpedals hard on the nature vs. nurture screw-up by showing Brian's terrible life in the foster system, contradicting its own established lore. At least the Bateman alias makes continuity sense (the American Psycho movie and Dexter came out close enough together for the reference to work, and the Brent Easton Ellis novel came out in 1991, so the Dexter Universe fits a real-world timeline in that respect, too).
Trying to hit all of the prequel checkboxes in a short, ten-episode run also means that characters like Harry's friend Bobby (Reno Wilson, Good Girls), the closeted cop of color Clark (Aaron Jennings, Pure Genius), and Debra's short-lived, suspiciously rich and connected boyfriend Gio (Isaac Gonzalez Rossi, The Devil In the Room) get fridged, pushed to the background, or suddenly dropped from the story for the sake of fleshing out more "important" people and events.
As an unconditional fan of the franchise (who can recognize the awkwardness of the second and third seasons and acknowledge that the series started to drop off after Lumen and Doomsday), I love how much heart and effort went into making Original Sin look and feel like Dexter Season Zero, from the opening credits and music to the sets, the character performances, the references, and the tone and cadence of the writing. And as a critical voice on the internet, I can also recognize the kind of base product that Original Sin is and the flaws it inherits by being that. It makes me cynical about the current generation of visual media, but not so furiously dejected that I would denounce my fandom. The worst thing I can experience (besides knowing that I live in America in 2025 and it will be the best that the next four years of my life can possibly get) is wanting passionately to enjoy and discuss something, only to come away from it with no emotional resonance and nothing to say.
Dexter: Original Sin, as you can see above, gave me plenty to say, and plenty to feel. I even got a laugh out of that bite sound effect in the opening credits because it reminds me of the piranha fish from the Donkey Kong Country sequels.
So in a spirit of conflicted positivity rather than emotional vacancy, I'm going with a
C
Give it a binge, but know what you're in for, and Stay Tuned for a continuation of sorts this summer. You might even call it a Resurrection.
Tomorrow I decide if I'll keep going with The Dream Eater Saga or switch to Myths & Legends for a week, so please remember to Become A Ticketholder if you haven't already, comment your thoughts at the bottom of this post, help out my ad revenue so I don't become a Florida Man, and follow me on BlueSky, Tumblr, Reddit, Facebook, YouTube, and LinkedIn to like what you see and receive the latest news on my content.
Ticketmaster,
Out of Key Lime Pie.
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