Dexter: New Blood showrunner, Clyde Phillips, is still not over the finale of the original Dexter run and would have proposed an entirely different destiny for Michael C. Hall’s beloved serial killer. Talking to Entertainment Weekly, Philips revealed his unpitched final scene, which would have led the original series down a whole different path.
Dexter takes on a new identity in the original finale and becomes a lumberjack, abandoning his son after his sister Debra Morgan (Jennifer Carpenter) dies. The ending, much despised by fans, is also reviled by Philips himself, who helmed the original show as showrunner for its first four seasons. When asked about his impressions on the final season, Philips said that “as an audience member with a vested interest, I thought the show lost its way. I mean, there were videos of people watching the final episode and yelling at their television.”
However, Philips underlines that he “wasn't in the room, so I can't really criticize anybody for that.” As Philips explains it, “many factors go into what happens between executive producers and network influence,” which means there’s not someone to blame for Dexter’s ending.
Even if Philipps understands that sometimes a series’s creative direction is not under the control of showrunners, he reiterates that the best way to finish Dexter would be to kill Hall’s character. Philips also has what he thinks would be the perfect ending scene in his mind, a shot he never got the chance to propose. In Philips words:
“My personal ending for the show was that he was going to be executed for his crimes. He's lying on the table and outside the window are all the people he's killed. That was just in my own head. I never pitched that to anybody.”
Phillips is back to Dexter’s universe as the showrunner of New Blood, a revival season that promises to put an end to the serial killer’s journey. Set almost a decade after the original finale, Dexter: New Blood brings many familiar characters back, including a grow-up version of Dexter’s son Harrison (Jack Alcott), the ghost of his sister Debra, and even some of the series big baddies such as John Lithgow’s Trinity Killer. Dexter’s revival cast also includes Johnny Sequoyah, Alano Miller, Julia Jones, Jamie Chung, Oscar Wahlberg, and Michael Cyril Creighton.
Dexter: New Blood premiered on Showtime last Sunday, November 7. New episodes will be released weekly on Sundays at 9 PM ET/PT. Check out Dexter: New Blood synopsis below.
Set 10 years after Dexter went missing in the eye of Hurricane Laura, the series finds him living under an assumed name in the small town of Iron Lake, New York. Dexter may be embracing his new life, but in the wake of unexpected events in this close-knit community, his Dark Passenger beckons.