My Hopes for Dexter: Original Sin Season 2

It’s a busy time to be a Dexter fan. The sequel to the sequel to the original series is just days away and we’re only about six months removed from the first season of the prequel to the original. I’m finding it difficult to get too excited about Dexter: Resurrection at this point, the series feeling exhausted after continually refusing to die, but by contrast I really enjoyed prequel series Dexter: Original Sin. Yes, it runs into some classic prequel problems, the timeline is a little screwy, the character ages are all over the place, but it manages to make the stale franchise feel fresh, or at least energetic. Ironically, it’s given it new life. So while we prepare for the more immediate arrival of Resurrection, I’m more focused on the upcoming second season of Original Sin and my hopes for where the show goes next.

Firstly, I’m hoping for a time jump. Perhaps a couple of years minimum could pass between each season, bringing us closer to the original series. This will help with practical aspects, like actors aging closer to the age they should be (Debra’s actress in Original Sin is four years older than Jennifer Carpenter was at the beginning of the original show, despite it being set 15 years earlier) and probably mean some better needle drops than the 1991 selection offers. I understand why the first season had to be set in 1991, to see Dexter’s first kill and the drama with Harry surrounding it, but introducing so many aspects of Dexter so early is awkward, and a time jump, now that the show is established, would help.

For example, while I liked Brian’s storyline, mirroring Dexter’s as he becomes a serial killer, it opens up a can of continuity worms. Now he’s just going to sit back and wait 15 years until he contacts Dexter? There has to be a reason for his absence, better than him listening to what Harry says in the finale. The same is somewhat true of Angel and Masuka. I think it was a bad call to introduce them so early. They are pretty much in the same roles they’ll be in in the original show, so there’ll be 15 years of them doing nothing, stuck in a holding pattern until 2006. Masuka will have nothing to do in the show other than slowly go bald and laugh.

It’s for that reason I don’t want Doakes brought into the show until the very end. He’ll be constrained by the canon and have nothing to do other than stand around and act mildly suspicious (but not too suspicious because that doesn’t happen until Dexter). Original Sin needs to rely on its supporting cast of new characters. New cops to build the drama in Miami Metro around. Sarah Michelle Gellar got very little to do in the first season and I hope she’s much more prominent in the second. Her character, Tanya, is introduced like she’ll be a forensics mentor for Dexter but then is barely around to give advice. I hope the Buffy revival doesn’t take her away from the show before she gets to make an impact.

Moving the show closer to the events of the original show will help some aspects of the series but I still want Original Sin to have its own unique feel. I don’t just want another season of Dexter because we’ve arguably had too many already. My favourite part of Original Sin’s debut season was seeing Dexter be inexperienced. Figuring out his MO. We’ve seen him wrap hundreds of people in plastic by this point but the show made it interesting again, showing him struggle with the basics. I don’t want to jump forward far enough where we lose that. There’s still some learning left to do, still confidence left to gain. I want to continue to see Dexter mess up in season 2.

I don’t know how long showrunner Clyde Phillips is hoping Original Sin will run but surely Harry can’t survive for much longer. While the first season saw his beginning with Dexter, the second should see his end. I imagine he’ll die in the second season finale. But exactly how and why? The original series told us it was suicide but while he struggles with Dex’s urges, he hardly seems suicidal. In fact, Harry is a much lighter character in the prequel than I was expecting. What will make him snap? I think it would be interesting for him to sic Dexter on a man he believes is a killer only to learn after the deed is done that he was innocent. That guilt, that complicity, could be what drives him to take his own life, while keeping it a secret from Dexter. Or, should we be preparing ourselves for a big retcon? I could see Brian killing Harry and making it look like a suicide.

And while I understand the bulk of the drama is between Dexter and his adoptive father, I was disappointed at how little we saw of his adoptive mother. There are only brief, glancing references to her in Dexter, and Original Sin seemed like the perfect place to get more of her but they begin the series just months after her death. If the flashbacks continue, I’d like her to be fleshed out as a three-dimensional character. But please, get rid of the flashback filter. The show thinks little of its audience’s intelligence. There are endless flashes of past moments and repetitive voiceover. We’ve all watched enough TV to understand there are two time periods in the same show. I don’t need weird filters and Christian Slater with three pounds of makeup on his forehead.

I imagine there will be more flashbacks, now of Dexter’s childhood with the Morgans. I found it strange that Harry taught Dexter the code as a kid and is then shocked when he killed someone in the premiere. Isn’t the point of the code to get away with murder? Hopefully the second season will smooth this out, and maybe include Dr. Vogel, too. I know the eighth season and Vogel’s inclusion was poorly received by fans but it’s canon, she’s co-creator of the code. I want Original Sin to accept that and find a way to make it work rather than ignore it.

And finally, I don’t want the show to be too overbearing with its prequel elements. I’m sure we’ll see how Dexter settled on his killing outfit but I don’t want a whole episode giving us a cute explanation of why he picked those particular gloves. I want the prequel story I don’t know, not the overexplained version of the story I do know. It made sense for Brian Moser to be a big part of this first season, he’s intrinsically linked to Dexter’s origin, but I don’t need him to play a significant role in any future seasons. And I don’t want it to open the floodgates for proto-versions of every serial killer from the original series. I love Trinity but he doesn’t need to be in this show. A teenage Hannah McKay storyline happening in the background, however, that I could get behind.