Note: The following contains spoilers for the “Dexter: Original Sin” Season 1 finale.
The season finale of “Dexter: Original Sin” is here and yes, the bad guy gets got. But in a way, a new bad guy is also fully formed.
Of course, that depends on whether you consider Dexter a bad guy. Sure, seeing him really settle into his kill ritual and start to become the precise killer we eventually come to know is fun, but murder is absolutely wrong. Then again, so is kidnapping, dismembering and trying to kill your own kid, which Aaron Spencer (Patrick Dempsey) definitely did.
After letting the police captain escape in Episode 9, we see Dexter (Patrick Gibson) follow Spencer to a massive ship, where he’s holding his son. Realizing that Dexter has caught up with him, Spencer floods the chamber where Nicky is chained, forcing the serial killer into a choice — save a child or let his urge to kill take priority.
Dexter opts for the former, but don’t worry, he still manages to get his old boss onto his table and into the ocean, with the help of Camilla’s boat.
So, where do we go from here? We asked Dexter himself. You can check out TheWrap’s full conversation with Patrick Gibson below.
I’ve got to say, I don’t know that I’ve ever rooted for Patrick Dempsey to be killed before. That was kind of a weird experience for me.
Yes, wow, I thought you were gonna say just rooted for him, full stop. I was like, “Wow, I think we need to talk about this.” Yeah, I know! God, he’s so evil. He really is. I don’t think there was anyone — any character, not any actor, obviously — but there was no character that I wanted to kill more than him. Truly. I kept saying, I was like, “I can’t wait to kill that lad.” And so it was very cathartic.
Did you tell him this? Like on the day when you’re filming, you’re like “Hey man, I’m real excited to just wipe him off the board.”
Absolutely not. I was like, “I’m so sorry we have to do this. I wish it didn’t have to be this way.” (laughs).
Well, it leads to this really heartfelt, but also super dark conversation between Dexter and Harry, where you say, “Aaron Spencer became a monster. I was born this way.” And Harry has this moment of decision, and says “Yes, you were.” What a brutal lie! Now knowing what we know. When you read the script, when you see that element of the story, how did that make you feel?
I was so excited, because it’s a difficult line to toe, of how much can the character develop in that first season, and still leave room for growth? And so much happens, and he has so many experiences that there is a huge arc, kind of from where he starts in that first episode to where he is by the end.
And I think even the costume kind of reflects that, like it starts to feel a little bit more mature. I sort of see him as entering his adolescent phase of psychopathy, of being a serial killer, if he’s in his infancy at the start. And I think for him to still have this massive secret is really interesting.
And also, to see Harry be able to lie to Dexter like that says a lot about Harry. Like in that early scene, when Dexter’s like “So nurse Mary’s gone, nothing to worry about. This is great. See you later, dad. Good night!” and Harry breaks down in tears, Harry can’t really face that he is, in a way, Dr. Frankenstein. And that a lot of this falls on his shoulders. And so for him to tell Dexter that he’s born this way sort of helps relieve that guilt that he may have actually created this monster.
I’m wondering if, in your opinion, it also kind of put some relief on Dexter, in a way. Does it give him a sense of relief that maybe “This is just how I am, and it sucks, but it is what it is”?
Totally. Yeah, I think there’s an interesting parallel between that and I think it might be season three [of the original “Dexter”] when Dexter thinks he’s gonna get caught, and he’s gonna tell Debra. He doesn’t, and he sort of settles into who he is, and all of this pressure and stress goes away because he’s just like, “This is who I am.”
And there’s kind of an amazing lesson in that for everyone, even though he’s learning it about being a psychopath. But I think it’s a similar thing. Yeah, it’s really interesting to to bring that up, because I think it will give him a sense of like, the train is on the tracks and now it’s moving. If we were to do another season, it would definitely feel like he’s now an unstoppable force.
And my God, it was so hard actually seeing his childhood scenes, because you guys don’t play around with the blood on this show. So you have actual children in front of fake severed body parts that look so intense.
I know! And those kids are so cute. I remember being there on the day when they were doing that! I saw Eli Sherman, the wonderful actor who plays young Dexter, I went up to him, and I was like, “Oh, good job today, man!” And he shook my hand, and he’s still stained in blood, and I was like, this poor kid must be traumatized.
But they actually were very good about what the kids actually saw. And there’s a bit of movie magic, because this is really intense. Even for the older actors on set, like, it’s pretty scary stuff!
I also just didn’t expect the Brian Moser storyline so early in “Dexter: Original Sin.” I don’t know if I even expected it at all. So how far in advance were you aware that they were bringing in Brian Moser?
I had no idea that was going to come into the season. I loved it. I feel like it’s so cool to have those two strands going on, like you’ve got a big bad, and then you kind of think the big bad could be responsible for the — it just messes with the form of the show that could otherwise help you predict what’s gonna happen. And I think that was really cool.
I also just love that he’s been a part of his life for that long, you know? I think that adds to that, like, Greek tragedy element of the story where, yeah, you realize that he’s been watching Dexter. It also, weirdly, gave me a lot more sympathy for Brian, which I wasn’t expecting. Like, I kind of felt bad, seeing all the stuff in the past as well. Not necessarily what he’s doing now, but just knowing that all of those killings were people who took him away from his family, you know?
There’s a real justification for it, it didn’t just feel like senseless evil. And also like, God, seeing him as a young child trying to smother Deb to death, that just really added an element that he’s then gonna go and date her, later in life. (laughs).
It’s fine! It’s fine, that relationship is so healthy.
No, absolutely! It’s what we should all aspire to. And yeah, totally normal, totally cool.
We’ve talked before about how acting is an inherently emotional job, and you don’t get to really play with your emotions as Dexter, just because of who and what he is. But there is this emotion that builds in him this season because he can’t handle children being killed. And what I thought was interesting was you got to play it like a person discovering emotion for the first time, which I have to imagine is kind of a wild exercise.
Totally. And I think it’s fitting for this character in this phase in his life, which it feels like an awakening to — you know, these urges must be rooted in some kind of emotion, right? I felt like there’s an emotional and basic level, could be seen as an aversion to pain and being drawn towards pleasure. And this drive inside of him, it’s like a compulsion.
It’s like, we all kind of know that feeling of a craving, or an addiction, even, and so that kind of feels like the genesis of it. And when he kind of says things like “These urges I have, I can’t ignore them anymore,” and stuff like that, that feels like the beginnings of what we later learned to be the Dexter in later seasons, that actually sort of does start to feel things, and it feels very odd.
And yet to have that beginning, and him experiencing something that we all experience every day, but it being like a very unsettling and confusing thing.
The fear that you played that with was so interesting, because he was genuinely terrified of feeling something at all.
Yeah, yeah! And it’s like a dangerous and scary thing, that’s like, too alive. And you know, if we look at where he came from, in a way, it was a way to protect himself. To stop feeling anything was his body protecting him and helping him to be able to exist in the world, because it just would have been too much. And so there’s like a danger to that coming back.
At this point, we don’t know if a season 2 is happening. But you mentioned how he’s entering his adolescence of psychopathy, and of being a killer. He did learn a lot this season. So in your mind, should a season two happen, where do you see Dexter going? What do you want to play?
I think it’d be really interesting, after the events of season one, that you know Dexter almost kind of wants to fly the nest. I think we felt that beginning in season one, and I think to see him take command of the code, and take charge of those things, and really start to make decisions for himself, which I think then would come with repercussions.
I’d like to see him fly the nest before he really knows how to fly. Dexter is an amazing character when he is really in hot water. And I think that kind of brazen adolescence would lead to a lot more situations like that, and which come with bigger and harder lessons.
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity
The entire first season of “Dexter: Original Sin” is now streaming on Paramount+.
