By Chris Snellgrove
| Published

When Dexter: Original Sin was announced, fans collectively groaned. After all, the original Dexter The show ended with a sadly awful episode, and the prequels to popular IPs have been playing out for a long time. However, much like the main character planning his next murder, I spent some time thinking about the possibilities related to a series focusing on the early years of Dexter Morgan's transformation into Miami's most eccentric serial killer. And I came to a conclusion as shocking as Rita's sudden death in season 4: because of her complex story and unanswered questions, Dexter might be the only TV show that actually needs a prequel.
Dexter's prequel story

What is this Dexter about the prequel, exactly? Dexter: Original Sin is set in the 90s and focuses on how our protagonist (Patrick Gibson) becomes a serial killer with a strict moral code enforced by his father (Christian Slater). Michael C. Hall will return to provide narration as the adult Dexter, and it's virtually impossible to avoid comparing this series to NCIS: Originswhich also takes place in the 90s, features different actors playing familiar characters and has voiceovers from Mark Harmon as the adult Agent Gibbs.
This comparison is a great starting point to explain why Dexter is the only show that actually needs a prequel. The essential problem of NCIS: Origins is that while it splits its time between weekly procedural cases and character development for Gibbs, it doesn't really offer anything new to viewers. We have shitty new characters doing the same thing their more charismatic counterparts do every week in the original. NCISand much of the aforementioned characterization is just a dramatic retelling of events that fans have already heard about.
The reason we need the Dexter prequel

Why, then, I think Dexter needs a prequel more than NCIS or any other show? On the one hand, there's still a lot about the main character's crazy backstory that we could use more granular detail on. For example, Dexter's police officer father discovers that his son has unstoppable murderous impulses and turns him into a weapon against the bad guys. We only know the broad strokes of how it works, but it could be very rewarding to see how this father (played by comeback icon Christian Slater, no less) develops a crazy solution to an unthinkable problem.
As a big fan of the original Dexter (minus that horrible finale), I also hope the previous series digs deeper into how our favorite blood spatter analysis effectively infiltrates the police and hides his murderous activities from the people whose whole job it is to stop killers like him. That's part of the quirky charm of the original series, but the idea of a prolific serial killer hiding among the cops is incredibly unrealistic. Potentially, this Dexter the prequel could help illustrate how our boy achieved this while also depicting his relationship with fan-favorite supporting characters like Batista and Masuka.
Learn to be a better killer

Finally, a Dexter the prequel could help depict any early mistakes the young killer made that force him to hide better in the future. For example, his romantic involvement with Rita in the original series was partly fueled by his need to blend in and not look like what he really is: an obsessive, single white guy, a.k.a. the profile of many too many real serial killers. For longtime fans, it might be fun to see the early mistakes our hero makes on his way to becoming the confident killer of the original TV series.
Television is full of sequels, but even some of the best are technically useless: You better call Saulfor example, is the benchmark, but it's mostly a deep dive into a minor area. Break the bad character rather than a show that helps us better understand the original series. Likewise, fantastic rates like Dragon House Or Rings of Power offers a fun story, but none of it ever seems necessary to better understand, respectively, the Game of Thrones Lord of the Rings show or films.
Dexter is officially the only series that needs a prequel to help us unpack its main character and fully understand the previous series. And we can all see how well he does it when Dexter: Original Sin premieres on Friday the 13th on Paramount+. With showrunner Clyde Phillips (who handled the first four seasons of the original film) Dexter), this prequel series should be anything but boring.
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