‘Dexter: Resurrection’ Boss Talks Premiere Cameos, Uma Thurman’s ‘Scream’-Inspired Entrance and Why Dexter May Have ‘Met His Match’

SPOILER ALERT: This post contains spoilers for the two-episode premiere of “Dexter: Resurrection,” now streaming on Paramount+.

Being a parent means cleaning up your children’s messes, and Dexter Morgan is finally getting a crash-course in fatherhood.

In “Dexter: New Blood,” everyone’s favorite killer of killers (Michael C. Hall) had reformed, and reunited with his son Harrison (Jack Alcott), whom he’d abandoned at the end of the original Showtime series. But when Dexter relapsed back into killing and exposed his son to the family trade, the homecoming turned sour and Dexter begged his kid to shoot him–– and Harrison obliged. In the new series “Dexter: Resurrection,” which premiered with two episodes this week, the murder messiah has indeed returned from the dead, or something close to it.

After surviving the shooting, Dexter is coma-bound and forced to wade through visits from three spirits from his (and the original show’s) past –– his frequent visitor Arthur Mitchell aka the Trinity Killer (John Lithgow), Miguel Prado (Jimmy Smits) and former detective Doakes (Erik King). He’s also resurrected his father Harry (James Remar) as his opinionated moral compass hallucination. All of them tell him the same thing: He needs to find Harrison. But when Dexter awakens from his slumber, he’s faced with a new flesh-and-blood problem. Miami Police Captain Angel Batista (David Zayas) knows he’s alive, and is at his bedside with questions going all the way back to when Dexter faked his death in 2012 and left behind a trail of bodies, which is how “Dexter” ended.

He manages to shake Batista’s surveillance and heads to New York City, but realizes he can’t just ambush Harrison. Dexter needs to lay low, so he does what anyone needing a job in a big city does today: He becomes a driver for an Uber-style app. Part of his motivation to set up shop is that a serial killer finding his victims from the pool of unlucky Big Apple drivers has earned the nickname Dark Passenger, the very personal name Dexter and his father long ago gave to his darker impulses. Despite bigger issues, Dexter becomes hellbent on not sharing the title.

Meanwhile, Harrison isn’t doing much better. His wayward life crashing in vacant rooms at the luxurious hotel where he works gets him by. But when he sees an attempted rape involving one of his creepy returning guests, Harrison stops stop the guy by bashing his skull in. This is Harrison’s first solo kill, though you’ll recall he did help his dad carry out the deed once in “New Blood.” But this is the big leagues now, and he proves to be a quick study in the methods of cleaning up, even if his choice to dismember the body in the hotel’s kitchen will make you think twice about ordering room service next time.

The problem for Harrison, though, is that he’s not as lucky as his dad has been. Whereas Dexter was often battling against mediocre detectives, Harrison’s murder is being investigated by Detective Claudette Wallace (Kadia Saraf), a crime savant who is poised to threaten everything for the Morgans.

“We wanted to go with somebody that is formidable,” showrunner Clyde Phillips tells Variety. “Dexter has always been a little bit smarter. But nobody’s smarter than Detective Claudette Wallace. We really want it to feel as if Dexter has met his match.”

This whole prelude happens alongside the mysterious arrival of Uma Thurman’s immaculately dressed, chillingly brazen character, Charley, who seems to recruiting the Big Apple’s serial killers for an unknown purpose –– something that will certainly involve new series star Peter Dinklage and future bloodthirsty guest stars Neil Patrick Harris, Krysten Ritter, Eric Stonestreet and David Dastmalchian (none of whom make an appearance in the two-episode premiere).

Below, Phillips reveals the story behind the premiere’s big cameos, how Thurman crafted her character’s introduction and why Dexter may be learning how to love after all.

What were the conversations like about who to bring back for that moment of him in the hospital? 

Well, obviously, we always want to go with John Lithgow. He’s the most popular villain. He’s the most popular actor. He won an Emmy for the show, and the fans just love him. But also, when you bring these people back, Michael C. Hall feels elevated as well. It’s exciting for everybody on the set. With Jimmy Smits, it is pretty much the same thing. But then we also have other surprises in the beginning. We have James Remar coming back. We have Erik King as Doakes, the “Surprise, motherfucker” man himself, coming back. We also have David Zayas back to play a big role this season, and he’s not in Dexter’s imagination. But the people in Dexter’s imagination, hallucination, coma dream, fever dream, whatever you want to call them, they’re all basically there with the same message. It is really Dexter’s subconscious saying, “I’ve got to get back to my son.” This is America’s favorite serial killer show, but it’s also a father-and-son show. And it’s Dexter’s mission to get back and try to undo the trauma of having Harrison, his own son, shoot him. Dexter wants to save that relationship.

Were there cameos of past killers or victims that you wanted that just didn’t pan out or were those the three that you wanted from the start? 

We got all our first choices. There weren’t any actors that we approached who declined the job, or who declined to appear. Those are the ones we wanted. Those are the ones who would have the most impact on Dexter. 

The reappearance of Doakes is definitely elevated by the fact that his “Surprise, motherfucker” moment in Season 1 of “Dexter” has become a viral meme. It’s inescapable. Was that part of why you brought him back to torment Dexter one last time?

It’s astonishing. It pops up on everybody I know’s social media feeds all the time. He’s a much beloved character, and a much beloved actor. We’re crazy about the guy. And yes, it was tempting. Well, it was an idea, then a temptation, then a phone call, and then a yes — and now he’s in the show. 

How many times did he have to deliver it on the day, or did he have it perfectly pitched and ready ready to go? 

Oh, he was so ready, and the crew just loved it. The crew are all fans of the show, so the day that Eric was working was one of those special days where everybody was buzzing.

Between the return of Batista and Harry as Dexter’s subconscious, this feels like Dexter is being forced to reckon with the past he fled from. 

It’s past, present and future. We deal with it all in this season. These first two episodes are the harbinger of all of that. Clearly in the past, he needs to make amends with his son. He knows he’s traumatized his son, and then he moves to New York to find him. But then the future will arrive soon as the series unfolds.

We see throughout those first episodes that Harrison is losing it a bit. It’s messy, but he has first true kill by taking down the date rapist in the hotel. How did you go about crafting this pivot moment for Harrison? 

This was his way of dealing with something that’s wrong and dangerous. He knows one of the rules is that you kill in order to help other people. Maybe this was an overreaction on his part, maybe it was the right thing to do. The audience can determine that, and Harrison and Dexter will determine that. But it raises a question: Is this in his DNA? And we answer that question later on in the season. 

His father has definitely rubbed off on him in terms of cleanup, but this first kill was a little rough and sloppy. There’s a lot of work to be done if this really is a killer in the making.

He either is or he isn’t. He made a big mistake, if you recall, when he was chopping the body up that little dot of blood hit the ceiling, which will come back and be part of the story coming up. But I can’t go into whether or not Harrison is going to follow in his father’s footsteps. That’s for the season to tell.

These first two episodes also give us the first appearance of Uma Thurman’s character, Charley, who seems to be recruiting serial killers and taking out disobedient ones in the Tri-State area. Was it a strategic choice to score her introduction with Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds’ “Red Right Hand,” which many of us forever associate with “Scream” and its legacy of serial killers?

That’s a great call! It was an intentional choice. Funny enough, in that song, there is a gong sound. It was Uma’s idea to shoot her from behind all the way through to the reveal when she takes off that mask and we hit the gong from “Red Right Hand.” We could have shown her face at any time. But it’s a really powerful moment, well edited and beautifully shot by Marcos Siega. And wonderfully acted by Uma.

It’s an incredibly effective introduction, especially when paired with her scene in the second episode, where she confronts a suburban serial killer and seemingly beats him to death with his own weapon. Her character is confident and arrogant in a way that is really exciting. What can you tease about her story this season? 

Well, first of all, “Pulp Fiction” is the formative movie for just about everybody I know. In fact, I have the cover of the book framed in my office in New York, having nothing to do with Uma. It just happens to be that she’s on the cover of it. But to have someone as big a star as she is coming into our show, our Dexter-verse as it were, is a validation and a thrill. What else can I say? I think it elevates everything. The whole show lifts up a little bit when you have somebody like her in the show. 

Was it fun to hand her a spiked baseball bat with nails in it?

Oh yeah, it was and she was great. That was a freezing day. We were standing next to a frozen pond, that’s how cold it was. And she had to wear her costume and it wasn’t meant for a freezing day. She was a complete trooper, wanted to try things different ways and always had good ideas. And her presence!

Did she get a bit of a thrill being able to wield such an insane weapon right out of the gate? 

Yeah, but she’s very agile and physical already. There was that, and there will be some gunplay coming up and she’s just great at it.

Despite everything, Dexter’s ego is driving him when he arrives in New York. He can’t let it go that this Dark Passenger killer stole his name, and he begins to fixate on him. Given everything that’s going on, has Dexter evolved at all?

I think that is the evolution. First, it is an evolution to consider that Dexter might have an ego. To consider that Dexter might want to have ownership of his own Dark Passenger name is not something we would have done in the first couple of years. I’m not saying he’s not a psychopath. But he is emotionally evolving, and part of that has to do with his son. Most of that has to do with his son. There’s a line in one of the first episodes of the OG show where he says, “My sister, Deb, if I was capable of love, she would be the one I love.” Meaning, he’s not capable of love. But he’s getting a lot closer to being capable of love with his relationship with Harrison. 

We didn’t always see the most competent detectives in the world of “Dexter” — not because they aren’t good, but Dexter is just better. But now you have a very astute, very capable detective with Detective Wallace. Why did you want to give Harrison and Dexter such a threat?

We wanted to go with somebody that is formidable. Dexter has always been a little bit smarter. But nobody’s smarter than Detective Claudette Wallace. We really want it to feel as if Dexter has met his match. It will get much more intricate, complicated, exciting and humorous. And it will all come to an amazing culmination this season.

This interview has been edited and condensed.