Dexter: Original Sin Premiere: Christian Slater Breaks Down Harry's Reaction To His Son's First Kill
It's been nearly three years since Dexter Morgan sliced up some New Blood. Now, he's making his devilish return, only this time, he's 15 years younger and just getting acquainted with his Dark Passenger.
In the series premiere of prequel Dexter: Original Sin (now available to stream on Paramount+ With Showtime), our leading man (this time played by Patrick Gibson) is fresh out of medical school and looking for ways to control his urges. Cutting up dead bodies doesn't seem to satisfy the monster inside him, so he accepts an intern position at Miami Metro PD, getting him closer than ever before to real crime scenes and freshly spilled gore.
When his dad Harry (Christian Slater) is hospitalized after suffering a heart attack, Dexter figures out that the attending nurse is a "fellow traveler." After his dad's condition worsens, Dex finds a binder of obituaries that he suspects are Nurse Mary's trophies. So he swipes some used needles and finds that Mary is injecting Harry with potassium nitrate, which can be fatal if administered in small doses over a number of days. (See where this is going?) Father and son have been surrounded by a real-life serial killer all along, so with Harry's permission, the nurse finds herself on Dexter's kill table. He stabs her in the chest and feels sweet relief watching her bleed out. As for the body? He feeds it to some hungry gators.
When the deed is done and Harry is home, he demands to know the details of Dexter's extracurricular activity. He's well aware of his son's urges and is hoping to guide Dexter via "the code," but when he's alone, Harry begins to sob.
"Harry is restraining a lot of emotions," Slater tells TVLine. "The interesting thing about this show is you really get to examine and see some of Harry's traumas. Some of the guilt he's suffering. And I think at that particular moment, it's sort of building to that place. He holds it together, holds it together, holds it together, but then when he's alone, he's able to let it out a little bit and feel how he's really feeling."
We learn about one of those traumatic events when the episode flashes back to 1973. A football-watching, beer-drinking Harry neglects to keep an eye on his young son and the boy winds up drowning in the family's swimming pool. Perhaps the guilt he still lives with explains why Harry is so hands-on with Dexter's Dark Passenger. Maybe it's why he developed the code. Harry may not have been able to save his biological son, but he's going to do everything he can to protect Dexter.
Did Original Sin satisfy your Dexter-loving urges? Watch our interviews in the video above and vote in the poll below. Then, drop some comments!