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Will Dex and Lumen Do It? Will Deb Discover the Truth? Dexter's Boss Tells Us (Almost) Everything

Executive producer Chip Johannessen dishes on the final episodes of season five

By Megan Masters Nov 14, 2010 7:16 PMTags
Michael C. Hall, Julia Stiles, DexterRandy Tepper/Showtime

Quick! There's no time for our usual pre-spoilage chit-chat (although we love it so).

We just chatted with first-year Dexter boss Chip Johannessen, and the amount of scoop we acquired on Dex, Deb, Lumen, Quinn and this Sunday's huge episode cannot wait a second longer...

DEXTER & LUMEN: Like it or not (and we like, of course), Michael C. Hall and Julia Stiles continue heating up the screen with their unconventional relationship. (Their connection stems from their desire to kill those creepy Barrel Girl men.)

But will things turn romantic between the two? Says Chip: "I wouldn't rule out any physicality completely." Your guess is as good as ours as to what that means, but physical or no, things with Lumen and Dexter are decidedly not "romantic."

"This doesn't look like a conventional romance, because on the one hand [we have] a really damaged person in her, and then we have a serial killer in Dexter," he explains. "So they have this thing that's very Dexter-y [and] very, very intense, but it's not like a romance."

But keep your message-board theories comin', because Chip tells us the Dexter fandom is close to figuring out what's ahead for Lumen and the Barrel Girl scaries. "Their journey is going to end in a surprising place," he says. "I don't like to obsess over the boards, but people are asking the right questions. Nobody's come up with the answer that we did of where this thing goes, but close. This relationship is going to end in a very, a unique way."

Randy Tepper/Showtime

DEB & QUINN: Be honest, you're scared Desmond Harrington's Quinn is going to go the way of season two's Doakes (Erik King) right? Don't worry just yet, because Chip says, "This connection with Deb (Jennifer Carpenter) will grow to be significant for him, so he's got a lot of stuff to handle. [Their relationship] is major piece that we wanted to play this whole season and we do. Deb's situation with Quinn, which is just bobbing along at this point, intensifies in one way or the other. Or both." Hmmmm....

DEB & DEXTER: Once again, Deb is thisclose to discovering big bro's secret—but, wait, is it finally going to happen?!

"She's gotten all these clues along the way about Dexter. She knows that Rudy was his brother and that he saw his mother killed in front of him, and that Harry took him in at that time. She just doesn't tie them together into anything. At all. And it makes you a little crazy. So one thing I want do is an end run around all these facts and put her into a different path to that discovery." 

Still, don't expect full disclosure just yet. "That seems like a huge piece that has something to do with how the entire series [may] end," Chip says. "So that's on the horizon a little bit now. Deb will enter Dexter's story in a surprising way. She makes some progress when you don't expect it, and in certain ways will come radically closer."

DEXTER & THE KIDS: Of course little Harrison is here to stay, but will Rita's (Julie Benz) children with Paul, Cody (Preston Bailey) and Astor (Christina Robinson), reappear? "I would love to see them again this season. In particular Astor, because she seemed to be aware that her mom's death was somehow tied up with Dexter." And since they've already shot the entire season, we're assuming what Chip really meant to say was a big, fat yes! ("I'm saying I would like to," he laughs.)

Don't miss this Sunday's installment of Dexter, which Chip calls "a huge episode for both Julia Stiles and the show," on Showtime.

(Originally published November 12, 2010 at 4:45 p.m. PT)

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