Fans will have a killer time with the Dexter revival, according to Dexter: New Blood star Jamie Chung.
In an exclusive chat with E! News, Chung acknowledged that although a lot has changed for America's favorite serial killer (played by Michael C. Hall)—including his name and zip code—fans of the original series have plenty to look forward to. In fact, the revival will have "a lot of nods" to the previous seasons, the Lovecraft Country alum teased.
For instance, John Lithgow will revisit his Trinity Killer character in the new season, which premieres Nov. 7 on Showtime, and he isn't the only cameo viewers can expect, Chung expressed: "I think the audience will be very satisfied. Very, very satisfied."
Though she couldn't get into specifics, the actress said there's one guest star who absolutely blew her mind. "That was kind of my, like, whoa, fan out moment," she added. "You know, it was great."
In the reboot, Chung, a longtime fan of the original show, portrays Molly, a famous true-crime podcaster from Los Angeles who is determined to solve a big mystery.
And, as Chung noted, it didn't take much for her to get into character. "I had already listened to Generation Why. I listened to Crime Junkie, My Favorite Murder," she shared. "I love them all. And so, I was really kind of honing in on, you know, the style of storytelling."
Like the hosts of those true crime podcasts, the recent mother of twins was tasked with bringing an upbeat energy while discussing dark topics, like murder, "which is really kind of difficult to do," she said.
Chung went on to describe her crime-obsessed character as "very fun" and "light." She also promised that Molly and police chief Angela Bishop (Julia Jones) will stop at nothing to solve the case.
"I think what we haven't seen in the past are two women coming together to help solve a crime," she shared. "In Dexter's past...a lot of the characters were male that kind of drove the story. And so, it's really kind of wonderful to see—a lot of s--t gets done when two women come together to work together. And I feel like that's a different dynamic."
Intrigued? We know we are.
While we wait for Dexter: New Blood to premiere on Showtime Sunday, Nov. 7, find out everything we know about the revival below.
The revival will be 10 episodes. Showrunner Clyde Phillips—who ran the first four seasons of the original series—wrote the script for the first and the last episode. It's scheduled to premiere Sunday, November 7 at 9 p.m. on Showtime.
Dexter was sort of iconically set in Miami the first time around, and in the finale the character had relocated to Oregon. Now, almost a decade later, Dexter is living in a town called Iron Lake in Upstate New York. He appears to be going by the name Jim Lindsay (which is close to the name of the author of the books the series was based on, Jeff Lindsay).
Phillips told THR that "We want this not to be Dexter season nine."
"We basically do get to start from scratch," he said. "I mean, 10 years have passed—however many years have passed—by the time this will air, and the show will reflect that time passage in so far as the ending of the show. This will have no resemblance to how the original finale was and it's a great opportunity to write a second finale for a show."
Phillips acknowledged many people involved with the show—including Michael C. Hall—knew that lumberjack ending was not a fan fave.
"Michael certainly was aware that the ending wasn't well received and I believe that he was not completely satisfied with it and this is an opportunity to make that right," Philips said. "But that's not why we're doing it. We're doing this because there's such a hunger for Dexter out there."
The revival will not erase Dexter's turn as a lumberjack.
"We're 10 years later," Phillips said. "We're not undoing anything. We're not doing movie magic, we're not going to betray the audience to say 'That was all a dream,' or whatever it is. I mean, what happened in the first eight years happened in the first eight years. This is now however many years later. So we're not undoing anything."
Dexter's adoptive sister Deb (Jennifer Carpenter) will still be dead, but Dexter's a show known for its ghosts.
"There is some flexibility for movie magic, and that's all I can say about it," Phillips previously said, refusing to answer the question directly. In August 2021, it was confirmed that Carpenter would be back as an imaginary presence in Dexter's life.
"As much as [Deb] is an internalized character for Dexter, I think [she] represents how far he's fallen… without a compass," Hall said about Deb's return. "I was so excited about Jennifer doing this because I knew she would be able to shape shift and come at Dexter from so many different places. And, of course, she did. And it was really fun to crack open our sense of [Dexter]'s internal landscape, because it's much more pyrotechnic and crazy than it used to be."
Speaking of movie magic, the only major returning guest star we know of so far is John Lithgow, which is baffling because the Trinity Killer is very dead. But Deadline reports that Lithgow will return for a brief appearance, so we're expecting a hallucination or perhaps a dream sequence.
It appears that the new series will feature mainly new side characters. Here's a breakdown of who to expect:
Jamie Chung plays a famous true-crime podcaster from LA who gets caught up in the show's central mystery.
Clancy Brown plays Kurt Caldwell, the villain and unofficial mayor of Iron Lake who owns the truck stop. He's a man of the people, but if you cross him or hurt anyone he cares, for "God help you."
Julia Jones plays Angela Bishop, Iron Lake's first Native American police chief. Johnny Sequoyah plays her daughter Audrey.
Alano Miller plays Logan, a police sergeant and assistant coach of the high school wrestling team.
David Magidoff plays Teddy, a new addition to the local police department.
Oscar Wahlberg plays Zach, the captain of the high school wrestling team.
Jack Alcott plays Randall, who has a meaningful encounter with Dexter.
Michael Cyril Creighton plays Fred Jr., owner of Fred's Fish & Game.
When the original finale aired, Phillips was interviewed by E! News' Kristin Dos Santos and revealed what his pitch for the series finale would have been. It involved Dexter being executed for his crimes while all of his victims (even the indirect ones) could be seen watching from the gallery. Understandably, Phillips couldn't say whether this ending would see the light of day in the revival.
"Everybody knows that quote," he said. "And then if I say none of it is in play, then they know something else is going to happen if they say all of it in play. Then, then they know that that's something's going to happen so I can't answer that. I can't talk about the finale of the show."
Phillips couldn't say for sure if Dexter's former job of blood splatter analyst for the Miami Police Department would come back into play, but he could say this: "We discuss it and we we do mess with it, we do change it up. I can't tell you in which ways."
The show will "look and feel different yet familiar," whatever that means.
Per the latest trailer, Dexter, who is living life under a different alias, does work for Fred's Fish & Game.