‘Dexter: New Blood’ Recap: Director Marcos Siega on Making Dexter ‘Rusty’ at Murder

SPOILER ALERT: Do not read if you have not watched “Cold Snap,” the premiere of “Dexter: New Blood.”

Showtime’s “Dexter” was known for juxtaposing the coral colors and bright sunshine of Miami with its titular character’s internal darkness, which he sought to combat by kidnapping and killing other killers. At the end of the drama’s eight-season run, Dexter (Michael C. Hall) traded breezy button-downs and heavy plaid as he put himself in isolation in a remote logging town after too many of his loved ones were caught in the crosshairs of his secret identity.

Over the last eight years, Dexter made a new home in the small town of Iron Lake, N.Y. where, at least during winter months, the cold and dreary surroundings seem to better fit the mental state of someone doing, as Hall puts it, “protracted penance.”

The original series, Siega reminds Variety, was shot like a graphic novel with “crazy angles, wide lenses; we’d get all up in his grill.” Returning to the character in such a different place and time now, Siega wanted to “make sure that I didn’t step on that style,” which meant approaching it in “a much more classic, cinematic way.”

“I didn’t throw a bunch of cameras at a scene and do a lot of crazy camera moves. Everything was very deliberate, and I hope that there’s a pace to it that feels a little lonelier, a little quieter,” he says. “I really wanted the feeling of the show, when you watched it, to be different from what it was before. Dexter is the comfort food; Michael is the guy, for the original fans. But it was an opportunity for me to let the series evolve.”

Siega, who directed many episodes of the original series in the first four seasons, had to set up Dexter’s new world when helming the premiere of “Dexter: New Blood.” This not only included setting the visual style for the show, but also creating the tone of Dexter’s new and evolving relationships. Although he lives in a small cabin in the woods, he has not been completely reclusive during the past eight years. He works in a hunting gear store in town and is on a first-name basis with everyone from high school kids to neighboring shop owners and workers. He has even entered into a romantic relationship with the chief of police, Angela (Julia Jones).

But, although Siega says that Dexter truly does “yearn for family,” he has kept himself away from his remaining blood relation, his son Harrison. When the new episodes begin, the only tie he has to his old life is through his deceased sister Debra (Jennifer Carpenter), who acts as his conscience and with whom he has conversations, the way he used to talk to his adoptive father Harry (James Remar) in the original series. Now-teenage Harrison (Jack Alcott) doesn’t pop up in his life until the end of the episode.

His conversations with Debra are the biggest peeks inside Dexter’s mind (as she only exists as an extension of him now) “Dexter: New Blood” offers. The voiceover that the original series used to let the audience in on Dexter’s true feelings is forgone in the majority of the premiere episode, choosing instead to sit in the quiet Siega mentioned with the eponymous character. And there is only one brief moment where the show plays out a wish fulfillment moment for Dexter. Following his point of view is more fleshed out by Siega’s choices, including using 35mm lenses on his closeups.

“When I read the first script, it struck me that there’s no voiceover here. It doesn’t come until he kills Matt, and I was craving it. So, I felt that was an opportunity to actually lean into that with the audience and shoot this in a way that was different in terms of point of view, so that you’re constantly like, ‘When is he going to say something? When am I going to hear his inner monologue?'” Siega says. “Those little ideas really were the foundations of, ‘How do I make this feel different?'”

Here, Siega talks to Variety about returning Dexter to his killer roots but making him rustyat murder, building a relationship with his son and how that will shift his relationship with Deb, and working with a digital deer.

How did you work with Michael on that first kill scene and the return of the voiceover? Did you want this to be where the old Dexter finally returned?

The fascinating part for both of us was how comfortable it felt. When I do a pilot and you’re world building, there’s this thing where you do a dance with an actor — where both actor and director are feeling it out, like, “What is this supposed to be like? “What is it supposed to feel like?” We didn’t have that problem. It was an instant, “This is what we’re making” and now it’s just in the details.

He’s settled, he’s figured out how to to abstain, and he’s comfortable with it — and he knows how to avoid the trappings. We catch up to him in Episode 1 and it starts to fall apart again. But it was, strangely, very comfortable and easy just to fall back into. And I think audiences don’t want a different Dexter. For me, it’s the journey that we take them right to see, “How do we get back to the Dexter everybody wants to see?” Michael was like a little kid. The day we were going to shoot the kill room, it was a 5 a.m. call time, and he bounced onto the stage like it was his birthday. And I was like, “What’s up?” And he was like, “I get to do the thing today!” And that put a giant smile on my face because I felt the same way. I was excited to get back to doing the thing that became a part of pop culture. All the other stuff is just fun actor-director, making sure the story tracks. Michael really wanted me to do this and we became close on the show, but I think it was because my approach has always been, “I’m here to protect you and I’m here to make sure that when you’re not sure, I can say ‘This is why you to commit to it.'” That trust, that feeling came so easily on day one, it just made the experience really pleasant, even in really difficult conditions.

The old Dexter would have been thinking about DNA, but there is a moment where Dexter spits after he knocks out Matt. Was that on the page or was there room for you and Michael to play with him finding his footing as a killer again?

That was not on the page. What I said to Michael was, “When you take the knife out, I think the expectation is you’re going to kill him, and I want to see you just refrain.” It was going to be quick because the camera was going push in, and we did the rehearsal — the camera wasn’t even up — and he took this breath and looked down at Matt with real disdain and spit. And I went up to him and was like, “I want you to do that.” We didn’t think about DNA tracking, partly because the whole first kill was meant to be a little sloppy. He leaves a trail of blood! So, shooting that scene — and we didn’t shoot the other parts of that episode until months later — it was OK to be messy because it’s part of the story. That was the fun of, “I’m rusty.” And falling back into this is the worst thing. It’s like someone just gave you a little sip of alcohol and you chugged the bottle.

What Dexter learned about Matt and his fatal boat ride certainly made him fit the parameters for being worth killing even before Matt shot the deer Dexter was bonding with. What complications did working with a deer add for you as a director? Did you have a live animal on set at any point?

We never saw a real deer. There were three things I lost sleep over [and] that was one of them because we didn’t do that on the [original] show. The show needed to be grounded. I didn’t want the audience to ever be taken out of something because it seemed fantastical. On the page, this moment did read a little fantastical. There’s actually something we cut out of that interaction — there used to be a beat before the deer is shot where Dexter bowed his head and the deer bowed his head and they touched foreheads, and then he raises up and looks at the deer and sees his reflection in his eye.

This is a testament to Michael C. Hall, the actor. Look at what he’s doing and then realize he’s doing it with a stick with a stuffed animal head on it. Every bit of emotion that you read on Dexter, every nuance of every breath he takes as he gets closer to it, he’s doing that with an inanimate object. And we’re doing it in the snow when it’s minus eight degrees. So, it was incredibly challenging and had to be storyboarded to within an inch of its life. The mechanics of it have to be very specific because I have to build this thing so everything has to be lit to be created. It’s such a specific process, and that was very different than anything we’d ever done on the show in the past.

What were the conversations you had around why Dexter kept himself in isolation even after he found a way to abstain? Presumably if he could keep his urges at bay, he could have returned to Harrison and not been a danger.

I came from a place of, he’s able to abstain because he’s in isolation. It’s all about his ritual, his routine. Dexter knows that if he doesn’t stick to this routine, he will go right back. And Deb, being his conscience, he manifests these conversations with her to keep himself in check. It’s like you sit down and you’re like, “OK I’m gonna go dancing tonight. I’m going to have a good time. And I’m going to fit in, I’m going to blend in.” It’s like an alcoholic or anybody with an addiction: You have to always keep doing it, you have to be aware, because if you don’t, you’re going to relapse. And that’s not what he wants to do. And as far as Harrison and anyone else, he can’t. This is how he’s going to have to live out the rest of his life — that’s where his head is at.

How much of the tension in the reunion scene between father and son did you want to come from a place of Dexter questioning whether this was actually his son?

The moment he sees Harrison for the first time, for me, was one of the most stressful scenes, in terms of leading up to rolling camera. I don’t think a single day in prep went by where I didn’t think about how to accomplish this because on the page, it’s so simple: Dexter comes home, he notices there’s an intruder in the house; we as the audience know he’s being followed; he has said, “I think I’m being followed.” I never read it as, “Oh my god, it’s a big reveal.” The second the kid turns around, I think he knows. That’s how I approached it.

When he says “I think I’m being followed” to Deb earlier in the episode, I remember thinking, if this conversation were to go on and someone were to say, “Who do you think it is?” I think he would have gotten to Harrison. I approached it from the personal part, where I didn’t ever think it was someone closing in on finding Dexter the serial killer because that felt almost too easy. He handles the pressure of almost getting caught too well. So when he says, “I think I’m being followed,” that was step one for me to see his wheels turn there.

So, it was never a doubt to me that he knew in that moment that it was a son, but he had to make the hard decision and say, “I’m sorry, I don’t know who you’re looking for. And here’s some money and go away.” And then he watches him walk away and it’s incredibly sad. Dexter and Deb looking out the window, their expressions are two very different ones: He’s looking at Harrison and she’s looking at him, and I remember thinking, it’s important that he’s reflecting on himself going, “I’ve made the right decision.” He’s convincing himself.

Some of my favorite things I’ve ever directed are the Harrison-Dexter scenes in these 10 episodes, and the foundation really is in that first little encounter and then in the beginning of Episode 2. That’s where I watched the wheels turn. And I remember the very first note I got was, “Don’t you want to put some music here?” I was like, “No, this is a painfully long scene and it’s two people and it’s quiet, and it’s uncomfortable, and it’s exactly what it should be.” And there’s an evolution to the Dexter-Harrison scenes that I built on that foundation. So I think that that storyline, really, in the arc of the 10 episodes is pretty powerful and is going to be a big part of, I hope, the audience feeling satisfied this time around.

At the end of the premiere, he does bring Harrison home with him and admit who he is. Once that happens, how does that shift his relationship to this new version of Deb?

Deb is the constant reminder that Dexter has to have boundaries with Harrison. He actually craves a family, but he can’t truly be himself with Harrison. He wants to, and that’s the conflict — he has to always remind himself that he can’t, and Deb is that reminder.

“Dexter: New Blood” airs Sundays at 9 p.m. on Showtime.