Dexter Is Back and He’s in Deep! Star Michael C. Hall Dishes on Dexter‘s End Game
Dexter is back, and man, has the sh*t hit the fan. The only person he could have feelings for, if he was capable, is his foster sister Deb. And Deb walked in on Dexter in the middle of one of his epic kills. At the Showtime party at the Television Critics Association press tour, star Michael C. Hall talks to Snakkle about what this means for the two characters moving forward, and also who will give him a run for his money before this season comes to a close. By Erin FoxCan the show end with both Deb and Dexter surviving?
Michael C. Hall: Well, it could. I don’t know. I mean, I imagine it ending like a Shakespearean tragedy, just a pretty high body count.
And who’s his nemesis this season? The big one?
Hall: Well, there are probably more than one, but I suppose Ray Stevenson is playing the figurehead on that front.
Through the years, do you feel like you’ve become a little more like Dexter? Adapted his mannerisms or put part of you into him?
Hall: I never wake up and wonder who I am—I don’t think. But only when I really put him to bed will I begin to appreciate just how much I’ve taken him on or he’s affected me. I think when you play a character this long, you sort of know it on a cellular level. And in a way, the job becomes different from what it initially is, or what any acting job initially is. There’s a part of it that’s about getting out of its way and just letting it happen, because a part of you knows just instinctually how it should be played. But yeah, I mean, the fact that the writers know me and know all of us, I think, inevitably as actors, as people, they write for us and with us in mind.
How will Deb’s awareness of what’s going on affect Dexter during the season?
Hall: It’s fundamental. I think Dexter, over the course of the life of the show, has been someone who claims to be without the capacity for authentic human emotion. We’re meant to be suspicious of that. He comes to be suspicious of that, certainly plays that, doesn’t genuinely experience what it is to be human in different ways, more sophisticated ways more emotionally ways. But with Deb knowing what she knows, it sort of reboots the whole landscape. Dexter now is a human, but he is not compartmentalizing his humanity, and as a result he has to be human in very unsavory ways now—manipulative ways, justifiably paranoid ways. And I also think he’s examining the nature of love, the connection he has to his sister. He is sort of perplexed why she can’t just say, Well, yeah, you know more about me now, but nothing’s really different. I don’t know if Jennifer [Carpenter, who plays Deb] will be here tonight for you to ask, but I think you’ll see her try a lot of different responses on. Maybe a different version of the stages of grief: the stages of discovering your foster brother’s a serial killer, whatever those are.
It seems maybe the entire series in a way was leading to that moment at the end of last season, don’t you think?
Hall: I do. You know, in the pilot episode, when we’re getting to know Dexter and his world, he talks about his sister and he says, “If I could have feelings at all, or for anyone, I’d have them for Deb.” And we see her come into an awareness of some sort of deeper, more conflict-laden feelings for him, but I think—I’m stopping myself because I don’t want to say too much—but I think it’s undeniable to him that he has a genuine connection to her and that he does genuinely care about her and other people close to him—namely his son—in ways that he can’t deny. And yet he does maintain an allegiance to his compulsion. It’s bananas.
What about LaGuerta? How much of a threat is she going to be this season?
Hall: Well, you see her find that blood slide, and of course she was close with Doakes and recognizes what that blood slide could mean and is not going to just let it go. And I think we can imagine where that might lead in terms of the possibility of her reopening that investigation. So she is one of the many potential if not very real threats at this point.
Who is the bigger threat: Deb, LaGuerta, or Lewis?
Hall: I would say it’s between Deb and LaGuerta—Deb because of what she does know and LaGuerta because of what she doesn’t and wants to know—but I think Dexter could hold out some hope that he could enlist Deb in a way that he could never enlist LaGuerta because they’re not family.
Does that put LaGuerta in danger?
Hall: I think everybody in Dexter’s world is potentially in danger.
Dexter‘s seventh season premieres Sunday, September 30, at 9/8c on Showtime.