I'm pretty shocked at how open both the showrunners and cast of Dexter are being about what is in store for season 5. There are plenty of spoilers ahead in the excerpts from three major sources that put their own brand of spin on Dexter: Season 5--as well as Michael C. Hall's battle with cancer and his working relationship with wife, Jennifer Carpenter his co-star (Debra) on Dexter.
One of the big questions running through the minds of Dexter watchers was: Will the story pick up right after Rita's murder--or will they (take the cheesy way out and) time-jump? Question answered:
There will be no time-jumping, as some fans have speculated. In fact, executive producer Sara Colleton promises we'll "be able to grieve" the tragic loss of Rita and see how Dexter responds to his world being turned upside-down. “I think the death of Rita is so awesome that it needs to be honored,” she said. “We’re not going to jump ahead; we’ll actually process that.”
Season 5 will pick up right where season 4 left off.
“We have ...really debated how best to deal with the aftermath of [Rita's death]. We ...decided that we don’t want to jump ahead. We need to see Dexter go through the process that we’d all have to go through if such a horrible thing had happened to us. We need to see him doing everything from the big emotional things like grieving the loss, to the mundane things like arranging a funeral, getting the kids dressed, and all the other things that are usually done for men because their wives or mothers do them. They have no idea how to handle all of these things. As we saw, Rita was really the caretaker of their baby."It would be cheating the audience of their catharsis to not see Dexter go through that mourning period and see how it affects him or to not see him dealing with the blowback of what he essentially caused. So we will not jump to Harrison as a 5 year old yet.”
"I look forward to the comedy that will come along with that, because Dexter has never been pitied before," said Michael C. Hall. ...he said that some of his favorite moments are comedic scenes he has shared with C.S. Lee’s Vince Masuka and the richness that adds to the drama.
“Dexter’s cluelessness sets things up for comedy and hopefully now that this traumatic thing has happened to him, he’ll find himself in situations that are inherently comedic because he’s going to have to learn about what it means to be someone who everyone’s treating as if he’s … been through something traumatic,” Hall said.
“Grief is a thing he’s never felt before,” “So I think it’ll be, uh, funny,” he joked. “He’s in hot water. I think there’s a way out of it, but that’s what we’d like to see. He’ll figure his way out. His capacity for stress management rivals his capacity for straight-up killing.”
Knowing how tortuous a road it has been for Dexter to acknowledge having any emotion other than the ones provoked by his Dark Passenger I'm wagering that Dexter will be in no mood for pity.
We'll "discover that it changes things" between Dex and Deb now that she knows the Ice Truck Killer (Brian Moser) was his real brother. "That's a lot for her to take in," Michael explains. "It's a lot for her to deny."
Michael, who announced his battle with Hodgkin's lymphoma in January, looked healthy and happy and told the audience that he's doing well.
"I'm great on the health front." In fact, he says he just had a treatment 'last night" ... and only has one treatment left, but says he is already cancer-free. Huge round of applause for that. Michael also received a standing ovation—of every single person in the audience—when he came out on stage..., Earlier, wife Jennifer (said), MCH's Golden Globe win (amid all the frightening news in January) was "the best night of [her] life."
Addressing a fan’s question about the elephant in the room -- Hall and Carpenter’s marriage and if it was “weird” to play brother and sister -- Hall was ever the gentleman: “To us it doesn’t actually seem weird.” He then paused and looked at Carpenter, who warned him to “Keep this short.” Colleton then interjected that Deb is Dexter’s foster sister and that fans “have to remember that. Dexter said (in the pilot) that ‘If I could love anyone it’d be Deb.’ "Executive producer Sara Colleton took the focus off the awkward Michael-Jennifer real-life couple Q by pronouncing that Deb and Dex aren't blood related, so a coupling isn't out of the question...(lol)
According to departing show runner Clyde Phillips, the writers had Trinity kill Rita in the bathtub (instead of having her jump off the building, which seemed to better fit his pattern of kills) to bring the season full circle. "We wanted to end the season in Dexter's house, where it started," Clyde said, adding that they also wanted to return to the iconic image of (the baby covered in his mother's blood), as Dexter was as a child.
That last bit is part of the reason I love Dexter (the show) so much.They are willing to do the most outrageous things for the benefit of the story. Though those with less intestinal fortitude might contemplate the crazy train that is often Dexter's life they wouldn't act on it (no pun). Dexter's show runners do. (And yeah, it is hugely disturbing).
Dexter won't automatically be cleared of all wrongdoing in Rita's death. How will he explain all that blood and that Rita's missing when he can't tell the force that he knew Arthur Mitchell? Will Batista remember Mitchell being at the station visiting Dexter?
Wait.What? Rita is going to be missing? As in cut up into chunks are tossed in the ocean?! See, even that I wouldn't put past the show runners. Dexter's primary concern--always--is self preservation.
The showrunners wouldn't give a definitive answer on whether there would be a new Big Bad in Season 5, but executive producer Sara Colleton did hint toward a no, saying the focus will really be turned back on to Dexter and his internal struggle with everything going on—something the series has never done before.
“John Lithgow is a tough act to follow. If there was ever a year that we could take a step back from the Big Bad formula and go deeper into Dexter and his psychology, this would be it."
That
said, Dexter has a dark passenger that won’t go away no matter how much
he yearns to be normal.
That rears up and needs to be dealt with. He may even dive deeper after this traumatic loss of Rita. We are working on a way that feels original and fresh and unique to what he has just gone through. It cannot be the way it has been before. In [Season 1], he was terrified of any kind of intimacy because intimacy equaled being discovered. Then he slowly realized he had a need to be known and he set up a family and tried the best he could to balance it all. And now, he sees what being known brings him and he had it ripped out from underneath him suddenly and that will have some affect on him.”
Hall -- who noted that Tuesday marked his second-to-last round of chemotherapy for Hodgkin's lymphoma and that his final round will be March 17 -- said that filming scenes opposite fellow Golden Globe winner Lithgow’s frighteningly creepy Trinity was actually the most fun he’s had acting with anyone.
“The darker it was, the more hysterical it was (to film),” Hall said. “John is infectious. It really became about finding reasons to keep him alive. But yeah, he (Dexter) should have killed him sooner.”
Colleton, meanwhile, addressed a fan’s question about what happens to Rita’s kids, Cody and Astor.
“Cody and Astor are somewhat insulated from Dexter’s world, but it is something that is going to haunt Dexter,” she said. “That’s a very provocative issue that we are going to explore.”
With such a shocking season finale what every fan of the show is
clamoring to find out is what happens to Dexter now? Tune in this September to find out.
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