Comic Con: Dexter Producer Dishes On Season Five

In addition to attending the Dexter panel here at Comic Con today, I also had the opportunity to speak with series executive producer John Goldwyn about the series. Find out what he had to say about the fifth season, Julie Stiles’ role in the show, and whether or not Dexter’s doomed to a life of solitude.

SPOILER WARNING: No major details about season four were revealed, however some vague bits of information are mentioned, so read on with that in mind.

Goldwyn was naturally tight-lipped about what he was willing to reveal about the fifth season, and given the nature of the series, that’s to be expected. He did express enthusiasm over Dexter’s next challenge, stating the following:

Dexter will go on an altogether different journey that he’s ever been on before. He will, in ways that I think are unpredictable and exciting, deal with and address the death of his wife. He will experience fatherhood as a single father, which is something that he didn’t anticipate.

It seems the format is going to change a bit this time around as there won’t be one specific antagonist in the season that persistently gets under Dexter’s skin:

It’ll be structure differently this year. It wont be like there’s one single character that comes into his life, who becomes the antagonist. There will be several people in that role.

Goldwyn wouldn’t give anything specific away about Julia Stiles’ recurring role this season, but he did say this:

What I would tell you is that they have an intimate relationship but I wouldn’t categorize it as a romantic relationship. It’s a very, for both of them, an extremely cathartic relationship. Through the way in which they interact over the course of the season, it opens their eyes to things that they didn’t really realize at the beginning about their own lives, and they kind of illuminate things for each other, in terms of what it is that they go through together and it is harrowing. Very exciting.

The “guilt” theme seems like it’ll be a big one for the new season and it seems as though there’s a very specific reason as to why Dexter feels he’s to blame for Rita’s death…

I think that there’s a part of Dexter that feels a little responsible, because there was a moment last season when Trinity was prepared to take his life and Dexter didn’t let that happen because Dexter wanted to be the one who was responsible. I think there’s probably a part of him that feels that if he had taken matters or let matters go the way they were going to go earlier, that Trinity might have disappeared from his life altogether. But that didn’t happen that way, so Dexter feels some responsibility and that’s one of the things that the season examines. How does he deal with issues of guilt and accountability and also is it possible for Dexter to really experience grief? Can he really confront that and embrace it and understand it.

Goldwyn talked a little bit about Dexter’s attempts to form friendships and the lines that were crossed during the third season when he befriended Jimmy Smitts’ character. This came around to the topic of Dexter’s attempts to find companionship, which caused me to ask if Dexter would always be alone….

We do not have the answer to that question. We don’t know. But you know, when we began Dexter, if you had said, ‘Will it go past one season?’ We would have said, “Absolutely not.” We never thought for a second that Dexter would take on its own life, so I can’t answer. Will it be possible for Dexter to have, in his sense of the word, companionship? We have no idea. Will he be able to be fully a father to that baby? We don’t know. Will he ever slake his thirst to kill? We don’t know. We just don’t know. But right now the answer is… not yet.

There doesn’t seem to be an established end-game for the series, which given how good the show is going, is a good thing. Goldwyn did seem optimistic that there were still plenty of avenues to explore with Dexter’s character.

Last season asked the question, “Can I have it all?” Of course, what he found out is no, you can’t. When you try to have it all, you end up forfeiting the thing that is probably the closest you would ever get to having it all, which is Rita. And yet, every time we think we’

Dexter is… this is going to sound more theoretical than intellectual than I mean it to but he’s sort of a metaphor for us all. I don’t think there’s anybody in the world who doesn’t ask the questions: Do I fit in? Can I love? Am I lovable? Am I a monster? Am I strange? Do I belong in the world? All the questions that Dexter asks are questions that most people ask about their relationship to the world. I think that’s what makes him so endlessly fascinating to audiences. That and that he takes justice in his own hands. He does the thing that we can’t do, which is fight back.

And finally, Dexter’s not the only one with a code. Here’s what Goldwyn had to say on the topic of the criteria they have for the people who end up on Dexter’s table…

The thing that we always make sure of is that their crimes… there’s too many. That they’re never crimes that are financial matters or civil disputes. They’re always crimes against people who couldn’t defend themselves. Young girls who thought that they were just posing for a photographer or small children who placed faith in their priest. They’re always crimes against defenseless people, who placed trust in the perpetrator of those crimes and that trust was horribly violated.

Dexter Season 5 premieres on Showtime on September 26, 2010.