Spoilers below for anyone who hasn’t yet watched Dexter: Resurrection’s excellent fourth episode on Showtime or via Paramount+ subscription, so be warned!
Wowzers and then some, guys. Dexter: Resurrection seemed like it was giving audiences more of a singular storyline hinging entirely on Michael C. Hall’s back-from-retirement vigilante reconnecting with his son after Harrison shot him in New Blood’s finale. (To the point where it sometimes seemed like maybe Harrison should have been the main character.) But Episode 4, “Call me Red,” brought out all the big guest stars and was a glorious reminder of how unpredictable and delightfully weird this horror-soaked universe can be.
Having taken out the horrendously named rideshare-targeting Dark Passenger in Episode 3, Dexter took on his victim’s persona and followed his invitation to meet Peter Dinklage’s hyper-rich Leon Prater ahead of his gathering of the ghouls. Which is where we meet Krysten Ritter’s Mia “Lady Vengeance” Lapierre, Eric Stonestreet’s “Rapunzel”-monikered Al, David Dastmalchian’s brooding Gareth, a.k.a. Gemini Killer, and Neil Patrick Harris’ skin-obsessed Lowell, the Tattoo Collector.
CinemaBlend talked to what is perhaps TV’s most morbid motley crew ahead of the episode, as seen in the video above, and I learned a few details about the new killers, with Michael C. Hall talking about Dexter’s growth and how wild a season this was for him.
David Dastmalchian, Eric Stonestreet And Krysten Ritter Talk Up Their Newly Introduced Serial Killers
No other shows on the 2025 TV schedule feature a cabal of killers gathered together by a serial killer-obsessed benefactor, which is probably good, because Leon Prater would likely find a way to take those other groups out of the running. He certainly has a knack for rounding up highly disturbed individuals, as normal as they may seem sitting around a dinner table.
When I asked which of these newly introduced killers was most disturbing to the new cast members, David Dastmalchian teased some extremely dark scenes on the way for Modern Family vet Eric Stonestreet, saying:
They're all, it's like this neck-and-neck disturbing, neck-and-neck, disturbing. But there was something for me about getting to watch this gentleman when he brought the dark half of Al to life, and I was just sitting a few feet away from him,. He's an old friend of mine who's a deeply kind, loving, generous human being, and I'm watching him go to a place that I never thought I'd get to see him go, and that made my skin crawl, and I love that.
Eric Stonestreet is one of the more affable celebs out there, and often plays characters who exude those same vibes. I can't say that Al isn't a genial dude, but the fact that he's out there killing women and cutting their ponytails off as trophies doesn't exactly warrant a stamp of approval. I can't wait to see how sinister his story gets.
On the flip side of that coin, Stonestreet points to Dastmalchian's Gareth as being the creepiest. Not because it comes as a surprise, but because it's exactly what one might expect. As he put it:
Very nice of you. That exemplifies the type of group of people we got the pleasure to work with. Everyone's so nice and supportive. I think we were all just excited to dip our toes into this so clearly defined world that Clyde and Scott and the others have created over the years - Michael. I would say, probably, I mean, I'm gonna throw it right back at you. Because if it looks like a duck, and walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it might be a duck. So where you may not see me coming from a million miles away, you see him coming from a million miles away, and there's something really scary about thinking what something is, and then it being that exact thing. So I would put Dave there.
While I doubt Gareth's Gemini Killer has anything to do with actual ducks, I can't help but think about him putting on a giant duck suit in order to pull off his murders. There has to be someone like that out there, right?
Krysten Ritter teased her character by glorifying how non-disturbing she found Mia to be, despite her less positive attributes, and it sounds like she had a blast in the role. In Ritter's words:
I don't feel disturbed by my character. I just believed it, and I loved playing her. She is very delicious, very confident, very modern, very glamorous, but also a little psychotic and deranged. And it was so much fun to sink into that role, and I would play that character for years. It was like the best time I've ever had.
At this point, David Dastmalchian spoke up to say how happy he was to finally be sharing the screen with long-time friend Ritter in such a dark project, which she echoed just as happily.
- DAVID DASTMALCHIAN: Can I say, Kristen and I have been friends for a long time, and I've always felt like she's my goth buddy, my goth niece, my goth little sister that I always wanted to get to do something with creatively. And it was really freaking cool to get to go play and be murderers together.
- KRYSTEN RITTER: You were the first... I wasn't gonna say anything yet, but when I found out that he was doing it, I was like, 'We're gonna get to work together finally!'
Gotta love how many smiles are being shared on a show where a dude cuts people's tattoos off of their bodies.
Michael C. Hall Feels Like This Season Was A 'Bizarro, Twisted Superhero Movie'
To be expected, Michael C. Hall was just as excited to get to mix it up with such a varied group of personalities, even if he already had to take one of them out by the end of the episode. (We're really hoping this storyline doesn't run out too quickly.) When I asked if it was surreal to be standing above a guest star like Neil Patrick Harris strapped down to the kill table, the actor responded with:
It was all surreal. Yeah, that was surreal. I mean, we're so gratified that we were able to attract an ensemble of actors this season of the caliber that we did. I mean, it's a dice-roll going back in and revisiting this character and the world, and the fact that all those people joined us was pretty gratifying. We're like, okay, you know, maybe we're on to something.
When I mentioned that I wouldn't have expected Dexter to leave the flirtatious Mia as she showered just to go and find Lowell, Hall got a laugh out of me by pointing to his character's maturity level rising.
He's growing up, you know? He's made mistakes in the past of that nature that have gotten him and those around him in trouble. So yeah, he has a moment of clarity.
On the topic of Leon Prater's vast collection of serial killer trophies and having that be the new world that Dexter is now trying to traverse alongside Harrison's story, Michael C. Hall told me:
Yeah, it was awesome. I mean, I feel like this season kind of expands the window. It's more viscerally human and undeniably sort of rich in that way, in terms of his relationship with his son and his internalized relationship with his father. But it's also just more wondrous and magical and insane and dreamlike, this world that Leon Prater has facilitated. Shooting that fourth episode, I felt like Dexter had been transported into some sort of bizarro, twisted superhero movie. It was so wild.
Now that he's mentioned superheroes, I'm wondering how Dexter would fare in the world of The Boys, and who he'd try to target first. Or what if Dexter aimed to take on Colin Farrell's Penguin? There should at least be a comic book series tackling that crossover.
Find out what Prater's serial killer club will get into next when new Dexter: Resurrection episodes hit. Paramount+ every Friday, and air on Showtime on Sunday nights at 9:00 p.m. ET.
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