After a frankly disastrous Season 8 finale in 2013 and a divisive single season of New Blood, Dexter has returned with a vengeance in 2025. The vigilante is back in the aptly titled Dexter: Resurrection, and the show seems to have picked up from the brilliance it displayed in its first four seasons. Dexter is now in New York City with his son Harrison, navigating the grimy underbelly of the Big Apple.
What has kept Resurrection so engrossing is the balance it strikes between classic Dexter and new twists. The original series was known for skillful writing and sudden bombshells, and the revival seems to be following in the footsteps of Dexter in its full glory. The story is completely new with the distinctive flavor of the vigilante and his Code, and it has some of the best callbacks to the original series. The Gemini Killer twist was absolutely jaw-dropping, but even more so when fans realized how it tied back to Dexter Season 1.
Dexter: Resurrection Pulled Off One of the Best Twists of All Time
Not long after Dexter arrived in New York City, the vigilante got pulled into the bloody world of serial killers and crime. Dexter had to quell his urge to kill, and the only way to do that was to find out who terrorized the streets of New York City at night. His ire was first aimed at the Dark Passenger of NYC, whom Dexter liked to call The Impostor because of how he had appropriated his nickname. Dexter figured out who the Passenger was in an impressively short period of time, circling in on Ronald Schmidt, who was killing innocent ride-share drivers because of a personal vendetta.
When he got into Ronald's things in his apartment, he found Leon Prater's invitation to his murder club, which kickstarted Dexter's arc in New York City in earnest. The real Bay Harbor Butcher disguised himself as Ronald, also known as Red, and found something truly unique hidden in the heart of the Big Apple: a gathering for serial killers. Billionaire Leon Prater fulfilled his morbid curiosity about murder by befriending various serial killers across the nation, holding dinner parties for them in his home to discuss their grotesque actions. For Dexter, this was the perfect hunting ground, as he no longer had to vet people and prove their lack of innocence to kill them. Prater had handed him his victims on a silver platter.
Suspicious as it was, Dexter started killing Prater's friends one by one, shocked by how much they enjoyed tormenting and killing innocent people. Dexter may be a serial killer himself, but he rarely kills outside of Harry's Code. He always had a concrete reason to kill, and that was generally because his victim was a killer themselves. He started with Lowell, the Tattoo Collector, and then moved on to Lady Vengeance. He could not kill Mia, but he got her arrested before she could kill again. His most unplanned kill, however, was Gareth, who called himself the Gemini Killer. Gareth was self-aggrandizing, arrogant, but undeniably intelligent -- but he used this for the worst reasons. When Dexter saw how much Gareth basked in the infamy of being a serial killer, and how his last victims were a father-son duo, he could not help himself.
Gareth walked up to his grave by coming to Dexter's house, where the latter spiked his drink with M-99, and then proceeded to kill him in his usual style. With a heart-stopping interruption by Blessing, Dexter managed to put Gareth away, but there was terror in his heart. When he met Prater at his private helicopter the next day, Dexter was sure that he would finally be caught because Prater's killers had started to disappear once "Red" had entered the group. However, in a bombshell twist, Gareth walked out of a car and right into the helicopter next to Dexter, when he was supposed to be dead. Gareth had not risen from his grave, but had a secret twin whom he never spoke about. This was the man he left messages for in books, and the elaborate Gemini kills were so impressive because they were carried out by not one, but two serial killers. The clues were there all along, but nobody was able to guess Gemini's secret until Dexter killed one of the twins. This was easily one of the best plot twists in Dexter.
It Called Back to Brian and Dexter's Short-Lived Relationship In Dexter Season 1
Dexter's discovery of the Gemini twin killers was absolutely groundbreaking, but Gareth Number 2 had no idea that Dexter had killed his twin. So, as Dexter tried to figure out how to handle this new threat, he decided a set-up would be the most ideal. When Gareth, obviously upset by his missing brother, sat isolated during Prater's retreat, Dexter walked up to him to have a candid chat. At first, he acted like a fanboy, telling Gemini that he had figured out their secret -- that there were two of them. Gareth's twin was impressed with Dexter's resourcefulness, even bragging to him about how the brothers had come up with the concept of the Gemini Killer together. They believed that everyone came into this world alone, but they could make sure that people could leave the world together. Hence, they targeted pairs -- lovers, siblings, parents and children -- and killed them in brutal fashion, arranging them in the sign of Gemini as a final flourish.
Hearing Gareth Number Two talk about how he and his brother decided to kill together was reminiscent of Brian Moser's ideal life with his long-lost brother, Dexter Morgan. Dexter's biological brother, Brian, had also watched their mother get dismembered in the shipping container, but Brian was too violent to be fostered anywhere. He was separated from Dexter, but he dreamed of finding his brother and becoming a killer team together when they grew up. After numerous brushes throughout Dexter's life, Brian and Dexter finally came face to face in Dexter Season 1, where the notorious Ice Truck Killer turned out to be none other than Brian.
Everything that Brian did was to get closer to his brother, because he loved him in his own twisted way. Brian often laid out elaborate set-ups for Dexter to kill, like Tony Tucci and even Debra Morgan, but he did not realize how strong Dexter's moral code was. He was not going to kill innocents, but that was the life that Brian had planned for himself and his brother. He knew that Dexter was a serial killer too, but when he targeted Debra and tried to kill her, Dexter drew the line. Brian represented the dark side of Dexter, but Debra was his sister whom he had sworn he would protect. Discovering that he had a brother just like him was revelatory for Dexter, because he finally had someone who was just like him to talk to. It was a rare opportunity, but try as he might, Dexter could not bring himself to let Brian get away with his crimes.
Dexter knew that he had to kill his brother, which broke his heart in a way that he didn't think was possible. Dexter was clean, efficient, and emotionless -- but he wept like a child when he drained Brian of his blood on his brother's kill table. He had to slaughter his only biological family because Brian was out of control, and he kept threatening to turn Dexter into a crazed, immoral killer as well. Dexter may have spared his brother if Brian had shown some commitment towards following the Code, but he wanted to kill flagrantly and without a care about who it affected.
As much as Dexter longed to have his brother by his side in his otherwise solitary life, he could not ignore how troubling Brian's history and psychology was. His need to do the right thing was far stronger than his desire for companionship, but it still broke Dexter to kill the only person who understood him the way Brian did. Dexter Season 1 was flawless and riveting, but it was so loved because of how it laid out, rather bleakly, the misfortune of being Dexter. He was trapped in a space between good and evil, doing the dirty work that nobody could commit to doing. In his pursuit of justice, Dexter was destined to lose his own brother, and it had to be by his hand.
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Dexter: Resurrection
TV-MA
Crime
Drama
Mystery
7
10
15
9.7/10
Release Date July 13, 2025
Network Paramount+ with Showtime
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