Dexter's deadly to-do list in Dexter: Resurrection

Dexter: Resurrection sees serial killer Dexter Morgan (Michael C Hall) wake from a coma 10 weeks after the events of the finale of Dexter: New Blood, with a couple of familiar faces at his hospital bedside. Angel Batista (David Zayas), former Captain of the Miami Metro Homicide Unit and once his best friend from work, has been shocked to discover that Dexter did not, in fact, die in a hurricane in the finale of the original series of Dexter (binge it on Showmax).

Meanwhile, Iron Lake Sheriff Terry Reed (David Magidoff) has good news about Police Chief Angela Bishop’s (Julia Jones) “crazy” claim that Dexter is the Bay Harbour Butcher … and the killings of Matt Caldwell and Sergeant Logan. Well, that’s great, but Dexter has other priorities, like tracking down his son Harrison (Jack Alcott) to assure him that Daddy isn’t mad about Harrison shooting him in the chest. Pinky promise.

Watch Dexter: Resurrection Season 1 on Showmax now. New episodes each Tuesday at 22:00.

While Dexter figures out how to give everyone the slip, we have a couple of notes for his to-do list, though. And for fans who need a catch-up, we’ve included a timeline of how the four Dexter series fit together.

Dexter’s to-do list: 10 loose ends

Normally, when someone finds out that Dexter is a serial killer, he frames them and kills them. End of body, end of problem, right? Not quite. Not only are there living people who now suspect Dexter is either a killer or that he is at least up to something shady, there is also one vital piece of physical evidence that could lead the trail back to him. Lots to do, Dexter. Chop chop. 

1. Angel Batista didn’t start suspecting Dexter of being the Bay Harbour Butcher until he found out Dexter was still alive in the finale of Dexter: New Blood, thanks to Angela Bishop, who agreed with late Miami Metro Homicide detective María LaGuerta’s assessment that Dexter could be the Butcher. As Dexter: Resurrection begins, Angel reveals that he has withdrawn Dexter’s death certificate, and Dexter and Angel’s once easygoing friendship shifts into cat-and-mouse tension. But since he’s retired, Angel has no authority to investigate anything in New York … officially.

2. Iron Lake Police Chief Angela Bishop figured out that Jim Lindsay was really Dexter Morgan halfway through Dexter: New Blood when she spoke to Angel Batista at his Missing Persons conference. But before Angela left Iron Lake, she gave Harrison money to help him escape, claimed to have shot Dexter herself, and cleared Dexter of murdering Matt Caldwell (Steve M Robertson) and Sergeant Logan (Alano Miller) after uncovering evidence that both killings could be labelled self-defence. While she has vanished, Angela has had close encounters with Dexter’s kill sites and working methods. All that’s standing between Dexter’s freedom and a career-making capture of the Bay Harbour Butcher is Angela’s conviction that the world is a safer place with Dexter on the loose, and her gratitude for Dexter’s help in solving the murder of her friend Iris. She was murdered by Matt’s father, serial killer Kurt Caldwell (Clancy Brown). But what if her conscience starts to prickle?

3. True-crime podcaster Molly Park (Jamie Chung) is dead, but her podcast episode on the Bay Harbour Butcher lives on, spreading the theory that the Bay Harbour Butcher is (or was) someone within the Miami Metro Homicide department. Molly did the one thing the Miami cops apparently didn’t do: she cross-referenced the dates of the Bay Harbour Butcher kills with supposed-Butcher Jim Doakes’ whereabouts, and discovered that Jim was out of the country and working undercover while the Butcher was still racking up bodies in Miami. As Molly’s podcast noted, “If I'm right, the Bay Harbour Butcher could still be out there. Still feeling all butchery. Still a threat."

4. Miami Metro Homicide detective sergeant Jim Doakes (Erik King) hated Dexter at first sight and kept an eye on him throughout their careers. He started stalking Dexter and stole his collection of blood slides – the only souvenir that Dexter kept from his kills. Dexter was able to use Doakes’ possession of the blood slides to frame him as the Bay Harbour Butcher before Doakes himself came to a sticky end. But didn’t Doakes build evidence files and keep notes at home and at work? Where are those now? 

5. María LaGuerta (Luna Lauren Velez), a Miami Metro Homicide Unit detective and Angel’s ex-wife, arrested Dexter after uncovering his identity as the Bay Harbour Butcher while investigating Doakes’s death. She was the first person to publicly accuse Dexter of being the Butcher. But Dexter’s sister Debra (Jennifer Carpenter) shot María while Dexter was in the process of framing her. And Dexter was able to make María look like a rogue officer who was trying to frame him using her cartel connections. Like Doakes, she surely kept meticulous notes and evidence to back up her hunch.

6. Joey Quinn (Desmond Harrington), a lieutenant for Miami Metro Homicide Unit, suspected Dexter of murdering his wife, Rita (Julie Benz), in the original Dexter series, and hired private investigator Stan Liddy (Peter Wekker) to investigate him, but Dexter killed Stan in self-defence. Debra and Joey were dating before the attack, which led to her death in the Season 8 finale. And when he and Angel watched the footage of Dexter killing serial killer Oliver Saxon (Darri Ingolfsson), both Joey and Angel argued that Dexter’s actions were self-defence. Like Angel, Joey only found out that Dexter had dodged death in the Dexter: New Blood finale. Suggest to Joey that Dexter could be the Butcher, and a lot of inconvenient facts will slot into place.

7. Vince Masuka (CS Lee) was Miami’s Lead Forensic Investigator (LFI) during the Bay Harbour Butcher Case. As Dexter’s partner, he worked closely with him for years, and his hyper-sexualised worldview led to him misinterpreting evidence on at least two of Dexter’s kills. All it would take is a perspective shift and a “what if?”, and Vince might make some awkward connections, just like Joey. Did Miami’s murderers and serial killers keep getting butchered after Doakes was already dead, but not so much in the ten years after Dexter’s supposed death? Hmmm. 

8. Thomas Matthews (Geoff Pierson), Captain and later Deputy Chief of Police of the Miami Metro Homicide Unit, was a long-time friend of Dexter’s dad Harry (James Remar) and a father figure to both Dexter and Debra. Thomas defended Dexter against María LaGuerta’s claims that Dexter was the Bay Harbour Butcher, which she backed up with evidence exposing Dexter’s blood ties to the Ice Truck Killer (Dexter’s older brother, Brian Moser) and his suspicious involvement in Jim Doakes’s death. But while he agreed to question Dexter, he tattled to him instead, giving Dexter enough time to frame Doakes more thoroughly. 

9. Harrison Morgan: Harrison found out about his father’s secret identity during Dexter: New Blood, and he becomes Dexter’s Achilles Heel in this series. 

10. The blood slides: Dexter hasn’t heard of the last of his serial killer souvenir blood slides yet. They remained in police evidence until mysteriously vanishing. Could cross-referencing the victims with slides to Doakes’ whereabouts at their time of death or disappearance posthumously clear Doakes of Bay Harbour Butcher allegations, and pin the crimes back on Dexter?

The Dexter timeline

Patrick Gibson and Christian Slater as Dexter and Harry Morgan in Dexter: Original Sin

In the prequel series Dexter: Original Sin (2025), we see promising medical student Dexter Morgan (Patrick Gibson) start his public career as a forensic blood spatter analyst for the fictional Miami Metro Police Department back in 1991, 15 years before the events of the first Dexter series (2006-2013). He cements his hobby as a killer of killers who’ve escaped the justice system, becoming the elusive Bay Harbour Butcher. 

To escape growing suspicion and capture in Dexter, Dexter faked his death in a hurricane in August 2012 in the series finale, only to resurface under the alias Jim Lindsay in 2021 in the series Dexter: New Blood (2021). During this series, we found out that Dexter was able to suppress his Dark Passenger, aka his urge to kill, by conjuring Harrison and his late sister, Debra, as the voices of his conscience.

Michael C Hall and Jack Alcott as Dexter and Harrison in Dexter: New Blood

But the teenage Harrison tracked Dexter down, arriving in town just as Dexter made his first kill in 10 years. During their time together, Dexter explained his late father’s Harry’s killer code to Harrison after realising that his son had inherited his urge to kill, and Harrison told Dexter that he accepted his dad’s nature. But after Dexter broke Harry’s code, killing an innocent man (Sergeant Logan) to get himself off the hook, he begged Harrison to kill him and go live a normal life. Harrison shot Dexter in the chest and fled town at the end of the series, while Dexter’s cop girlfriend, Angela, covered up for them both. 

Both Dexter and Harrison resurface ten weeks later in Dexter: Resurrection (2025). Dexter wakes up from a coma in hospital in 2025, and Harrison lets his own Dark Passenger take the wheel for the first time while working as a bellhop at the Empire Hotel. 

Watch Dexter: Resurrection Season 1 on Showmax now. New episodes each Tuesday at 22:00.