Dexter’s Earliest Kills Were Already Shown On-Screen, 16 Years Before The Prequel Show Releases

Summary Dexter: Original Sin will explore Dexter's earliest kills before the original series, but another Dexter show already depicted some of them.

Dexter Early Cuts followed Dexter's kills as a young adult before the original show began, but Original Sin likely won't maintain its continuity.

Original Sin could still borrow some of the best features from Early Cuts, like its answers to questions like how Dexter started taking blood slides.

Dexter Morgan's life as a young adult and his earliest kills are set to be depicted in the upcoming prequel series Dexter: Original Sin, but the serial killer's first victims were already shown on-screen back in 2009. Dexter killed hundreds of people, and his list of victims will only increase. Two new Dexter shows have been announced: a prequel series titled Dexter: Original Sin and a sequel titled Dexter: Resurrection. While Resurrection is set to explore Dexter's life after his supposed death at the end of New Blood, Original Sin is going back to look at Dexter's first kills.

The original Dexter started when Dexter was already well into his career as a blood spatter analyst and serial killer, in 2006. The timeline of Dexter: Original Sin goes back fifteen years to when Dexter was just starting out in both of his passions in 1991. The original show depicted a few of the victims Dexter killed during those fifteen years, but it also left more than enough room for Original Sin to flesh out his story. The only problem is that another show already dove into several of Dexter's kills before the original show, and it did so over a decade before Original Sin.

Related All The Dexter Seasons Ranked From Worst To Best When the Dexter seasons are ranked from worst to best it always shows a journey of ups and downs, but its one that produced a truly beloved show.

Dexter’s Earliest Kills Were Shown In The Webseries “Dexter Early Cuts”

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The fifteen years between Dexter and Original Sin has already been depicted in an unlikely place: a series of animated short videos on YouTube. Dexter Early Cuts was a webseries produced by Showtime from 2009 to 2012 that showed some of the kills Dexter made before the beginning of the original series. Michael C. Hall narrated Dexter's memories of some of his most noteworthy kills from 1991, when Original Sin takes place, and 2006, when Dexter began. Early Cuts also featured some stunning watercolor and hand drawn artwork for its animation, making it a unique, albeit overlooked, part of the Dexter franchise.

Dexter: Original Sin Probably Won’t Be Beholden To Early Cuts

While Dexter Early Cuts did beat Original Sin to the punch of depicting Dexter's earliest kills, that doesn't mean the prequel series has to follow its lead. Early Cuts is a free webseries that has gone, for the most part, forgotten by Showtime and audiences alike for over a decade. There's almost no chance Showtime is concerned with preserving the continuity of Early Cuts or changing Original Sin in any way to fit with its timeline of events. If Original Sin wants to deviate from Early Cuts, either by changing individual kills or its timeline, it will almost certainly retcon the webseries without hesitation.

Related Was Sarah Michelle Gellar’s Tanya In The Original Dexter Show? Prequel Character Explained Sarah Michelle Gellar, famous for Buffy will play Tanya in Dexter: Original Sin. Is her character new, or did she appear in the original Dexter?

Dexter: Original Sin isn't just likely to rewrite Early Cuts, it's already begun. Season 2 of Early Cuts covered Dexter's first kills after Harry Morgan's death, just as he was starting college. Original Sin, however, will follow Dexter just after his graduation as he begins working at Miami Metro Homicide, and Harry is still very much alive. That's essentially proof that Original Sin isn't going to let Early Cuts get in the way of its story, and it's also a sign that there's still quite a bit left to discover about Dexter and Harry's relationship.

Dexter Early Cuts Could Still Be An Inspiration To Original Sin

There's no way Early Cuts will dictate the plot of Dexter: Original Sin, but that doesn't mean it won't have an effect at all. Early Cuts actually provided some very interesting context to Dexter's story, and it answered some burning questions that neither the original show nor New Blood addressed. For example, one episode of Early Cuts explained why Dexter started taking blood slides as trophies even though they could have been used as evidence that went against Harry's code. It also showed a few of Dexter's kills during college, a time that got precious little attention in Dexter.

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buy Not available Not available Not available *Availability in US Based on the character created by author Jeff Lindsay, Showtime's Dexter follows Miami Metro Police Department's most skilled blood spatter analyst, Dexter Morgan, as he attempts to satisfy his Dark Passenger's need to kill by hunting down criminals who have escaped justice. However, using the rules his adoptive father taught him to remain undiscovered, Dexter must walk the fine line of seemingly blending into society while continuously feeding his dark urges. Dexter faces several serial killers as his facade slowly crumbles around him; with every problem solved by his Dark Passenger, another one arises for his suburban fatherly life. When Dexter takes things personally or feels that the law is failing, he takes matters into his own hands and even compromises the investigations of his co-workers. Dexter aired on Showtime for eight seasons before receiving a mini-sequel series called Dexter: New Blood, which picked up ten years after the show's events. You can buy each season for just $9.99 for Prime Day. Cast David Zayas , Michael C. Hall , Lauren Velez , C. S. Lee , James Remar , Jennifer Carpenter , Desmond Harrington , Julie Benz Release Date October 31, 2010 Seasons 8 Network Showtime , CBS Streaming Service(s) Hulu , Amazon Prime Video Writers Jeff Lindsay , Scott Buck , Scott Reynolds , Tim Schlattmann , Karen Campbell , Melissa Rosenberg , Kevin Maynard , Wendy West , Manny Coto , Daniel Cerone , Jace Richdale , Drew Z. Greenberg , Chip Johannessen , Adam Fierro , Jim Leonard Directors Clyde Phillips Showrunner Clyde Phillips Expand

Though it doesn't have to, Original Sin could easily borrow some of the questions and answers Early Cuts introduced. Early Cuts already showed how Dexter started taking blood slides, how he got rid of bodies without access to his boat, and more. Its answers were also fairly compelling, and there's no reason Original Sin couldn't simply reuse the same answers again. Original Sin could even grant Early Cuts more of a legacy in the Dexter franchise than it currently has, and help the long-forgotten series live on long past its final episode.

Early Cuts also serves as a kind of look into what Original Sin may have in store. Early Cuts wasn't able to delve too deeply into its topics - it only had 18 episodes that were a few minutes each - but it hinted at a larger story that was waiting to be told. It touched on things like Dexter's struggle to blend in as a young adult and how he dealt with Debra after Harry's death. In that sense, Early Cuts may have predicted some of Dexter: Original Sin's most important plot beats over a decade before its December release date.