‘Dexter: New Blood’ Never Considered Undoing the Lumberjack Finale, Clyde Phillips Says
After Dexter fans waited eight years to reunite with Dexter Morgan (Michael C. Hall), Dexter: New Blood has ended too. It’s a far more definitive ending to the series than the 2013 series finale, though it also leaves doors open for continuations. The series never betrayed the controversial lumberjack finale either, which was always showrunner Clyde Phillips’ plan.
[Warning: This article contains spoilers for the Dexter: New Blood finale.]
Phillips appeared on The Hollywood Reporter’s TV’s Top Five on Nov. 5 before the series began. When asked about picking up eight years later, Phillips said he never would have undone his predecessor’s finale. Dexter: New Blood is streaming on Showtime.
‘Dexter: New Blood’ had to honor the lumberjack finale no matter how hated it was
Even Hall wasn’t happy with the Dexter series finale. It saw Dexter escape Miami and appear to be living as a lumberjack somewhere in the Pacific Northwest. By the time of Dexter: New Blood, he has relocated to Iron Lake, New York. However, Phillips was never going to undo the lumberjack finale.
“Not for a second,” Phillips said on TV’s Top Five. “Not for a second because that would be really dishonest with the audience. It’s a very loyal audience, every year, to say, ‘Oops, sorry, that didn’t really happen. It was all a dream.’”
Clyde Phillips’ original ‘Dexter’ finale is especially relevant now
Phillips ran Dexter for the first four seasons. The latter four strayed from his original plan. Phillips would have ended with Dexter on death row for his crimes. He sort of got there in Dexter: New Blood, but without all the red tape.
“I’m so happy I wasn’t there to do it because now I get to do this season and it’s spectacular,” Phillips said. “Also, it wouldn’t have been solely my decision. I wasn’t in that room for four years. The writers took it where they took it but Showtime took it where they wanted to go, and they didn’t want to kill Dexter off.”
‘Dexter: New Blood’ made Dexter pay for his crimes
In the Dexter: New Blood finale, Angela Bishop (Julia Jones) found one of Matt Caldwell (Steve M. Robertson)’s titanium screws in the rubble of Dexter’s burned down cabin. Dexter planned to escape with Harrison (Jack Alcott) but Harrison called him out for killing innocent people in his escape. In the end, Dexter still paid the price with his life, which is the heart of Phillips’ original plan.
“I thought, as I’ve said before, he’s a psychopath, although your lovable psychopath, and that he deserved to die,” Phillips said. “But I wasn’t in the room so it wasn’t my decision by any means.”
Reporter Kristen dos Santos reached out to Phillips in 2013 when the original Dexter finale aired to ask how he would have ended it. So, Phillips’ death row idea has been out there. Now, he got to do it a different way in Dexter: New Blood.
“Kristen happened to call me that day,” Phillips said. “I was in a car somewhere and I talked to her. I asked her to embargo that for one day until the show aired and she did. If you look it up online, some people agree with it. Most people agree with it back then. Now it’s different, and many people didn’t. Some people actually loved season 8 of the show. I didn’t but some people actually did.”
