Dexter Revival Confirmed to Bring Back Jennifer Carpenter

Showtime's ninth season of Dexter, reviving the hit drama after a decade off, is set to bring back another character it famously killed off as The Hollywood Reporter brings word that actress Jennifer Carpenter will return in the role of Deb, Dexter Morgan's sister. Much to the chagrin of fans of the series, Deb was killed off in the season eight finale, previously the series finale. Carpenter joins John Lithgow as cast members returning for the revival despite having died in the original run of the show, they'll appear alongside Michael C. Hall. Despite Dexter the series using dead characters as spectres to speak to the title character, THR notes that these two "are expected to appear in flashback scenes."

"I'll miss the fear of playing Deb, getting the script going, 'That's great. Oh God how do we do it?'," Carpenter previously told THR when Dexter concluded in 2013. "Everyone kept saying Dexter was my first shot at TV and the cast, crew and producers stressed that it doesn't always happen this way. I guess I won't know what they meant until I go somewhere and an actor doesn't know his lines. Or the work isn't as hard as you want it to be. These have been some of the best years of my life. If you asked me in the middle of it if I ever thought I would say this on the other side, I would have said absolutely not. But it truly was. There were so many gifts, not just as an actor but I'm better for navigating my own life from what I learned on this show."

Hall will also be joined in the revival by Clancy Brown, who will be portraying the new episodes' primary villain, Kurt Caldwell. The new episodes will be eschewing the Florida setting of the first nine seasons, instead taking place in the upstate New York town of Iron Lake. The revival comes eight years after the series wrapped up its eight season arc. Lovecraft Country's Jamie Chung and Manchester By the Sea's Oscar Wahlberg are also newcomers to the series.

"A lot of it has to do with time passed," series star Michael C. Hall previously revealed to ET about why he decided to return to the character. "This is going to happen in real-time, as if as much time has passed since the finale happened. And yeah, we kind of just got the creative band back together again. Clyde Phillips is back, who was the showrunner for the first four seasons, running the show. And Marcos Siega, who is one of the directors. He's like, 'We're gonna shoot it like a long, 10-hour movie.' It was a combination of the scripts and the timing. I always thought maybe the time will reveal itself when it's the right time to do it and it did. And I'm excited. I was just visiting the sets the other day and it's real. It's really happening."

Dexter Season 9 will premiere this fall.