'Dexter' Season 9 Teaser: Your Favorite Serial Killer Is Back And He's Shaved Off That Fake Lumberjack Beard

Anytime someone asks, "What's a popular show that had a disappointing ending?", Dexter seems to always be at the top of the list. People really enjoyed the first few seasons of the darkly comedic serial killer series, but its final few seasons really went off the rails, and the finale itself – which saw Dexter sporting a terrible fake beard and living as a lumberjack – satisfied absolutely no one. But now there's a chance to get things right as the show returns for a revival season which can double as season 9 and serve as a new finale. And now we have our first footage from the new season, although this doesn't appear to be actual footage from an episode but rather something shot specifically for a teaser. Watch the Dexter season 9 teaser below.

In October of 2020, Showtime made the surprise announcement that Dexter was coming back for one more season. Both star Michael C. Hall and Clyde Phillips, who served as showrunner for the first four (and arguably best) seasons of the series, are back. And everyone is being very honest about what this is: a chance to set things right and atone for a series finale that seemingly disappointed everyone.

"This was an opportunity to write a second finale for the show," Phillips said in an interview last year. "We're not going to betray the audience and say, 'Whoops, that was all a dream.' What happened in the first eight years happened in the first eight years. 10 years, or however many years, have passed by the time this will air, and the show will reflect that time passage. In so far as the ending of the show, this will have no resemblance to how the original finale was. It's a great opportunity to write a second finale for our show, and Showtime was very gracious about that."

The real question is: does anyone actually want more Dexter at this point? I watched the first four seasons of the show, and mostly enjoyed it. Season 4 in particular was fantastic, but after that season concluded I personally felt the show had run its course and felt no real urge to keep up with it. I apparently made the right decision, because the seasons that followed left most people cold.

We still don't know a whole lot about the new season. We just know it's being billed as a 10-episode limited series, and we know that in addition to Hall, the cast includes Clancy Brown, Johnny Sequoyah, Julia Jones, Alano Miller, Michael Cyril Creighton, Jack Alcott, David Magidoff, Jamie Chung, and Oscar Wahlberg. Hall is the only cast member from the original run of the show returning.

Dexter returns to Showtime sometime this fall.