Dexter: Original Sin: All the Dexter Easter Eggs and Callbacks From the Prequel's Premiere

Warning: This story contains spoilers from the first episode of Dexter: Original Sin, "And In the Beginning…"

The Dexter origin story you didn't know you needed is finally here, just in time to add a little red to the holiday season. Paramount+ dropped the first episode of the prequel series, Dexter: Original Sin, on Dec. 13 (it will premiere on Showtime on Sunday, Dec 15), giving fans the anticipated next chapter in this bloody franchise. 

The series stars Patrick Gibson as a younger Dexter Morgan, with original actor Michael C. Hall returning for the voiceovers. The premiere, "And In the Beginning…" shows him at the top of his class in medical school, but slicing into dead bodies just isn't enough to satisfy his urges. So, as fans know, he eventually finds his calling as a blood spatter expert, taking an internship alongside his father, Harry Morgan (Christian Slater) at Miami Metro. 

Various characters from the original series also appear, including Debra Morgan (Molly Brown), Det. Angel Batista (James Martinez), Vince Masuka (Alex Shimizu) and Det. Maria LaGuerta (Christina Milian). They're joined by new characters like Dexter's boss, Tanya Martin (Sarah Michelle Gellar), Capt. Aaron Spencer (Patrick Dempsey), and Harry's partner, Det. Bobby Watt (Reno Wilson).   

The premiere did more than set up this pre-Bay Harbor Butcher world, however. Throughout the hour there were Easter eggs, foreshadowing, and callbacks to the original series and its sequel, Dexter: New Blood. Read on for 10 of those biggest moments.

The prequel picked up where Dexter: New Blood left off, with Harrison (Jack Alcott) shooting his father and Dexter appearing to die. In interviews, showrunner Clyde Phillips confirmed the character is dead, however Original Sin plays it a different way. The series follows Dexter to the hospital, where doctors are able to get his heart beating again. The moment of revival allows Dexter's big life moments to flash before his eyes, setting up his narration for the new series.

Dexter's mother, Laura, was never a prominent figure in the original series, although her gruesome murder was the catalyst for Dexter's dark passenger. The prequel flashes all the way back to Dexter's birth, however, setting up the potential for more information surrounding the character, played now by Brittany Allen. In subsequent episodes that timeline and the one in the 1990s will continue to co-exist, giving viewers more information about Laura and Harry's affair and her eventual death.

Nothing gets you in the mood for a beloved series like the original theme song, and this Dexter prequel understands the assignment. Not only does the opening feature the same song from the original, but the montage is an extended version of the original that includes Harry and Debra. It's a great way to bring viewers back into the world while adding a new flair.

Speaking of the title sequence, who could forget a half-asleep Dexter slapping the mosquito on his arm to kick it off? That moment happens again in the new sequence, sure. But a fun Easter egg comes toward the end of the premiere, when Dex slaps another mosquito from his arm while disposing of his first kill. "I really hate mosquitos," he quips.

In the original series, Dexter admitted he wasn't much of a dog person and mused that canines never seemed to like him much. Probably because he killed their owners. That, coupled with Dexter's anti-social tendencies have spawned fan theories and Reddit threads that the character is probably a cat person. That theory is confirmed in the premiere, when he admits he feels a special kinship with cats because they're nature's serial killers.

Dexter Morgan was always physically fit, which helped him to take down his victims. But in high school the character also practiced martial arts, which comes in handy during one particular prequel scene. When Dexter finds his sister Deb passed out at a party and in a compromising position with an opportunistic frat jerk, he tackles her assailant and shows everyone just how powerful those skills are.

Dexter has always used Etorphine (M99) to sedate his victims, but it turns out that may have something to do with his first kill. When Dexter learns that his father's nurse, Mary (Tanya Clarke) is killing her patients with high doses of potassium nitrate and his father might be next, it sparks him to make his first human kill. Getting Mary on the table proves more complicated than Dexter thought, of course. It's not clear when he starts injecting his victims with syringes in the future, but Mary's preferred needle method may have been an inspiration.

It wasn't lost on fans when Dexter used the pseudonym Patrick Bateman to order M99 in the original series. That American Psycho reference is alive and well in the prequel, too. It turns out that Dexter has long been a fan of Bret Easton Ellis' novel. In the scene where Dexter poses for a graduation photo, the photographer asks him to think of something that makes him happy. Naturally, he flashes to a copy of that book before a smile finally creeps onto his face. 

Dexter has always been obsessed with serial killers, but that fascination was pretty clear in the prequel's first episode. The scene in which he flipped through clippings of other killers also happened to have another little Easter egg. As Dexter ponders the likes of The Night Stalker and the BTK Killer, he wonders if anyone will ever give him a nickname. That is, of course, foreshadowing his own eventual moniker, The Bay Harbor Butcher. 

Everyone knows that at one point, Dexter began collecting blood slides of his victims. But he didn't start out doing that. In the prequel, Dexter collects Nurse Mary's earrings as a trophy post-kill, a move he says he will come to regret. While that could be foreshadowing to the slides that were eventually found, there could also be a bigger story there. After all, who else remembers in Season 3, when Dexter told Miguel Prado (Jimmy Smits) to never take personal items as trophies?

More on Dexter: Original Sin and other related shows:

• What's new on Paramount+
• Everything we know about Dexter: Original Sin
• The new shows of the winter TV season
• Our most anticipated shows of the winter