Season 2's premiere, "Risky Business," featured many exciting Easter eggs and callbacks. Here are 10 details you may have missed.
 |
| Michael C. Hall as Dexter Morgan in Dexter: Resurrection Season 2 Episode 1. (Photo credit: Matt Infante/Paramount+) |
One thing writers love to do in TV shows and movies is include Easter eggs and callbacks to earlier moments, characters, or projects.
And with a franchise that has been around for 20 years, Dexter has a lot of material to play with. We've actually seen this happen many times over the years, and the Season 2 premiere of Dexter: Resurrection was definitely no exception.
While some of the references in Episode 1 were fairly obvious, others were much more subtle. You had to pay close attention to notice them, and in some cases, compare them with scenes from previous seasons.
After carefully watching the Season 2 premiere, titled "Risky Business," we actually spotted ten Easter eggs and callbacks that you may have missed. Let's take a closer look.
1. The Season 2 Premiere Opens with a Familiar Shot
The first episode of Season 2, "Risky Business," opens with a dream sequence in which Dexter Morgan is lying in bed before receiving a call from Batista.
The camera angle and placement of Dexter deliberately mirror the opening scene of the Dexter: Resurrection series premiere, when he was lying in a hospital bed in Iron Lake while still in a coma. It is quite a subtle throwback to the show's first episode, and the visual similarity definitely makes it seem deliberate.
2. Dexter's Outfit Takes Us Back to His Miami Days
During the dream sequence, after receiving the call from Batista, Dexter opens his drawer and finds it full of olive-green Henley shirts, an outfit he frequently wore during his Miami days.
The callbacks don't stop there. As you can see in the image on the top of this article, the gloves that reach his elbows, along with his apron, are identical to the ones he sported during the kill scenes in the OG series.
3. Harrison's Broken Air Conditioner is a Clever Callback
At one point in the episode, we see Harrison moving a chair and some boxes into his apartment, which has a beautiful view. Since the season takes place in June, the weather is hot, so he actually tries to turn on the air conditioner. Unfortunately, it doesn't work, prompting him to say that "Dad might know about air conditioners," hoping Dex could fix it.
That line is a direct reference to the original series as Dexter used to hide his box of blood slides, containing his trophies, inside the air-conditioning unit in his apartment. Of course, Harrison has no idea about that little secret, and this actually makes the reference even funnier.
4. Dexter's Scene with Batista is Packed with Easter eggs
The dream scene with Batista is included some of the most interesting Easter eggs in the episode, and EP and writer Scott Reynolds recently explained the thinking behind some of its details. The choices weren't random, in fact they were connected to Dexter's subconscious and the movies and music that influenced him as a teenager.
For starters, Kane Hodder, who plays the fake New York Ripper, was a fitting choice because Dexter was famously a Friday the 13th fan, as revealed in Dexter: Original Sin.
The hallway where Dexter and Batista are before encountering the Ripper features paintings from Cobra, the 1986 action movie starring Sylvester Stallone. Then there's the moment when Dexter and Batista grab each other's hands, which actually recreates a memorable shot from Predator, another movie young Dexter loved.
Finally, the song "The Heat Is On" by Glenn Frey plays during the sequence. The track originally appeared in Beverly Hills Cop, a movie that Dexter also liked when he was younger. These details might seem unrelated at first, but together they give a look into the things that shaped Dexter's imagination.
5. Dexter Imagines Decorating His Apartment with a Familiar Design
Early in the episode, Blessing Kamara, who rents his basement to Dexter, expresses surprise that he has barely changed the decoration since moving in. Dexter then starts imagining how he would like the place to look.
In that fantasy, we see framed blood-spatter designs hanging in a row above the furniture next to the exit door. Their design and placement are identical to the ones Dexter had in his Miami Metro lab during the OG series.
6. Harrison's Lonely Graduation Mirrors a Scene from Dexter: Original Sin
Because he was in a hurry to get to Pennsylvania and take out Rapunzel, Dexter sadly missed his son's police academy graduation. Harrison is understandably frustrated, and at one point, he looks toward the empty chair where his father was supposed to be sitting.
The moment actually is a direct callback to the first episode of Dexter: Original Sin. In that episode, young Dexter (played by Paddy Gibson) looks at two empty chairs where Harry and Deb were supposed to sit during his graduation ceremony.
 |
| Patrick Gibson in the series premiere of Dexter: Original Sin. (Photo credit: Paramount+) |
At the time, Harry was still hospitalized and couldn't attend. Deb eventually made it, but she arrived late and only showed up toward the end of the ceremony. The two scenes aren't identical in their circumstances, but the similar shots make the connection pretty clear.
7. The 4:09 Time on Dexter's Phone is No Coincidence
While tracking Al Walker at the camp in Pennsylvania, Dexter watches him from a distance as Harry compares him to the Trinity Killer. The connection is that, just like Trinity, Al is also a family man.
Dexter then checks his phone to see whether he still has time to make it to Harrison's graduation. The clock reads 4:09.
That number is a reminder of Season 4, Episode 9 of the original series, "Hungry Man." It's the fan-favorite episode featuring the Thanksgiving dinner at the Mitchell family home, where Trinity's true personality is exposed and things begin to fall apart between him and Dexter.
Considering the comparison Harry had just made, the timing seemed way too fitting.
8. Dexter's Plastic-Wrapped Face Recalls an Earlier Kill Room
One of the most uncomfortable moments in the premiere comes when Dex ends up on the floor, nearly suffocating after Al wraps his head in a plastic sheet.
The scene brings to mind an earlier kill-room sequence from Season 1, Episode 8. Back then, and during the kill room he set up again for Al, Dexter used pantyhose to distort his facial features in order to avoid leaving his identity exposed, after threatening a tenant named Vinny, played by Steve Schirripa. Seeing the two moments side by side actually makes the visual connection hard to miss.
9. Rapunzel Choking Dexter Mirrors Batista's Final Confrontation with Him
In the same sequence, Rapunzel proves to be surprisingly strong as she attempts to choke Dexter while he's lying on the floor.
The camera angle deliberately mirrors the shot of Batista trying to kill Dexter in the same way. Although that confrontation happened just two episodes earlier, the callback actually brings back the memory of Dexter's final moments with his late colleague and friend.
It also reinforces that Dexter isn't as strong as he used to be, and the events of his recent past are still very much with him.
10. Rapunzel is a "tub of sh*t" ...Just Like Lowell Said
One of the funnier moments in the Season 2 premiere comes during Dexter's phone call with Harrison, when he calls Al Walker a "tub of sh*t" to downplay his strength because of his physical appearance.
Of course, that particular choice of words was not random. Neil Patrick Harris' Lowell, also known as the Tattoo Collector, used exactly the same phrase to describe Al during Season 1, Episode 4, "Call Me Red." It happened when Lowell first saw 'Rapunzel' getting out of Prater's elevator at the gathering of serial killers.
Did you spot any of these Easter eggs while watching the premiere? And more importantly, do you think we missed any other callbacks hidden throughout the episode? Let us know in the comments below.