Dexter’s Trinity Killer Prequel Gets Greenlit on Paramount+

John Lithgow starred in Dexter Season 4 as Arthur Mitchell, aka the Trinity Killer. He was the antagonist of the season, and most consider him the best villain in the series. They’re giving Arthur Mitchell the protagonist treatment, as he will get his own series.

In Dexter Season 4, Arthur Mitchell was presented as a regular guy who, unbeknownst to many, was an infamous serial killer. By the time we met him, he’d been killing for three decades. He would use his guise as a regular person to get away with it—that is, until Dexter finally figures him out.

The cat-and-mouse chase between Dexter and Trinity is perhaps the original series at its best. It’s undeniable that Trinity does the most damage to Dexter out of any of the other villains, considering the ending of the season.

The Trinity Killer prequel series has been in the works for some time now, but it wasn’t until now that it was greenlit officially. Paramount+ and Showtime reportedly saw the success of Dexter: Original Sin and greenlit the Trinity Killer prequel. 

What We Know About Dexter: Trinity So Far

It will be a prequel—while it’s unclear at this time when exactly it’s set, it’s certainly a prequel considering the fate of Arthur Mitchell at the end of Dexter Season 4.

John Lithgow will return—while he will not be playing Arthur Mitchell in the flesh, he will be the voice in the character’s head, akin to Michael C. Hall with Dexter.

According to showrunner and creator Clyde Phillips, the series has already been written. 

Potential Speculation

From what we know about Arthur Mitchell, he starts his killing in Miami and then continues in different cities before his return to Miami. He starts thirty years prior to Dexter Season 4, and Arthur Mitchell is 60 years old at that point. This likely means that the series will start with Arthur Mitchell sometime in his late 20s or early 30s.

We’ll likely meet him long before he meets his family, so we may get into the psyche of the man prior to his outward normalcy. Arthur Mitchell presents a sort of parallel to the life Dexter leads in Season 4 when it comes to the attempt to seem normal in order to get away from any speculation about being a serial killer. Both got away with it as long as they did precisely because they were so good at portraying someone normal.

Dexter: Original Sin captures Dexter’s first kill and also shows him learning how to seem normal to people on the outside. I imagine Trinity Killer will likely be something similar but obviously more sinister, considering how much worse Arthur Mitchell is compared to Dexter.

It’s unclear whether the series will be a miniseries or multiple seasons as of right now. It will likely depend on the reception of the series. As for a potential air date, these Dexter series are very quick-turnaround shows, so it all depends on when it’ll shoot. If I had to guess, it’ll likely be a 2026 series.

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