Cold Snap (Dexter: New Blood)

In Iron Lake, New York, Dexter Morgan (Michael C. Hall), going by the name Jim Lindsay, is running through the snowy woods with a rifle, periodically looking at an albino stag through the scope. His imaginary companion is now his sister Debra (Jennifer Carpenter).

On his way into town, Dexter is pulled over by Angela Bishop (Julia Jones), the small town's chief of police. They have sex in Angela's car before Angela is called away. Dexter arrives at his job at Fred's Fish & Game. A young customer, Matt Caldwell (Steve M. Robertson), arrives to buy a knife and a rifle. While Dexter sells him the knife, he must wait 24 hours before buying the rifle as his FBI background check is flagged. Matt tries to pressure Dexter but leaves with only the knife.

That night, Dexter's date with Angela is interrupted when Audrey invites friends to their house, forcing Angela to leave early. At the bar, Matt approaches Dexter, presses him again about the rifle, and invites him to a party at his father's house the next day. A mysterious hitchhiker (Jack Alcott) arrives in town and begins stalking Dexter. The next morning, Dexter feels he is being watched as he again walks through the forest.

Petrol billionaire Edward Olsen (Fredric Lehne) holds a board meeting, which is met with a protest led by Audrey and attended by one out-of-towner in particular. Dexter's boss, Fred Jr. (Michael Cyril Creighton), has him deliver Matt's rifle to the party. Dexter arrives but is forced to wait while Matt has sex with a party-goer. His friend, jealous of the party-goer, snorts cocaine and admits to Dexter that an infamous boat accident that killed five people was not only Matt's fault, but was not an accident. Belatedly regretting the admission, he asks Dexter not to tell anyone. Dexter delivers the rifle and begins to vet Matt.

Returning to his cabin, Dexter finds someone inside. Armed with an axe, he confronts the visitor, who reveals himself as his son Harrison. The vision of Debra reminds Dexter of all the deaths that plagued his previous life (Doakes, LaGuerta, Rita, and Debra herself), and "Jim" denies knowing the people Harrison is asking about, gives him money and sends him off. As Harrison leaves, Dexter stares at a photo of both when he was a baby and decides to burn it.

The following morning, Dexter encounters the white deer again. He approaches the stag and they bond. Suddenly, the stag is shot dead by a gleeful Matt, who runs up from a distance. Dexter snaps and hits Matt in the face with the butt of his rifle. He improvises a kill-room in his shed and wakes Matt up. He confronts Matt about the stag and the boat accident. Matt admits the facts, but defends himself by blaming a troubled childhood and threatens that his father will kill Dexter when he finds out. Unfazed, Dexter stabs Matt, making his first kill in 10 years.

Dexter takes a trophy on a makeshift microscopic slide made of two shards of glass, but decides to leave it with the corpse. He chops up Matt's body, placing it in bags, while the vision of Debra chastises him. Dexter then goes to town and finds Harrison. He admits to being his father and invites him "home." As they enter the house, a blood trail is seen outside the cabin.

On October 14, 2020, the Dexter revival was ordered as a limited series consisting of 10 episodes, starring Hall in his original role, with Phillips returning as showrunner.^[1] On November 17, 2020, it was announced Marcos Siega was set to direct the first six episodes of the limited series as well as serving as an executive producer alongside Hall, John Goldwyn, Sara Colleton, Bill Carraro, and Scott Reynolds.^[2] In July 2021, it was announced that the series would premiere on November 7, 2021, on Showtime.^[3] In the United Kingdom, the series premiered on November 8, 2021, on Sky Atlantic.^[4]

In November 2021, it was announced that the first episode of the revived series would be titled "Cold Snap", and was directed by Marcos Siega and written by series developer Clyde Phillips from a story by Phillips and Adam Rapp.^[5] The episode marked Phillips' first writing credit for the series since the season 4 premiere, "Living the Dream", and was his fifth writing credit for the series.^[6]

Phillips recognized the ending had suited the time when it was broadcast, as around 2013, there were a number of real-life serial killers known to be living in Oregon and nearby states. Phillips also considered that by surrounding himself with chainsaws, Dexter was under a constant reminder about how his mother had died. As Phillips was unsure of the intent that the finale was meant to deliver, he decided to incorporate a major timeskip, nearly a decade from the end of events of the original series. While Dexter is still a lumberjack, he had since moved to the fictional town of Iron Lake, New York.^[7] Because of that, Phillips did not consider the miniseries as a ninth season.^[7] As the writing staff wrote out the ten-episode miniseries, they established how the series would end and wrote backwards from that.^[7]

Phillips described the intention of skipping Dexter's narrations for most of the episode, "it makes the character accessible, vulnerable, it's also a great chance for humor. And to not have that as a tool in our toolbox, made it more challenging to write that first episode, but it's so worth the satisfaction of when he finally does talk and when 'tonight's the night' comes back."^[8]

Describing Dexter snapping and returning to his old persona, Hall explained, "Matt destroys this manifestation of Dexter's aspiration of purity. He shoots this deer at a time when it's the last thing Dexter has to hold on to. He's obviously been struggling with Matt and has felt tempted. I imagine when temptations like that have emerged in the past that maybe Dexter's left town, that he's moved on. But in this case he doesn't."^[9] Hall also felt it was important to explore Dexter's relationship with his son Harrison, "the richness of that relationship and that exploration is a big part of what we're up to, and a big part of why this felt like a story worth telling. It felt like the right time."^[10]

The announcement of the series in October 2020 confirmed Michael C. Hall's return as Dexter Morgan.^[1] In January 2021, Julia Jones, Alano Miller, Johnny Sequoyah, Jack Alcott, and David Magidoff joined the main cast.^[11][12][13] In February 2021, Oscar Wahlberg was cast in recurring roles.^[14]

In July 2021, it was announced that original series regular Jennifer Carpenter would reprise her role as Dexter's sister Debra in some capacity for the limited series.^[15] On August 24, 2021, it was reported that Carpenter is confirmed to reprise her role as a series regular, appearing as Dexter's "imaginary iteration of Debra". Hall described her return, "I don't think of her as a ghost per se, but more of a link or an echo or an inconvenient truth for Dexter. She comes back to sort of haunt and punish and caretake and provoke and love him."^[16] He further described her, "She's not bound by who we know Deb to be. She's an energy that's embodied by Deb, but she isn't bound by anything other than whatever emotional or psychological riptide is going on in Dexter's own head."^[9]

Production began in February 2021, with most of the show filmed in Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts, serving as a stand-in for Iron Lake.^[7] Exterior filming had to be coordinated around the weather, as the creators wanted to have a significant amount of snow in those shots, including a local frozen lake. Interior filming started around July 2021 over a fifty-day period.^[7][17]