Dexter: Astor & Cody’s Storyline Was Almost Much Darker

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Warning! SPOILERS for Dexter: New Blood.

Rita’s children Astor and Cody have a traumatic upbringing in Dexter, but their story was almost much darker in the original series. In adapting Jeff Lindsay’s books into the Showtime series, Dexter took plenty of creative liberties when dramatizing the characters. While Dexter season 1’s story remained relatively similar to the books, there were notable differences in how characters like Dexter Morgan, Brian Moser, Rita Bennett, and her children Astor and Cody were translated to the screen.

Before Harrison was born, Dexter’s cheesy-dad persona around Astor and Cody was one of his greatest redeeming qualities, which Dexter: New Blood briefly brought back before the reboot’s finale. While taking care of Astor and Cody allowed Dexter to have a seemingly normal life outside of serial killing, the kids were still wrought with tragic events regarding their parents. In Dexter season 1, their father Paul is murdered in prison after Dexter had framed him to put him back behind bars. While this solved the issue of Paul exposing Dexter’s darkness and standing in the way of his relationship with Rita, Astor, and Cody, the kids’ trauma wouldn’t end there, as Rita was murdered by the Trinity Killer in Dexter’s season 4 finale.

Related: How New Blood's Finale Proves Dexter Was Wrong About Harrison

Astor and Cody Bennett were still put through the wringer in Dexter’s original series, but their stories would have been darker had the show stuck to the books' character developments. In Dexter’s novels, Astor and Cody showed sociopathic tendencies very early on, which scared Dexter in terms of them possibly turning out like him — a fear that would only grow when his biological son Harrison was born.