Remember when Dexter rode off into a hurricane, killing his sister? And then, abandoned his son with his girlfriend in Argentina to go off and be a lumberjack in Oregon? I sure do. But though Deb and Harrison are fixtures in New Blood, it almost seemed like the Dexter revival forgot Hannah. Last viewers saw of Hannah McKay (a post-Chuck, pre-Handmaid's Tale Yvonne Strahovski), she was hanging at a café in Buenos Aires with Harrison waiting for Dexter to arrive when she read the news that her boyfriend had died in Hurricane Laura. Harrison comes back in Dexter's new New York life in New Blood, but what happened to Hannah?
When Harrison first attempts to reconnect with his father in "Cold Snap," Dexter sends him away at the prompt of Deb, who's taken on the role of Harry. "You did the right thing," Light Passenger Deb tells him. "He'll be safer with Hannah." But when Dexter changes his mind and brings Harrison back to his home, no mention of his serial killer stepmother comes up.
Ahead of the New Blood premiere on Nov. 7, returning original cast members of Dexter, like John Lithgow and Jennifer Carpenter, were announced. But there was no news about Strahovski, which was particularly odd considering the Trinity Killer and Deb were very much dead at the end of Dexter while Hannah was very much alive.
But CheatSheet reported that Strahovski said on Watch What Happens Live in May 2021 that she wasn't involved in New Blood. "I'm so sorry to break it to everybody, but I haven't heard anything about the reboot, so it doesn't seem that Hannah McKay is making a return," she said. (You can hear her talking about it around the 14-minute mark.) Strahovski then hazarded a guess about why Hannah might not be around. "I have a theory that perhaps Harrison has already murdered her and is following in the footsteps of his father," Strahovski said. "I don't know. I don't know anything."
Now, there's always the chance that New Blood has managed to keep Strahovski's involvement top secret. (Though, it would be slightly odd to keep her return under wraps while advertising Lithgow's.) But CheatSheet noted that Strahovski again confirmed to HeyUGuys that she wasn't in New Blood while promoting her film The Tomorrow War. "I'm really looking forward to it because I have no idea what they're going to do," she said. "I'm not part of it, so I am very curious as to how they're going to navigate this storyline from this point forward." And Entertainment Weekly also reported that Strahovski won't make an appearance.
OK, so if Dexter fans genuinely believe Strahovski is not in the revival, what the hell happened to Hannah? When Harrison appeared at "Jim's" Iron Lake home, he didn't mention the woman who presumably raised him after his father's alleged drowning. So is Strahovski's theory accurate? That Harrison followed in the footsteps of his father — and stepmother, for that matter — and killed her?
In an interview with Deadline, Michael C. hall confirmed that Hannah is dead. But he wouldn't elaborate if it's possible that she could turn up, like how Harry and now Deb have appeared to him. "... I can't definitely say yes to any of your speculations or wishes because it would ruin the wide-open landscape of possibility," the Dexter actor said.
The New Blood showrunner, Clyde Phillips, also confirmed that Hannah is dead in the official Dexter podcast, Wrap-Up, and he provided much more backstory. When talking about Harrison, Phillips said, "He was alone in the world. His mother had been murdered. His stepmother had died of cancer. He was shipped off to the foster care system in the U.S. and he was a teenager, nobody wants a teenager. He was maltreated and said, basically, 'Fuck it. I'm going to go find my father.'" Phillips also provided the information that Dexter sent Hannah a letter in Argentina, letting him know that he survived the hurricane.
So Hannah, after killing her fair share of people, died by cancer. But based on what Deb said, Dexter doesn't seem to know the fate of his one-time love Hannah. That leaves it up to his long-lost son Harrison to fill in the gaps.
Phillips mentioned on Wrap-Up that a major theme of this 10-episode miniseries is fathers and sons, so perhaps Hannah's presence would have detracted from that. But Dexter fans will have to wait and see how much influence Harrison's daddy's Dark Passenger had on him. And if Harrison does take after his dad, the story that Hannah died from cancer might not turn out to be so true after all.
Images: Randy Tepper/Showtime, Showtime