Walter White & Hank Schrader Face-Off Gets Compared to Dexter & Batista, With Viewers Pointing Out Dexter’s Original Blueprint (Photo Credit – Prime Video)
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Dexter and Breaking Bad represent two seminal works that epitomized television’s modern golden epoch, spanning from 1999 through their respective conclusions in 2013, precisely as Netflix’s inaugural series House of Cards assumed dominion over the streaming paradigm.
Both programs, suffused with visceral tension, eventually metastasized into franchises complete with spinoffs. Yet unlike Walter White’s terminal fate, Dexter’s superior intellect and adaptability afforded him tricking mortality’s grasp, enabling his resurgence in subsequent installments like Dexter: New Blood and the current stellar hit Resurrection.
Dexter Resurrection Achieves Phenomenal Success as Walter White Comparisons Crystallize
Despite his unequivocal dexterity, the Bay Harbor Butcher’s saga has not achieved the stratospheric acclaim accorded Breaking Bad, primarily due to the latter’s zealous fanbase monopolizing critical discourse and confirmation bias steering neophyte viewers toward Albuquerque rather than Miami.
However, contemporary audiences are resurrecting Jeff Lindsay’s creation rather astutely, immediately recognizing a pivotal seventh episode exchange that evoked Breaking Bad’s most memorable confrontations, albeit these comparisons are about 17 years too late.
To contextualize, when Dexter chillingly admonished his former colleague Angel Batista to “stay away from him” should he truly suspect the Bay Harbor Butcher’s identity, viewers instantly recalled Walter White’s ominous counsel to Hank Schrader to “tread lightly.”
dexter “if i really am who you think i am.. this can’t possibly end well for you” morgan
“With Breaking Bad we had to wait 5 years for the Hank and Walt confrontation,” another pointed out, emphasizing the anticipation of waiting “2 decades to finally get it between Batista and Dex.”
With Breaking Bad we had to wait 5 years for the Hank and Walt confrontation, with Dexter it was only like 2 decades to finally get it between Batista and Dex lol the writers are setting up a manhunt season and I really hope it happens
A third praised the show, “Dexter Resurrection is exactly what we would be moaning about in our heads when we say ‘they just don’t make’em like they used to.’ I feel like I’m back to the era of legendary TV shows like GOT, original Dexter, Person Of Interest, Breaking Bad…etc”
Dexter Reserruction is exactly what we would be moaning about in our heads when we say “they just don’t make’em like they used to.” I feel like I’m back to the era of legendary TV shows like GOT, original Dexter, Person Of Interest, Breaking Bad…etchttps://t.co/oPGdDBLfQh
Fans Need to Recognize Breaking Bad’s Unacknowledged Debt to Dexter’s Pioneering Formula
While on a peripheral note comparisons to Breaking Bad might help boost the momentum of Dexter: Resurrection, they also fail to recognize Dexter’s earlier seasons that set such precedent for Breaking Bad.
Breaking Bad’s mystique benefited immeasurably from fortuitous timing, arriving during social media’s ascendancy when IMDb scores and viral discourse could instantaneously consecrate a series as television’s apotheosis. Dexter, predating this digital evangelism, lacked such manufactured momentum, struggling against audiences’ preconceived hierarchies of quality.
Moreover, Breaking Bad’s international resonance also capitalized on gangster narratives’ perennial appeal. This zeitgeist advantage extended even to spinoffs like Better Call Saul, which inherited inflated expectations purely through association.
Breaking Bad (2008-13) after Dexter season 2 (2007):
“Let’s copy this whole plot”
— No irrational proclivities (@sanguineessence) August 15, 2025
Dexter And Breaking Bad Have ALWAYS Been Similar (And Dexter Did it First!)
While Breaking Bad supplanted The Sopranos in popular estimation, its substantial borrowing from Dexter’s foundational blueprint is also crystalline. The archetypal lone antihero effectuating moral compromises while evading a pursuing relative was not Vince Gilligan’s innovation, but rather Dexter’s masterstroke in 2006-07.
Breaking Bad’s subsequent ascendancy cannot obscure this chronological reality: the plot architecture that modern audiences lionize was constructed first in Miami’s morgues and kill rooms, not Albuquerque’s desert expanses.
However, viewers’ preference for witnessing a human’s descent into monstrosity overshadowed a monster’s ascent toward humanity through the embrace of empathy.
