I’m not going to pretend like there aren’t potentially sound and sensible reasons why Dexter’s creator James Manos Jr. and Showtime’s execs would choose not to bring back any of the original cast members beyond Michael C. Hall as the former blood spatter expert.
Granted, James Remar wouldn’t have had that issue as Harry, but still.
It’s possible part of the planning for this ninth season involved a smaller budget, which meant it wouldn’t have been financially viable to have multiple returning stars and still pull off top-notch episodes with new stars like Clancy Brown.
Alternately, the obviously necessary shift in locales from Miami to Iron Lake, a fictional town in Upstate New York, doesn’t allow for the easiest explanations for why everyone Dexter knew in Florida would suddenly travel up the coast to confront him in some way.