Is Dexter returning in September of 2018 for real? A new Dexter Season 9 poster making the rounds on social media has gone viral because it shows Dexter coming back unexpectedly this year. The Facebook post by Euforia Studios shows Dexter Morgan’s boat out on the open water along with the faces of Michael C. Hall and Yvonne Strahovski (who played Hannah on the Dexter cast). What’s more, the Dexter Season 9 poster claims the new TV show will be streaming on Netflix and produced by Showtime.

Unfortunately, it’s all just a viral hoax. Dexter’s return as a scary lumberjack has long been talked about, but all evidence suggests that the Dexter Season 9 poster is a clever mockup by Euforia Studios. No major media news outlet has published the release date for a ninth season, which would never happen if the poster was real. The Facebook post was originally published in May of 2017 and it probably was intended to advertise the design services of Euforia Studios, which bills itself as a “multimedia design agency” that can “bring any idea you have to life.”

In addition, it would be very odd for the streaming platform Netflix to be listed for Dexter Season 9 since they’re just a streaming partner. While the Dexter series is really on Netflix up until the eighth season finale, the TV show is a Showtime Original Series. Fans usually have to turn to Hulu or Amazon Prime for the newest Showtime TV series.

Even if the Dexter Season 9 poster was new, the timing is all wrong. There’s just not enough time for the busy Dexter cast to create a new series. According to IMDB, Michael C. Hall is busy working on a new TV series called Safe, a story about a widower who begins to suspect the people closest to him after his daughter goes missing. Similarly, Yvonne Strahovski is working on The Predator (a sequel to the 1987 SciFi Horror movie) and also the TV series The Handmaid’s Tale Season 2, which is returning in April of 2018.

That’s the bad news, but the good news is that Michael C. Hall has not ruled out Dexter Season 9 completely. According to previous reports from the Inquisitr, the actor is “in talks” with Showtime and believes that Dexter’s return will happen in the future, but he does not “think it’s quite time. But it’s a conversation that continues at its own pace.”

Ideas for a 'Dexter' revival have been on the chopping block for years. Featured image credit: Showtime 'Dexter' TV Promo

Some fans believe that a Dexter reboot is necessary at this point. In the finale episode for Season 8, Dexter Morgan dumped the body of his sister, Debra Morgan (Jennifer Carpenter), in the ocean. He then faked his death only to be shown living the secluded life of a lumberjack.

Warning: If a Dexter reboot does focus on the original story from the Dexter book series, then the following could be considered TV spoilers.

Fans of the Dexter book series know that the TV show dramatically departed from the source material after Darkly Dreaming Dexter. Characters even had different names. Debra is actually named Deborah in the books and Dexter’s sister even has a different personality. James Doakes (who is called Albert in the books) is alive, although he suffers greatly in Dearly Devoted Dexter. Even more importantly, Rita Morgan is never murdered by the Trinity Killer Arthur Mitchell.

The fate of the Morgan family is also quite different. Brian Moser, aka The Ice Truck Killer, is an exact twin brother to Dexter and few can tell them apart. In fact, photographic evidence causes some to believe Dexter must be the serial killer until the identity of Brian is discovered. Unlike in the TV series, Brian does not die and returns multiple times in the book series.

Dexter also has quite the killer family since Cody and Astor Bennett, Dexter’s stepchildren through marriage to Rita Bennett, also turn out to have their own Dark Passenger. Dexter gave the name of Dark Passenger to his psychological desire to kill, but in the novels, the Dark Passenger is actually a spiritual entity that infects people.

Regardless of how the story of a Dexter reboot is handled, at this point fans would probably just be happy if Dexter Season 9 is released in any year, never mind 2018. Let’s just hope Showtime hears the petitions of fans and releases the serial killer from TV purgatory.