A. It isn't specified, but it appears to be a large geodesic dome serving some sort of industrial purpose.
Q.
Where is it supposed to be on the show?
A. In or near Miami, Florida.
Q.
When did we see it on the show?
A. We see the location in Episode 6, of Season 1.
The scene begins with a dramatic drone aerial shot that first shows the
exterior of the mammoth dome and then flies directly into it.
Inside, the
Miami Metro investigative crew (Dexter, Harry, and LaGuerta) stand over
the body of a dead man whose head is covered by a plastic bag.
Dexter gives his theory that the killer took his time killing the victim to savor the experience, and used two plastic
bags for the crime, poking a hole in the first bag to allow the
suffocating man to momentarily breathe, before finishing him off
with the second bag.
Dexter
thinks this killing may be related two previous killings, despite their
lack of similarities, postulating that the murderer is experimenting
with different forms of killing, trying to decide what he likes best.
But LaGuerta rejects the idea.
[ Although we don't learn it in this scene, we find out later that the
victim is Felix Woodard, the third man murdered by the budding
psychopath Brian Moser. ]
Q.
What is it actually in real life?
A. A pile cover storage dome.
Q.
Where can I find it in real life?
A. This scene was filmed inside a giant geodesic dome on the property of Georgia-Pacific Gypsum, with the address of 1401 W. Water St.,on Pier D,in Long Beach, California.
But that address doesn't point directly at the dome. The approximate GPS coordinates of the dome itself are: 33°46'08.8"N 118°12'52.3"W
This sort of dome is known as a “pile cover storage dome”, and as the
name implies, it covers a large, cone-shaped pile of gypsum. It protects the pile
inside from both water and wind, and prevents dust from the pile from
becoming an environmental hazard.
( This dome appears to have been mostly empty when they filmed that
scene, but a typical pile can reach almost to the top of the dome. )
This location is only about 500 feet north of the Long Beach
International Gateway Bridge, which can be glimpsed in the background of
the scene.
A. Way back in the second week of December 2024, I came across a USA today article about “Dexter: Original Sin” filming that included this line:
“…a body lying in the chalk-covered dirt of a cavernous gypsum facility near the Long Beach industrial pier.”
A quick online search defined gypsum as “a soft
mineral, that is It is widely mined and is used in many forms of
plaster, drywall and chalk.”
So the first thing I did was to Google for gypsum facilities in Long
Beach. The search turned up two of them: National Gypsum, on Pier B, and Georgia Pacific on Pier D when I checked the company
addresses via Google Earth, I saw that both occupied huge geodesic
domes, and were fairly close together, down on the docks in Long Beach.
I had seen those domes before, from a distance, but I never knew what went on inside
them.
I couldn’t be immediately sure which of the two nearly-identical domes
would be used in the series, And I had to wait for the dome to show up
on the show to find out. But from then on I kept an eye out while
watching the show, looking for either an exterior shot of a geodesic
dome, or an interior shot showing a white powdery substance.
When the dome finally showed up in episode 6, I used Google Earth to
rotate the view of the two domes to exactly match the position seen on the
show, and then compared them. Although the two domes look very similar,
there are distinct differences in their markings, and I quickly determined that they had
used the dome of “Georgia-Pacific Gypsum” on Pier D, in Long Beach.
( The same dome can be glimpsed in the background of an early episode of the original Dexter. where Doakes becomes suspicious of Dexter when Dex is too enthusiastic about describing a bloody murder. )
As far as I can tell, there are no giant domes like this anywhere near Miami.
