Dexter Filming Locations: Miami International Airport
The
location: Miami International Airport
Q.
What is it supposed to be on the show?
A. Miami International
Airport.
Q.
Where is it supposed to be on the show?
A. 4200 N.W.
21 Street, in Miami.
Q.
When did we see it on the show?
A. We first see the airport in Episode
5, Season 5, "First Blood".
After Lumen
almost killed an innocent man, Dexter
finally convinced her to use the plane tickets he gave her (at the seaside cafe)
to leave Miami and go home.
In this scene,
she arrives at the airport, but when going through security, they insist
on a hand pat-down, and the stress of being touched by the guard (after
the abuse she suffered at the hands of others) is too much for her to endure.
In the last
scene of the episode, we see Lumen leaving the terminal and getting into
a taxi.
The cab
driver assumes she has just arrived, and welcomes her to Miami. In fact,
she has simply decided to not to leave.
We see the Miami International Airport again in Season 7, Episode 1 ("Are You...?").
Dexter speeds to the airport to intercept the man who shot & killed detective Mike Anderson, a Ukrainian mobster named Viktor Baskov.
First,
Dexter finds his fingerprint in the victim's car, then visits Viktor's
apartment, where he finds blood & gun powder residue on his shirt.
At the airport, Dexter goes to the counter and buys a ticket, in order to get access to Viktor.
He
soon spots him entering a restroom. Dexter follows him inside and
knocks him out with his usual hypodermic. He then puts Viktor's
unconscious frame into a wheelchair, and takes him to a quickly
improvised kill room, in the airport's lost baggage department.
He covers his head with a plastic bag, to contain the blood, then smashes his head in with a fire extinguisher.
He wheels the body out of the airport on a baggage cart and dumps it at sea.
Q.
What is it actually in real life?
A. A cruise
ship terminal.
Q.
Where can I find it in real life?
A. This scene
was actually shot at the World Cruise Center,
at the Port of Los Angeles, in
San Pedro, CA.
As the name
suggests, it is the central terminal for cruise ships leaving the Los Angeles
harbor, including the Royal Caribbean cruise lines.
It's located
right under the west end of the Vincent Thomas Bridge, in San Pedro.
If you exit
the Harbor (110) Freeway at the Harbor Blvd offramp, you'll find the cruise
center right in front of you, when you reach street level.
Although they
used an establishing shot of the real Miami Airport to open the
scene (see the top photo), they filmed all of the interior terminal shots
inside the L.A. cruise terminal.
The terminal
features two large, red tile columns just outside the entrance, and they
can be clearly seen through the glass windows in these scenes.
And the final
scene, where Lumen exits the terminal and catches a taxi in the parking
lot, was shot just outside the main Los Angeles terminal building.
The camera is
looking north, towards the large blue & white parking structure and
the north boarding area, but they used CGI to insert the name "Miami
International Airport". Not to mention that plane in the sky.
But look closely,
and you'll see part of the green Vincent Thomas Bridge peeking up over
the top of the "airport".
In the 7th season, Dexter stalks Viktor through the same terminal, and
eventually kills him in the lost luggage room. For once, they actually
shot that kill-room scene where it was supposed to be: in the back of
the Cruise Terminal, where they process luggage and cargo. (OK,
granted, it's not an airport, but at least it's a baggage area.)
This Cruise Terminal
was made famous in the TV series, "The Love Boat", but it has
been used before to play an airport, most notably in the 2003 movie "S.W.A.T."
Note
how they doctored the front side of this building with CGI to add
the fake name and the
jet airplane overhead. Also note the top of Vincent Thomas bridge seen
on the right side:
I
shot the photos below in December 2010.
(and yes, that's the
top of a cruise ship, at dock, peeking over the roof.).
And
here is the front of the old main terminal, where they shot the interior
scenes of Lumen bing searched.
(Those red columns are visible through the
windows in the third photo from the top.)
A. In
previous seasons, I've usually had to hunt down the locations after viewing
the episodes, using clues from the various scenes. By the 5th season,
though, I'd developed a small group of fans, spies & tipsters who kept
an eye out for Dexter filming in their neighborhoods, and would
let me know in advance when something was about to film there.
Between those
reports, and my own personal reconnaissance around town, by the time the
first episode aired, I already knew most (but not all) of the filming locations,
and only needed to watch the episodes and match up the scenes with the
correct locations.
This group of
helpful fans includes Kerry,
Rick, Joel,
Geoff, Ellen,
Julie, Susan,
Jeff, and others. My thanks to all of them.
This particular
location was spotted by both Rick and
Kerry (who recognized it because she
took a Royal Caribbean cruise from the terminal to Mexico last
year.) Thanks, Rick & Kerry!
