The season follows Dexter's tangles with a Ukrainian mob boss and introduces the character Hannah McKay, a mysterious widow with a green thumb and a checkered past.

On November 21, 2011, Showtime renewed Dexter for both a seventh and eighth season, each consisting of 12 episodes.

[6] On April 24, it was confirmed that Ray Stevenson would guest star in the upcoming Season 7, and he would play the head of a Ukrainian crime syndicate who arrives in Miami determined to find out who killed one of his associates.

Jason Gedrick appears in a multi-episode arc playing the manager of a Miami-area gentlemen’s club that is linked to a high-profile murder case.

Yvonne Strahovski, known for starring in the NBC television series Chuck, joined Dexter as Hannah McKay, a woman with a checkered past who arrives to help Miami Metro Homicide reopen an old murder case out of mutual benefit, and becomes Dexter's new love interest.