Dexter: The Final Season

[piranesi]

Season One should have been the final season. I don't mean that it should have been the only season, but it should have been the last rather than the first. Dexter finally meets his psychological equal, turns out he had a brother the whole time, blah blah blah. And really, this show probably should only have been 4-5 seasons anyway.

 

The thing is I used to give the show a lot of credit for going right to two of the three biggest built-in plots (Dexter finds out about his family/brother and Dexter is investigated officially) in season 1 and 2 instead of endlessly teasing them but never getting there.  But I gave them credit for taking on the challenge of then moving on thinking that they were going to meet that challenge.

 

They did pretty brilliantly with the idea of Dexter trying to start a family and failing.  But from the bungling of season 5 and just washing over Rita's death, it has been a disaster.

 

If you go back to the season 4 finale and rescript season 5 as the end with suspicion falling on Dexter because of the circumstances of the Trinity killings coming out, it probably could have been great.  And we could have had Deb actually figuring out his secret rather than just bumbling into it.  Maybe even two season based around that, with Deb finding out about him in season 5 and then trying to save him/keep him out of prison in season 6.  Deb actually trying to cover his tracks while La Guerta was closing in would have been a good multi-episode arc then.

 

No Lumen

No Edward James Olmos ghost

No Quinn/stripper

No Debbing Las Vegas

No Russian mob

No computer game guy who was super important until he wasn't

No Hannah

Sadly, no Charlotte Rampling (love you!!!!!)

 

Cut all that side plot stuff with characters who don't matter and you could have done this really well in a season, maybe two.

[Craig H]

I really wouldn't mind the Hannah character if Rita never existed. They built up the connection between her and Dexter for so long, with them both being broken individuals healing each other. Then Rita is murdered and is rarely referenced ever again. I mean, Jesus, it took the writers until this season to throw it in Dexter's face that he was responsible for her death, and even then, he doesn't care. 

 

I don't have the time to dig into it now, but did contract negotiations with Julie Benz just not work out, leading to her leaving the show, or did she just not want to be on Dexter anymore, thinking No Ordinary Family was a step in the right direction? Losing Rita meant that we had to deal with the nonsense of Dexter not being moved at all by his wife's death or Harrison being left alive in a pool of blood, the lunacy of the Deb/Dexter/Hannah love triangle, the whole Lumen season, which went freaking nowhere, and so many more dumb plotlines that I can't even think of at the moment.

 

I'm fine with them killing off Rita at some point, but at least have it count. You could even involve Hannah at some point too as this other broken person that not only does Dexter identify with, but is someone that Dexter can find a happiness with similar to what he had with Rita. Instead it's mainly just this chick is a murderer too and she'll get me!

 

This doesn't even touch on how much of an afterthought Harrison has been, or any of the loose ends that are still dangling out there. The only other logical conclusion I can come to is that Dexter suffered a similar situation to Star Trek: TNG. With TNG, the writing staff was at the end of their contract, but the show was going to continue, so we're left with Locutus of Borg as a way to write the show into a corner that would be difficult to get out of. With Dexter, they kill off Rita and leave Dexter with a baby and proceed to screw over the remaining seasons of the show.

[piranesi]

If you go back to the seasn 5 promo, that was awesome, it made it seem like the whole season was going to be the fallout from Rita.  It was all the FBI inteviewing him about her death, Trinity's kids remembering the guy who was showing up at their house, Deb wanting to know why he was so detached from it, Harrison being all bloody.

 

The promo guys knew what we all wanted to see.  But the writer's were like "you know what...that's all played out.  I want to take this in my own direction...blah blah I got a short story in N+1 once and I wrote story outlines for "After Chelsea Lately" so I know what I'm doing better than you losers!"

[The Damn Yeti]

If you were to completely ignore Seasons 5-8 would this show stand up on its own?  Does the end of the Trinity season and Rita's death work as a series finale cliffhanger of Dexter failing in his one attempt at normalcy and seeing his own son baptized in blood as he was?

[Territorial]

Season One should have been the final season. I don't mean that it should have been the only season, but it should have been the last rather than the first. Dexter finally meets his psychological equal, turns out he had a brother the whole time, blah blah blah. And really, this show probably should only have been 4-5 seasons anyway.

 

Season 1 is lifted directly from the first Dexter novel.  Except, irrc, his brother sticks around and even commits murders for Dexter later on (so "Dexter can dispatch people while being tailed by the police).  After the first novel, the show's plotlines diverge.

 

Kinda wish the show had followed the third novel - just for hilarity's sake (basic plot of third novel: Dark Passenger isn't a mental illness.  Dexter is possessed by a demon.  Plot revolves around a cult that worships said demon.  Dexter gets rid of Dark Passenger/demon, marries Rita.  On his wedding day, Dexter realizes life without the Dark Passenger is going to be mundane and boring, so he becomes depressed enough to wish the Dark Passenger into repossessing him.  No, really.)

[AlfredoE]

Should have ended after the Trinity season.

[EVA]

I think one of the main problems with Dexter is that there was never one auteur who had control of the overall vision of the show (like MAD MEN, BREAKING BAD, DEADWOOD, THE WIRE, etc.). I want to say there have been 4, maybe 5, different showrunners over the course of 8 seasons. And mostly they were TV journeymen who were put in charge because they could produce product, not because they had a great take on the story.

And, with that in mind, I think Michael Hall himself has to be held culpable to some degree. Like most of the stars of these sorts of shows, he's an executive producer as well, and, without a strong, consistent showrunner, I'd wager he's had as much imput into how latter seasons were developed as anyone.

[Petey]

Anyone want to predict tonight's finale?

 

I'm guessing Hannah McKay either dies or leaves without Dexter. I think Deb will be OK. And Dexter will just be there.

 

I'm pumped.

[EVA]

I just hope we get the Lord of the Rings ending with 30 minutes of epilogues covering the fates of all of Miami Metro. After 8 years of putting up with these people, I think we've earned it. You can't bring me this far and then leave me hanging on the fate of Masuka and his daughter.

[piranesi]

The ending seems to hardly matter to me.  I mean, if Dexter is no longer a serial killer, then we're just watching a story about a fairly dull guy with a super high-maintenance girlfriend.

 

Maybe we transport to the force-ghost world where Doakes and Charlotte Rampling are dueling to the re-death while Harry tries to get them all to get along. 

 

Or better yet we find out that in the force-ghost Dexter universe, Rudy just keeps re-killing every other force ghost, even though that just makes them disappear for a minute since they are force ghosts and it's like a big endles game of force-ghost death-tag to see who can last longest before Rudy re-kills them.

 

and La Guerta is really bad at it and keeps getting pissed at how fast she gets re-killed and cussing up a storm.  Meanwhile Doakes has yet to be re-killed because of his special ops training. 

 

spoiler for BIG LOVE

And force-ghost Bill Paxton shows up and they tell him to fuck off because his show had the worst finale of them all.

[Fat Spanish Waiter]

DOAKES

[Jrag]

I haven't seen the last 6 episodes, but i'm totally seeing a Dex/Deb/Hannah threesome followed by Dexter's kid murdering everyone.  Or did they already do the threesome?

[Petey]

Or did they already do Dexter's kid murdering everyone?

[Super Ape]

[piranesi]

What annoys me is that the basic concept of that ending was pretty great.  And it could have happened a long time ago before the show went off the rails.  Hell, Deb didn't even ever need to actually find out about him for that to have been the ending.

 

Now that we know they were willing to go with a "dark" ending...If they had went with season 5 as the season it all fell apart for him, they could have had the exact same outcome without any of the extra diversions that made it seem needlessly complicated.  The only extra complication would have been not having anyone to leave Harrison with.

 

But I do like the idea of Dexter living in a state of forced stasis, unable to go to the people he wants to see but apparently unable to kill himself. 

 

And I really liked the basic premise that, having experienced what it was like to "be normal" he couldn't stand it and just wanted to end it all.  If that had come at the end of a season 5 in which Deb was unravelling his Rita story and somehow she was killed because of him or he even deep down believed he himself got her killed to protect his secret, this outcome would have been grand, beautiful and operatic.

 

It would have been such a neat trajectory from Rudy to Doakes/Lundy to Trinity...and all really leading back to what Rudy had tried to tell him all along.  And it would have been close enough together chronologically to feel that connection.

 

As it is, it's just sort of...I guess or whatever...cluttered is the best word I can come up with.  There's like four extraneous years of "lesson" and "development" that meant nothing and just make it hard to remember the connection between where he ended and where he started...and it's all just thematically and emotionally cluttered.

[EVA]

Watching the replay now...

WILL DEXTER AND HANNAH MAKE THEIR FLIGHT???? OH THE DRAMA!

[EVA]

That finale was not even worth wasting words on.

For a second there, I seriously thought they were going to do the DARK KNIGHT RISES ending at the cafe. Would have been ridiculous, but at least stupid in a fun way, as opposed to boring stupid.

[piranesi]

I honestly think the basic idea is sound, given all the theories that people have thrown out.  Throw out all of the plot junk from the last four seasons and you have this:

 

1) Dexter manages to realize his goal of feeling emotions or realizes that he has always had them, by learning that he truly cares and fear for the people close to him.

 

2) Some catastrophic event (his causing his sister's death) makes him realize that learning/achieving that doesn't actually do anything because they are still unsafe with him alive.

 

But it is already well established that he is by nature unable to kill himself or turn himself in.  So

 

3) He opts to try and simply sink into nothingness and detach himself from everyone he had learned to care about. 

 

 

That along with the image of Deb sinking into the water and the loss of Dexter's inner monolog (which always contained a hint of optimism and planning and strategy) could have made this a great, profound ending if it happened before the show started to suck so badly.

[EVA]

Well, if this was fiction workshop, you would definitely get an "A" in participation for staying positive and focusing on the strengths.

It was shit, and would have been shit in any context. He ran off to be a LUMBERJACK. That is the ultimate cliche.

And why did he even have to run away? He's not radioactive. He's not a danger to anybody as long as he's not constantly mixing it up with serial killers and drawing them into his life, and he literally just decided that he didn't have to kill anymore because: LOVE. Once he settled up with Saxon, and tied up the last loose end, there was no reason for him to fear for any of his loved ones, ever again. It made no sense.

[Craig H]

What in the fuck was that BULLSHIT? Ugh, completely fucking pointless. Just a bunch of bullshit. There was no reason to kill Deb, or even tease her and Quinn getting back together just to be complete dickheads and kill her off. Dexter saunters into a hospital, even with the state it was in, and is able to just up and kill Deb, walk out with her dead body, load it into his boat, and speed off into a hurricane that apparently produces ZERO storm surge?! I was actually completely fine with how Dexter killed that shitty big bad for this season, and with how Quinn and Angel let Dexter off. I thought it would be an ironic last kill for Dexter, until he killed his fucking sister. On top of that, he's such a weak bitch of a dad that he'd rather selfishly kill himself than take the good life he was ready to have with Hannah and Harrison. Instead, Harrison gets to wonder where his daddy is and when he's coming until Hannah breaks the news to him. Meanwhile, Dexter somehow isn't even dead, but maybe that's because he was in a hurricane that produced no storm surge. I didn't even touch on the ridiculous resolution to the Elway subplot. So Hannah knocks out Elway for two hours, giving her and Harrison enough time to board a plane and to hear to Argentina. When Elway does wake up, Hannah will be an hour into an 8+ hour flight. What is to stop Elway from reporting that Hannah is on a flight to Argentina, causing the plane to be either redirected to the nearest airport, or being detained once she arrives at an airport?

 

Just weak. Really weak.

[piranesi]

Well, if this was fiction workshop, you would definitely get an "A" in participation for staying positive and focusing on the strengths. 

 

You should see my Dolph Ziggler diary entries.

[APO]

Wait, so the end of the series is him killing Deb? And then going off to live like a hermit? Seriously?

 

Fuck a bunch of that. Now I'm glad I don't have Showtime anymore to have gotten duped into watching this bullshit.

[Casey]

wow fuck this show

[Petey]

The worst part was Dexter rolling Deb out of the hospital and onto his boat with no one noticing. I know it was chaotic because of the hurricane but that's just absurd.

 

Horrible episode, lame final scene. Glad I invested so much time watching seasons 2-7 to get ready for this season.

[Territorial]

Wait, so the end of the series is him killing Deb? And then going off to live like a hermit? Seriously?

 

Sort of. Dexter killing Deb was euthanasia, not murder. Deb survived being shot by Saxon, but suffered a blood clot after surgery and was essentially brain dead. Dexter killed her rather than leave her alive on life support.And, yeah, last shot was him living as a a lumberjack.

 

As others have said, I kinda liked what they were going for with the finale, but too much of the actual episode didn't work.  Dexter walking unnoticed out of the hospital with Deb's body is ridiculous.  Hannah being positioned as a loving step-mommy didn't work for me.  And no payoff to the Miami Metro stuff?

 

The idea of Dexter detaching emotionally is sound.  I can buy Dexter faking his death and running away.  If the last scene had implied he was alive and killing again, I would have accepted that as being consistent with the character and tone of the show.  In the novels. Dexter basically rejects normal life and welcomes the dark passenger back when he realizes normal, non-murderous like will be too boring and mundane for him.

 

Eh, whoever said this show suffered from a strong guiding vision (which Breaking Bad, Shield, and Mad Men have all had) was right on the money.  Show was overseen by a rotating roster of showrunners picked because they could get a season completed under budget, not because they were creative geniuses.  Too many cooks and all that.  First four seasons suffered from not having a consistent creative vision.  Rest of the series suffered from that and bad writing.