No Dexter Thread???? ***Possible Spoilers***

That was absolutely horrible. Dumbest ending - lets face it, dumbest last five episodes cuz they kept going over and over and over the same stuff- ever. Worse than Newhart!!!

I didn't love it - didn't hate it. They focused on Dexter "becoming human" but really missed the opportunity to explore what made the show appealing in the first place (the tension of a homicidal psychopath working for the police department). The whole final season should have focused on Miami Metro closing in on the Bay Harbor Butcher / LaGuerta's killer. I just really see it as a missed opportunity.

That series should have wrapped after Trinity. SPOILER ALERT.....He killed a person in police custody on video!!!! He unhooked a person from the vent in an ICU and carried a dead body out of a hospital!!!! And nows he's a Lumberjack???? Seriously Showtime!?!?!?!?

I always thought that Quinn was going to figure out who Dexter really was and take him out somehow. I could have lived with it ending as he drove the boat into the hurricane, but then it would have been a little "Soprano-ey" type of ending. So at least we know he is not dead.

I missed some of the later episodes (our cable company pulled showtime for about a month), but watched the finale. The more I think about the ending the less satisfied I am with it. So much of what he did just seemed out of character for him. Why would he essentially kill Deb and dump her in the ocean, rather than leave her in the hospital? Even if he believed that she would never be revived, it seemed like a selfish, pointless gesture. And to dump her in the sea, as he has done with hundreds of his previous victims seemed like an ignominious end to someone he loved.

I also would have been happier with the ambiguous ending of him sailing off into the hurricane. The final scene of him in the logging camp seemed tacked-on to me.

They should have had "Don't Stop Believin'" playing on the radio in his room. That would have been funny.

ROFLMAO  -exactly what we were saying, that whole hospital scene with the fake storm background, la dee da, just waltzing out of a hospital with a dead body, nothing to see here!  

ETA - it wasn't just the finale, this whole season was weak but we gave it a chance.  Deb killing LaGuerta was the last interesting thing to happen.

Edited by ChrisM 2013-09-24 2:22 PM

He saw Deb as one of his victims. Not intentional, of course, but a victim nonetheless. That's what he does with those he's killed.

Yeah, ok, but she wasn't dead. I dunno. I just thought it was done for the sale if being dramatic and shocking and didn't really feel true to the character.

She likely died 2 to 3 min after being pulled off the respirator. (I'm not saying I loved it by any means, but that part of it didn't bother me so much). I would have liked it if the newscaster at the end mentioned all the bodies that we're washing up on shore after the hurricane. (Note it was hurricane Laura - named after Laura Moser?)

Late to the party, but here's my take. TV shows exist to tell a story. It should feel like the show ends because the story has concluded, not the other way around. If it seems like things are happening because the series is ending, the show is missing the mark.

Dexter got this a little right and quite a bit wrong for me. The show was always about Dexter as a serial killer working for the police department and dealing with his "dark passenger". That narrative changed drastically, so it makes sense for the show to end there. I'm OK with the side plot of Masuka and his daughter and that nothing significant happened there. I'm OK with Quinn's study for the sargent's exam and getting screwed on the promotion just getting left hanging. Those feel real. They were events occurring around Dexter. Dexter's departure shouldn't suddenly trigger a resolution of the events in the lives of those around him.

Deb's death, on the other hand, felt absurdly contrived to me. Maybe there was a way to handle it better, but I doubt it. There already existed a major catalyst to the story ending, it didn't need another. She gets shot just as Dexter is supposed to leave, but there also just happens to be a major hurricane that screws things up. It seems like a relatively straightforward gunshot but she throws a clot. She blurts a delirious "I love you" to Quinn. The storm gives Dexter cover to steal her body (seriously?!?).

So now we have Dexter driving into the hurricane. I was a bit pissed. After all that, Dexter turns out to be a coward? He can't handle the emotional pain he suddenly feels like the rest of us so he's committing suicide? Hmm. Actually, that's makes a kind of ironic and tragic sense. I think I could have accepted that ending eventually.

But wait, now we show this working class guy in what's probably the Pacific northwest. Ah. Dexter is stalking him and the last shot we're going to get is Dexter drugging him. Fade to black. Dexter, having buried his feelings for Hannah and destroying that connection has reverted to form in a new location. Maybe a bit predictable, but okay.

Nope, not that either. The guy we're following is Dexter himself, just a working stiff with a beard, totally alone in the world. It is left completely unstated as to whether he begins killing again, but it's doubtful. He's working in an obviously isolated rural area. Kills would be few and far between and apt to get him noticed. WTF? His reason for ditching Hannah and Harrison is to keep them safe, but he proved with Saxon that the need to kill was gone. They were starting completely from scratch in Argentina. What would there be to keep them safe from?

How is it even possible that he could bring himself to leave them? The need to kill was physical for Dexter, like breathing. But his draw to Hannah was stronger and supplanted that need. But he's able to ignore that draw where he couldn't ignore the need to kill? How does that even make sense?

I can understand the show runners not wanting a "everybody lives happily ever after" conclusion, but this was weak. How would I have ended the show? Well it's a bit out there, but I do have an idea that I'll post later.

I kind of took the Lumberjack thing to mean that he was killing daily (trees vs people). Like he found another vehicle for his dark passenger and his urge to kill was stronger than his love for both Hannah and his son. So yes, he's alone and in a desolate area. But he's constantly killing (trees)..

Anyway, that's what I thought...

WORST.ENDING.EVER.

So how would I have ended the show? Here are some established facts.

- Harry never took Dexter to see any mental health professional. He was far too concerned that Dexter would be labeled and would never overcome it.
- This includes Vogel. Her entire diagnosis was based on Harry's description of Dexter.
- Pretty early in the show, it was clear that Dexter wasn't a true sociopath. In the first few seasons, we saw no true human connection to others. He says specifically that Rita is window dressing and he chose her because she didn't want physical intimacy (which confused him). But eventually with Rita and continuing with Harrison, the psycho English chick, Lumen, Hannah, and Deb, he clearly had very real and normal feelings towards those relationships. Side note: it bugs the crap out of me that the writers had Vogel describing Dexter as a psychopath instead of sociopath. Psychopaths are impulsive, erratic, often irrational, etc. Sociopaths are controlled, logical, and calculating. You'd think Vogel would have known the difference.
- "Ghost Harry" was not Dexter's conscience in any way. He appeared almost exclusively when Dexter was acting emotionally and contemplating a course of action that might get Dexter caught. For quite a long time late in the series, he stressed to Dexter that Dex can't have normal relationships, that he can't live a normal life, that his need to kill will always be there and has to be the first consideration.

Conclusion, for those that didn't know this: Ghost Harry IS Dexter's dark passenger. I'm definitely not the first to realize this, but it really hit me a few episodes ago when Ghost Harry was arguing so strongly against Dexter going to Argentina. Ghost Harry was effectively arguing for his own survival. On top of this, though, I think Harry holds a huge amount of the blame in creating the dark passenger in the first place. When he was alive, he did nothing but reinforce the notion that Dexter was a sociopath. He told him he wasn't normal, couldn't have normal relationships, probably isolated Dexter from Deb to a certain extent. Sociopaths are primarily influenced by environment. It was the exact opposite of treatment.

So while it's a little hokey and falls into the "happily ever after" ending, I'd like to have seen Dexter put Ghost Harry on the table for his final kill. It would have fit with the emotional path Dexter has been on for the last several seasons and would have been an effective symbolic representation of him moving past the need to kill by mentally eliminating the driving force and killing the memory of the instigator. There could have been a final discussion where Dexter gradually realizes this, since that conscious realization would be the key in it having meaning. There would be no physical confrontation or scuffle, since it would all be in Dexter's mind. Just basically a blink and Ghost Harry is in position. Deb's death could even still occur, thereby providing an innocent that Dexter didn't kill but that the dark passenger's existence certainly led to. Her death would also prevent the full on "happily ever after" ending scenario.