Dexter - The Final Season - The Thread

@punkxblaze: Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck. Really? That sounds so goddamn terrible. Ugh. It's so strange to think about a show going from jaw-dropping great to up in flames terrible.

Fuck me dead

I dunno, I think at this point that's the best ending we could hope for. It's such a train wreck now, they may as well go out with the dumbest, most ridiculous shit.

Read the entirety of the alleged finale spoiler and it's some funny shit. Does anyone give a shit about Quinn? Are they setting up for an honest-to-God spinoff with this character nobody cares about?

I just shat puke when I hovered over punkxblaze's spoiler, that is some puke-shitting shit, fuck this show right now it sucks and I'm done watching, but I'm not done ripping on it on the internet.

I'm all over Breaking Bad and Boardwalk Empire right now, gonna add The Wire and Newsroom to my daily routine.

I'm glad I gave up on this show two seasons ago, it sound like it's really spiraling out of control. They blew their load by using the Bay Habor Butcher plot for season 2, that's pretty clear. It's sad that Dexter is going out on such a low note, the first 3-4 seasons were really enjoyable.

This seasons needs to die I can't even watch full episodes without fast forwarding to the end.

I will only read these spoilers after the final ep. It's too far in to do it now.

Oh my sweet Jesus. That was probably the worst finale of anything I have ever seen in my life. I knew it was going to be bad but my god it still surprised me how bad that was. Like I don't even know where to begin. Like what the fuck? lol

I'm so glad that Dexter ended with the haunting image of Rita dead in the tub and Baby Harrison in a pool of her blood. It was so fitting and reflected the thematic elements of the show quite well.

I'm really, really glad that Showtime knew to let Dexter go out on a high note. One can only imagine what would've happened if it was dragged out for four more years.

Step 1 - Denial

A couple weeks ago i was right there. Now it seems every week i make it all the way through the 5 steps really quickly.

Why did I watch this terrible series finale after Breaking Bad? Talk about ending the weekend on a sour note...

They are totally going to pull a 9th season out of there infinitely deep assholes aren't they?

You know what let's be positive! Michael C. Hall is still great in the role no matter the turd of a script he's handed.

Which is not to say i want it to continue of course. The show ends with season 4 for me too.

@pr1mus: Hopefully in a year or so he lands another good show. He was great in Six Feet Under, and he did a great job as Dexter.

Haha, I purposely saved Breaking Bad so I could watch it after this train wreck. I spent most of the episode laughing. All the anger and disappointment I felt towards this season just sorta mutated into glee as I watched the writers try to turn this shit show around.

Admittedly, him "burying" Deb made sense and that one part specifically was handled rather well, but everything before and after it was completely fucking dumb. He kills a dude in a police station, just sorta leaves, takes his sister off life support, walks her out the fucking hospital, and then carries her down to his boat without anyone doing a goddamn thing. Then this motherfucker drives his boat into a storm, calls Batista for no discernible reason, leaves his child with someone both he and the audience have know for like less than a year, then steals a scene right out of X-Men Origins Wolverine and becomes some random trucker/lumberjack/logger.

Who writes this shit?

The finale and final season was...

I am a lumberjack and I'm okaaaaay.

I stopped watching this shit ages ago after three episodes of season 6. After reading the SA thread, I figured I need to tune in for the finale. I am the literal worst.

Eh, it makes sense. You need something to cool down after the high.

I "liked" the fact that they see him completely calculated kill that guy on the video and don't for a second think it might be more than just revenge. Dexter even knew there were cameras there, he could've faked it a tad better.

WTF was that horse shit. Thats wasn't even bad just confusing and made no sense.

Yeah It kinda sucked, but whatever. I'd rather just remember the high points of the series and not dwell on how stupid and pointless this last season was.

Turns out you were right-- they're more incompetent; I would have much preferred the Quinn-is-new-Dexter ending to this shit.

Well thank fuck this show is over.

There's nothing left to say. Mind blown. I did not know they could make TV that bad if they tried. Careers should be destroyed over this material - and I mean the whole season, not just this last episode. It was that bad.

I have not watched S8 but couldn't help but peek at spoilers after getting wind of how bad things have gotten. The lumberjack ending - so random, and even at the end, Miami Metro still didn't know Dexter was a mass murderer! Deb dies, he loses his kid, and it still feels like got off without much consequence. I'm caught up through S7 but see no reason to go completionist on this thing.

I liked the ending. The season overall wasn't great, but the ending seems fitting for the character.

I don't understand how the entire audience implicitly knew through the course of this show that the last season should be everything falling apart around Dexter, including an investigation into his kills and/or a manhunt for Dexter, yet somehow the people paid to write it failed to realize that it's the only ending that would've made sense and been satisfying. It would have been expected, but it would have been fitting and made up for the last few piss-poor seasons. The fact that almost everyone is either oblivious to his actions or actively supports them by the end is disgusting. How do writers not know that conflict is what makes an interesting story? The moment Debra "accepted" Dexter was the moment I knew they wouldn't give us anything close to a fulfilling ending.

There's a reason people keep comparing this show to Breaking Bad (other than both are in their final seasons). Both revolve around bad people doing horrifying things. The difference is Breaking Bad had the balls to make Walter White suffer and pay for those crimes, and relished in the conflicted emotions it caused him and those close to him. People died or turned on him bitterly and shocked at who he had become. Dexter ended with his law-abiding sister supporting his murders and apologizing to him and absolving him of all sin as she died, while his policeman co-workers ignored every single homocide he was connected to and watched him murder a suspect in cold blood with only the flimsiest of self-defense arguments. He then abandoned his son with a murderer in a foreign country and put himself in a self-imposed exile as "penance" rather than killing himself or confessing. That's supposed to be him giving himself justice? Being a bum dad and flaking? Not answering to anyone but himself? Good show, good show.

They fell in love with Dexter, so they assumed the audience did or tried to force that love down our throats. Even with this shitty season, they could've somewhat redeemed the last episode if he had turned himself in instead of faking his own death. Embarrassing.

In a show about a serial killer that works in a police department, it ended with nobody alive knowing, him not paying for his crimes (aside from the death of his sister), and justice not being done for the innocent people that died along the way. His cohorts in the police department never learned of his actions, and he wasn't chased by the cops, arrested, or killed. It's fucking madness.

EDIT: Oh and while I get the attempt at symbolism of dropping his sister in the ocean (where he placed all of his "victims"), I'm sure she'd be horrified to know that he put her body in the same place he put all the carved up pieces of murderers and pedophiles.

The previous showrunner had a far more satisfying ending scenario in mind.

Woah, that dude was the showrunner for the first four seasons. I guess that explains the fall afterwards.

@stryker1121: That "what if" ending is so much worse than what actually happened. Seeing ghosts of victims past?

The ending we got has Dexter complete his evolution from seemingly-psychopath killer to a person who feels and wants out. As a result of this, Dexter is forced to live with the consequences of who he is and the life he led in Miami along with the emptiness and guilt he now feels as a result of his trying to gain a human side. He isolates himself from everything that gave him the hope of leading a new life and everything that was near and dear to him in his former life not only as the ultimate punishment for his actions, but also to protect those people from himself (He says himself "I destroy everyone I love"). By faking his death and leaving, he preserves everyone's memories of him as an innocent, slightly awkward lab-geek and prevented their view from being tarnished by his uncovering as a serial killer (Which I imagine would have been inevitable had he stuck around). It sounds selfish, but his past being revealed could have well "destroyed" the lives of certain people (Harrison and Batista comes to mind) so he is, in a sense, saving them from himself.

I hated the finale, but I guess the one thing I would say for it, and this is reaching for straws, is that it continues the thread of Dexter being a selfish, self interested individual. Even when he does what he perceives as the 'right' thing, he does it in a way that frankly benefits him. Everyone remembers him as an innocent, good guy, all his loose threads are tied up-- the way he faked his death and relocated, I half expected that lumberjack to not be Dexter (Because we couldn't see his face too clearly at first and he had a beard), and then when he goes in to his little cottage, Dex pops up behind him with the tranq needle, thus continuing his cycle of addiction now that he's cut himself off from everything that complicated his initial lifestyle and rejected the idea of living like a normal human being.

But, alas.

I thought the finale was alright despite being a bit generic.

I just got done watching the last episode a few min ago, and jesus christ are people in this thread blowing the hate waaaay out of proportions. It's not the best ending they could have gone with, but it was fine. Certainly not deserving of the kind of hate in here.

Season 8 was a giant disappointment on all counts. The finale was okay. I will say I really enjoyed seeing the old Dexter again in that scene with Saxon. I would've liked to see gun vs. fork, but Dexter with that pen was pretty good. Just a pure killer. I'm going to sit here in from of this camera and kill you. No fucks given.

I think having him alive at the end was a mistake. If he died there, he'd at least be taking some amount of responsibility for what he did. With him alive, it just cheapens the whole thing.

Also, I'm on the train of having Louis Greene be built up over three seasons as Dexter's total equal and opposite, eventually leading to some sort of mutual annihilation would have been a far more compelling final three years than what we got. I feel like his character was meant for more, built up in season 6 as a sort of worshiper of Dexter, in season 7 would have turned to an animosity, and then season 8 would have built up to their final confrontation in which Louis still could have done all sorts of terrible shit that Saxon did, but with more sound, established motive. It seems like they killed him off seemingly out of nowhere in season 7 and then spread his traits out to a couple of other characters who just didn't carry the thread in any natural way (Saxon as the final big bad, Quinn's relationship with Jaime).

I think ultimately that was the flaw that began to pop up in the series immediately after season 5 started-- a willingness to abandon plots and kill characters with no real repercussion or even acknowledgment at what seems to have been a whim and the drop of a hat. It's like they were writing every episode week by week doing whatever the hell felt like the right move at the current moment (which it never was) and never once considering the ultimate outcome, which is why the series finale ultimately feels disconnected from any of the rest of the show. The show runners literally watched The Dark Knight Rises and went 'yeah, let's do that'.

The Louis thing was abrupt because the actor (Josh Cooke, I think) accepted a part in a Broadway show. If you watch, you can see in the last episode or two he's in, the character suddenly has a beard even though the time in the show hasn't elapsed that quickly. That's because the show he was doing required him to have a beard. That's why it ended like that.

I liked Season 5. I thought the arc fit for Dexter as a character, with him helping Lumen as a means of atonement for Rita. He grew as a character. Season 6 was bad because the season's arc was built entirely around a twist instead of a character arc. It's also bad because it completely undoes Dexter's development as he makes the same goddamn mistake he did with Trinity by trying to help Travis Marshall. Season 7 started out great (I will argue that the first 5 episodes of season 7 are some of the best in the entire show), because those moments with Deb were earned. It was cathartic for the audience because Deb was throwing all his bullshit back at him, forcing him to reexamine who he was and what he did. Then a new love interest is introduced and the series turns to shit. It became about Dexter getting rid of his darkness and becoming human. I thought one of the themes of the show was that he was human all along, because everyone has a darkness inside them. Or something.

Drew, how could you let this happen?

I thought it was an ok end. Had some cool moments, I started feeling things a bit (although some of it might be just a show I used to love ending).

Half of the episodes in this season were interesting, but once Deb wasn't a wreck anymore it kind of started to go downhill.

I thought the epilogue was unnecessary, but it's been sticking with me for some reason. Just sad. I do believe that this season may have felt a little better if there weren't two TV lumberjack beards in a secluded cabin on that same night. One just blows the other one away.

So what if the spinoff is a Dexter reset? Dexter in a new location, completely new side characters, a clean slate almost. In the end the show become so bogged down with side things. Harrison, Hannah, character arcs that went no where, garbage subplots. So much of the show has been getting away from what people love about Dexter. At the very end Dexter has completely abandoned his old life and and is mentally back where he was in season 1.

So Dexter living a new life in a new place, he either has continued his killing or some event throws him back into it. Have very little reference to the original series, don't bring anything over other then Dexter. I feel like the only thing I would miss would be Deb and the dynamic between her and Dexter. I never really cared about any of the other characters.

Yes it probably sounds dumb, and yes it probably won't happen, its just a thought I had that would allow Dexter to continue existing and without being held back by all the bullshit that brought the show down.

@redroach: Considering the fact that after season 4 the writers mastered mashing the reset button every episode so Dexter is never in any real danger and his actions never have any actual consequences, that seems like a depressingly likely scenario.

That's the other problem here - there's no consequence. Deb begins to have romantic feelings for Dexter while discovering his serial killer life? Nothing turns out of it. She falls into despair due to self-loathing and wants to murder Dexter? She's good after a couple of episodes. Hannah McKay returns and poisons Dexter and Debra? Turns out it's just her idea of foreplay. Batista has LaGuerta's box of shit that could implicate Dexter and Deb and it just sits around. There's a shot of him directly looking at Dexter in slow-mo when he's talking to Lithgow at Miami Metro and you never return to that scene. There's no real danger, ever.

Compare it with Breaking Bad, where every action has consequence, there are call backs to individual shots and lines of dialogue and it never really felt like the writers put too much stake into a plot twist. Remember how Skyler learned about Walt being a meth kingpin at the end of BB's season 2? In a different show, that would be a lead up to the final season, since it irreversibly changed the dynamic between the two characters - here it served a meaningful purpose and gave another layer of tension to the show for its remaining seasons. In post-season 4 Dexter, you would either have her come to terms with it after three episodes and never mention it again or simply excised her from the story completely after those three episodes.

And it's not like it's impossible to have a sense of danger in a show about a badass. Justified is a show about an invincible cop who is way too fucking smart for these redneck crooks, but it manages to have tension so dense you can stick an axe into it just because a) they hammer in the point that everyone who's not Raylan Givens or Boyd Crowder can be killed and b) they still constantly attack and question the morality of the two protagonists. Season 4's finale was an epilogue with barely any stakes, and it turned out to be the best, most tense and darkest episode of the show yet because they've focused on exploring the consequences of Boyd's actions and Raylan's fucked up moral code.

@dudeglove: Haha, I didn't remember that, and it also seems like Dexter's inner monologueing self used to be poetic rather than repeating his problems and thought process.