Dexter was fantastic TV, one of the best in the past ten years. The story of a serial killer who only kills bad guys and works as a blood analyst at Miami police was a great dark story, with some brilliant humour and shocking twists. Unfortunately, after season 4 (one of the best seasons), it started to lose its way with ever more ridiculous plot holes and coincidences that stopped Dexter getting caught which verged on the almost silly.
Whilst season 7 was actually quite entertaining after a dire season 6, the 8th and final season however is probably the show at its worst and most incoherent. Below is my run-down of what makes this season such a mess.
MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD OBVIOUSLY. INTENDED FOR PEOPLE WHO HAVE SEEN IT.
Dexter is not himself – Yes, usually there is character development in a lead role throughout the run of a show but Dexter should have been the exception. He is a serial killer without emotion. The first few seasons showed how he pretended to be normal and hid his real self because he is a different person. It’s beyond him to understand the emotions of others and this was firmly established and logical given his need to kill. But this season he does change and becomes a more emotional guy which feels against what the character is. Case in point: He decides he doesn’t need to kill anymore and leaves a serial killer to live. This is all well and good, except this was explored in season four with terrible consequences leading to Dexter saying many times after that he wouldn’t hesitate to kill again.
This change of personality including wanted to settle down with a family, willingness to train someone with the code, and endless sloppy decisions that would have gotten him caught (if Miami police weren’t so stupid) make Dexter frustrating to watch, instead of darkly entertaining protagonist you root for like before.
Debra has nothing to work with – Jennifer Carpenter does great with her material, acting her socks off in every scene and her efforts really are a highlight this year, but the writing just doesn’t really help here. She has a bad relationship (again) with a guy called Andrew Briggs (no, not the guy she had a bad relationship with from season three, his name was ANTON Briggs. Yep the writers were that lazy).
The character of Debs was ultimately ruined a few seasons back when she found out Dexter’s true self forcing her to reject everything we know about her as a good cop as she had to constantly cover for his murders throughout the season. This never feels true to the character and we end up with the ludricous situation in which she becomes friends with Hannah, a murderer who tried to kill her last season.
Quinn’s romance – After falling in love with Debs in season six and then last year falling in love with a stripper, Quinn starts falling in love with Batista’s sister Jamie because, uh, she’s kinda the only female character left. This seems entirely due to the writers having nothing better for the characters to do and a good excuse to have scenes with Jamie a bit naked in them.
But as sudden as the Quinn/Jamie romance begins, it ends, because Quinn out off the blue starts chasing Debs again and for no reason she responds positively to it and tells him she loves him. This is the same Debs that said no to his proposal and said she didn’t love him a few seasons ago and has shown absolutely zero interest in him since. Go figure.
Doctor Evelyn Vogel adds nothing – Revealing at this late stage that another character helped create the code Dexter lives by isn’t necessarily a bad idea. It at least gives reason for introducing a new character into Dexter’s life. But Doctor Vogel adds nothing, she has the same ideas as Dexter’s Dad and the same reasons for teaching him the code.
If she was introduced as having a different reason for creating Dexter it could have been something interesting, a new twist, but nope we are left with the same conversations Dexter has been having with his ghost dad all these years but this time with Vogel. A real missed opportunity for originality in this season that was sorely lacking in it.
Repeating story lines – In the first season, Dexter meets a young troubled kid, Jeremy Downs, who he identifies as having traits like him. He decides to train the kid to have his code. The kid seeing his future as Dexter decides its too horrifying a life and kills himself. This was a fascinating storyline that added to Dexter’s character development and showed a character making a moral choice not to become a murderer, the complete opposite choice to Dexter. It was powerful drama and didn’t need to be revisited but that’s exactly what they do this season.
This time its an annoying rich kid called Zach Hamilton who is to be trained and turns out to only be in the show to add bad comic-relief (because a creepy murdering kid is funny?). Of course, the kid wants to learn and kill people but Dexter annoyingly ignores him again and agin until it seems he murdered an innocent. Then out of the blue he is suddenly killed. A story that went absolutely nowhere other than to take up time and revisit story lines that were done better before.
I used to murder people LOL – Hannah was a dangerous killing femme fatale last season, an original type of killer in fact for the series despite the many killers they had. But now she comes back as a jokey every-girl, who makes humour like oh you thought I poisoned your salad, hehe, not this time wink to camera. She just hangs out at Deb’s place doing nothing really except ringing Dexter to tell him to hurry up occasionally because people are kinda looking for her (to be fair to her, Dexter does talk about going to Argentina for half the season without actually going). Of course just going to Argentina herself and meeting him there later never crossed her mind because logic and Dexter writing staff do not go together.
It would have been far more interesting to bring back Lumen from season five as it seemed like there could be more story to tell there. Hannah just has no story left, and the writers made that painfully obvious by doing nothing with her.
Wanted fugitive? Broad-daylight visits to hospital still ok – Harrison goes on the treadmill in a not-supposed to be but hilariously bad moment when he falls and cuts his face open. It was just so badly filmed that it looked ridiculous. Hannah, the wanted murderer who every cop in Miami is looking for, decides not to phone Debs/ babysitter for help, or put Harrison on the beach and call an ambulance to the location, or even put on a wig or something as a disguise, but instead takes Harrison to the hospital in broad daylight.
Knowing the intelligence of the cops in Miami I guess this wasn’t too big a risk but still pretty dumb. Even dumber is she gives Harrison’s name to the doctors and the address she is staying at. But luckily, no one connects the dots or looks at cctv footage to see her.
Dexter decides son better off being raised by different serial killer – Another reason why Lumen would have probably fit this role better. Hannah may have been changed into a jokey ‘I’m a loveable girl next door type of murderer’ this season but is she in anyway the right person to bring up Harrison (especially when Harrison was babysit by someone for three seasons who loves him!). This girl killed innocents, against Dexter’s code, and seems likely to do so again. But I guess its not polite to bring that up.
Deb’s house is an invisible fortress – Deb’s beach house is made entirely of windows in every room so of course its perfect to hide Hannah, the wanted murderer. Luckily, it seems to be some kind of invisibility fortress around it which means no one looks through the windows before knocking to see Hannah standing there and no-one can look through the windows straight after leaving to see her standing there. This is literally what happens when Elway, a man looking for Hannah visits. They don’t even close the blinds half the time! If this is all it takes to outsmart cops then seriously never live in Miami.
Acting 101- to be creepy, never blink – Oliver Saxon is this year’s main serial killer enemy and he sucks. He’s the worst serial killer they had in any of the seasons. He looks and sounds like he belongs in a serial killer themed erotic thriller that went straight-to-DVD called something like ‘Killer’s kiss’ or ‘The Erotic Killings of Chester Deville’. His acting as a serial killer is literally saying something creepy whilst not blinking, and that’s it. He should have been called Generic McGenericson. The absolute polar opposite of the frightening performance John Lithgow gave as the Trinity killer in season four.
For a perfect serial killer, you ain’t too bright – Despite being literally the only suspect in the killing of Dexter’s neighbour Cassie, he is questioned and let go. Dexter, two episodes later, puts his name in a database and finds it to be fake then does a DNA test and finds him to be Dr. Vogel’s son. So no one in Miami Metro thought to do this when he was being questioned? To add insult to injury, he then comes back to the police station to take a DNA test, something that would reveal his identity (but luckily this is never followed up on again!). He then conveniently films all his killings on a laptop in a not very secure hiding place, and then acts all shocked when he sees himself as wanted on the news for being a serial killer. How this guy never got caught before is beyond me.
“Dexter, who told me he wants me dead, wants me to go to his house? OK!” – Generic McGenericson proved a surprisingly easy serial killer to catch. When he realises he’s wanted by the police, he immediately runs to Dexter’s apartment to kill him but, d’oh, Debs points a gun to his head as he approaches Dexter in the most obvious trap since Return of the Jedi (“It’s a trap!” I hear Admiral Ackbar yelling).
Well, fool me once and all that. It couldn’t possibly happen again… oh it does, like 10 minutes later when he escapes, and is immediately caught by exactly the same ruse- approach Dexter, cop points gun to the back of his head. Double D’oh.
US Marshal is dumb dumb, da-umb, da-didditly dumb, dumb, da-dumb dumb – US Marshal appears in various earlier episodes sounding suspicious at everything everyone says as he hunts Hannah. So he is basically a professional serial killer hunter. Then he walks into a room where Oliver Saxon the serial killer, who is all over the news right now as wanted for being a serial killer (including video footage of him murdering people!), is tied up.
Did the US Marshal ask him who he was? Why he was tied up? Remove the knives beside him to be out of reach? Recognise the most wanted serial killer in Miami because that’s kinda his job? Nope, he released him then turned his back. Luckily he was stabbed repeatedly for his stupidity.
Every single cast member has their memory wiped every season – Remember when Quinn believed Dexter was a serial killer so got a private detective to follow him, then the private detective got stabbed by Dexter, after phoning Quinn to say he found something major. Dexter even falsified evidence to get Quinn off when he was falsely accused. Quinn seems to have forgotten all this, and doesn’t seem at all suspicious when seeing video evidence of Dexter killing Oliver Saxon. Batista as well just lets it slide. Despite everything, this is the most implausible and dumb scene in the season.
Is this a hospital for the blind? Dexter wheels out a body on a hospital bed and not one person sees. They are literally two meters away.
Lead character might be dead but obviously isn’t cliche – Has a lead character ever died off screen with no proof, and it turned out to be true? Not that I can remember. Its obviousness as a ruse seems the only reason you’d believe it wasn’t. And, jesus, the storm CGI looks like its from a Playstation One video game.
This is the ending from Million Dollar Baby – Gruff emotionless man becomes more humanised by a pretty girl who looks up to him. She has an accident and is on a life-support system. He emotionally turns off the life-support system and then disappears to an obscure location to live in purgatory for the rest of his days. Sound familiar? Yep, that’s the ending to Million Dollar Baby, that little-known Oscar winning film! The Dexter writers decided to use this beat-for-beat for the finale. They should’ve gone with the Sopranos blank screen ending but you know a blank screen for the whole season.
This finale is also like the penultimate Breaking Bad episode (kinda) BREAKING BAD SPOILER ALERT – so the second to last Breaking Bad episode had Walt with a unfortunate beard living alone in a log-cabin, whilst all the other characters try to move on with their lives after his actions affected them all deeply. This is exactly the same as the Dexter ending. Of course they didn’t copy them as they aired and were produced at the same time, but whereas Breaking Bad had the foresight to have Walt return and create a proper conclusion, the writers of Dexter just leave him in purgatory making the conclusion completely unsatisfying. BREAKING BAD SPOILER FINISHED
Purgatory isn’t that bad an idea if done correctly. The writers clearly wanted to have Dexter realise he is too much of a threat to people so seek solitude. This would work, if his actions justified this need by him starting to get out of control (killing more, killing innocents, enjoying it too much, going crazier etc) but the build-up is the opposite. He becomes a more emotionally attached human being who decides not to kill and looks to create a non-violent life elsewhere in the world with his loved ones.
Conclusion
Dexter was a great show that really didn’t know where to go once they revealed to Debs that her brother was a serial killer and thus became ever more silly and full of cliches. This season just never catches fire and adds nothing to previous which is a shame as after eight years of caring about these characters it deserved a much better send-off. It isn’t Lost finale bad but certainly unsatisfying.
An article in Vulture suggested they gave too much in season two when the police hunted the Bay Harbour Butcher (Dexter) himself. I would agree, the police finally hunting Dexter does seem like a fitting final season, way more so than introducing a terrible serial killer halfway through this season. In fact , I think if they did the stories explored in season one then in season three, season four and season two as the final season, Dexter would probably have been seen as one of the best TV shows ever made. As it stands, it had some very compelling and brilliant seasons but as a whole it lasted too long.
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