I thought the episode as a whole was pretty good, but wasn't a huge fan of the ending. I would've rather him shown up in Argentina than what actually happened. But oh well. The show kinda died with the Trinity Killer.

9/23/2013 2:07:54 AM

http://www.eonline.com/news/461558/chills-former-dexter-producer-clyde-phillips-reveals-how-he-planned-to-end-the-series

Former executive producer's idea for how he planned to end the show:

Quote :

""In the very last scene of the series," Philips explained, "Dexter wakes up. And everybody is going to think, 'Oh, it was a dream.' And then the camera pulls back and back and back and then we realize, 'No, it's not a dream.' Dexter's opening his eyes and he's on the execution table at the Florida Penitentiary. They're just starting to administer the drugs and he looks out through the window to the observation gallery. "And in the gallery are all the people that Dexter killed—including the Trinity Killer and the Ice Truck Killer (his brother Rudy), LaGuerta who he was responsible killing, Doakes who he's arguably responsible for, Rita, who he's arguably responsible for, Lila. All the big deaths, and also whoever the weekly episodic kills were. They are all there. "That's what I envisioned for the ending of Dexter. That everything we've seen over the past eight seasons has happened in the several seconds from the time they start Dexter's execution to the time they finish the execution and he dies. Literally, his life flashed before his eyes as he was about to die. I think it would have been a great, epic, very satisfying conclusion.""

9/23/2013 2:53:21 AM

^Nah, 5 and 7 were rad

9/23/2013 6:49:24 AM

I kinda liked the part with the pen

that's, uh, pretty much it

they screwed the pooch pretty good

9/23/2013 6:52:12 AM

^^^ that's the kind of ending I was hoping for.

9/23/2013 7:36:55 AM

9/23/2013 8:07:31 AM

This show doesn't even deserve discussion anymore. Pretend it ended after season 4, bury it, and move on

9/23/2013 9:36:26 AM

9/23/2013 9:38:45 AM

I would have been OK with him blowing his brains out on the boat. He doesn't use guns, so its an interesting contrast. Then, end it there.

Seriously. How the fuck did he get back to land.

I like the originally proposed ending up there. They could have used Saxons killing to segue into discovery by Batista and Quinn. They were obviously jarred by the calmness and easiness through which dexter killed him. Quinn never felt easy about him... Masuokas daughter could have found evidence linking dexter, and masuoka could have struggled to turn it over... Giving her purpose.

I mean really, anything but that shit.

9/23/2013 10:22:20 AM

Quote :

"I was worried that the show would give us the typical happy Hollywood ending, and had prepared myself for the sickeningly sweetness, but that would have been welcome to the pile of shit that we got instead. "

That pretty much sums it up. Goddamnit that was terrible. Worst series finale ever.

Could have easily ended it with the boat driving into the hurricane. Wouldn't have been great, but at least it wouldn't have been a lazy middle finger to the audience who stuck around through the last shit season to watch it end.

[Edited on September 23, 2013 at 1:51 PM. Reason : d]

9/23/2013 1:44:45 PM

I'd LOVE to hear from the writers and show runners to see what made them decide that was the way to end this show.

9/23/2013 6:42:32 PM

they shoulda had ghost dad reappear to lumberdex

9/23/2013 6:45:34 PM

I think that part of the point of that scene was to show a total regression of Dexter's regression. No Harry, not even an inner monologue. He's completely cut himself off from humanity.

Not that I'm defending it, that was a pretty shitty final episode.

9/23/2013 7:43:06 PM

9/23/2013 7:46:14 PM

Welp, that sucked.

9/23/2013 11:11:09 PM

I was quite satisfied. With the whole series, and with the finale. Since Rita died, Dexter struggled with the notion of having people in his life that he cared about because a part of him always knew he could never have it. Season after season he tried so hard in futility. When Deb died, that was it, and the best thing he could do for Hannah and Harrison was to leave them. I think he tried death by storm, but since the storm dissipated it wasn't strong enough. Incapable of forceful suicide, Dexter scuttled the boat, headed for shore, and left for Oregon to live with his dark passenger in solitude.

9/24/2013 8:51:54 AM

Pretty dick move to make Hanna take care of your kid

9/24/2013 10:44:29 AM

I volunteer to move to Argentina to take care of Harrison and fuck Hanna. She needs me.

9/24/2013 10:49:12 AM

None of this finale made any sense to me. I like how Sean Patrick Flannery was all like "If Hannah McKay goes into any hotel, we'll know about it" and then next scene she's in a hotel.

9/24/2013 2:58:01 PM

Quote :

"Since Rita died, Dexter struggled with the notion of having people in his life that he cared about because a part of him always knew he could never have it. Season after season he tried so hard in futility. When Deb died, that was it, and the best thing he could do for Hannah and Harrison was to leave them."

Which makes no sense because the two people mentioned died a) because he wasn't present and b) because he didn't kill who he was should've killed when he first had the chance.

It was just so terrible.

9/24/2013 3:14:56 PM

So I did find this blurb from two of the producers and Jennifer Carpenter about the ending:

Quote :

"Yet in the eyes of producers Scott Buck and Sara Colleton, this was really the only place left for "Dexter" to go. "It seemed like the ending that was most justified," Buck told EW. "In season 1, you saw this guy who was so compartmentalized. The last couple seasons have been about breaking down those walls by having his son and his relationship with Hannah and having Deb discover who he is. Still he was able to justify what he did. We felt it took the death of the one person he cared most about to really look at himself." And moving him far away from Miami in a self-imposed exile seemed to be the best punishment for a ruthless character, Colleton added to TVLine. "Going into exile away from everything that he knows and has become attached (to) in his whole infrastructure is a more fitting punishment for what his journey toward being a human being has cost everyone around him," she said. "If the central idea from the pilot on was: Here’s a guy who thinks of himself as a monster and yet yearns to be human ... We’ve seen him on this journey ... and we’ve seen year-to-year what this journey has cost him. So, in the finale, the final price comes through." Although Jennifer Carpenter's character is now in the middle of an ocean, the actress wouldn't be surprised if "Dexter" did live on somehow. (After all, the guy is still, you know, alive. Unlike Deb. Just had to point that out once more.) "I guess we can't really say yet because I played my character from A to Z, but I don't necessarily think that Dexter is done," Carpenter told The Hollywood Reporter. "It's still deliciously hanging untied; there's too much intrigue and too much of the appetite for it to completely be unresolved by this finale. Maybe somewhere down the line I wouldn't be surprised if something happens. I would be interested to see Michael (C. Hall) come back with the energy that he'd have from taking a real break and seeing what he can do with that character. I'm not trying to hint that I know something is coming, but I'm saying it's possible.""

http://marquee.blogs.cnn.com/2013/09/23/dexter-about-that-series-finale/?hpt=hp_t5

9/24/2013 3:22:16 PM

If they did that shit to leave it open for a movie or something down the road that makes it way worse. At least then it would have been laziness and lack of creativity instead of straight up greed.

9/24/2013 4:27:53 PM

Hannah checks iPad, finds out Dexter is dead, wipes away a tear.

Want to get some ice cream?

9/25/2013 7:58:51 AM

I can't believe he left me in Argentina with this little shit. I'm poisoning this kid once I find the right flowers. Goddammit.

9/25/2013 8:13:54 AM

so what was the damn point of introducing that dude's daughter if they didn't do anything with it?

and how the hell did Dexter escape from the boat in a hurricane?

9/25/2013 8:51:44 AM

He obviously injected the hurricane in the neck with a sedative

9/25/2013 9:38:18 AM

The only way this ending could have been worse was if they were really dead the whole time and Miami was just purgatory or something.

9/25/2013 9:42:13 AM

Quote :

"Great Dexter finale tonight. Loved the twist where it turned out that all along, Dexter was a ridiculous waste of time."

9/25/2013 10:18:02 AM

wow, this finale was laughably bad.

9/25/2013 11:37:03 AM

They introduced sooooo many characters this season that ended up virtually pointless. It was like they didn't know it was the final season before the last 1.5 episodes.

The path I wanted this season to go was for Dexter to mentor Zach, then for Zach to find out that Deb killed LaGuerta and then kill Deb, leading to some kind of ending where Dexter would have actually been somewhat responsible for Deb's death causing him to go off the rails, get caught, and end with an execution scene like mentioned earlier.

9/25/2013 8:46:13 PM

I thought Zach was a half assed character

but I mean shit, half the characters on the show were half ass

9/25/2013 8:52:12 PM

this season was like three crappy mini-seasons rolled into one. the first guy he tracks and kills that turns out not to be the surgeon, the whole thing with Zach, and then Saxton. I thought the whole Saxton character was lame and I wish he had been a more elite killer like Trinity was to finally get one over on Dexter and murder Deb.

As far as this episode goes, I'll give it credit that it did have some interesting twists (the pen, the fake bomb, etc.) and was very emotional building up to the last five minutes or so. However, I hated the end. Hannah was not convincing at all that she had just read the man of her dreams was dead (or arguably in disbelief but knowing she couldn't find him and would have to wait).

I still wish it had a happier ending. So now what? He's has human emotions finally but abandons his kid with the girl they've spent the whole season convincing us he was genuinely in love with, just so he can sit in a cabin and pout for the rest of his life?

They should have had Hannah be waiting in the cabin basically taking control and saying "I won't let you do this". But I like happy endings, especially for characters I've gotten to know for eight years.

9/25/2013 11:47:36 PM

Or just not a shitty ending

9/26/2013 8:21:59 AM

Quote :

"Hannah was not convincing at all that she had just read the man of her dreams was dead (or arguably in disbelief but knowing she couldn't find him and would have to wait). "

Because a part of her knew all along that Dexter would no-show.

Quote :

"I thought Zach was a half assed character"

It was a throw back to the original book. In it, Dexter taught Cody "the Code" because he was so fucked up from seeing Paul beat up Rita when he was a child. It was a nod for the readers out there.

Quote :

"and how the hell did Dexter escape from the boat in a hurricane?"

The hurricane dissipated.

Quote :

"this season was like three crappy mini-seasons rolled into one."

That's what the writers have been doing for seasons that didn't have a big bad.

Quote :

"They introduced sooooo many characters this season that ended up virtually pointless."

That's also what they do. Remember Louis in Season 6 and how we all thought for sure this guy was going to be a major factor, only to see him quickly killed off when his arc was developed? The show was all about red herrings galore.



Look I'm not going to sit back and defend the show to every end because, let's be honest, the last four seasons weren't as good as the first four. But for everybody just to hop on the bandwagon and say that the show was dogshit is completely ludicrous. Maybe you're too used to watching other popular dramas and comparing them, but Dexter was a different kind of show from the get go. I appreciated the hell out of the show and am sad to see it go.

9/26/2013 8:22:23 AM

I'm not saying it was dogshit by any means but I think most people agree that Trinity Killer season was the pinnacle of the series. What I feel let down about is that they knew this was the last season way ahead of time and they could have done more to tie up loose ends. However, and as Jennifer Carpenter has said it leaves open the possibility for it to come back, or maybe a spin-off.

I'm very happy to have stayed with it this long and I'll be the first to admit I had to fight back some tears at certain points in the last episode because you really do come to love the characters.

9/26/2013 12:22:02 PM

9/26/2013 12:24:20 PM

It's only dogshit when you look at it relative to the seasons like four when you realized how good it could be. I still enjoyed the season and it was way better than most crap in TV, just let me down with a pretty lame season.

9/26/2013 12:38:09 PM

Quote :

"But for everybody just to hop on the bandwagon and say that the show was dogshit is completely ludicrous. Maybe you're too used to watching other popular dramas and comparing them, but Dexter was a different kind of show from the get go."

Been watching from Season 1. This season was complete garbage and the finale was probably the worst episode in it.

The last couple of seasons were below average compared to the first few but still decent. This one was borderline unwatchable most of the season and the only reason I didn't bail was because I'd watched it from the beginning.

9/26/2013 1:06:37 PM

buncha pansies ITT wanting a happy Hollywood ending in a show about a SERIAL KILLER. bad episode, bad season, but not a bad ending. one of the only possibilities that make sense if yo've followed the transformation of his character. i wondered why everyone hated the ending when I saw it- made perfect sense to me. then read the interview above in this thread from two of the producers, and got further confirmation that the bandwagoners bashing the ending are moronic.

10/3/2013 1:29:44 AM

^ Nobody cares about "happy Hollwood endings." He dies, he gets caught, he's a lumberjack, whatever. It was just everything that got to that point was garbage. I was actually laughing during the episode it was so bad.

http://www.uproxx.com/tv/2013/09/dexter-series-finale-recap/ pretty much says it all for me.

10/3/2013 8:13:37 AM

Quote :

"one of the only possibilities that make sense if yo've followed the transformation of his character."

I completely disagree. I mean, i really couldn't disagree more.

To me, it was out of left field considering his transformation of a character.

Originally, cold serial killer who couldn't relate to or love other people, but knew he had to fake it to fit in.

He had a cover gf.. who became his cover wife/family.

He genuinely began to care for the children.

He had his own child who he 100% genuinely loved.

He showed great care and love for his sister.

He showed empathy for Lumen and helped her.

He began questioning whether he had to kill, and if Harry sort of molded him into what he was by assuming he couldn't be taught to not kill and instead teaching him who to target and how to get away with it. -- This was a huge theme of one of the seasons.

He met Hannah around that time (not sure exactly where the seasons matched up), and genuinely fell in love with her. This was very different than Rita or anything else before.

Through the last season he came to care for Vogel.

At the end of the season when he had his target on the table, they made a point to have him go on about how he didn't have an urge to kill him, but that he just wanted to. And then they took it a step further and had him say "you know what, I don't need to kill you" as in it wasn't an impulse to do so any longer. And he called Deb to have her take him in.



There has been a huge build up for several seasons toward the idea that he was not innately/destined to be a serial killer and that he could grow to have a more "normal" life. And he had been growing as a character toward that for several seasons. He was set to head off to live the rest of his life with the love of his life and his son. He didn't feel it was necessary to kill someone who clearly fit his code and had hurt people around him.

Then because his sister was shot in something that was not his fault in way Rita was his fault, not remotely. He decided to abandon his son and go live in the woods.

That made no damn sense to me considering the direction they had been taking the character for a long time and especially the entire last season up until the last couple of episodes.

Now if the last season went differently, I could see this ending as very fitting. But it just didn't really make much sense to me.

[Edited on October 3, 2013 at 8:28 AM. Reason : .]

10/3/2013 8:25:02 AM

Quote :

"Then because his sister was shot in something that was not his fault in way Rita was his fault, not remotely. He decided to abandon his son and go live in the woods."

dex blamed himself because he had vogel on the table and decided not to kill him, which ultimately led to vogel killing deb. i dont see how that's any different than his role in rita's death.

10/3/2013 10:49:33 AM

Quote :

"buncha pansies ITT wanting a happy Hollywood ending in a show about a SERIAL KILLER. bad episode, bad season, but not a bad ending. one of the only possibilities that make sense if yo've followed the transformation of his character. i wondered why everyone hated the ending when I saw it- made perfect sense to me. then read the interview above in this thread from two of the producers, and got further confirmation that the bandwagoners bashing the ending are moronic."

huh? id bet noone in this thread wanted a sappy hollywood ending. They would just have preferred a sweet and sappy wrap-up than the garbage we got.

There was not a single thing about that episode that made any sense. Hell, take the last 10 minutes only and it's bullshit. He walks out of the hospital with Deb's cadaver in broad daylight after taking her off life support and puts the body in his boat without a single person stopping him or batting an eye.

He dumps her body, and then drives the boat headlong into a hurricane (let's not even talk about how the scene had graphics straight out of sharknado or some other shitty Sci Fi channel made for tv movie) that was strong enough to cause a hospital evacuation and destroy his boat, yet he somehow survives and swims to shore from miles out? Then his girlfriend magically transforms from a selfish goldigger to taking on dexter's kid by herself without so much as a reaction.

I get that now the backlash against the episode has gotten so bad that it's natural to have a knee jerk reaction against the backlash, but that finale was just terrible through and through.

10/3/2013 10:52:39 AM

I'm not upset with the ending...just the complete shitasticness of the whole final season.

10/3/2013 11:25:56 AM

Quote :

"dex blamed himself because he had vogel on the table and decided not to kill him, which ultimately led to vogel killing deb. i dont see how that's any different than his role in rita's death."

Rita was killed specifically to get at Dexter by someone who never would have crossed paths with her otherwise. If she were not in his life, she wouldn't even be on Trinity's radar. And killing her wasn't really to kill her so much as it was to hurt Dexter.

Vogel was on the table, restrained and ready for Deb to arrest him. The guy was done and Deb was just doing her job as a police officer. The reason he was able to hurt Deb was because the marshal let him out like an idiot. And even then, he didn't really hurt Deb to spite Dexter. He shot her as he was trying to get away and she busted into the room.

You're right that be blames himself for it. But he really isn't the cause like he was for Rita. Deb is a cop and was behaving as a cop in that situation. And Vogel was just behaving as a criminal trying to get away. Trinity/Rita/Dex was a very different cause/effect chain.

TL;DR: Trinity killed Rita to specifically get at Dexter. Rita was completely innocent in it and had no other involvement with Trinity. Vogel shot Deb because he was trying to not get arrested by Deb who was doing cop stuff. Just like he killed the marhsal, and just like he would have shot Quinn or Angel (or any other cop) if it were them instead of Deb who came into that room. He wasn't targeting Deb.

[Edited on October 3, 2013 at 4:46 PM. Reason : .]

10/3/2013 4:42:42 PM

But then he goes to the hospital to try and finish her off.

Either way, it's super dumb.

10/3/2013 4:51:09 PM

That was not good.

5/19/2014 2:24:02 PM

it wasn't good but it was funny.

5/19/2014 3:02:23 PM

This was so bad. Y'all have covered why it was so bad, but it's even worse bc no matter how well they patched things up there's no way Deb would have wanted to be lying in the bottom of the ocean next to all of his bags of body parts.

Also, fugitive 101 is to dye your damn hair.

So bad.

6/9/2014 8:10:49 AM

Teen obsessed with Dexter, cuts up body & proceeds to only get 25 yrs.!?!?! WTF.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/teen-obsessed-tv-serial-killer-4365182

10/3/2014 1:24:32 PM