Dexter

[Cityfan]

Total cop out. The only satisfying ending for me would have been Dexter dying and up until those last 2 minutes, I was relatively satisfied and ready to somewhat forgive the farce that season 8 had been. I really don't think it would have been too awful an ending had they just left it that way.

Although, it could have been much worse. At least he didn't get the happy ending in Argentina that we were all dreading.

We'll always have the first 4 seasons. Like someone else said, let's just pretend that everything from that point on didn't happen.

[Quentin Taranbino]

Awful

Dexter is a now a lumberjack??!! Seriously? That's how they chose to end the series?

Unbelievable that we didn't see Dexter get caught for all his crimes, the final season should have been all about his downfall

Poor Debs, ditched in the sea to rot like another victim. I love how nobody batted an eyelid at him wheeling out a dead body and then on to his boat in front of loads of folk

What about Masukas daughter?? I was soooooo into that storyline and now it will never be concluded

How come Dexter gets a big thing in the paper about his death etc. Surely once Elway woke up from his horse tranquiliser , he would be spilling to Miami Metro about the real Dexter, Debs and Hannah etc

[Stevie Aitken's Love Child]

I feel violated. They've ruined one of my favourite shows ever with the abomination that has been the final series. Utter utter pish.

Edited September 23, 2013 by Stevie Aitken's Love Child

[Cityfan]

Here's the ending that former producer Clyde Phillips would have pitched had he remained on the show....

http://darklydexter.com/interviews/former-dexter-producer-clyde-phillips-reveals-his-alternate-ending/

That would have been perfect.

[paul-r-cfc]

Dreadful ending. Which was a shame as I thought the episode had been going as well as it could considering how shit the season had been.

[deadasdillinger]

Ironically, the ending of Dexter is enough to make you go on a murderous rampage.

How the hell did they write that, with the manatees from South Park picking idea balls?!

YOUR FINALE IS BAD AND YOU SHOULD FEEL BAD.

Fucking hell, that was just so tragic. In the penultimate episode, Elway going to Debs' house and confirming that Hannah was there, but not thinking to sit on the house for when they inevitably moved her just a short time later. The plot with Masouka's daughter wrapping up with, if I recall correctly, her last scene being Debs and Quinn telling her that it was 'weird' that she was Masouka's daughter, then the plot never being concluded beyond that. Angie Miller was promoted to sergeant then literally never seen again. The bus full of people who didn't see Elway being injected with some horse tranquiliser. Saxon, the most wanted man in Miami, more or less strolling into the hospital. Dexter turning off the machine and walking a dead body out a hospital, power cut and storm or not, is one of the most laughable things I've seen in years. Hannah's reaction to finding news of Dexter's probable death on the iPad, "How's about some ice cream?". Dexter ditching his son then riding off into a storm. The writers thinking that a quick scene revealing that Dexter is now living alone as a logger is any sort of ending.

And if Dexter had said one more time that he couldn't leave Miami until he had dealt with Saxon, I was going to smash my laptop into tiny bits. It seemed those two episodes revolved solely around him and Hannah making and breaking plans to deal with Saxon and leave Miami.

All anyone wanted to see was Dexter getting caught in dramatic fashion, or riding off into the sunset, and instead he avoids all legal repercussions for his actions while giving the viewer no satisfaction whatsoever on the relationships front.

Read a great review on AV Club, giving it an F, with this a particular highlight

Some folks would say “This show is as shitty as it can possibly be, so now we can rest on our laurels.” But not Scott Buck and his team. They never stop striving to create the most offensively stupid show on television. And look, if that was the objective here, a slow clap is in order.

Genuinely, that was the worst hour of television I've seen in a long time, possibly ever. The ride into the thunderstorm is the most I've laughed at a drama show.

Thank f**k that sorry excuse for a show is over. How can that possibly be the same series as the show that gave birth to season 4 and the Trinity Killer??

[Loki]

It went down hill as the creative director left after season four, and they weren't much to borrow from the books after that.

[squidger]

plus points.... errm babysitter being naked maybe is bout as much as i can remember being good.

Bad points the rest really - what a shame for such a good series to have ended with such a whimper. As said dexter monologues where utterly stupid, the plot was redundant.

Better ending for me would have been dexter losing the plot at debs and getting caught humping her mutilated body. Would have made as much sense the 'twist'.

think most has been covered above, but everything just lacked teeth or any sort of grit or thought.

i kind wasnt going to watch this series after the last 2 but thought they might have redeemed themselves a tad with a chance to do something epic. sadly no they need to keep this drivel dead and buried, there is no way they can do another series.

[Loki]

I think you can track the downfall of Dexter's writing from the episode "Nebraska" where Dexter went to find Trinity's son. I believe that was the moment Dexter "Jumped the Shark". Also I believe if they ended that season with Debs finding out about Dexter rather than stretching that plot hook until the end of the season six we would have been spared a lot of terrible episodes.

I was going to start rewatching Dexter now that it is all complete, however I can bring myself to do it as the very poor writing of seasons six, seven and eight are too much for me to digest currently. I think the only logical end of Dexter would be his reveal as the biggest serial killer of all time and being put to death by the state of Miami or him being discovered and having to go on a killing spree to save himself, where he would have had to kill Debs for his own survival.

Seasons One, Two and Four were where Dexter was at it's peak. The stories were creative and despite a leap of faith needed to believe the stories, they were in the realms of possibility. I feel seasons Six, Seven and Eight relied too much on coincidence and large leaps of faith asked by the audience. It isn't a surprise to find that the best seasons were when you actually thought Dexter's fate hung in the balance. Season Eight at no point did you feel Dexter was in a) immediate danger of being caught or b) immediate danger of being killed.

I really think the writers missed out on not fully developing Louis Greene (the blood spatter volunteer). He went to all the trouble of getting the Ice Truck Killer's hand and having Dexter annoy him just to be shot in the head. I think they could have had him find out about Dexter. Also Quinn after Liddy's death must have had some suspicions about Dexter, especially when it was Dexter's blood work that cleared Quinn of the murder. He must have realised that the blood was Liddys. Surely it would lead to the question why did Dexter not incriminate him?

Even having Quinn state that he knew who he really was in the aftermath of Saxton's murder would have at least explained his need to fake his own death.

All in all in retrospect Dexter peaked in Season Four with the Trinity killer as his nemesis. Up until that point it was as good as anything that has been on TV. Season Five was good, but it started employing more coincidences in the story and eventually the quality of the show's writing deteriorated from then drawing itself to a rather damp squib of an ending. Season's Six and Seven were only saved by the brilliant last episodes and the cliffhanger endings, although the quality of the rest of the season's episodes were poor. The final season only had one good episode.

[paul-r-cfc]

Ye still never understood how Quinn, having spent the whole season convinced dexter killed rita, just totally dropped his case after dexter cleared him of the investigators death. Even though from Quinn's point of view , it was clearly dexter who done it

[Stu]

Disappointed with the way that came to an end to be honest. Felt he should either have been killed off, been caught or got away to spend his time with Hannah and Harrison. That was fairly unsatisfactory all round.

Can't believe that not once in eight episodes did he get caught. They could have had a trial where he somehow managed to get off. Instead he always got away.

[DomDom]

The finale was just everything from Season 5 onwards summed up.

Shite.

[Gianfranco]

They clearly ran out of good ideas in the last 2 or 3 series. Sad but poor end to the series

[KnightswoodBear]

That was a massively disappointing ending to a massively disappointing season.

What the f**k was that last scene supposed to be?

And that wasn't even the most stupid thing about the last episode.

[Mik]

I don't think I've ever seen a worse episode than that finale....fucking awful doesn't come close

[Armand 2]

Bit of a bump but I was a latecomer to the series and stayed away from this thread in case of any spoilers. Finished last night and (please note that there's also a Breaking Bad spoiler in here)...

...I have to agree with majority of the posters who felt it was a disappointing finale.

Like Breaking Bad with Walt, I felt the writers of the show had a moral obligation of sorts to either kill Dexter or have him caught - the notion that someone can commit such crimes and get away without any repercussions is both unrealistic and a bit irresponsible. Were we supposed to think a self-imposed exile was punishment enough for being Miami's most notorious serial killer? I also thought the ending was quite cowardly, allowing the writers to return to the show in the future, if they so choose - a complete cop-out.

Not only was it a cop-out, it was a really poorly written one. Firstly, Hannah; wasn't she supposed to be a fugitive? Why was it only a hospital worker and Elway who recognised her in her various public outings? Similarly, Saxon wondering about busy car-parks and hospitals despite his face being on national television was just ridiculous. Dexter killing Saxon in his cell - wouldn't he have been held by the police, irrelevant of the circumstances? He just murdered someone on CCTV and unless America's justice system is far more different than I'm aware, it would be up to a jury to decide whether it was an act of self-defence. Leaving aside for a moment the absurdity of sneaking a dead body out of a hospital in full view without any kind of challenge and onto a boat, why did he bury Deb at sea along with the rest of his victims? What was that supposed to symbolise?

Other wee things too - why did it take Dexter, a blood spatter analyst, to request Matthews - the deputy chief, by the way - to put a manned guard on Deb's hospital room...you know, Deb who had just been shot by a killer on the loose?

As others have already pointed out in better detail than I could, the scripts decreased in quality over the duration of the show and often displayed some quite startling absences of thought. It was just a bit of a clusterfuck from season four onwards with story arcs initiated but never revisited and some utterly pointless characters. I never thought I'd see a more vacuous character in any kind of production than Steps from Rocky Balboa but Masuka's daughter!? What the f*ck was that all about!? Just ridiculously pointless and added absolutely nothing to the show. She never even had decent tits to look at in the stripper bar.

The current chat of a spin-off is frankly a bit baffling. The Showtime president was quoted as saying that any series would have no connection to the original show...but they would only do it if Michael C. Hall returned. So, there would be a connection? Not only that, it would be the biggest, most blatantly obvious connection that anyone could think of? I think the folk over at Showtime having been smoking crack since season four ended.

But, you know, despite all of the above, I still found Dexter quite enjoyable. I never signed up for magnificent, flawless, ground breaking story-telling - for my money, I got that from Breaking Bad - which, I suppose, was just as well. Got the Jeff Lindsay's books arriving this week so looking forward to reading them and hoping they are written better than that finale.

Edited January 24, 2014 by Armand 2

[Lisa Cuddy]

I'm avoiding the rest of this thread because I'm not finished yet but I watched the last two episodes of season four tonight.

Jesus suffering f**k. I never saw that coming. The doors and windows are locked and I'm never going to sleep again.

[Lisa Cuddy]

Penultimate episode of season 6. Eeew, nooooo! That's disgusting! I don't care if it was a dream, that's just not right.

[Lisa Cuddy]

Finished. If I could delete anything from my memory, it would be the everything that happens after he kills Oliver/Daniel. Awful. Just awful.

[GingerSaint]

I just finished watching this too. Unsatisfying ending. I thought it had to end with him being caught, dying or both. Harry always said that there was no out and that one day he will have to face death row.

If Dexter has taught me one thing, it's that nobody in Miami knows when they're being followed.

I also think that Doakes was a fantastic character and looks like the Pokemon Dewott...