“Dexter” is likely one of the most widely known piece of crime drama media that ever existed. It has been extensively appreciated by both the public and critics, ultimately establishing itself as a true classic. When I was first told I would like it by someone close, they also told me to stop after the second season, as the quality took a great hit afterwards and, in this someone’s opinion, it was no longer worth watching it; soothed by this notion I wouldn’t have to watch a full eight seasons of twelve 50-ish minutes episodes each, which is eighty hours of my life I was not ready to spend on some random piece of media (I didn’t know about its popularity yet), I casually started the first episode which set the scene for Dexter Morgan, played by Michael C. Hall, a vigilante living his double life in Miami, Florida: Blood Spatter Analyst during the day, cold-blooded serial killer during the night.

As a little disclaimer: I didn’t read the books, so I can’t tell what of the good and bad is to be attributed to the actual plot or to the way some things have been edited or portrayed by the TV adaptation. It is also worth noting I’ve read the whole plot for the sake of completion, but didn’t watch New Blood. [Edit: I read the last two books’ plot while trying to figure out if Season Seven is a mess because it comes from messy source material and found out the books tell a completely different story from the plot portrayed in the TV series. So, there you have it.]

Be advised: this article contains spoilers.

Season One

Dexter is introduced as an almost-outcast, clearly playing the role during his daily life as a pretence and cover to his actual occupation: mercilessly killing criminals that the judiciary and law enforcement system couldn’t get its hands on, those who played the systems or seeped through the cracks. Weird and somewhat socially inept, Dexter is nonetheless actually good at masking his true self to anyone, including his sister, Debra Morgan, a vice squad officer, looking to be move up to the same department her brother worked in, Homicide. Played by Jennifer Carpenter who is, in my opinion, the M.V.P. to the whole eight seasons for what concerns acting, Debra is, along with Dexter, the most crucial character in the whole series.

For some reason, the way the episode played didn’t get me too excited about the series as a whole and I dropped it right away, putting it in the back of my mind for a few months. Fast forward to summer 2024 and I’m looking for something to watch after getting on par with a few Anime series I was watching, as well as completing “Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End”. I quickly land on “The 8 Show” which annoys me almost immediately for all the same reasons I didn’t like “Squid Game” all that much: it often feels awkward (although this is most likely a cultural reason linked with its Korean drama features), focuses on the relationships between characters too much as a pretence to delay explaining the actual reasons why we’re here and what we’re doing… I couldn’t stand it at the time and promised myself I would watch the next episodes later on. While browsing for something else, I incidentally land on “Dexter” again and, on August 6th, 2024, I start it for real this time. After making it through the first three episodes I’m already in love: it’s captivating, keeping your interest without having to resort to cliffhangers (we’ll see how this will change later); it alternates organically between its crime and drama components, letting us know a little more on how and why Dexter chooses, vets and kills his victims, also comparing him to the first season’s main “villain”, the Ice Truck Killer, which quickly establishes some sort of contact, slowly turning into a relationship, with Dexter. At the same time, we’re introduced to the characters we’ll learn to know (and love), from Debra Morgan to lieutenant Maria LaGuerta, detective Angel Batista, forensic technician Vincent Masuka and, last but not least, sergeant James Doakes, which we’re almost immediately introduced to as someone disliking Dexter and nourishing suspects about his honesty and identity, suggesting he perceives his true nature. All the characters are well defined, both in their identities, their features and their role, from which they’ll break out from time to time.

As the series progresses, we’re walked through multiple of Dexter’s victims, as well as developments in the characters’ personal lives. There are two themes the series alternates, putting the most attention on: one is Debra’s romantic life, which quickly turns to her main love interest for the series, Rudy Cooper (which we’ll ultimately discover is really Brian Moser, Dexter’s real brother, as well as the Ice Truck Killer); the other is Dexter’s progressive discovery of a few key details about his adoptive father, Harry Morgan, who is revealed pretty early on to have taught him the code he follows to choose and vet his victims, designed by Harry to avoid Dexter getting caught and to allow him to channel his urges to kill in an effort to prevent him killing innocent people. Harry will slowly be revealed as a not so great and honest father, keeping hidden the fact Laura Moser (Dexter’s biological mother) was dismembered with a chainsaw in front of him, that his biological father was still alive, that he chose to save him from the shipping container in which the violent killing happened because he was actually sleeping with Laura, which was also his C.I. (Criminal Informant) and for whose death he felt responsible.

The series popularity also slowly climbs and rises until suddenly, on December 17^th, 2006, more than a million U.S. viewers were watching the season finale on TV. The series culminates with Brian Moser (Rudy) being discovered as the Ice Truck Killer and kidnapping Debra on the pretence of a wedding proposal, with Dexter trying his best to find out more details about his childhood to find out where Brian his hiding, tailed by Doakes who started to suspect he is in some way connected to the Ice Truck Killer. Finally losing Doakes, Dexter finds out his brother is hiding at their childhood home and discovers the truth about his identity, with Brian ultimately inviting him to kill Debra, staged as one of Dexter’s killing rooms, and reuniting with him. Dexter stops him and frees Debra, but he manages to escape as the police finally closes in on them. The finale concludes with Dexter capturing Brian and having an emotional conversation with him before slicing his throat and staging his death as a suicide.

There are a few important secondary themes presented in season one, such as Dexter’s main love interest, Rita, evolving from being just a cover he maintains to make his day life seem normal, to something more as her abusive and addict ex-husband reappears, threatening to take the kids away as he is now clean and Rita mistreats him; a problem Dexter ultimately solves by staging him as hitting meth in his hotel room and calling the police so he goes back in prison. These themes however won’t come into play until later on and Rita will stay as more of a disturbance (at least for what is perceived by the viewer) for the entirety of seasons one to three.

Season one is, more or less, the highest point Dexter ever reaches in terms of quality, storytelling expertise, captivating plot and character interaction organicity. These features will be mostly matched by season two and will start deteriorating greatly in season three.

Season Two

Although not as great as season one, season two manages to match its energy raising the stakes: if season one finale’s threatened Debra’s life, season two as a whole suspends our disbelief and threatens Dexter’s secret identity to be revealed.

As I’m more interested in the crime component, I can’t deny a lot of the drama-related events in the series feel to me as if they pollute the narrative of what’s actually happening, sometimes because season two itself portrays them as such. What matters is there is a balance and season two manages to respect that: the plot introduces Dexter’s disposal method (dumping heavy duty bags with body parts and rocks inside them) as the issue that is about to get him caught as Scuba divers discover the bags on the ocean floor. The situation brings in the FBI and special agent Frank Lundy is introduced as the hunt for the Bay Harbor Butcher begins. In the meanwhile, as Dexter disposed of Rita’s ex-husband without really planning it through and he dies in a prison fight, Rita concludes he is a drug addict and imposes he commits to a program to deal with it, or she will leave. This brings into play a crucial character for season two’s events (which will disappear at the end of it anyway): Lila, a sponsor from AA who takes Dexter under her wing as he realizes what he starts to call his “Dark Passenger” (which I think is a little cringe-worthy), his urge to kill is not too different from drug addiction. As the understanding between Dexter and Lila starts to strengthen their bond and as Rita becomes more and more suspicious about this she breaks up with Dexter, who gets in a relationship with his sponsor. Lila will be crucial later on as she will place the final piece to frame Doakes as the Bay Harbor Butcher, as well as briefly acting as the first “Unfortunate Companion” Dexter takes on.

There are a lot of different plays and chess-like moves that happen as Dexter tries to elude both Doakes and Lundy, but episode seven features perhaps one of the greatest scenes of the whole eight seasons: with Doakes at the height of his suspicions about Dexter, he confronts the latter in his lab which, finally revealing his true nature to the sergeant, provokes him and headbutts the man, then walking calmly through the station as Doakes runs after and tackles him. All of this happens after a series of events carefully devised by Dexter to discredit the man and make him look crazy and obsessed, ultimately fulfilling the killer’s goal as the sergeant gets kicked off the force. The point season two manages to get exactly right, perhaps more than any other “Dexter” season, is one of the things that make a great crime drama: when the pieces fall into place. It’s that satisfying moment in which what you though would happen ultimately happens, confirming your suspicions, or it doesn’t because of logical reasons you weren’t revealed or that initially seemed not to make sense: that character reveals itself someway else, or finally confirms a trend we’ve seen announced multiple times. Season two is likely the last great example of this, with Lila slowly revealing herself as the menace she always foreshadowed being, Doakes finding himself paying the price of his inquisitive crusades as Dexter shows his capabilities as the highly intelligent mastermind we witness playing the game expertly… After these great heights we will start walking through a more chaotic series of events, as the series shifts towards its drama component, the events portrayed happening no more as the results of a certain series of events, but rather as narrative devices exclusively finalized to making things go a certain way instead of another.

The finale culminates with Doakes, imprisoned by Dexter after confronting him, which location is discovered by Lila, who realizes Dexter is the Bay Harbor Butcher. After finding that out, Lila decides to burn the cabin down with Doakes in it, which ultimately gets found by the police and, the evidence pointing to him as the butcher, the case is closed. Lila attempts to kill Dexter and Rita’s children after she realizes Dexter has reconciled with Rita and has no intention of reciprocating her love, ultimately fleeing to Paris but getting found and killed by Dexter. At a certain point during Doakes’s captivity, it is revealed Harry didn’t die of heart failure but OD’d on his heart medications indicating he killed himself after realizing the monster he had created by teaching Dexter the code and how to get away with murder. While this won’t change much during this season, it will be fundamental later on, during season eight.

Although sometimes exaggerated by the need for certain things to happen, season two didn’t ever manage to make me say “bullshit” out loud while watching it, indicating the meaningful timeline and attention put into making the events organic with the storyline as a whole. We’ll soon find out this changed not too soon after.

Season Three

Here starts the beginning of the end as the season focuses on two main themes: Rita’s pregnancy along with Dexter trying to figure out if he wants to be a father to the baby, and Miguel Prado entering Dexter life to soon be turned into the second “Unfortunate Companion” the series has to offer. Season three also complete the establishment of a recurring narrative device appearing somewhere between season one and two and that we will suffer from up to “Dexter: New Blood” (the sequel to the original eight seasons): “ghosts”. Yes, you read that right, ghosts. Dexter will start seeing Harry as a voice in his head, with his figure appearing to him every now and then, supporting him and giving him directions of sorts. Harry will be replaced shortly by Brian somewhere during season seven, to come back at the end of the same episode, only to be definitively replaced by Debra in “Dexter: New Blood”. More on that later. I personally find it tedious, just a lazy way to portray Harry’s influence in Dexter’s life and the latter’s confusion and indecisiveness at times, also acting as the voice of reason, but it’s most certainly not the issue with season three or those following.

About Miguel: in an attempt to murder a known drug dealer, “Freebo”, Dexter involuntarily kills an unknown man who turns out to be the younger brother of Assistant District Attorney Miguel Prado and Sheriff Ramon Prado. Dexter manages to frame Freebo but start wondering about the necessity of his father’s code. Dexter later recognizes a skinned girl at a crime scene he’s working as Freebo’s girlfriend and manages to track the drug dealer down, ultimately killing him. Miguel, also after Freebo to avenge his brother, catches Dexter, who confesses to killing Freebo but says he only defended himself, managing to convince Miguel to leave. This however brings Miguel to inquire about Dexter after he directs him towards Ethan Turner, a man who has killed two of his wives and couldn’t manage to gather enough evidence to convict. After Turner turns dead, Miguel realizes what Dexter’s deal is and reveals he accepts and embraces it to him. The two start working together, with Miguel insisting to participate more and more until Dexter finally allows him to kill one of the victims they work on together, Billy Fleeter. In the meanwhile, more skinned bodies turn up, revealing there is another serial killer around, looking for Freebo. As Miguel starts working alone, killing his rival, defence attorney Ellen Wolf, he comes to a breakup with Dexter and finally puts the skinner, George King, against him. Dexter ultimately decides to kill Miguel but is finally captured by King and, as he is about to die by his hand, he manages to free himself so he can see his son being born and kills King.

What happens about Rita’s pregnancy can be summarized in an initial doubt Rita and Dexter share about keeping the baby, which ultimately divides them as Rita decides to keep it and Dexter is still unsure. Rita gives the main character a choice about being the baby’s father or not, which he dwells on for the entirety of the season, also pushed by Debra to do it, ultimately choosing to parent the child and marrying Rita.

While the events don’t necessarily differ from the previous seasons radically in their nature, although the stakes are much lower, the way in which they are portrayed is often confusing and apparently lacking continuity. One of the main aspects that contribute to the shortcomings is how the threats to Dexter’s identity are non-existent, only limited to Ramon’s arc, which is handled by the main character in a satisfactory, yet awfully quick fashion. What’s more is that the characters start to come apart from what we’re told their nature is and how we believe they should act and behave based on that. We see Dexter evolving in some ways, sure, but we also see him naïve and incautious, uncertain; we also see Rita switching to a completely different character, something that started in Season 2 but wasn’t as relevant. This “out of character” issue is one if many discrepancies that, in the name of apparent forward movement, are going to twist the spirit of the series a little, ultimately ruining it for most and bringing forward most of the trainwrecks that impacted the quality severely.

The inherent issue with Miguel’s whole self-conclusive arc is also about Dexter being unable to learn from his recent mistakes, which feels kind of preposterous considering the cold-blooded, rational individual he had been portrayed as up to this point. Even with her accidentally saving Dexter, Lila was a mistake and the main character himself lets us know he understood that both by making us conscious of his inner monologue, as well as killing her in the season finale, and she was a mistake specifically because no one can side with Dexter’s true nature without either overdoing or suffering from it. Lila and Miguel are the first examples, which I believe are a little back-to-back, but there will (sadly) be more on that later.

Season Four

Season four is a complete and utter trainwreck, for emotional reasons as well mind you, but it has certainly a few shortcomings if you ask me. This is likely the hottest take you’ll read, that will most certainly bring the hate of anyone else who watched the series, as it is almost unanimously accepted that Season Four is the best season. There are a few reasons why I personally dislike it, although I also would certainly rank it above Seasons Three and Six, but let’s work through it.

The season once again portrays two interlaced themes: Dexter’s life as a family man and the arc of that who is regarded as the series’ best villain, serial killer Arthur Mitchell, nicknamed “Trinity”. As it is too difficult to separate the course of events for the two themes, being as linked and necessary to one another as they are, I will try to be synthetic so I can spend a few more words on what didn’t quite sit right with me, rather than narrating something you can find on Season four’s Wikipedia page. In short, Dexter now lives with Rita and the three kids, Harrison (the new baby) included, in a new home, but it is unsatisfied with his American dream routine as he can’t focus on his work as blood spatter analyst, nor on taking care of his bloodthirst, as he his sleep deprived and unable to juggle all his new responsibilities. This will result in a car crash during his cleanup after a kill, which in turn will delight us with a whole episode spent on him working backwards as he is suffering amnesia and isn’t sure he properly hid the body. The series will then throw some garbage plot at us sprinkling with a couple relevant events such as the introduction of a fundamental (although insufferable) character, Christine. The plot rekindles on episode four’s conclusion when, after Lundy (the special FBI agent who investigated the Bay Harbor Butcher case) returned, now retired and around just to investigate a case the bureau had never let him pursue (Trinity’s), he and Debra are shot in a parking lot, killing the former and seriously injuring the latter, throwing our favourite girl in her first downward spiral and making us glimpse into the nearby future. More on that later. As Debra is recovering from being shot, she finds out that the angle of her wound suggests a killer shorter than Trinity and Trace evidence reveals Christine is Trinity’s child, who had been following Lundy around to protect her father, hence deciding to shoot Lundy and Debra when they got too close. Arthur and Christine meet up as she tries to elude the police, but the former rejects and insults her in a fit of rage for her messing up and bringing the police closer to him. This is unbearable for Christine and, after confessing to Debra, she kills herself.

Debra being shot brings Dexter investigating on Trinity himself, finding him almost immediately as usual, but being slowed down by the discovery, against everyone’s projections, that he has a loving family waiting for him at home. As this notion completely shatters Dexter’s belief that he is unique and reassures him on the doubts he had about balancing his two lives, with both being so high maintenance, the main character will take quite some time keeping Trinity close and trying to learn from him. What’s that? This will not go well you say? Well, that’s because everyone could foresee that keeping alive a serial killer and staying close to them while they are also being investigated by the police department you yourself work in surely sounds crazy and like something nobody would think of doing; but yet again, it’s not like our main character is supposed to be a cold-blooded calculator and mastermind with stronger investigative and intellectual skills than the average person. Oh, wait.

Slander aside, Dexter will keep gravitating around Mitchell for the rest of the season, contemporarily breaking Harry’s code by vetting a suspect too hastily and killing him before finding out he was innocent, this will bring him sharing some heart-to-heart moments with Trinity, ultimately even saving him when he meant to (randomly) kill himself. This will bring Dexter and the so-called best villain of the series closer and closer until the main character suddenly find out from Mitchell’s older son, Jonah, he is not the perfect family man he appears to be. Uncovering more and more of Trinity’s abusive behaviour towards his family, Dexter reaches a climax in episode nine, when he figures out how his family is just a decoy, a cover, and delights us (not sarcastically this time) with another gem of a scene which shows us the wildest and more animalistic side to Dexter as he finds himself spending Thanksgiving’s lunch with Mitchell’s family after Jonah’s cry for help. At this time things will escalate when the killer’s older son finally has enough of his father’s abusive behaviour and starts smashing stuff around the house, including Trinity’s late sister ashes urn, bringing Mitchell to a breakdown as he starts choking Jonah’s. This is where Dexter lets his dark side take over as he removes his belt and pulls Trinity by his neck to the other room, where he’s ready to kill him with a kitchen knife. Unfortunately, wife and daughter come rescuing him and Dexter desists and leaves.

I feel like this is the wrong ending to this scene for several reasons: first of all, although one could argue a severe case of Stockholm’s syndrome, why would the daughter that tried to seduce Dexter into running away with her (she is 15) because she gets locked in her room regularly and the wife who gets beaten try to save the man? Why would Dexter stop anyway? If the fit of rage he felt was enough to show Trinity the monster in him, why did he stop at just showing him he was dangerous? And most importantly, why does Harry’s ghost feel so compelled condemning and reprimanding him the moment right after if he’s going to praise a similar behaviour just twelve episodes later? After this we are left with a flustered and shaken Dexter who will appreciate the tranquillity of his own home and family as compared to Michell’s, before getting a visit from Trinity at his workplace, where the killer finds out his real identity and throws him off once again. The rest of the season is spent on Dexter pursuing Mitchell relentlessly until he saves a kid he is about to soak in concrete. At about the same time the police discover a similar body elsewhere and starts joining the dots, closing in on Trinity. Debra contemporarily derails the plot informing Dexter that Brian, the Ice Truck Killer from season one, was in fact his biological brother, unaware he knows already.

The season finale features a final plot twist as, after ultimately capturing and killing Trinity, who goes out rambling about God and religion in his final moments, effectively robbing us of a somewhat meaningful conclusion of his arc if not for what we are about to discover, Dexter comes back home and finds Harrison sitting in a pool of blood in the bathroom, where Rita lies lifeless and exsanguinated in the bathtub, exactly similar to Trinity’s M.O. for his female victims.

What likely brought many people enjoying this season so much is about Dexter fighting a villain that will take the most precious thing (for now) away from him, as well as representing some sort of mirror to him as an apparently perfect family man who also indulges in serial killing, as we’ll learn during the season with Dexter staying close and trying to learn from him, a fatal mistake. Others speak positively about how well characterized Trinity is as a villain and how good a choice John Lithgow was for the character.

The point is, while I may agree the intention behind Trinity’s representation is that of portraying him as Dexter’s best villain, I feel he has quite a few shortcomings. First, it shouldn’t be about who takes the most away from the main character, because we all should have to agree that Saxon is the best villain at that point, and I think nobody would like to do that (more on that later). Secondly, while the theme of Mitchell appearing as some sort of reference who Dexter tries to learn about in order to effectively deal with his own life is certainly entertaining at times and offers a few good plot devices, would it really sound like a good idea? Hasn’t Dexter learned, once per season at this point, he should (when applicable) dispose of dangerous people as soon as the danger they present arises?  Sometimes the main character sticking in its ways even in the face of learning they are flawed multiple times is a trope that works to keep things going in the main plot without having to change too much, and it would be fine if it weren’t that we see just two seasons later that Dexter is perfectly capable of learning from his mistakes and change everything. In fact, as the danger of getting caught as the Bay Harbor Butcher arises once again, we see he suddenly changes his kill room’s regular setup and stops taking blood slides, both known signature moves that identify the kills as the Bay Harbor Butcher’s. We never get explanations to this clearly, but it is evident the killer chose to renovate his ways to avoid getting caught, even with how important rituals are to him.

If these weren’t enough examples as to why I don’t think season four is identifiable as the best season, I could go on about how I think Arthur Mitchell is actually not that complex and well-characterised individual a good villain should be. The good villain you should hate and Trinity manages to be hated alright, seeing his death is “satisfying” as it is supposed to, but the good villain should also have qualities you can’t help but recognise as those of a strong opponent, or they will just feel as if they’re lucky. This is really all there is to a good villain: sure, there are other goods and bads that make the villain feel more like a complex character or, conversely, a cardboard cutout; but the main elements are those. The Joker, for example, is universally perceived as a good villain, yet he has no “real” motives, he also doesn’t have much of an explanation as to why some of his skills are developed as such, but he is extremely despisable at times and he has many capabilities which bring us towards feeling he is a worthy opponent, even making us feel he beat Batman for good reasons, when we obviously would want to see the main character win. Trinity doesn’t have any of these qualities when you think about it: he is represented as a mastermind who hides his traces and has managed to do that efficiently for years and to conceal his presence at countless crime scenes, yet not only we are not brought to believe that by anything else other than the main characters telling us that, but this representation is also discredited by the many absurdities we are presented with: I mean, Mitchell mauling a man with a hammer with not much more than a face shield and a plastic suit in a non-controlled environment? Him staying naked in the same fu***** bathtub as his victims? Come on! See, if a villain manages to successfully take something important away from the main character it should be because either the bad guy beats them in one of their strong suits or he is better in another department that turns useful for the specific situation. Dexter is both presented as a mastermind and, at times, a savage: Brian was a good villain because he beat the main character in leaving his wild side unchained when it is necessary; Lundy was a good villain because his moves felt on par with Dexter’s scheming and calculations, making the whole confrontation feel like a chess game. Mitchell evidently falls short on every of Dexter’s strong suits as he is clearly not a mastermind, although presented as one, nor as strong or powerful as the main character is. To give credit where credit is due, Trinity manages to beat Dexter in one department and one only, and it is what will cost Dexter one of his most burning defeats: he is ruthless, way more than Dexter had evolved to be in Season Four. This is not the problem in itself as it is common for villains to beat the main character thanks to their amorality, allowing them to exploit the protagonist’s kind heart even when closed in a corner in order to escape or regain their strength: philosophically speaking, those who have a moral sense have constraints, a theme that is often reminded to us throughout “Dexter” as he has to deal with wild animals by following certain guidelines. The issue is at the same time we’re always told Dexter wins in these situations, because even with the constraints he is presented with, he is the strongest among monsters. For some reason this falls short in season four and we are left with a villain that wins… well, he dies, but he wins as in he manages to take away something very important and valuable to the main character; a sort of “I’ve won, but at what cost?” situation. But the point he is able to do that for no apparent reason at all other than the writers wanted him to, at least for how the whole thing is portrayed. It also seems too random, there is no setup: yes, we’re told Trinity kills in cycles and after the boy (which he didn’t manage to kill anyway so why would he move on to the next victim?) a married woman with two children is up, but the whole thing seems forced even since we are shown Trinity looking for Dexter’s address at some point, but all he’s able to do is tracking down Debra’s (who now lives at Dexter’s old flat) and we’re shown explicitly that he finds no other name in the address book. Sure, these clues don’t mean he couldn’t have gotten to the address in any other way, but why derailing us with such cheap tricks if we’re not even going to be given an explanation as to why a man that the police is actively on the lookout for and, as far as we now, has never experienced being cornered by law enforcement and who is also the main target of the most successful serial killer out there, also coincidentally married to his victim, is able to ultimately complete a kill in the midst of all this mess. This is even more ridiculous if you compare season’s end Dexter to the season’s beginning counterpart, which immediately notices, vets and kills a child molester when he approaches Astor (Rita’s older child): the events happening during the season seem to suggest Mitchell is inherently better at doing what he does, since he doesn’t get killed instantly as soon as he becomes a threat, and yet we never really see any clue suggesting the reasons why that is.

The bottom line is that the whole thing feels forced and it also doesn’t make much sense when looked at analytically, which the show always conveyed as one of its first concerns: making sure things make sense. Not only that, but this seemed to start a dangerous pattern with Dexter getting outplayed just because people are… worse, if that is the right word, than he is and I think many spectators don’t see that this is one of the main reasons Season Eight also falls short of many expectations. That said, I don’t think Season Four is the worse either, but I sincerely don’t believe it deserves the credit people give it, especially compared to seasons One and Two.

Season Five

Season Five, although it offers some great moments, is inferior to Season Four and serves as the perfect appetizer for Season Six, we’ll see why.

While all the previous seasons offered two simultaneous and interlaced plotlines connecting to secondary events I’m mostly skipping over as that would multiply the number of pages of this already wordy article, Season Five focuses mostly on Dexter trying to recover from the devastating loss of his late wife, firstly through some not better specified disconnected “general grief” behaviours on the main character’s side, also introducing the dangerous precedent of Dexter killing a random person in a fit of rage, which feels appropriate to the moment, but it just feels weird this has no apparent consequence. Like, ever.

Anyway, the season takes off as soon as Dexter is given something to do with a Boyd Fowler, which he accidentally discovers to be involved in something greater than just himself when, after killing him in his usual fashion, he notices he has been watched by a woman held captive in the man’s home. After a little back and forth with Dexter playing nurse with her and the girl fighting back, we ultimately learn her name, Lumen, and that she was there as she was soon to be the latest to join the “Barrel Girls”, so called as the previous victims were stuffed in barrels, electrocuted and dumped in a ditch. She unveils the whole operation is actually handled by multiple people and, in an attempt to make right for Rita’s death, Dexter reluctantly decides to help Lumen when he finally sees in her the same need for killing he feels. Meanwhile, Astor and Cody, Rita’s children, will fight over moving out due to the older child break-up with Dexter and her considering his stepfather responsible for their mother’s death, ultimately winning over and setting off to live with their paternal grandparents in Orlando. As some sort of relationship establishes between Dexter and Lumen, a series of events will bring them through a path where they’ll eliminate multiple of Boyd’s associates and revealing celebrity Jordan Chase to be involved in the whole situation as well. Meanwhile, Debra will slowly start figure out there is a couple of vigilantes behind Chase’s associates mysterious disappearances, spending a few words on how they could be seen as the utmost expression of true love, in some twisted ways. 

At this point the season will bestow one of the best scenes in a while upon us, at the end of episode nine, when Dexter’s wild side shows once more: Astor will come back to the house with a friend of her, both drunk, running away from Orlando in a teenage escape and running into Lumen, over which the girl will ask several questions before finally making up with Dexter over the abusive boyfriend of her friend’s mother, Barry, who beats her regularly and strategically in places where it won’t show: this will set Astor’s stepfather off as he will meet with the man and beat the hell out of him while giving us a nice human anatomy lesson in how to beat someone so they will feel the worst kind of pain and fear possible in the process. This will be one of the few highlights of this season. The plot will be shortly derailed when Stan Liddy comes into play. Ex-narcotics detective, exonerated from the force in a sting and hired by Quinn to investigate Dexter after the man suspected him to have killed Rita, Liddy will slowly collect evidence over Dexter and Lumen’s activities, ultimately managing to shoot a video where the two speak about their next victim’s killing and kidnapping Dexter, hoping to make him confess so that he will be able to return to the force as a hero. Dexter obviously manages to escape and kill Liddy in the process, then disposing of all the evidence he collected.

The season finale features Lumen getting kidnapped by Chase as he is the last standing among his nice little group of serial rapists and killers, and Dexter will have to rescue her. With Debra also closing in on Chase, as law enforcement will not manage to track him down, she will use her intuition to get on the right path. As Chase manages to capture Dexter, threatening to kill both him and Lumen, the main character will free himself and stab Chase on the foot, finally letting Lumen do the killing. At this point, during the cleanup Debra will show up and close the two in a corner, but won’t reveal their identities as they stand behind a matte plastic screen and, believing there is good to what they are doing, she will leave them alone, leading the police to the scene only after they escaped so they can find the scene where the rape videos where shot and definitively prove Jordan Chase was involved in the whole situation. At last, Lumen will crush Dexter’s ideas of having a real relationship with her when she states her desire to kill has disappeared with Chase’s death, as it fulfilled its purpose and what she wants now is to go back home, leaving Dexter alone once again.

Season five commits no inherent sins that make it too bad, it’s rather a matter of being overall boring and having placeholder antagonists with no real motives or depth, serving only as a primer for some further developments with Dexter and Debra and giving out a few “brain candy” scenes such as Barry’s beating or Debra turning a blind eye to the vigilantes. 

Season Six

This is a turning point: Season Six really has no good, no nice, gut-wrenching scenes such as those offered by the first five seasons, more or less sporadically, aside from its finale which is really the only thing Season Six has to offer, aside from disappointment. Yet, worry not, as it’s not the worst of the worst: that title belongs soon after.

I’ll try to be quick with the events as there are once more no really interlacing themes here, it’s mostly all revolving around the specific case (which is unfortunately very boring too) and the show will break from it just to analyse Harrison’s life and Dexter worries about his son turning out like him (which at this point I think only serves as foreshadowing for the sequel, “Dexter: New Blood”). In short, Professor Gellar and Travis Marshall, master and student religious fanatics go around killing people to enact scenes from the Book of Revelation, Miami Metro investigates on it as Debra is promoted to Lieutenant and is shown struggling with both the shortcomings of her own professional skills and the new responsibilities and relationships that comes with the job. The police will mostly be obstructed by Dexter as he will hide and destroy evidence so he can have the two for himself, also in an attempt to protect Travis who initially appears to be the victim to Professor Gellar’s religious delusions and that he genuinely wants to help getting rid of his “Dark Passenger” as, differently from him, this one’s a real person. As he closes in on Gellar Dexter will soon find out he doesn’t exist: the professor had been killed years before by Travis himself, who schizophrenic deluded himself into being led by his mentor, who had turned him away when the young man first suggested they were the chosen ones to enact the Book of Revelation so that they can bring the world to an end. At this point Dexter will feel responsible for having saved Travis and will do his best to apprehend and kill him; getting sidetracked multiple times, he will eventually end up captured by Travis, unable to fight back due to the exposition to a toxic gas in a terrorist attack orchestrated by the religious maniac’s new associates (who end up dying fairly quickly).

The only interesting thing happening during the main events (which are far duller) is Debra attending a psychologist’s meetings to assess her suitability for the position, slowly uncovering more and more details about her personality and choices, and finding a mediator in her conflicted relationship with Dexter, only to realise she is in love with him. There is also a secondary theme about Jonah, Trinity’s older son, apparently killing his mother and sister and claiming it was his father (which Dexter obviously knows is impossible as he killed him); when confronted about this Jonah reveals Rebecca killed herself, unable to stand their mother self-pitiful behaviour, blaming the children for Arthur Mitchell running away and hoping in his return and, fed up with her too as well as blaming her for his sister killing herself, her older son murders her. As Dexter realises this, he leaves Jonah alone. This whole stint would actually be enjoyable if it weren’t that the show decided it should show Dexter’s emotionally unstable state by replacing Harry’s ghost with Brian for the episode, making Dexter act impulsively and, in the process of investigating what happened with Jonah, randomly killing another person (another prick, sure, but still), once again repeating the process in which a rando gets mauled or impaled or anything else carelessly and literally nothing happens in return.

The season finale features Lieutenant Debra Morgan trying a last effort to apprehend Marshall before he gets off the radar, with Travis himself trying to pull one last tableau, the sacrifice of an innocent, as he kidnaps Dexter’s son soon after trying to kill the main character. Revealing he’s still alive, Dexter convinces Travis to let his son go and tricks him into believing he injected himself with a tranquilizer, only to reveal he didn’t and apprehend Travis. As Debra instructed Dexter to make a final forensics report at the church where Marshall had been hiding all along, the killer chooses the location as his kill room for Travis to meet his demise and, as he deals the fatal blow to silence a long and useless blabbering about God, righteousness and paradise the fanatic gets into, the kill is witnessed by Debra, loudly gasping as Dexter frantically turns to her, shocked by the reality that was about to set in. This is the cliffhanger on which Season Six comes to an end.

This single scene and the lead up to it is the single good and useful thing this arc does, and I personally must admit I never believed the show would ultimately make Debra find out about her brother’s gruesome endeavours. The shock it deals even after a whole season of garbage is unparalleled and you’re left wondering what will happen next. This are the moments I’m grateful I didn’t have to wait almost a full year back in 2011 to find out how the whole thing turned out and these scenes are, in my opinion, the ones that really make a positive change and brings a story forward, especially considering how “Dexter” has the commendable quality of having next to no pure filler episodes (which has to be considered even with all faults we have examined up to this point.

Season Seven

Unfortunately, all that’s good has to come to an end and, after giving us the gut-wrenching moment we’ve been awaiting for six seasons, we are initially given what we want with a little side-tracking and a few plot twists here and there. Clearly, this is short-lived as Season Seven quickly manages to place itself as the worst of all, touching the lowest points “Dexter” is ever able to reach if you ask me.

If Season Six, even being snore-worthy, focuses on something and tries to do the best it can do of it, Season Seven similarly derails from the two interlaced themes but this time decides to do a million things without managing to get through just one successfully, even though a couple come as more interesting than what happened in Season Six, finale aside. As Season Seven is really chaotic and the paths it takes are pretty short-lived, I’ll try to summarise things as separate themes without focusing too much on the chronological order (which doesn’t matter at all anyway).

The first two episodes are good as they follow the interesting plot set off by Season Six’s finale: we are initially tricked into thinking Dexter is on the run as his secret has been uncovered as we see him rushing to the airport, trying to get gas and finding out his credit cards have all been cancelled. Then a fast backward brings us to the moment Debra finds out: Dexter manages to convince her this was all done in a hurry and without any planning at first, that Travis attacked him and he had to defend himself. In the initial confusion, Debra is persuaded into helping Dexter cover up the murder setting fire to the church; during the initial investigation, now-Captain LaGuerta finds a blood slide Dexter had taken and lost on the scene and starts getting suspicious about the whole situation, seeing the opportunity to clear late Sergeant Doakes’ reputation. During the case at hand, which will become relevant later, Debra continues getting visions of her time in Brian’s captivity, back at the end of Season One, remembering how the table was set the exact same way as Travis’ (Brian imitated Dexter) and she questions Dexter multiple times about the setup, the clothes, the weapon used and everything else that didn’t quite make sense to her. At the end of episode one we are greeted with yet another marvellous “Oh f***” scene as the door to Dexter’s apartment is opened with Debra sitting in front of his blood slides and knives all in full view over the coffee table. Leaving the cliffhanger, episode two immediately gets back at it when Dexter reveals to Debra that he is the true Bay Harbor Butcher, also telling her about Harry’s code and his need to kill.

There are three main themes during this season, one of which is the love interest Dexter develops for Hannah McKay, the ex-girlfriend and partner in crime to a murderer we get to know for two minutes at the beginning of the season when he suddenly kills himself while pretending to help the police to find the bodies of those he killed. In the same effort, the police ultimately contacts Hannah, who pretends to have taken a distance from the killings and to have never actually taken part in them. Dexter’s spatter analysis proves the contrary and he comes to some sort of perverse liking to the woman, keeping her close before asking her to go on a date out of the blue, in order to bring her to his table, only to then change course completely and sleeping with her in what feels like an absolutely random series of events. This is a recurring theme in the two’s (sadly) long-lived relationship, with an inexplicable force bringing Dexter towards Hannah for no apparent reason other than for the sake of the plot. The relationship between the two suddenly takes a turn for the worse after Hannah decides to poison Debra in an attempt to stop her from investigating her, which luckily results in a non-deadly car accident.  Dexter obviously doesn’t take this well and gives Debra a piece of evidence that links Hannah to one of her murders, which results in a conviction and jail time for the woman, who later manages to escape poisoning herself so she gets brought to a hospital during trial, running away while the nurses and police are distracted. This is, unfortunately, not the last we’ll see this uncharismatic, weak, useless character which for some reason becomes Dexter’s best girl. Whatever.

Episode one also sets the scene for two recurring secondary themes, the first being about Louis, a lab tech and Vincent Masuka’s intern, now in a relationship with Jamie (Sergeant Batista’s sister and Dexter’s nanny for Harrison), decides he want to ruin Dexter’s life as he told him his game about serial killers was a bad idea during Season Six and hacks in his computer to cancel his credit cards, explaining what happened when he was trying to get gas. As he confronts him, Louis reveals why he did what he did and Dexter tries to scare him off with no success, then going on to ruining Louis life in turn by making Jamie disgusted with him after leaking a video featuring Louis with a prostitute to her and bringing Masuka to fire him after he discovers Louis had obtained a stolen piece of evidence that could ruin the lab tech’s career and didn’t give it back when he had the opportunity. Louis will then exhaust his screentime after he is killed on Dexter’s boat, which he was trying to sabotage as payback, running into the Ukrainian mafia.

The Ukrainian mafia is the other secondary theme set in episode one when, after Mike Anderson (a transfer detective that lasts literally less than a season appearing in about episode two of Season Six) is shot and killed when he runs into a criminal, Viktor Baskov, covering up a prostitute’s murder. The prostitute victim is the first case we mentioned earlier, which Dexter will pursue ultimately killing the guy who shot Anderson. This will make an Isaak Sirko very unhappy as he was secretly Viktor’s lover, bringing him looking for Dexter to kill him. The two will make a lot of convoluted back and forth before finally temporarily allying when the brotherhood Sirko belongs to sends hitmen to kill him and Isaak kidnaps Hannah as leverage to force Dexter working with him: he collaborates, eliminating the hitmen, but Isaak ends up dead anyway and Hannah attacks and kills her jailer, ending up seriously wounded in the process as Debra rescues her in Dexter’s sake.

Back to Debra and Dexter, arguably the second main theme from this season, from episode one onward this topic will take the dullest approach possible, initially putting Debra on a mission of repressing Dexter’s impulses by keeping him under a 24h surveillance and later with her finally accepting the reality that her brother’s nature cannot be changed or suppressed as he gets rid of a heinous killer that justice is unable to apprehend. Debra will then get so weirdly comfortable with this reality she asks her brother to kill Hannah. Dexter refuses, which Debra initially comes to appreciate, before finding out the truth about her brother’s relationship with her. After a lot of back and forth between the siblings, the epilogue to this arc finally arrives with the culmination of the season’s third main theme: LaGuerta’s investigation. The captain manages to get the blood slide analysed and finds out the blood is from Travis, suggesting the Bay Harbor Butcher’s M.O., hence its continued activity. LaGuerta throws her idea at Debra who initially manages to sidetrack her and give up. Getting back at it, LaGuerta enlists the help of Tom Matthews, ex-deputy chief now resigned after a scandal LaGuerta herself brought upon him and recurring character which we’ve never spoken about since now because he is mostly irrelevant and only serves as a ploy to dig up stuff about Harry which he knew personally and which we’ll talk about later. Back to the captain, as she throws in the idea Dexter might be the Bay Harbor Butcher as she digs up evidence of him moving his boat away from a marina which was part of the original investigation, Matthews questions Dexter, getting nothing out of him also due to his scepticism about his involvement. Dexter and Debra then go on planting evidence that proves Doakes was the real killer and the case is closed once again. As a last effort to prove the truth, LaGuerta facilitates Hector Estrada’s release on parole, one of the three men who killed Dexter’s mother: this obviously brings Dexter on his path and Estrada on the former’s table. Upon realising this is a setup, Dexter runs, and Estrada manages to escape and survive for the time being.

This is where the season gives us one last “brain candy” scene before going straight to the train wreck the season finale is. The episode begins with Dexter getting arrested at his house by LaGuerta herself, who reads him the Miranda rights, for the murder of Hector Estrada. LaGuerta brings Dexter in for everyone to see and states he is the Bay Harbor Butcher. During questioning, LaGuerta seems to have the upper hand as Dexter’s alibi is he went fishing and in the garbage bags the captain photographed him with she found a shirt with Estrada’s blood on it. Dexter continues denying everything and LaGuerta scolds him about betraying her and the department while the mastermind at work discredits her, pointing to her need to show Doakes wasn’t a cold-blooded killer. The scene concludes with the revelation the shirt was, in reality, a piece of evidence back from Estrada’s first arrest in 1973, making it look like LaGuerta tried to frame Dexter and discrediting her for good. This is the kind of scenes we’ll miss in Season Eight and one last farewell to the Dexter I personally always liked as a character. The epilogue shows LaGuerta threatening Debra with other dug up evidence, a video from the gas station near the church that shows the lieutenant getting a can of gas, showing this is just the beginning. Dexter tries to stay calm, but upon breaking in LaGuerta’s home and discovering a warrant that will supply her with definitive evidence on Dexter and Debra being at the church the night it was burned down. Dexter then concludes the only way to make all go away is killing the captain and lures her to a shipping container using Estrada’s phone after he tracked him down and killed him, planning to make it look like they shot each other. Debra catches wind of this as neither LaGuerta nor Dexter are at Batista’s retirement and new year party, hurrying to the container as she finds Dexter about to shoot LaGuerta with Estrada’s gun. He stops him and the captain wakes up, pushing for her to put the killer down, who finally gives in and accepts his death, telling Debra to shoot him as well. Put in front of the impossible choice but forced to make up her mind, Debra ultimately fires her gun, killing captain LaGuerta. The gut-wrenching scene terminates with Dexter sister’s cries echoing in the container as everything fades to the main character’s monologue concluding the season.

Even with the few very good scenes it has, just to give credit where its due, Season Seven remains the lowest pit this show fell into as, opposed to Season Six’s crime of being extremely boring and uninteresting, it does too much and ends up mixing and matching too many themes just to ultimately be unable to give the proper space any of them could have deserved. This also sets the scene for Season Eight, which is a complete and utter s***show on which I agree with almost everything negative every other fan has ever said about it.

Season Eight

No introductions needed; this is the last straw that managed to finally sink “Dexter” for good. I’ll try not to focus on the events because they really don’t matter in the slightest and the characters introduced are both useless and insufferable, as well as what the main characters complete their transition into. The only positive aspects stem from the season’s efforts to portray an underlying theme comparing Dexter to other monster and psychopaths: a noble endeavour to highlight the enormous progress the writers want us to believe he has made as a person. It’s such a shame this won’t matter at all because at the end of the season the spectators won’t even care about that.

In the shortest I can about the developments: Debra doesn’t care about anything anymore and is desensitised and hates Dexter; she works in the private sector to avoid the guilt about LaGuerta’s death and currently spends her days doing coke with a guy she has to apprehend. Dexter’s life proceeds as normal when a new serial killer appears: The Brain Surgeon; a Doctor Evelyn Vogel is brought in as expert consultant, and we’re told she is an expert in psychopaths and serial killers. She seems a threat but suddenly she reveals to Dexter she knows about Harry’s code, and it is shown that she actually convinced the man to save Dexter and helped him develop the code itself. Vogel also reveals she suspects The Brain Surgeon is one of her previous patients and convinces Dexter to help her finding out who it is. The police’s investigations will at this point become completely irrelevant as Dexter goes about killing every suspect Vogel brought to his attention until exhausting the list and thinking they completed the task. At this point Debra will come into play when she tries to confess to LaGuerta’s murder, but Quinn intercepts her and, thinking she is on the brink of a mental breakdown, he calls Dexter who makes everything go away and entrusts Debra to Vogel so she can get better. Somewhere along the lines of “boring” and “what the f*** is happening”, Debra finds out what we know since Season Two about Harry killing himself and, in an unexpected turn of events, she tries killing herself and Dexter running the car out of the road in a ditch and Dexter on the verge of drowning. She then changes her mind and saves Dexter, which doesn’t exactly take the whole thing lightly (and rightly so, even though the show puts all its efforts into playing innocent). Dexter then gets on a Zach Hamilton’s tracks when he suspects he murdered the victim of a case he’s working but gets sidetracked as Vogel says she sees potential in him and, upon closer inspection, the main character does too, hence decides to take the boy under his wing. This idea is short-lived as, after some back and forth where Dexter believes Zach killed another innocent woman (but it turns out he didn’t) the latter is killed by the Brain Surgeon. At this time, it is also revealed Hannah McKay is back in Miami (what a nice surprise) when she drugs Debra and Dexter and dumps the latter in the middle of nowhere. After some Hannah playing the “I don’t want to have anything to do with you anymore” she reveals she actually meant to help Dexter kill her new rich husband as he is crazy obsessive and jealous of her, but she changed her mind. This is where the aforementioned husband will send some henchmen beating Dexter and attempt raping Hannah, which will wound him up dead. Dexter helps Hannah clean up and hide. Clearly the series doesn’t do the bare minimum for us starting to care about Hannah, so we’re done here. Back to more pressing matters, Dexter investigates on trace evidence finding out the Brain Surgeon is related to Vogel, and it is revealed she had a son who died a tragic death in a mental institution. Not so dead anymore, Daniel Vogel actually lives with the new identity of Oliver Saxon, boyfriend to the second dead girl who Dexter thought Zach had killed. With some FaceApp-a** old man filter Dexter somehow figures this out from a photo of young Daniel, and he starts looking for him with Vogel’s disapproval and request to desist from killing him. After eluding Vogel, Dexter lures The Brain Surgeon only to be outsmarted (random) and for him to meet Vogel, who convinces her son she didn’t send Dexter his way and starts protecting him. This will go south almost immediately when Vogel realises, she can’t help Daniel and Dexter ends up showing her the video of Zach’s killing. This for some reason changes the doctor’s mind completely and she helps Dexter take a shot at him, but the cardboard cutout villain understands what’s going on and kills Vogel. Dexter destroys the evidence of Harry and the creation of the code and calls the police on Evelyn’s murder, ultimately locating his hiding place. At the same time, Hannah is hunted down by the police and the private investigator for which Debra worked at the season’s beginning (which we don’t have time or care to go about) and Dexter decides he wants to run away and move to Argentina with her and Harrison. At this point Debra and Dexter work together to close in on Saxon and they manage to but Dexter gives up killing him and, as Debra is calling the police a rando detective going after Hannah (which was there because he suspected Debra was hiding her) falls into Daniel’s trap and frees him before getting killed. Debra shoots him but he escapes and shoots Debra in turn, which ends up in surgery. Dexter once again can’t escape with “the love of his life” and goes to the hospital to see his sister, ultimately deciding to entrust his son to Hannah so she can start the trip, planning to reach them later. Dexter goes back to the hospital and finds Saxon ready to kill Debra, but the police steps in apprehending Daniel; at this point we find out Debra has been moved to intensive care as a post-surgery stroke dealt a final blow on her, leaving her brain dead…

The series sends us off with one last commendable scene before all goes to sh**: Dexter meets Saxon in holdup for a gunshot residue test and reveals he feels responsible for his sister’s death and has shattered his last hope at having a happy life, then, as Saxon asks if he came just to tell him Dexter states his true intentions: that he will kill him with the pen he just put on the table. Saxon tries to stab him in the neck with the same pen but, waiting exactly on that move, Dexter moves out of the way, letting Daniel stab him in the shoulder, then punching him as he extracts then pen and uses it to pierce Vogel’s carotid artery and plastically throwing his dying body on the floor. Then, taking a moment to compose himself and admire his work, Dexter apathetically pushes the panic button then pretending he is in shock. Back at the police station we are greeted with what in my opinion is the best part of this scene when Batista and Quinn question Dexter about what happened: Batista wonders why he was there and Dexter explains he wanted everything done by the book with no mistakes and, most importantly, he “wanted to look him in the eye”. At this point, the main character isn’t really trying to conceal his intentions anymore and what tops this scene off is Quinn going on to say that “it’s obviously self-defense”, to which Batista agrees and says they got everything they need, indirectly saying they can close the case without incriminating Dexter. Quinn ultimately closes this gem off stating how he’s “glad he’s dead” and that he wished he could have done it himself, Batista silently nodding.

I think what makes this scene so great is how it portrays what the whole series is about, the fact that nothing is so black and white, that even axioms apparently as steadfast and unshakable as “Killing is wrong” can twist their meaning in such complex situations and that the conception for which the sacrality of human life is untouchable crumbles in the face of such wickedness. Unfortunately for this beautiful theme, this is the closest the season gets to it and the greatest representation of it the series finale has to offer.

The 96th episode of “Dexter” concludes with Dexter shutting off Debra’s life support to drive her out at sea and dropping her body in the water, before calling Hannah and Harrison one last time to ensure they’re on the right track, before ditching his phone and driving in the hurricane, killing himself. Hannah reads about his death in Buenos Aires a few days later and accompanies Harrison getting ice cream. Finally, during the last scene, Dexter is seen working for a lumber company in Oregon under a new identity, making us understand he faked his death, even while we don’t even begin to understand how he did that (although it doesn’t really matter much).

I believe it is clear why I, on par with the majority of other fans, hated this ending and how rushed it felt, sweeping a lot of stuff under the rug in the sake of giving us another few minutes of precious Hannah McKay’s screen time nobody cared about in the slightest (I originally wanted to tell exact figures but I won’t spend as much time as actually timing Hannah scenes in season 8 just for the sake of this). Aside from being rushed it also gives an okay epilogue to a villain that feels like a cardboard cutout (uncharismatic, uninteresting, dull, boring, useless and predictable) and two fundamental characters, including the protagonist itself, a s*** sendoff bestowing upon one self-imposed isolation and the other death by “I don’t know what the f*** happened but she’s brain dead now okay?”. I mean, what is that? Furthermore, it is even more aggravating how the whole season actually has underlying themes that make it alright plot-wise, but the path the writer took to these developments are absolute garbage. I’ve read the rushing might have been Showtime’s (the network and producer) fault, but the other shortcomings I really can’t fathom not being the writers’ (or the source material’s?) mistake.

Final Considerations

I think it is obvious this is a great show and, even with all its shortcomings in the later seasons, it still holds the candle to many contemporary crime dramas and doesn’t ever feel too old (although being first aired almost ten years back at this point).

The issue we must address at this point is how poorly some choices were made, how unsatisfying the series manages to be. We see Dexter evolving in order to become a real person, not just a cover life to a “well-intentioned” serial killer’s work, but we are left with him throwing everything in the garbage, his so-precious son included after he spent so many words on how much the kid matters to him, just to leave him in the hands of ms. Rando that didn’t exist prior to few episodes ago for the following reasons: ???. We witness the enormous changes in Debra, turning from cursed-words-type-of-fun sidekick to upholder of justice and moral compass, holder of values and resilience, to bitchy cry-baby to PTSD traumatised woman working to recover to finally resolving her issues and accepting reality as it is just for the show to throw an ENORMOUS middle finger at her and leaving her brain dead just because (really “just because” since a stroke following general surgery happens in 2.9% of cases at best).

We see a ton of space given to a character we’re never really told why we should be interested in (Hannah McKay) who ultimately becomes fundamental for God knows which reasons and we see Rita forgotten and never to be seen again after her death, only to get bestowed with MULTIPLE precious sergeant Doakes’ flashbacks in Season Seven’s finale.

We also see the writers (and Dexter with them) clearly unable to make up their mind about Harry, continuously revealing b***s*** about his past choices to discredit him and turning him into the bad guy just to then make Dexter understand that, in the end, he was just trying his best. Seriously, this man either was the only sane one around or he was completely unhinged, I really can’t tell: we go from seeing him as this divine landmark in Dexter’s life just for his image to be bullied as soon as we discover anything from the past such as him lying to Dexter about his parents, his mother, his brother, his life, the reasons why he saved him, the code and about his own death too apparently; with Dexter alternating between rebelling against him and the li(f)e he had chosen for him and told him was the best he could have (it’s a little late, bud) and re-evaluating him as soon as he decides there was actually some truth in what he taught him.

We also witness how little the show really cares about all the rest of the cast who is just a placeholder at this point, but then we get hit with endless hours of Joey Quinn’s romantic relationships developments for any reason we’re clearly not in the know about.

The point is really about how show simply doesn’t seem to care about its roots anymore: I believe what made it likeable at first was Dexter’s character (duh) and how his calculations, his cold-blooded ruthlessness and his intelligence made him the perfect blend: purposefully indulging and engaging in doing something intrinsically wrong because that’s who you are, but channelling it into something arguably positive for society because you’ve been taught better. It’s somehow a perfect metaphor about life in general and living each with their own little dark secrets, a show of humanity with its imperfections, which is also what Season Eight desperately holds by its teeth onto (without truly managing to portray it accurately though). Hell, even the writers aren’t sure about what Dexter feels anymore when, during Season Seven’s back and forth between Debra and Dexter about him being a killer, Dexter throws something like “I’m just taking out the garbage” at us. Oh, so now it’s about that, didn’t seem like that two episodes ago, won’t seem like it next episode anyway. What would have been good would have been Dexter owning up to it, embracing it truly (as he says he has multiple times with no real match afterwards) or, alternatively, showing himself torn between his need to kill and his knowledge that his makes him a monster (another thing he says multiple times, again with no real feedback afterwards). Rather we see him indecisive about this, one time he’s proud the next he can’t live with himself and these are the reasons that make this ending even more unclear, because how can you imagine what the right ending for a certain character is if you can’t even imagine what he thinks about himself? A good ending for “proud monster” Dexter Morgan would have been to finally own up his crimes and facing justice (something the showrunners will never do, although I don’t want to hear justifications about “that way they couldn’t have continued the show” because it could have been fairly easily to reinvent it in a spin-off with Dexter consulting law enforcement from prison and maybe it would have actually given a refresher to the series as a whole). Killing himself perhaps would have been the right ending for “victim of his desires” Dexter, maybe in a different fashion than throwing himself in a friggin’ hurricane with his boat after throwing his deceased sister in the ocean.

These are my two cents on Dexter, a series which I loved and captivated me, holding me prisoner until its last episode, now unable to take it out of my mind to the point I decided to write this. I mean, what the hell.

If you read up to this point I should feel thankful someone didn’t turn into a serial killer just by reading twenty pages of my rants and you should feel free to comment to tell me your take about it or even just to say how I’m wrong about everything and I don’t know what I’m talking about, feel free to do that too (it won’t make either me or you any more correct at all anyway).

Have a nice one everybody.