Dexter finale thoughts?

I don't watch, but AV Club gave the finale an F, which is quite rare for them.

 

They addressed Rita's first husband. He was killed, like most everyone else who ever appeared on this show. The children were boring, and the writers had no idea how to change that, and so they sent them to Orlando (which is almost as good as sending them on a trip to Belize).

One of many problems this show had was that, other than Dexter, none of the characters were very interesting. As in, none. Nobody gave a damn about Batista's stupid restaurant, or LaGuerta's move up the police ladder, or Masuka's daughter, or absolutely anything about Quinn. Debra was annoying and terribly acted. The writers tried to solve every problem by killing someone, and that's just lazy, and by introducing way too many villains, hoping that one of them would accidentally be interesting.

It's amazing how bad this show became after season 4. It was terrific for three of the first four seasons, and then it was just an utter embarrassment the last four. You'd think the staff could've mustered some energy for a decent final season or even the finale, but nope. I hope the writers and show runner(s) and producers made a ton of money the last few years, because they sure sold us some god-awful television.

 

I'm still too mad about it to rationally discuss it. But the way they just gave up on the characters they created, starting last season with Deb, pissed me off to no end.

 

I love that you ask that question and I'm able to watch the tsunami .gif in your sig at the same time.

 

I don't disagree with your overall point, but apparently in the books, the kids each have their own "dark passengers" and Dexter becomes a mentor to them, teaching them The Code, etc.

That could've been an interesting avenue to go down.

 

The writers had zero idea how to handle any of the three kids on the show post-Rita dying (save a couple episodes of teen rebellion from Astor). Sending the two step kids off to grandma and grandpa was a necessary euthanasia for their characters.

The number of nights Dexter spent out on the town in his brown "killing shirt" and not home with his young son the last couple of seasons bordered on the ludicrous.

Dexter was also ridiculously poor at his job. He'd contaminate or lose evidence (in order to cover up his own murders and misdeeds)... Did Angel ever come back and say, "Why in the fuck do we never have blood evidence to find some killers?"

Miami Metro should have been shut down for incompetence.

 

Two thoughts.

First, I'm usually of the mind that if you don't like the way a story ends, you're perfectly welcome to create your own story and end it whatever way you like. That said, the leap from boating into a hurricane to becoming a lumberjack is pretty unacceptable. The show's creators have every right to go that route if they choose, but some explanation as to how he got from point hurricane to point lumberjack is desperately needed. Show me how he did it, and I can accept it.

Having not read the books (and not planning to), I'm compelled to ask: Did Jeff Lindsay go with the lumberjack ending?

 

I was referring to her first husband, the one she married at 16 and quickly divorced. It was revealed to Dexter at some point and seemed like it might make for a juicy plot point at some time, but it never went anywhere at all, like it was just some useless piece of trivia about a character. If we were to learn a former president had been married and quickly divorced at age 16, that would be a cool piece of trivia. To learn it about a made-up TV character and have it be a fact that goes nowhere is pointless.

 

I don't expect or even want an explanation for everything.
What I want and expect is a pretense of credibility and logic that is consistent within the world created. That is what the show did not do through the past two seasons in particular.
Very disappointing.

 

Moreso than the plot, bad as its been, was the dramatic shift in the characterization of Dexter. He wasn't trying to fit in with his cover life anymore, he became this normal guy who is "sort of maybe but not really but we're really sure" is sociopath. I feel like you have to be all in with that....and they were the first 4+ seasons and that's what made the show great.

 

Dexter caught on the cusp between conceptual emotion and genuine emotion has been key to some of the show's best moments. That is really what made the show interesting to me, glimpsing the possibility that there is no difference. Dexter's rational choice to consistently demonstrate loyalty or love are no different than someone else's 'true' feelings of loyalty and love. Perhaps we all just choose these emotions at some level.

The fact that Dexter became almost addicted to his conceptual emotions was also interesting to me. His 'faux' emotions caused him to make poor decisions, like a drug addict makes poor decisions.

I liked a lot of that stuff, but at a certain point Dexter's actions and choices began to get wildly irrational. That was disappointing. Handled better, his move from murderous compulsion to emotional compulsion could have been compelling. Instead it was ham-fisted.

 

I know it's cliche, but I'd almost rather the happy ending than what we got. You know, the one where Dexter's emotions came out and he cast off his dark passenger and made a life with Hannah and Harrison. The one where Deb catches Saxon, is promoted to Deputy Chief as Angel rides off into the sunset and runs his restaurant. The one where Deb and Joey get married, have little Deb and Joeys.

It would have been predictable and cliche, but better than Dexter dies, but doesn't, in a hurricane and comes back as a lumberjack.