Final Cut

Last night brought the series finale of the long-running Showtime hit Dexter. In its run to the finish, many critics have been comparing it to Breaking Bad... and have generally found it wanting. Both shows have focused around dark protagonists, but where Breaking Bad has never dropped in quality (and has been better than ever in its breathtaking final episodes), Dexter has had a roller coaster ride over the years: great seasons followed by mediocre ones, recoveries and collapses.

I'd been hoping Dexter would punch out strong, but the very uneven season eight didn't seem encouraging. I suppose my complaint about this season, in a nutshell, is that it didn't feel in any way like it was building to a series finale. It seemed like just another business-as-usual season for Dexter, introducing a new Big Bad for the year, and seeding the supporting cast with spotty subplots. After all this time, I suppose I was expecting a real hits-the-fan season where Dexter's carefully constructed life begins to unravel around him. The writers have said in interviews that they chose not to go that route, feeling it had been covered thoroughly in season 2 (the series' best year, in my opinion) and season 7. A reasonable point, I suppose...

...but the direction they chose was to largely copy season 4 instead. That year, often cited as a fan favorite, featured Dexter's encounter with the Trinity Killer, played memorably by John Lithgow. Season 8 seemed like the pale shadow of the same major plot points. Dexter encounters another killer who has successfully masqueraded as human, who is desperately looking to hold on to a family connection. At the same time, Dexter is also grappling with whether he can have family connections in his life. And ultimately, Dexter's failure to dispatch his rival in a timely manner causes a woman in his life to pay the ultimate price.

Been there. Done that.

I wouldn't quite savage the series finale in the way many fans and critics have done online in the past 24 hours. But it was very seriously flawed. I suppose I can understand the writers' instinct not to "let Dexter off the hook" by having him killed or captured. And yet if the point is supposed to be that Dexter is withdrawing from his life to save the people in it, I hardly find it reassuring to think about how messed up young Harrison is sure to be as he grows -- having lost both parents to be raised by a mostly unwilling, murdering surrogate, on the run from the law.

I suppose I can understand the infatuation the writers must have had with the idea to have Dexter kill Deb in the series finale. (As an act of love!) But given that Deb spent much of the season dealing with thoughts of suicide, it didn't seem entirely impossible that some part of her might have actually welcomed her fate.

Add to that a lot of things about the final episode (and season) that can't easily be understood (Will Hannah just dye her damn hair? Why does Saxon need to hang around and kill Deb?), and the finale comes off sadly muddled. Glimpses of what they were going for showed through here and there, but mostly, my takeaway from Dexter is the memory of how good the show was at its best. Which I guess has kind of been a while.

So long, Dexter.