Dexter Series Finale
by Oliver Layco
The dark passenger that is Dexter has finally left fans of the hit TV show for good. Now before I start, it should be safe to assume that there will be spoilers aplenty for those who aren’t caught up with the entire series. Without further ado, what the hell?!?! As the episode went on, and especially those last few scenes, that was all that was going through my head; maybe with language more suitable for Deb, but for our sake I’ll leave it a little restrained. As a whole, the episode was fairly mediocre and was kinda jumpy for my taste. Dexter (Michael C. Hall) had a chance to escape with Hannah (Yvonne Strahovski) and his son Harrison (Jadon Wells) to Argentina. They barely get to the airport before having to create a different plan because of Elway (Sean Patrick Flanery). Meanwhile, Deb (Jennifer Carpenter) was shot by Saxson (Darri Ingolfsson) and was on her way to the hospital for surgery. I had a feeling they would kill off a major character and I honestly wasn’t surprised it was Deb. However, I thought she deserved a better send off than this. I expected a crazy gun fight and Dexter would hold her in his hands as she bled out. That would then fuel his crazy vengeance against Saxson and they would have a final showdown. Instead, we are treated to a stare down between the two characters and the fight is fairly anticlimactic. Dexter gets stabbed in the shoulder and he retaliates with stabbing Saxson in the neck until he bleeds out. Now this was all recorded on film and somehow they think they’ll get away with self defense for him. Let me rewind a bit as well, during this whole fight with Saxson, Dexter left Harrison with Hannah to go on a bus to Jacksonville; he left them at that point because he felt like he had to finish off Saxson. Elway would then catch her on the bus, but Hannah would inject him with tranquilizer so the pair of them could escape. Personally, I wouldn’t want to leave my son and a woman that I wanted to start a new life with. Then that closing scene wasn’t anything I expected. First off, after Dexter decides to pull the plug on Deb that was straw number 1. Yes I understand he was in a tight spot, but at least give it a day or so before ultimately making that choice. Next, he decides to roll her out on the hospital bed, carry her corpse off the bed and onto his boat. Now, I understand there’s a hurricane going on and the hospital staff is trying to figure out how to transfer all their patients to safety, but there’s no way he would be able to transfer his sister’s body to his boat without being noticed. After that, he promptly drives his Slice of Life farther out into the ocean, and then dumps her body over. This is still unclear to me as to why he thought dumping her body in the ocean would be a good idea. He then proceeds to drive into the hurricane to presumably kill himself! Now that would have completely ruined it for me and I would have raged harder, but they decided to pull a Batman and he somehow escaped driving into the storm. This left Hannah a single mother with Harrison in Argentina confused and scared about what was ahead of her. At first viewing, I was disappointed that they couldn’t let Dexter be happy. But then I realized Dexter was never truly happy no matter how he tried; there was Lila but she turned out crazy, Rita was murdered, Lumen was one and done, and he’s been hurting Deb his whole life. He had to give up his happiness out of his fear that trouble will always follow him and Hannah and Harrison would end up hurt. Also, they probably wanted to leave the door open for a spin-off series or even a continuation. It’s obvious a show of this magnitude isn’t going to be fantastic for its entirety. Personally, Season 2 with the Bay Harbor Butcher and Sergeant Doakes was my favorite season. I actually was hoping that’s how the last season would have gone. Dexter would be on the run again and his friends, and Deb especially, would be conflicted in trying to chase him down. It even seemed like they would go that route with how Season 5 ended and Dexter was almost discovered by Deb. Needless to say, there is much that I would have liked to see done differently this season; especially with the finale. But it was still semi-enjoyable once I looked back on everything that has happened through the seasons. The Dark Passenger has left my side and now I must fill that void.