The new Dexter finale should do these 5 things
Randy Tepper/Showtime Jennifer Carpenter and Michael C. Hall on 'Dexter'
Last year, Martin Scorsese told EW that once you finish making a piece of pop culture art, you should step away from it and leave it alone forever — don't tinker with it by adding deleted scenes and alternate endings and so forth; that there should be a definitive version of art, and flaws are part of that. Scorsese is correct — except for titles so irredeemably crappy that they justify breaking their hermetically sealed story universe and giving them another shot because, really, why the hell not? Films like Justice League (which is getting a Zack Snyder director's cut on HBO Max next year) and the final season of Dexter seem like fair game.
I specifically say "final season" not "finale" because when people talk about Dexter's ending in 2013, they tend to overly focus on the last episode. But the entire season 8 was deeply terrible, and seasons 6 and 7 were pretty bad too. The final season's biggest sin was that nothing about the season signaled that the end of the show was approaching. The show casually spun its wheels right up until it made several huge moves in its last hour.
In other words: Dexter utterly blew the opportunity to ratchet up the drama, leaving its finale to do all the heavy lifting. It was as if the show was in denial that it was actually concluding (and might have been, given there was talk of spin-off at the time). When I first watched the sober, contemplative finale of Dexter, I actually thought it played like the show's best episode in years – not because it was a great ending or made much sense, but because the episodes leading up to it were so incredibly dull, frustrating, and populated by inconsequential storylines — things like Vince Masuka (C.S. Lee) seeking out his biological daughter and Joey Quinn (Desmond Harrington) struggling to pass the sergeant's exam. The final season was outright allergic to high stakes. As one EW recap reader joked at the time: If the final season of Breaking Bad had been written by Dexter writers, half an episode would have been spent on Steve Gomez thinking about starting a restaurant.
So the good news for Phillips is that the bar is low and the previous final season left a lot on the table to work with, even with the untimely death of Debra (Jennifer Carpenter). Here are five things the new final season can (and ideally should) do:
Dexter must be exposed. The biggest blunder of the final season was that the massive dramatic potential of Morgan's friends and colleagues learning the truth about him was never tapped (beyond some mild suspicion). From the show's first episode, viewers were teased with the setup that Morgan was a serial killer hiding in plain sight while working at the Miami Metro Police Department. Time and time again, Morgan was threatened with exposure and figured out some clever way to protect his secret. The setup of Dexter was like that of The Shield and Breaking Bad; criminal anti-hero protagonists living a lie. But while the final seasons of The Shield and Breaking Bad squeezed Vic Mackey and Walter White being exposed for their crimes for every last ounce of dramatic potential, Dexter had Morgan rather breezily interacting with several insignificant new characters rather than coming into dramatic conflict with the rest of the core cast. For years, fans wondered how Morgan's colleagues would react to the truth and they never found out. It's a shoe fans spent eight seasons waiting to drop and it never did.
Recapture the original tone. Seasons 7 and 8 were silly and nonsensical and took all sorts of leaps and liberties that didn't make any sense. Yet the finale itself had entirely the opposite tone – it was grave and serious-minded. I actually preferred the tone of the finale, because at least it felt like the show was trying to be something better and making major story moves. But none of these episodes were like the show at its peak, which was a quality drama with a darkly comedic voice. It's a tricky balancing act to get this tone just right.
Focus Dexter on Dexter. The final season of Dexter introduced gobs of new characters (remember The Brain Surgeon? Evelyn Vogel? U.S. Marshal Clayton?). Granted, the show typically has at least one Big Bad at any given time to give Dex a target and to throw his character into sharp relief -- see, the hero is not so bad, because there's another killer who's far worse. The final season will probably do the same, and given that Phillips brought us John Lithgow's Trinity Killer, he clearly knows how to make a compelling villain. But hopefully, the episodes won't get sidetracked and drown out its star and core cast.
Switch Ghost Dad with Ghost Sis. Morgan used to commune with the memory of his dearly departed father as if he were alive and right there in the room. That device was exhausted by the end of the series, but it does present an opportunity for the new season: Instead of Morgan envisioning his dad, now have him envision his sister, Debra, who perished in the finale. Her sardonic idealism was a counterbalance to Dexter and this would be a way of getting that character into the new episodes without breaking canon (such that it is) and would actually fit the show's format.
Nail the finale. Phillips faces the same challenge David Chase had over ending The Sopranos, Shawn Ryan had ending The Shield, and Vince Gilligan had ending Breaking Bad. As Chase put it: "As we know famously from gangsters, they always say there are only two ways to get out of this: one's jail, the other's dead." Chase opted for Option C – not telling the viewer what happened. Dexter also opted for an Option C. You might hate the exiled lumberjack ending, but at least it's something that not one of the show's millions of fans could have possibly predicted. Phillips likewise probably doesn't want to pick one of the two obvious endings, but also doesn't want to choose something ridiculous either. One thing is certain: While some fans will likely still hate it, it will probably pull off a better conclusion than season 8.
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