They can’t all be killer: In defense of Dexter’s final seasons
There's a lot to like about the later seasons of Michael C. Hall's signature Showtime series—if you can overlook the bad
TV Features Dexter
When Dexter aired its then-final episode in September 2013, a wave of scorn washed over the entire series. Ever since season six had earned the mockery of fans and critics alike with its poor handling of “The Doomsday Killers”—one of whom turned out to be a hallucination in the form of Edward James Olmos—a drumbeat of negative reactions to the once-beloved show had steadily increased. And once it was over, it was as though permission to fully turn on Dexter had been granted. Hey everyone, went the general consensus, this shit sucked.
Yet, as with any long-running form of media, the irritating contrarian voice will eventually arrive to say, “Yes, but…” In the case of Dexter, it turns out that irritating contrarian is me. I finished Dexter in 2013 with the sadness of a parent watching their once-honor roll student end up working for Glenn Beck. But when I revisited the series last year for a TV Club 10 feature highlighting the breadth of what the show represented, I found myself with a newfound appreciation for elements of those last few seasons—interesting and compelling creative babies thrown out with the conceptual bathwater.
Let’s be clear: This is no wholesale argument that the last few seasons of Dexter make up some misunderstood masterpiece, or even a misguided but feasible claim that the final years “are good, actually.” They’re rightly seen as subpar, but to take a closer look at the most maligned seasons of the series is to gain a better respect for the things it did right—especially in contrast to the many things it did wrong.
The final Dexter seasons: Still a failure of storytelling
Before looking at those strengths, it’s important to acknowledge that there was no bigger failure during Dexter’s waning days than the storytelling itself. Structurally and conceptually, seasons six through eight were a morass of inconsistent characterization, unintelligent plotting (exemplified in a police force that increasingly couldn’t seem to find its own ass, let alone bad guys), and turning disturbed narcissist Dexter Morgan into, in critic Emily VanDerWerff’s words, “your friendly neighborhood serial killer.” Even the finale refused to risk turning its audience against Dexter in even the most minor of ways. When his sister Deb dies of a gunshot wound directly due to his selfishness, she ends up apologizing to him.
It’s hard not to attribute this downturn in quality to showrunner Scott Buck, a writer since season two, who took the reins in the sixth season and oversaw the muddying of Dexter’s motivations. He reduced even the series-long arc of Dexter’s journey to becoming someone capable of love to juvenile hogwash, having Dexter abandon his own son in the final minutes with the ill-considered idiocy of a child breaking his own toy rather than letting another borrow it. (Buck has since gone on to become the epitome of the middling white guy who fails upward, disastrously showrunning Marvel’s Iron Fist, and yet somehow being handed the reins of yet another Marvel property, Inhumans, only to screw that up even worse.) The Dexter who began the series was light years smarter and more considered than the nitwit at the end.
It’s not difficult to find the bad in these later years. Hell, it’s as prevalent as the convenient repeated brushes with murderers that no one seems to notice happen to Dexter an awful lot. So let’s take a look at the things that, even in the face of a showrunner and creative team seemingly bound and determined to do them in, managed to shine.
Michael C. Hall remains excellent throughout
Even in its better early years, Dexter often felt like an A-level star performance surrounded by a B-team supporting cast. And if there’s any baling wire holding together the messy sprawl of the final seasons, it’s Michael C. Hall’s performance. He continually manages to inject plausibility and nuance into even the most ludicrous of Dexter’s behavior, making laughable dialogue moments feel soulful. Take season six’s “Get Gellar,” arguably the low-water mark for the series (at least, until the finale); during a scene of police doing their damndest to sound dumber than his toddler son, Hall retains his character’s gravitas.
Given what he’s surrounded by, that’s not nothing. Jennifer Carpenter likewise brought some depth to these later years. Since her Deb began life as a fairly one-note cartoon of profanity and hyperactive pep, it was impressive to see Carpenter invest some heft to the silliness of the show’s nadir moments.
Dexter season five gets a bad rap—as does (gasp!) seven
Look, nothing was going to match the high-water mark of season four, with John Lithgow’s Arthur Mitchell/Trinity Killer and that gut-punch ending leaving an indelible image in viewers’ minds. It was unlikely that anything coming after could measure up in the eyes of Dexter fans.
But season five seems to have become a victim of retrospective restructuring. With eight seasons—the best being the fourth—it’s simple and tidy to just divide the series in half, with the good stuff coming in front and the bad bringing up the rear. Rather than (appropriately) being lumped together with Dexter’s better years, the fifth season’s been stained with the mark of the Buck years. Which is too bad, because in nearly every way, season five is as good as season three, if not its immediate antecedent.
The pairing of Dexter Morgan and Julia Stiles’ Lumen Pierce made for compelling storytelling: Pairing him with a survivor of rape and torture—in other words, someone who actually has the best claim to “justice killing” of anyone Dexter’s ever known—allowed the series to once again delve into the intriguing moral ambiguity that later seasons more or less abandoned. Tightly plotted with excellent performances, it once again delivered the ticking-clock suspense on which the show made its bones. Plus, it was maybe the last time a season of Dexter drilled down on an ongoing arc without forgetting to make individual episodes pop on their own.
And season seven—coming smack dab between the two worst seasons of the series—may have sputtered out into a milquetoast villain and a bad rewriting of the character’s motivations, but the first half of it was absolutely crackerjack television. It’s very much up for debate whether a show fumbling the landing effectively negates the good that came before, but a TV series isn’t a movie. The overall whole still has stand-alone component parts. And the early parts of seven are solid. Admittedly, that’s partially thanks to one major reason…
Dexter’s final major guest stars were among the series’ best
Ray Stevenson was an absolute behemoth on season seven of Dexter. In a just world, he’d be ranked up there alongside Lithgow and Jimmy Smits as the show’s best antagonists. Unfortunately, two things ended up working against his magnetic portrayal of Isaak Sirko, the Ukrainian mob boss whose intensely personal reason for wanting to see Dexter Morgan suffer ended up costing him everything. First, as mentioned above, the season spun out into stupidity, casting a negative pall over the strong beginning, including most of Stevenson’s best work. And second, the show made the inexplicable move of swapping out Stevenson’s Isaak for the generic and unengaging “Phantom Arsonist” storyline. After his death in episode nine, there was no compelling villain left.
Similarly, Charlotte Rampling came on board for the final season and brought a wonderfully new angle to the long-running “psychology of Dexter” element to the show. Unlike Dexter’s increasingly wheezy and obvious discussions with Ghost Dad (a.k.a. his dead father, played by James Remar), Dr. Evelyn Vogel was actually an outside observer who brought fresh eyes and ideas to the question of Dexter’s need to kill. And along with that infusion of new character-study potency came Rampling’s performance. It’s redundant to say that the English actor is good at her job, but still, she brings a gravitas and weight to her scenes that elevate the material.
And despite the general antipathy toward her character, I’d be remiss to not acknowledge that Yvonne Strahovski was actually quite good as Hannah McKay. The show may have treated her character poorly, but she had undeniable chemistry with Hall, and the two made even the more lackluster scenes pop with their exchanges.
Batista’s restaurant on Dexter was Michelin starred
Okay, I made this last one up. But his restaurant never failed to make me laugh.
One of the things that makes TV criticism so pleasurable is the manner in which seasons allow you to break down the elements of a show in so many different ways, from episodic pacing to “stand-alone vs. season-long” arcs to how a show stages act breaks. So while Dexter’s ending remains the gold standard for “shitting the bed,” it shouldn’t bar us from appreciating everything that still worked about the series, long after the creative team seemed bound and determined to drive it off a cliff. Great performances, standout episodes, killer guest stars (and killed guest stars)… all of these were the reasons many of us kept coming back, even after Dexter’s narrative did its best to ensure we wouldn’t.
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—if you can overlook the badWell, I can’t. I don’t know how anyone can. Thanks for the pointers though!
The “In Defense Of…” genre of writing about sub-par media is so depressing.
I agree, it reminds me so much of being majorly depressed and trying to “count your blessings” or whatever.
“It wasn’t as bad as you thought! I mean, it was still pretty bad, just not as bad as you remember. Wait…where are you going?”
Begging your indulgence if I may, Doctor but fuck you Battlestar Galactica.That is all.Yes, I’m still bitter.
Yeah – holy shit did that one run off the rails.
It emboldened Star Wars Prequel fans. Suddenly they were acting like the prequels were some secret work of genius, when they weren’t. They weren’t deep, they were poorly made and acted, and the sequels don’t suddenly negate how shitty they were. Now- it’s fine to like crappy things, I enjoy Family Guy after all, but it doesn’t make them good.
We could say the same thing about The Last Jedi, but TROS and the fan who blame Marie Tran make us think it’s better (it’s not).It’s pissed me off, that people forget Ryan made an awful plot for the strongest female character … in every movie he made (including Knives Out).
That’s true, I’ve seen a ton of Twitter Intellectuals(tm) insist their favorite is Last Jedi. I just…can’t truly believe that. I didn’t hate it, I do think it’s better than the prequels/ROS but hot damn did that film have issues. And not even the Luke being ruined one, I thought his story was the only good thing going on, it was all the other sidequests and stupid actions by the “new” guys. And yeah, Rian sold his female characters/POC characters short big time.
I’m not on Twitter, but it’s my favorite Star Wars movie.
Nuh-uh, it’s Empire. It is known.
Haha, yes. I know that is the consensus pick. I was just saying that there are some real people that enjoy TLJ best. Also, favorite isn’t necessarily the same as best. My buddy’s favorite is Return of the Jedi because it was his first connection to the series.
Haha I know, all of this is subjective, especially for such a wide-reaching franchise. Jedi was also my favorite for a long time, as it was my first connection too and hits emotional depths that the others don’t. Now I’d say the first one is my favorite, especially after franchise fatigue, it’s a great self-contained story with no weight of the saga dragging it down. But it’s corny as all hell, there are times I imagine Luke as Richie Cunningham.
It’s the lowest form of conversation, besides of course Remember When
I thought the lowest form was making puns.
It’s gotta be way better than “Thing you’ve liked for years is bad, actually”
I’m fine with it, what else are you going to do on a pop culture site, it’s better than recycling articles from TMZ, Deadline, Hollywood Reporter, etc… and posting trending tweets.It’d just be interesting if it was a more full-throated defence than this wound up being—which is in line what I felt about Dexter, as someone who thought the show went completely off the rails, and gave up on watching the last episode even before everyone agreed it sucked. Of course there were some good things about the show, that’s what made its descent down the toilet so frustrating as a fan. Michael C. Hall was always endearing at the center of the show, and you’d have great guest acting performances, and occasional great scenes, but it was never long before the plot tugged away the steering wheel and drove everything you loved about the show off a bridge. If it had been awful to its core, then I would not been tempted to watch at all, and simply moved on. But instead I invested time and emotional energy into a show that delivered turd after turd into my gaping mouth.
It’s frustrating too, because this ISN’T a defense of Dexter’s final seasons. It’s actually an astute article about a number of things people forget about Dexter’s back-half because seasons 6 and 8 are so bad. The headline is just intentionally worded to be click-baity and get angry comments.
Yeah! You know what we should do? Shit on everything all the time. Instead of re-evaluating things with distance and a modicum of nuance, let’s just take a sludgy dump on stuff. That’s cool.
Or, you know, just write about stuff that’s actually good.
Writing that reappraises unpopular art or storytelling and good writing aren’t mutually exclusive. Also ,your original premise isn’t about the quality of the article, but the perspective. If you just disagree with the assessment, that’s one thing. There’s nothing that you are or should be required to like or agree with. If you are depressed by the notion of redemptive criticism, or the idea that you can look back at something and find a more positive view, then I don’t know what to tell you. That honestly sounds like a miserable way to live. Because your approach comes off as McLevy saying, “Hey, there’s some okay stuff here,” and you’re basically going, “Uh, no. Fuck you for even trying.”But if you want to get into quality of the piece, I’ve really got nothing to say about it. Maybe McLevy should win a Pulitzer for this, it’s not like he smeared shit all over the wall. It’s a perfectly serviceable piece.
Okay.
Yeah, thoughtfully writing about a big part of the early 21st century cultural zeitgeist is d e p r e s s i n g
No that’s ok thanks though!
There’s plenty of blame to go around here, but I honestly believe that the biggest share of the blame lies with Showtime’s executives. They, like every other premium/prestige TV channel, greenlight shows that realistically only have 3-4 seasons worth of story but then they push for those shows to go on and on and on way past the point where the original head writer or any of their successors have anything worthwhile to say. And it’s hard to blame writers and actors in that situation, because it takes a lot more artistic integrity than most people in this world (including myself) have to say no thank you to a multimillion dollar payday on the grounds that “this new season seems unnecessary and probably isn’t going to be very good.”
Also, the executives wouldn’t let the makers kill Dexter off. Not in these articles but I’ve seen it written elsewhere.https://metro.co.uk/2013/09/24/alternative-dexter-ending-saw-dexter-executed-in-prison-4100524/https://screenrant.com/dexter-series-finale-alternate-ending-character-death/
Never read that before, but it’s pretty close to the ending that I always imagined for it.(In my head, the last episode ands with him getting caught, and montage that they usually ended with, using the theme song, would have been courtroom/prison/execution)
Plus coke.
Well, yes but that’s just a given, Bob.
*Showtime exec at lunch.
I think the main problem was never the overstretched premise—-season 7 (other than the Deb disaster) was quite enjoyable to me. But something changed between 7 and 8, it seemed like they hired a bunch of new showrunners and writers, because any progress made in 7 just dissipated. And the finale in particular—-it reminds me of another show, Scandal, which started out pretty enjoyable, then it seemed like they replaced the writers with NYU film school interns, because the dropoff in quality, style, was sudden and shocking.It really did seem like with these two shows that the execs fired everybody involved with the shows in the preceding seasons and hired a bunch of new people who had no idea what they were doing.
They needed more courageous execs because Dexter needed to have a last season where all his lies and jutifications are exposed to others and to Dexter himself and it never happened. Such an obvious way to wrap it up and it automatically makes some of the surrounding characters more interesting because Dexter would have been one hell of a confidence drainer for that entire police department. “We had a serial killer in our midst for years and missed it”.
On the plus side, at least they didn’t try to create a spinoff: “The Mighty Quinn”.
They were bad. People say the series finale was bad, but it was just the culmination of 4 years of bad storytelling.
SURPRISE MOTHERFUCKER… it was bad.
Season 3 sucked, so if season 5 was similar I’m glad I stopped watching after 4.
I think I maybe got through the first season, maybe two at best and also perhaps a couple of the books. Even that was a struggle.
1 & 4 were great, 2 was very good, 3 was medicore but miles better than 5-8.
5 was actually much better than 3 IMO. Not perfect, but you’d be forgiven for thinking the show was still flawed-but-good after that season. It only truly drove off a cliff in season 6.
Also, unpopular opinion, but 4 is somewhat overrated and certainly not the best season they did. It has that reputation mainly because Lithgow absolutely destroyed his guest turn (easily the best season villain they had), and that ending twist became the most iconic moment of the entire season. But if you look past that, a lot of the plotting and writing was far from their best. I don’t think Dexter was ever a top-drawer drama, writing-wise, but the first two seasons had a nailbiting suspense that kept you hooked. 4 was just kind of a mess in that regard, with a lot of mid-season dawdling that seemed motivated mainly by the need to keep Lithgow front and center until the final curtain.
For my money I’d rank them like so: 1, 2, 4, 5, 3, and who cares after that. And 2 would be the best of the bunch if not for the irritating Lila; when the episodes get away from that storyline and focus on the Bay Harbor Butcher business, that’s as good and as tense as Dexter ever got.
I mostly agree with your rankings, although I would move season 3 to the bottom 3…it was pretty dire. I will stan for season 5, I thought it was pretty great, just not as great as some of it’s predecessors.
I particularly liked Peter Weller’s role in Season 5. I didn’t get far enough in Season 6 to say what I think of Edward James Olmos, but Weller was one of the best season-long guest stars, above Lithgow (who I did enjoy).
I didn’t love 4 either. I thought 5 was better.
If you were to put them into “tiers,” 1, 2, and 4 are in the high tier, 3 and 5 are in the mid tier, and 6 and 8 are in the bottom tier. S7’s weird because the first half is high-tier level, and the second half is bottom tier.
Trust me, though, if you thought S3 was bad, you have no idea how much worse it can get.
Season 3 suffered from terrible miscasting. And I love Jimmy Smits in just about everything (even the highly flawed later seasons of SoA), but he was awful.I liked 5 a lot. 6 was terrible, 7 was solid except for that silly “Deb loves Dex” story arc, and of course, 8 was the worst of all.
I found the villains of S5 to be some of the scariest of the show. I hated S3 as well.
I don’t get the dislike for Season 3. I never have. I thought the chemistry between Michael C. Hall and Jimmy Smits was ridiculously good and that’s one of the main reasons I think it rocks.
The Skinner was an uninteresting villain, and having Dexter run off to kill him and then pop back up for his wedding (I’m probably fuzzy on the details now) was lame.
This is a hot take, but I think the hotter (and more accurate take) is that Dexter was never very good to begin with. Aside from a few good performances, most of the show was sloppy at best. I saw someone online refer to Dexter as an edgy CBS show, and I think that’s accurate. I would, however, watch a show about Doakes chasing down serial killers. They can bring him back from the dead somehow, and it would be called “Surprise, Motherfucker”.
This is the formula for a Showtime show:
-a known actor who makes you go “oh hey, look at them getting their own show”
-a premise that can only sustain its quality for a single season
-eight more seasons after that
To be fair, Shameless was good till about Season 5, House of Lies was good for at least 4 seasons, Homeland had probably 4 good seasons, even Dexter had 3 great seasons and a couple of good ones.But yeah, they all eventually went on way too long. Just usually takes more than one season to fall off a cliff.
it turns out you only need one year to answer the eternal question of “what if there was a big c”
It wasn’t Showtime but I feel like House was a little bit like this and needed someone to call time on it long before Season 8. I kept watching it to the end in the hopes they would give Hugh Laurie something Emmy worthy to act but instead they just turned it into a soap with a bit of last minute fan service.
How do you explain Penny Dreadful or Twin Peaks?
I explain Penny Dreadful by saying it was bad and fulfills my formula to a T. I explain Twin Peaks by pointing out its second season makes it the absolute poster child for “only sustainable for one season,” and if the best Showtime can do is another network’s thirty-year-old reheated leftovers, it’s in bad shape
You didn’t like The Return I take it?
A few more things:Penny Dreadful only lasted for three season instead of eight.Twin Peaks had some production problems that effected its second season.
I agree with your heat. My wife watched it as background TV last year and I checked in every few episodes and could not believe that it had ever been critically well regarded.
Thank you for this take, it had to be said.This show was always a trashy nonsense that was entertaining to watch while the quality of acting surpassed the frequently nonsensical writing. It was never very clever and the cat-and mouse game between Dexter and the police defied any suspension of disbelief ever since everyone believed Doakes was the serial killer back in season 2.Anyway, season 4 was the best, 1, 2 and 5 where OK and the rest was either boring bad (3, 6, 7) or “how an actual human being with a functional brain wrote this crap?” bad (8).
Killing off Doakes took one of Dexter’s main adversaries out of the equation far too early. And his replacement (Quinn) was about as laughably bad a character anybody could come up with.
Doakes was to Dexter what Frank Grimes was to The Simpsons. It was always his destiny to die because he was surrounded by motherfuckin’ idiots.
In retrospect it’s amazing the writers thought we would care at all about the secondary characters when the basic premise requires them to be idiots who can’t catch the serial killer in their midst.
Considering cops’ track record with serial killers, this is probably pretty accurate.
No.Haven’t even read it yet, but no.EDIT: I have read it now. I do agree that Lumen was a good character. I actually think S5 had a lot of good ideas that they mostly just failed to execute. A sociopathic motivational speaker is just a great concept for an antagonist, but I feel like it left a lot of that character unexplored. Whole season felt like it just couldn’t reach its potential, but it wasn’t the worst.There’s no defending S7, though. Not even Rampling and Stevenson. And I feel like Michael C Hall was even kinda sleepwalking through those last two seasons (for which I wouldn’t blame him one bit.)This show’s most lasting contribution will ultimately be in having the dumbest police department in TV history. I wonder if David Simon and Ed Burns ever think about all the time and energy that went into making the police disfunction as grounded and real world as possible on The Wire, while the writers of Dexter may have more accurately captured the state of American policing in the 21st century by just going “what if they were all just the dumbest fucking idiots who can’t do even the basic functions of their jobs without a literal superhero doing it for them secretly?”
I agree that the Dex/Deb part of Season 7 was horrendous, but I actually considered it a step up for the disaster than was season 6 (other than that terrible arc). It left me with hope that Season 8 would finish the series on a strong note, if not great.Boy, was that ever a bad read, lol.
Considering what we know about the police, that was pretty accurate.
I’ll defend Season 7 as it is entertaining and gripping with Deb having to reconcile with the fact that her brother is truly a serial killer (who only kills other killers). This give great moral dilemma to both Deb and Dexter about his upbringing and role in righting justice that gotten away while highlighting Deb’s limitations and acceptances of alternative methods like her brother killing killers. I say that out of Seasons 5-8, this is the brightest spot after that all-time great Trinity Killer of Season 4.Even so, I didn’t liked how Season 7 ended with Deb protecting her brother and once again, letting Dexter off the hook. I really thought that she would off herself or shoot her brother to relieve herself of immense grief and guilt and put Dexter into hole he could never climbs out of while finally being in police’s crosshair. That would have made for more gripping Season 8 instead of that finale we eventually got.Agree with Season 5, 6, and 8 being bad in their own ways, even if Michael C Hall was the sole reason we kept watching and hoping for a great conclusion to tie up all narrative threads. They didn’t, though now we have another chance with original showrunner at helm. Hopefully Dexter would get rightfully better conclusion.
I never watched Season 8. I just pretend that Deb killed Dexter at the end of 7 and that was the end of it. The show was a mess, but that at least seemed like a fitting end.
You’re lucky, I still wish I could wipe the memory of Season 8 out of my head forever.Just imagine that Deb killed LaGuerta and then herself. Dexter hid both bodies in the bay, send his son away to Rita’s parents, and faked his own death before hiding away in the north. That way, you can start New Bloods with Deb now being his Dark Passenger without any of Season 8’s bullshits.
Yikes. I’m probably just not going to watch it. I’ve gotten better about giving up on shows in recent years (Walking Dead, Season 2 of American Crime Story, Little Fires Everywhere) and leaving them alone. Dexter will probably stay on that list.
That’s up to you since Dexter: New Bloods is just starting at one episode. You can wait and see if viewers are giving the entire season critical acclaims before deciding to watch it.I also gave up on Walking Dead series after the Whisperer War since I seen these songs and dances too many time and it gotten tiring as hell.
Good point. I think I just assumed it wouldn’t be good, but if I’m wrong then it’s probably worth checking out.
SOMEHOW DANY FORGOT ABOUT THE IRON FLEET BUT THEY HADN’T FORGOTTEN ABOUT HER
It’s nice to see the commentariat being as positive as always. Anyway…for what it’s worth, this was an interesting read for someone who’s never seen an episode of the show, and maybe it’s just the nostalgia talking, but this kind of long form writing about older series reminds me of the Before Time. Honestly, I think this could be the beginning of a series of re-examinations the ends of long-running series; it seems like it could be a topic that would lead to some interesting thoughts, anyway.
Its hard to be optimistic when the last season of a show was so bad that it still haunts fans of the series. Coupled with one of the worst finales with a meme-ish worthy final scene.(of which I am quite guilty of overusing)
I’m curious about House. I feel like the first season probably had some of the best written episodes and by the latter stages of the show it had devolved into soapy nonsense.They also could have done more with House’s issues which were strangely undeveloped considering how long the show went on and never seemed to get much beyond “I’m in physical pain, which plays into my tendency to isolate myself because I feel superior to most people but then that leads to emotional pain and means I struggle more with my physical pain.”It also had problems with what I think Joss Whedon called emotional exposition like with the whole “I limp because my treatment was ineffective and that has played into me becoming good at diagnosing difficult to diagnose people.”
Huh, I feel like they could have done less with House’s issues. The character went on an addictive downward spiral for a few seasons, which made logical sense as a character arc, but frankly I wasn’t watching the show for “legitimately cruel addict treats his friend horribly,” I was watching it for “cranky (he’s an addict but shhh) does funny clever things with his friend.” Supernatural had a bit of the same problem. If years of terrible trauma doesn’t have some impact on your leads then it looks like bad writing, but who wants to watch a show about two heavily traumatized, miserable people?
Well as Hugh Laurie said himself “if you have a character stood on a ledge at some point they either jump or decide to climb back in”. The problem with House is that they left him in more or less the same emotional space for most of the show. I also never for a second bought that Cuddy would have a relationship with him, knowing all his issues. I also didn’t really buy he would have risked killing her/others with the whole car incident.
I was the biggest, most loyal fan of Dexter back in the days.I was massively disappointed in season 5’s generic tone when it aired, then came to respect and even genuinely like it.I was broken by season 6, revived by the first half of season 7, and devastated by season 8. I think of Scott Buck every single week. About his failures. About the fact that he was hired to mess up other shows. I do not understand it and never will.I remain traumatized by:-Sara Colleton’s otherwordly appearance on Jim Rash’s show, pretending that she had a plan all along, presenting the final seasons as brilliant- the hilarious treadmill scene- Dexter hunting the final godawful main baddie, secretely observing him through the large window of the dinerAnd that’s why, after all of this… I’m seriously, honestly looking forward to SEASON 9 with THE ORIGINAL SHOWRUNNER!!!!
I was the biggest, most loyal fan of Dexter back in the days.I was massively disappointed in season 5’s generic tone when it aired, then came to respect and even genuinely like it.I was broken by season 6, revived by the first half of season 7, and devastated by season 8.I think of Scott Buck every single week. About his failures. About the fact that he was hired to mess up other shows. I do not understand it and never will.I remain traumatized by:-Sara Colleton’s otherwordly appearance on Jim Rash’s show, pretending that she had a plan all along, presenting the final seasons as brilliant- the hilarious treadmill scene- Dexter hunting the final godawful main baddie, secretely observing him through the large window of the dinerAnd that’s why, after all of this… I’m seriously, honestly looking forward to SEASON 9 with THE ORIGINAL SHOWRUNNER!!!!
exemplified in a police force that increasingly couldn’t seem to find its own ass, let alone bad guys
Could they ever, though?
Doakes was onto Dexter relatively early.
So, of course they killed him off. Great idea, lol.
Why they got rid of him so quickly, I don’t know. Did the actor want off the show for some reason?
It would be harder to explain Dexter continuing to get away with literal murder with him still around.
They just could have taken it slower with his suspicions of Dexter and Dexter’s counter actions.
I was the biggest, most loyal fan of Dexter back in the days. Lurking the AVClub’s comments sections day&night.I was massively disappointed in season 5’s generic tone when it aired, then came to respect and even genuinely like it.I was broken by season 6, revived by the first half of season 7, and devastated by season 8.I think of Scott Buck every single week. About his failures. About the fact that he was hired to mess up other shows. I do not understand it and never will.I remain traumatized by:-Sara Colleton’s otherwordly appearance on Jim Rash’s show, pretending that she had a plan all along, presenting the final seasons as brilliant- the hilarious treadmill scene- Dexter hunting the final godawful main baddie, secretely observing him through the large window of the dinerAnd that’s why, after all of this… I’m seriously, honestly looking forward to SEASON 9 with THE ORIGINAL SHOWRUNNER!!!!
I’d argue that the only good seasons are 1 and 2. Already from the beginning of 3, the tone was off, the scripts embarrassing and they never really found the character again. Also, it is from season 3 that Ghost Harry is actually a ghost, before that it was only flashbacks which is a lot less silly.I doubt people will agree with me but apart from the gutsy ending, I think season 4 is flawed as well. It tries too hard and everything surrounding the Trinity Killers’ family is super hammy.
Counterpoint: this show always sucked
I disagree with the love for season 4. Yes, it had John Lithgow chewing the scenery (does he do anything else?) but everything else was subpar. This is the point the series started relying heavily on shock and gore to distract from the poor storytelling, all of the B-plots were *terrible* as none of the supporting characters had anything interesting to do, and the pacing was glacial with several episodes of pure filler. I’d argue that seasons 1 and 2 were excellent, Season 3 had an interesting idea that was executed poorly, Season 4 was the shark jump that people didn’t notice as they were too distracted by John Lithgow’s extreme hamminess, and everything after was pure dreck.
He makes everything great. Third Rock From the Sun with any other cast would’ve been a bit too stupid to work. But the cast of that show was impeccable, especially him.
I haven’t watched that season since it aired so forgive me if I misremember some details but IIRC the season was chugging along well when Lithgow was the perfect family man who was also a serial killer which created genuine stakes and a challenge for Dexter’s morality… Then they totally and completely copped out and suddenly made Lithgow an abusive monster at home so nobody would have a problem rooting for him to die. I really don’t even think there was any hint that was coming, it felt like the writers changed course mid-stream because they realized they didn’t want to make Dexter unlikeable. So yeah S4 sucked, but it didn’t have to suck. Same as a lot of Dexter storylines. It was an often terribly written show but it had a great cast, guest stars I usually love and some interesting ideas it just repeatedly and maddeningly kept dropping the ball on… I think it’s probably the most fun I’ve even had hatewatching anything.
Season 4 is highly uneven, which is why it isn’t my favorite. The first half or so is pretty dull. I remember after the huge letdown that was S3 almost giving up a few episodes into the mediocre season 4, but boy, that 2nd half or so—-might be the best 6 or 7 episodes in the entire run. Lithgow and Hall were both amazing—-Hall especially in that final scene with the Rita reveal.
It probably partly comes from people being surprised the show would go there in terms of killing the major character they did.
100% agree. People remember John Lithgow and the season finale, but they forget the unbelievable amount of highly skippable content in between. I had friends who would literally just fast-forward when Batista was on-screen during that season, because nothing he said or did had any connection to the serial killer plot.Nobody remembers the terrible nothingburger that was Angel and LaGuerta’s marriage, but that was front and center in season 4, and it was around this season that it became clear that Dexter had no idea what to do with its B-team (which is how we got plots like: Angel opens a restaurant, Quinn just kinda forgets his suspicions of Dexter, and the worst offender, Masuka connects with his estranged daughter).
That all being said, I do think season 5 and season 7 had more to offer than they’re remembered as having, even if both completely biffed the ending.And as much as I love season 2, I think there’s a fair criticism that it planted seeds that undermined some of what was great about Dexter and Dexter Morgan in its first season.Somewhere in the development of Season 2, the question “But what if Dexter fucks and he likes it?!” got asked, despite the character being very explicitly established in the first season as a man who’d gone thirty-five years feigning all of his romantic and sexual inclinations, and many of the show’s worst choices came out of that question.
Agree. Dexter was really only great in its first 2 seasons, and the Miguel storyline in season 3 had some interesting ideas, but Miguel himself just wasn’t an interesting enough character to make the season memorable. I didn’t mind season 4 but hated Rita’s murder. Yes, it was extremely memorable and shocking, but a huge disservice to the character and a harsh reminder that the show was very very much all about Dexter, who was already starting to frustrate me with his hesitancy to kill Trinity. I liked the show again once Deb found out about Dexter, but then just ruined the character by making her murder LaGuerta and then the mess that was the final season.
I haven’t rewatched it since it aired so I can’t remember the reasoning behind this, but I recall being surprised that people remember it so fondly when I thought of it as more of a downhill slide.
I’ll go on record as saying I liked the Julia Stiles season, whichever that one was (I just know it was in the “bad” half). She and Dexter have a ton of chemistry, and I found it compelling to watch them work together and struggle with their own separate demons, while the romance was treated very patiently and left to slow-burn (and felt totally earned when it finally did happen, instead of just two hot people deciding to be hot together).
Things may have changed from 2014 but …Oof.“Michael C Hall has revealed that he has never watched the final episode of Dexter.”https://www.digitalspy.com/tv/ustv/a573534/michael-c-hall-on-dexter-finale-the-execution-was-less-than-optimal/“Maybe some people… wanted a happy ending for him, either a happy ending or a more definitive sense of closure,” he said.“They wanted him to die or something, but I think the fact that he’s sort of exiled in a prison of his own making is – for my money – pretty fitting.”This would be more convincing if you hadn’t just said you hadn’t seen it at the time of writing of the article.
“They wanted him to die or something, but I think the fact that he’s sort of exiled in a prison of his own making is – for my money – pretty fitting.”I like the general idea, but it’s one the writer really didn’t work well towards.As far as people wanting Dexter to die or whatever, I always felt that aspect, while needing to be there to keep the stakes up, wasn’t ever going to realistically happen and always felt like it was sort of besides the point.I find David Chase’s comments on the Sopranos ending applicable to those wanting to see Dexter die or get caught:“They wanted to know that Tony was killed. They wanted to see him go face-down in linguini, you know? And I just thought, ‘God, you watched this guy for seven years and I know he’s a criminal. But don’t tell me you don’t love him in some way, don’t tell me you’re not on his side in some way. And now you want to see him killed? You want justice done? You’re a criminal after watching this shit for seven years,’” Chase says.
obviously Dexter isn’t of a similar quality, but I think the general outlook still holds.
Yes, it’s quite insulting to people who actively choose being a lumberjack as a career choice (one of the most dangerous jobs there is) and presumably aren’t usually serial killers on top of all that.As for Tony Soprano, we all know full well a lot of people would have been happy seeing him suffer the fate of Mr Kinney in Robocop, more so since unlike Mr Kinney, he deserved it being responsible for multiple murders just like Dexter for all intents and purposes (those people he had killed are just as dead).
An instructive example, I think, is the ending of The Shield, where Vic Mackey has the same kind of ending Hall is describing here, trapped in a prison of his own making. Every Shield fan and TV critic I know loved it. What’s the difference? It’s all in the execution. Dexter’s ending wasn’t properly set up or foreshadowed, and the ridiculous quickness of it made it seem tossed-off and like they were just hedging, keeping the character alive. The Shield’s ending was machine-tooled to feel inevitable, and the weight of it on the protagonist was real to the audience.
Dexter’s ending wasn’t properly set up or foreshadowed
Definitely agree, especially since none of the familial roadblocks ever really mattered before the ending anyway. “Oh no who will watch Harrison after Rita died and Astor & Cody fucked off? A babysitter! Oh no the babysitter is suspicious. Whatever!”
The finale could never be stuck as well as Mackey’s because the rest of the final ep AND the season was horrendous.There was no confession scene masterfully done by Chiklis, no perfect betrayal of a loyal sidekick, and no horrible ending to a one-time friend corrupted by the main character.The whole season was a wreck. The finale never had a chance to be any good because the writing was horrendous in Season 8, and somehow got even worse for “Remember the Monsters?”.Thinking back on that season, “New Blood” has an extremely tall hill to climb to undo just how bad the last season of the OG series was. Maybe insurmountable unless all of the original writers are involved and they settled on a dynamite idea for redemption beforehand.I’ll be tuning in just like every other former Dexter fan, but I’m understandably pessimistic.
You make a great point. That said, I don’t think we’ll EVER see an ending as outstanding as what The Shield managed to pull off.
For what it’s worth, I don’t think this applies to all TV shows. You can like a character, and even intrinsically root for them to do bad things, and still want a series to pay off their actions.
[SPOILERS FOR BREAKING BAD AND THE SHIELD FOLLOW]
That was definitely the case with Breaking Bad, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen anybody complain that Walter dies at the end of it. And it was the case in The Shield, where Mackey survives but ends up in his own personal hell. That’s one of the best endings of any TV show, because there is such a reckoning for the characters we’ve been watching for years.
I think Chase has something of a point with The Sopranos, where the show wasn’t as concerned with the morality of the characters. But Dexter, at least in the early years, was all about how he could (or couldn’t) straddle the line between hero and serial killer. To end the show without having anything to say about that was a grave mistake.
Dexter getting caught is like Charlie Brown kicking the football. It just can’t happen. I wanted a better resolution to his story though, and all the stuff with Debra seemed really contrived.
I mean… Maybe he didn’t watch it but he did star in the thing, he knows what happened.
I liked both the Lumen and Hannah characters. The storylines were flawed for sure.I don’t mind the reconsiderations of poorly regarded seasons. I have more of an issue with the reconsideration articles of the Star Wars Prequels. I’d also like to advocate for articles of over-regarded shows like Firefly.
Not really much here that isn’t more or less the consensus on the best parts. I thought the Lumen plot worked well and was more or less in line with the themes of Dexter finding a truly significant other. That said, the rest of S5 largely sucked and the Quinn subplot really showed that the writers were going to take the laziest route possible in terms of creating ways for Dexter to get out of predicaments.
Agree with all of this.
I liked season five, and basically tuned out once Ray Stevenson got killed off. Didn’t bother with anything after that.
Ray Stevenson as Titus Pullo on Rome is an underrated contender for greatest TV character of all time
13! 13!
I didn’t hate the final seasons, mostly just the Debra plot and the finale itself.
I liked season 5 fine, but it was also the point at which I felt this show had done everything good it was ever going to do and I never regretted bailing afterward.
I don’t want to go down the rabbit hole of trashing Dexter again. It like HIMYM are one of the few topics I end up going off about to no one’s benefit. So to be as brief as possible, Dexter’s back half of the series failed to me in part because they strayed further away from the core premise of a morally gray protagonist, which became all the more apparent when compared to Breaking Bad that ran it’s series finale around the time as Dexter.
I’m here to stand up for season 5, I thought Julia Stiles was pretty great. I think it was the last stellar season. I think there might have been one OK season in the last 3 (which one is which is kind of fuzzy to me, and I’m not going to look it up).I also think that Jennifer Carpenter doesn’t get enough love for her portrayal of Deb. I think especially starting with season 2 when they started writing her as more than just a cursing machine she was pretty great.I think a lot of the later Batista/Laguerta storylines were pretty dire though, as it seemed like they kept on resetting the Laguerta character after establishing her as a mean, not that competent person desperate to climb the ladder in the police department in the first season or two.
A spinoff with Julia Stiles with her mentoring another young serial killer of rapists would be better than reviving Dexter
I like Deb, I can’t think of many characters on TV like her.
I thought they hooked Dexter and Lumen up too quickly, especially considering how Season 4 ended. That was one of my main gripes with Season 5.
I’ve always maintained that season 5 was actually pretty good. It just had the great misfortune of coming immediately after what was unquestionably the best season of the show. It’s like how The Wire’s season 5 is really good, but likewise had the misfortunate of coming after the high-water mark so people just compare it to what came immediately before.
There’s a lot to like about the later seasons of Michael C. Hall’s signature Showtime series—if you can overlook the badYeah, there’s a mediocre strawberry sorbet underneath a crusty shell of dogshit if you just keep scraping!The final season of Dexter was insulting the viewer’s intelligence with how shoddily everything was made, with the practical beatification of a selfish psychopath and the absolute idiocy of every character involved. Sometimes things are just shit, there’s no need for this revisionist history, it’s okay to give up like the show did when they filmed the scene of baby Harrison falling off the threadmill.
This is gonna sound ruder than I intend, but was there a need for this article? That’s a genuine question, because I wasn’t under the impression that people thought “the finale was bad and therefore the whole show was bad.” Everyone I know that watched it thought it was great in the beginning, then from the Doomsday Killer season on it was shit, which is pretty much the same thing you say in this article (the “crackerjack” television of season 7 the writer imagines notwithstanding). I’m not sure this is really a defense of the final season either. The thesis seems to be “the final season was bad, yes, but that helps you appreciate the early seasons,” which, again, I don’t know that people needed help appreciating the early seasons. Whatever, the final season was godawful. The Doomsday Killer season was worse. Season 7 was terrible. Let them be bad. They were. I’m still looking forward to the new series.And these ads that drop down and cover half of the article you’re reading every few minutes are infuriating.
You’re right. This does sound rather rude.
Going around repeating what people already said in their posts seems like a weird way to spend your time, but I love it. Do what makes you happy!
Why thank you.
I do think that season 5 gets a bad rap, but I also think that season 5 should’ve been its last season because with 6, 7 and 8 they proved that almost all the magic came from the guy who was showrunner from 1-4.
He (supposedly) wanted to do a fifth season and end it after that, but Showtime is Showtime so they don’t allow good shows to stay good, they have to drive them into the ground slowly but surely.
I remember rather enjoying the Travis season’s plot. Though admittedly that might just be because I was coming off of watching Battlestar Galactica for the first time and I enjoyed seeing the Admiral’s actor again.But I wouldn’t be able to tell you which season I dropped the show in.I remember Strahovski, I remember BSG Admiral, I remember Lithgow and season 03’s weird guy. But I don’t actually remember the season number or plot that finally did me in and made me give up.All I know is I stopped at some point before the final season and never went back to finish it. That show was quite the mess.Which is ironic considering how neat its main lead is (so much plastic sheeting!).
This used to be my favorite site to go to and rip this show to shreds during the final three seasons, back when a lot of other TV critics were giving it a pass. How the times have changed. I’ll stick with Slip Maker’s retrospective that came out a month or two ago, that guy actually knew what he was talking about.
My wife and I stopped watching after the Colin Hanks season but I might have to watch the last 2 for Yvonne Strahovski. Sarah Walker in the house!
I don’t understand the perceived appeal of any season of Dexter. Outside of Michael C Hall, the performances were about as inconsistent as the writing (which was very). It’s also a very cheap and ugly looking show that leaned on gimmicky editing and a (now) very dated looking digital video format.
There is absolutely nothing redeemable about Season 8. NOTHING.Well, except for Yvonne.
I thought Season 8 actually started OK, then just went… oh man…
doing a rewatch right now (on s7) and definitely agree! enjoyed yvonne strahovski too. also jennifer carpenter is heavily overlooked in this maybe – a star!!
I really liked Deb’s character, she did at least feel different to a lot of other cops who happened to be women on US TV shows.
Oh my god. What a gorgeous picture of Julia Stiles.
I’m well aware that I’ll be in the greys because I’m an io9 regular who has finally migrated to AVClub.
I don’t hold anything against the later seasons of Dexter, even the finale. I loved the show for what I saw it as; pulpy storytelling with a magnetic lead. For this reason, I enjoyed the later seasons as much as the earlier ones.
I didn’t expect to like the “reboot,” because I saw Miami as one of the main characters of the show. I was pleasantly surprised that I didn’t miss it as much as I expected. I missed it a bit, its absence didn’t ruin my enjoyment.
He’ll always be David from Six Feet Under to me
Defending the indefensible. So sad.
Yeah, this whole line of article boils down to: we’re throwing away the whole point of criticism or art having a point, because clicks.
Excellent article. It should be noted, though, that a lot of this WAS said at the time, even if people have since forgot. Ray Stevenson’s performance was raved about while Season 7 aired, as was the season itself. And a lot of people said they liked Season 5 (although I’m not one of them).But again, great writing. This was a pleasure to read.
I always felt Season 4 would’ve been a fitting ending to the show. His unwillingness to examine or stop his violent urges comes back and ends the life of the most innocent and decent adult he knows. His hubris is responsible for destroying a family, and he will not change. It’s thematically solid. If you have to do a fifth season after that, drop everything they did, and make it the Trial of Dexter Morgan. He goes on trial for the murder of his wife, other things come to light, he can’t defend himself, put him in prison at the end. It’d make his relationship with Deb interestingly fraught, bring up a whole corruption and incompetence investigation on the police department, thus giving all the B characters an interesting “look in the mirror” story, and shake up the stale formula of “Dexter brings someone into his life who may be able to teach him something new, but they’re bad and he kills them.”Then, if you HAD to do a sixth season, put him in prison, and have him trying to keep his Dark Passenger in line while surrounded by the worst people Miami has to offer. Maybe he meets an innocent person who went to prison for one of his kills. Could be cool. Maybe he murders someone in prison (ooh, a guard? A corrupt warden?) and gets put to death. Anything, anything at all other than the miserable ass-dragging “How do we wring another fuckin consequence free season of superhero Dexter out of this writers’ room?”