How Fans Really Felt About The Dexter Finale
Between 2006 and 2013, Showtime viewers were treated to one killer of a drama. "Dexter" was unlike many other TV shows at the time. For one thing, its eponymous protagonist was more villainous than heroic. Perhaps, as a serial killer who kills serial killers, Dexter's actions are justifiable, but the twisted enjoyment he derived from slaughter was just the right kind of sick for viewers to support him without necessarily approving of all of his actions. The show wasted this disturbed anti-hero dynamic, however, with a finale that ran the show directly into a dead end.
After realizing that his own life as a secret serial killer endangered those he had come to care for, Dexter (Michael C. Hall) decides to finally end all the drama. He writes off Oliver Saxon (Darri Ingolfsson), that season's cerebrum-scooping psycho-killer, by stabbing him with a ballpoint pen in the middle of a police interview. Next, he pulls the plug on Deb (his recently comatose sister played by Jennifer Carpenter) and dumps her body in the Miami waters before abandoning his family and starting a new life far away as a lumberjack.
On paper, this ending might sound like it could work. Unfortunately, fans did not necessarily see it that way. The response to these events was overwhelmingly negative, and fans on social media weren't one bit afraid to share how they really felt about the "Dexter" finale.
Why fans hated Dexter's ending
Of course, fans found Dexter's choice to abandon his girlfriend Hannah (Yvonne Strahovski) and son Harrison (Jadon Wells) and run from all of his problems pretty abhorrent, more so than all of his killings, in fact. However, it wasn't just the final episode that ticked them off. Pound-for-pound, most fans felt that the eighth and final season just wasn't as strong as its predecessors.
"The idea of Dexter abandoning everyone because he realizes that his whole life is nothing but a path of destruction, that aspect of the ending is really good, in theory," wrote Reddit user u/NedWretched. "However, the road it took to get there was absolute GARBAGE. Every episode of that season has some of the worst writing I've ever seen in a drama, and the things people do are completely out of character, time and time again."
Other fans had a bone to pick with the finale in particular. "Debs death made me so mad, such a bad choice," wrote u/dcmac1. "The beginning of the season wasn't too bad but once Hannah came back it was awful ... Leaving Harrison with Hanna was so stupid."
Thankfully, "Dexter" is getting a shot at redemption with its upcoming ninth season. And though many fans have lost faith in the show since Season 8, others are willing to give the series one more shot.