"~~~I'm a jumblerack and I'm not OK~~~" ["Dexter" finale spoiler]
The end of "Dexter" just had me saying, in my most indignant Seth Meyers voice, "Really?! REALLY?!?!?"
So many things wrong with the final episode, it's hard to decide where to begin.
Dexter dressed as something just short of Floyd R. Turbo doesn't work, but that's the least of it. The fact he was still alive in that final scene given what happened in the rest of the episode was predictable to the same degree that its setting was shockingly silly and both aspects of the situation were just wrong for the character.
I've seen some more "professional" "public" bloggers already expressing their critical distaste or supportive understanding of the choices made by the show-runners in this episode. The notion that Dexter owed himself some penalty for the killings he either directly committed or had a responsible connection to does not feel correct to me. I think more than that, he owed himself redemption, in the form of getting to live out his life with the fruit of his burgeoning humanity, his son, firstly; and secondarily, some domestic happiness, even with a creepy, lukewarm, poor choice of mate that Hannah struck me as being. Even if one acquiesces to the supportive understanding route, the execution of those show-running choices was clumsy and heavy-handed. The action did not even depict the voiceover self-analysis with sufficient faithfulness.
The awfulness actually began in the penultimate episode. The deputy marshal's release of the restrained Oliver Saxon/Daniel Vogel was gratuitous stupidity, he sure deserved to get stabbed for not being aware that he had just stumbled upon a wanted fugitive. He arrived on the scene as the result of following Debra Morgan, in the middle of her day of work as a police detective. He found a man alone and restrained inside a building knowing there was another armed law enforcement officer in the vicinity. Why would he just release him without waiting for that officer to return and explain the restraint, and the wide open knife set? Debra getting shot was also gratuitous, but it was the direct result of stupid interference by an unforeseen outside party, so Dexter should not have blamed himself for that at all. He did the right thing, she did the right thing, and it was all on the marshal for screwing up.
But while Debra's arc of the story certainly did not even need to include her getting shot, it could and should have ended with her in the hospital very much alive, and Dexter left to quickly chase down the fugitive. It should not have reached the point where her injury weighed on Dexter's conscience and clouded his judgment regarding how to continue his own journey. The Dr. Vogel character provided a foundation for Dexter to reach greater understanding of his personal history and his relationships, just as Rita and Harrison and Hannah offered him a framework for growing his humanity into one that embraces a future at least as much it grew from and dwells on the past, making his vicious indulgences more tolerable, and his maturing self more heroic and sympathetic. It was an obvious parallel that both of Dexter's own mother figures were murdered in a pool of blood with him at hand to see it but powerless to do anything to stop it. But that should have been the end of his losses -- it was sufficient impetus for him to hunt down Daniel, he did not need the enhanced rage of the incapacitation of his sister added to the mix.
The final episode was fleshed out with all sorts of superfluous goings on. The scene with Hannah and Elway on the bus was as unnecessary as it was poorly constructed and unbelievable. The lumber scene was pointlessly long. Most scenes involving Daniel were also unneeded, especially the brutal and vulgar cutting out of the tongue of the guy that stiched his arm. The motivation of Dexter removing Debra's body from the hospital and burying her at sea was a complete mystery at best, and a disservice to both characters at worst. That action made no sense for the Dexter character, who loved his sister unconditionally; why would he put her to her final rest next to all the trash he had taken out on that boat in the 8 years the show ran? Why did this creature of sound habits not weight her body? Why did he even end her life in the first place? Why did he say he had "never seen a miracle" when his son was alive after two of them, surviving Travis' kidnapping, and the illness in the Mos Def story line? Why would he deprive their coworkers of the opportunity to pay their final respects to her in an orderly and dignified setting, possibly one in which they could see her trademark crooked-mouthed dopey grin as they said goodbye. It would have made just a little sense if his plan was to go down with her, but he didn't.
Dexter killing Daniel while he was already in police custody was also pointless; it negated the vast growth of his character, demonstrated in the previous episode, from one who needed to take out the trash regularly himself to one who could finally let someone else handle it. I get the Debra-induced rage for revenge, but it's a decision that can't be taken back, it's a risk of exposure that Dexter's code would normally have caused him to think better of, unless we are to accept that with Dr. Vogel and Harry's spirit gone, their device went away with them. But I can't accept that a man who can't stop thinking about his son could have lost that code.
"I have to protect Harrison and Hannah from myself" did not ring true as an excuse for faking his own death. It almost works for suicide, but if Dexter intends to live on, he no longer poses any danger to them when they are all out of Miami and the US altogether, and he has earned the right to be part of their future with his growth as a person. Tho that would have been more true if he had avoided the backslide of finishing off Daniel and stopped short of assuming Debra would not recover. The truest and strongest human emotion Dexter discovered in himself was pain of loss. It's hard to imagine that was something he would rather live with and do so without the salve of those he did not lose being by his side, than escape through suicide. And the degree to which the story events maximized that emotion was turbo-boosted by the loss of both Dr. Vogel and Debra. Harry saying "you don't need me anymore" struck me as an irrevocable entree to a future with Harrison and Hannah. I'm not satisfied by further events walking him back from that conclusion. Debra "having" to die to pay for LaGuerta is too much of a nod to an old moral standard in the film industry -- in spite of its pretense at ultimate justice, this show was all about smashing such molds and conventions until then. Yet having finally committed to that one convention, it's logically inconsistent that Dexter should then have lived. Having been born into it with the death of his mother, and various violent separations since, it can realistically be said he had suffered enough, living without his child is well beyond necessary. If he is not going to be with his child, he no longer serves any purpose. The last scene should either have been the boat going into the storm, once they reached that point with all the junk that cluttered the last episode, or Hannah and Harrison in Buenos Aires with or without Dexter, before or after the junk, and no damn lumber.
So many things wrong with the final episode, it's hard to decide where to begin.
Dexter dressed as something just short of Floyd R. Turbo doesn't work, but that's the least of it. The fact he was still alive in that final scene given what happened in the rest of the episode was predictable to the same degree that its setting was shockingly silly and both aspects of the situation were just wrong for the character.
I've seen some more "professional" "public" bloggers already expressing their critical distaste or supportive understanding of the choices made by the show-runners in this episode. The notion that Dexter owed himself some penalty for the killings he either directly committed or had a responsible connection to does not feel correct to me. I think more than that, he owed himself redemption, in the form of getting to live out his life with the fruit of his burgeoning humanity, his son, firstly; and secondarily, some domestic happiness, even with a creepy, lukewarm, poor choice of mate that Hannah struck me as being. Even if one acquiesces to the supportive understanding route, the execution of those show-running choices was clumsy and heavy-handed. The action did not even depict the voiceover self-analysis with sufficient faithfulness.
The awfulness actually began in the penultimate episode. The deputy marshal's release of the restrained Oliver Saxon/Daniel Vogel was gratuitous stupidity, he sure deserved to get stabbed for not being aware that he had just stumbled upon a wanted fugitive. He arrived on the scene as the result of following Debra Morgan, in the middle of her day of work as a police detective. He found a man alone and restrained inside a building knowing there was another armed law enforcement officer in the vicinity. Why would he just release him without waiting for that officer to return and explain the restraint, and the wide open knife set? Debra getting shot was also gratuitous, but it was the direct result of stupid interference by an unforeseen outside party, so Dexter should not have blamed himself for that at all. He did the right thing, she did the right thing, and it was all on the marshal for screwing up.
But while Debra's arc of the story certainly did not even need to include her getting shot, it could and should have ended with her in the hospital very much alive, and Dexter left to quickly chase down the fugitive. It should not have reached the point where her injury weighed on Dexter's conscience and clouded his judgment regarding how to continue his own journey. The Dr. Vogel character provided a foundation for Dexter to reach greater understanding of his personal history and his relationships, just as Rita and Harrison and Hannah offered him a framework for growing his humanity into one that embraces a future at least as much it grew from and dwells on the past, making his vicious indulgences more tolerable, and his maturing self more heroic and sympathetic. It was an obvious parallel that both of Dexter's own mother figures were murdered in a pool of blood with him at hand to see it but powerless to do anything to stop it. But that should have been the end of his losses -- it was sufficient impetus for him to hunt down Daniel, he did not need the enhanced rage of the incapacitation of his sister added to the mix.
The final episode was fleshed out with all sorts of superfluous goings on. The scene with Hannah and Elway on the bus was as unnecessary as it was poorly constructed and unbelievable. The lumber scene was pointlessly long. Most scenes involving Daniel were also unneeded, especially the brutal and vulgar cutting out of the tongue of the guy that stiched his arm. The motivation of Dexter removing Debra's body from the hospital and burying her at sea was a complete mystery at best, and a disservice to both characters at worst. That action made no sense for the Dexter character, who loved his sister unconditionally; why would he put her to her final rest next to all the trash he had taken out on that boat in the 8 years the show ran? Why did this creature of sound habits not weight her body? Why did he even end her life in the first place? Why did he say he had "never seen a miracle" when his son was alive after two of them, surviving Travis' kidnapping, and the illness in the Mos Def story line? Why would he deprive their coworkers of the opportunity to pay their final respects to her in an orderly and dignified setting, possibly one in which they could see her trademark crooked-mouthed dopey grin as they said goodbye. It would have made just a little sense if his plan was to go down with her, but he didn't.
Dexter killing Daniel while he was already in police custody was also pointless; it negated the vast growth of his character, demonstrated in the previous episode, from one who needed to take out the trash regularly himself to one who could finally let someone else handle it. I get the Debra-induced rage for revenge, but it's a decision that can't be taken back, it's a risk of exposure that Dexter's code would normally have caused him to think better of, unless we are to accept that with Dr. Vogel and Harry's spirit gone, their device went away with them. But I can't accept that a man who can't stop thinking about his son could have lost that code.
"I have to protect Harrison and Hannah from myself" did not ring true as an excuse for faking his own death. It almost works for suicide, but if Dexter intends to live on, he no longer poses any danger to them when they are all out of Miami and the US altogether, and he has earned the right to be part of their future with his growth as a person. Tho that would have been more true if he had avoided the backslide of finishing off Daniel and stopped short of assuming Debra would not recover. The truest and strongest human emotion Dexter discovered in himself was pain of loss. It's hard to imagine that was something he would rather live with and do so without the salve of those he did not lose being by his side, than escape through suicide. And the degree to which the story events maximized that emotion was turbo-boosted by the loss of both Dr. Vogel and Debra. Harry saying "you don't need me anymore" struck me as an irrevocable entree to a future with Harrison and Hannah. I'm not satisfied by further events walking him back from that conclusion. Debra "having" to die to pay for LaGuerta is too much of a nod to an old moral standard in the film industry -- in spite of its pretense at ultimate justice, this show was all about smashing such molds and conventions until then. Yet having finally committed to that one convention, it's logically inconsistent that Dexter should then have lived. Having been born into it with the death of his mother, and various violent separations since, it can realistically be said he had suffered enough, living without his child is well beyond necessary. If he is not going to be with his child, he no longer serves any purpose. The last scene should either have been the boat going into the storm, once they reached that point with all the junk that cluttered the last episode, or Hannah and Harrison in Buenos Aires with or without Dexter, before or after the junk, and no damn lumber.