2. NO CONSEQUENCES TO DEXTER'S ACTIONS
Over the course of the entire show's history we've seen Dexter narrowly escape capture or death multiple times. At the beginning these situations were tense and anything could have happened. However, after about the tenth repeated time, I got bored of it. It ties back in to the point about the writer's repeating themselves but with this particular issue it's much more annoying for an audience. We need to know there's consequences to the actions of Dexter, and whilst Deb does eventually die as a consequence of Dexter's selfish actions, it all felt too late in the story and too badly played out for us to care. There have been countless times where Dexter's selfishness and inability to work with others have caused problems the death of Rita was a prime example. If he hadn't been so focused on getting Trinity, he wouldn't have ended up getting Rita killed. If he had paid attention to what was happening, his wife would still be alive. Now Dexter obviously didn't learn his lessons and as a result his sister, who arguably means more to him, is now dead. However, this latter incident was diluted by so many fake-outs by the writers. The fact that Dexter makes it out of Miami alive at the end of the entire series just goes to show that you can literally get away with murder. Dexter has done awful things, not just in a moral way (killing people is bad, don't you know?) but to the people who care about him, yet nothing bad has happened to him in return. To have him just escape at the end by faking his own death was an insult to what the series built in the first season and particularly the second. When there are no consequences to any actions, it's hard for an audience to invest, and this is something Dexter has struggled with for a few seasons. Dexter lives. Hannah escapes to Argentina. Deb is dead because of Dexter's direct actions yet there is no justice. Therefore there is no closure. Deb's death was completely pointless in the wider context of the story. Season 5 onwards showed us that the writer's where running on fumes. The laziness of the writing proved this, and that brings me on to my final point in this article. The final season.