1. The Entire Final Season
Clusterf*ck? That's one way to describe Dexter's final season. The writers had a golden opportunity after the end of Season 7. They had the chance to craft a story about a serial killer on the run for his crimes, someone paying the price for a horrible life. They could have given everything that came before it real consequence. Instead, what we got was about 9 episodes of absolutely nothing that couldn't have been done halfway through the series run. Certainly, the content we got was not worthy of a final season. Dexter has never been a show that has taken many risks and the cracks with this philosophy began to show through almost immediately in Season 8. The story that played out in Season 8 begged to be more dramatic. If the writers were truly brave, they would have had Deb's drunken confession actually play out and we'd have begun to witness Dexter behind bars, or on trial, or on the run. Instead what we got for the majority of the season was a re-tread of past storylines, twists that you could see coming a mile off and terrible decisions by the writers that completely take you out of the show. This is all in conjunction with some of the worst directing and dialogue ever put into a major television show. If this was not the last season, then fine, this brain surgeon storyline would have been okay. But still, there was never any real pay off to that story it was all just filler and an excuse to bring Saxon into the mix so that Deb could be killed. Honestly, one of the few positives in Season 8 was Jennifer Carpenter's portrayal of Deb. She acted her arse off all season but the character's anguish seen at the beginning of the season ended all too quickly. Michael C. Hall phoned most of his performances in but he was given no great lines of dialogue and no brilliant monologues, so who could blame him? The writing for this season has been at best okay, and at worst down right awful. Some of the lines in the last couple of episodes have made me cringe, or laugh unintentionally. The final episode was yet another nail in the coffin and a direct insult to Dexter fans. There was so many logical inconsistencies. Not to mention some utter ridiculous storytelling. For fun, let's list the worst parts of the final episode. Hannah McKay once again going out in public with no disguise. Seriously? She's a wanted women yet she strolls into an airport, then strolls onto a bus packed with people. There's also likely to be a myriad of law enforcement officials around given it's somewhat of an emergency situation because of the storm. I guess the writers didn't care enough any more to force it to make sense. Dexter strolling into the hospital, disconnecting all of Deb's life support equipment, then waltzing out with the body to his boat. So wrong on so many levels. Firstly, I'm no expert, but I'm sure the second Dexter turned that machine off it would have set off some kind of alarm, and the same goes for when he disconnects the other devices. Doctors surely get some kind of page about this? Also, no one at all noticed Dexter wheeling out his sister and then picking up her body and carrying her to his boat? I get there is a bit of a panic because of the storm, but still? One thing I did like was Dexter wearing his kill outfit when he pulled the plug, and his dumping her over the side of his boat was all greatly symbolic. Yet it portrayed Dexter in an almost child-like fashion and forgets all the growth he's had as a character. It also wasn't too subtle, but I'll give it points for at least trying. So Dexter fakes his own death? Okay, would have been cool if it then flashed forward a fair bit later and we see Dexter finally reuniting with Hannah and Harrison in Argentina. What instead we got was some daft monologue about wanting to protect his family from himself. Haven't we been over this a million times? Aren't all the people who could possibly harm Dexter gone for good? No one knows his secret, everyone in Miami thinks he's dead. Why isn't he just going back to the original plan? At least Harrison would grow up with his father. There's plenty more wrong with the episode but those are the bits that stuck with me. Being fair, there were some positives watching Batista pull his gun on Saxon was a nice touch, and Deb's final moments with Dexter hit all the right emotional notes. Also, it was great seeing Hannah get one over on Elway, though I don't think anyone actually expected her to get taken in by him. Unfortunately, there was no great conclusion to the series. Dexter is leading the life of a bearded lumberjack...somewhere. Does he still kill? Is he in America? How did he fake his death? Seriously, how? He drove into a storm. Even if he jumped out and swam, how did he survive? That storm was right on top of him, he would have drowned. I call shenanigans. The entire final season was a stark contrast to what we've seen in Breaking Bad, which shot out of the gates and is delivering something truly sensational. Now it's an unfair comparison sure, but why shouldn't Dexter's writers have been striving for the level of Breaking Bad? They had a great set up at the beginning of the season and a bevy of excellent storylines. Yet what they eventually went for was boring, contrived and down right offensive to those of us, like myself, that have stuck by this show. Do you agree with what I've written? What do you think the writers could have done differently? Let me know in the comments.