Fans of ‘Dexter‘ are saddened that their favorite show has ended and many are also angry with exactly how it came to a close. While we know the universe of ‘Dexter’ isn’t over with a spin-off in the works, there is still a lot of talk about what happened in the last episode. I warn you now there are going to be spoilers below.

When ‘Dexter’ ended, the series was run by Scott Buck, the showrunner at the time who really felt he had put together a good finale for the series. Many fans had wanted something a bit more final, but while I did hope for something else, I do have to say I understood the purpose of the ending. While there is no solid proof Dexter would still be going around killing people, I felt that it closed with him returning to the monster he was when the series first started. In fact, now that he’s embraced the monster within and given up on his humanity, he may very well be in a worse place than he was previously.

So what did Buck have to say on that final shot of Dexter still alive and looking at the screen?

“We wanted to leave it all in the viewers’ head. I don’t know what he’s thinking in that moment; I know he’s in this self-imposed prison and the reason he locked eyes is essentially so we can feel as uncomfortable as he does in his world. He’s someone who was just moments from taking that final step toward humanity who then has to face himself as the monster he believes he is and decide his own fate. He gives himself what he deserves. I don’t think in that moment he’s fighting the urge to kill; he’s dealing with the reality of the misery of his life in that moment.”

So while he’s not fighting the urge to kill, the view of what he is fighting is up to us. Personally, I believe that means he fell back into what he felt was natural and that nature is the psychopathic urge to take a life. While I’m still not happy with this ending, I get it. I wasn’t expecting a happy finale for Morgan, but I also wasn’t quite expecting this. While Buck does realize that fans were not happy with this final season, he, on the other hand, was and was pleased with how the series ended:

“I’ve also heard that some viewers are not happy with this season, and they all have different reason for it. So much of the stuff you read is that people want the show to be like it was the first few years where Dexter would go out and kill people. If we had continued to follow that line, the show would have gotten old very fast. This is a show that’s run for eight years, and in order to sustain interest you have to continue to grow and evolve. So yes, I am happy with where we ended the show. This is absolutely the ending I wanted.”

Prior to Buck’s reign as showrunner, Clyde Phillips had ran the show for the first 4 seasons, which I (and many others) felt were the best 4 seasons of the entire series. So when he weighs in that he wasn’t happy with the final season and how he would have ended the show, you damn well know I was going to listen! While he wasn’t unhappy with the last episode itself (just the season on the whole), his take on the last 5-10 minutes of the show would have given a send off much more fitting to what the audience wanted and would have been happy with:

“In the very last scene of the series, Dexter wakes up. And everybody is going to think, ‘Oh, it was a dream.’ And then the camera pulls back and back and back and then we realize, ‘No, it’s not a dream.’ Dexter’s opening his eyes and he’s on the execution table at the Florida Penitentiary. They’re just starting to administer the drugs and he looks out through the window to the observation gallery.

And in the gallery are all the people that Dexter killed—including the Trinity Killer and the Ice Truck Killer (his brother Rudy), LaGuerta who he was responsible killing, Doakes who he’s arguably responsible for, Rita, who he’s arguably responsible for, Lila. All the big deaths, and also whoever the weekly episodic kills were. They are all there.

That’s what I envisioned for the ending of Dexter. That everything we’ve seen over the past eight seasons has happened in the several seconds from the time they start Dexter’s execution to the time they finish the execution and he dies. Literally, his life flashed before his eyes as he was about to die. I think it would have been a great, epic, very satisfying conclusion.”

Not only would this have closed the series with no ambiguity, but we would have had a fitting end cap to Dexter getting what he deserved. Sure we all love the anti-hero, but even though he’s mostly a good guy he still ends up being a killer that gets away.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m a horror nut. I’m all for the dark endings but with a long running show like ‘Dexter,’ an actual closure would have been better. A closure that would have been done right by the audience and the moral questions that the show constantly picked at.

What did you think of the series finale? Would you have preferred Phillip’s ending instead? Are you looking forward to the spin off?  Sound off below!

Source: Slash Film