If the goal is for me to read the act as a horrible departure for Dexter into a world without rules, killing LaGuerta wouldn't fit, because I've wanted her off the show for years and she'd be doing a service. The property as a whole seems to have a pretty large hard-on for people bailing Dexter out at the last moment (see H.G. Wells), so I wouldn't be srprised if either Hannah or Deborah ended up pulling the trigger. I actually think, based on prior performance, that the solution the show will go for is this: 1. Deborah can't keep Hannah for a pen with no chain of custody on which any useful evidence has presumably degraded, so she gets out at some point 2. LaGuerta continues to nip at the ass of the entire series by hectoring Dexter, Deborah, and everybody else 3. Eventually, Hannah kills LaGuerta, bailing Dexter out of code infractions. She is either arrested or killed as a result. 4. Dexter somehow finds out that Deborah faked the poisoning as the big closer. That feels like a plausible conclusion to a season of Dexter to me, and it avoids taking any pieces off the board (last episode was the record high for the series), so if something goes squirrelly with Homeland or Showtime just figures out that they'd be idiots to cancel a show at the peak of its performance, which is the only sensible business decision. I mean, when EW is writing articles about whether you'll be dumb enough to actually go through with making the next season the last, given your ratings, that's a pretty good sign that the business folks might want to think twice about it, not in the least because if Dexter goes off the air and the network doesn't do comparable ratings with whatever it uses as a replacement (and this has been a much weaker season of Homeland than the first creatively, though that seems to have no implication on ratings for pay cable shows), that's a firing offense, whereas making the business decision to keep the show going without regard to creative won't have any implication if it turns out that the series immediately falls off and goes out on a fart sound.
This is a possibility I didn't consider, but I'm finding it highly unlikely unless the inevitable jump the show is about to take over the shark on Sunday has a lot more hangtime than I expect.
Maybe I'll feel differently in the morning, but for me that was a terribly disappointing ending. The entire episode just didn't work for me.
Yeah, that was extremely formulaic, almost to the point of laziness. The more I think consider it, the more I think this was the worst Dexter finale.
Well, I'd be perfectly happy sticking with solid seasons & soft finales if it means never going through another Lumen or Armageddon story arc ever again. This is one of those cases where the journey was certainly more satisfying than the destination.
Oh, hey, another episode where Dexter complains about how sloppy he is and then nonchalantly puts a drugged body into his car in a public space in broad fucking daylight. This show is stupid, stupid fucking stupid.
I don't agree that the season was solid overall. The Sirco stuff was really good, the rest was mostly meh to eye-rolling and cringe-inducing. Pair that with a finale that one one part letdown and three parts ridiculous and you have a recipe for maybe the worst season thus far.
Ok... How on earth does he get out of this. He can't stage the fake shoot out anymore. Deb's gun, Deb called dispatch to find Laguerta, Deb's Cell will be shown at the scene of the crime. Both bodies disappear, more people start thinking Dex did the murder. Btw even with the fake staging aren't people in Miami police smart enough to go... hmm she accuses Dex of being the Bay Harbor butcher and days later she is dead... I don't see how they write there way out of this...
Yeah they're backed into a pretty ugly corner. Also, what the hell were Dexter and Deb doing heading straight from a multiple murder scene to Angel's party? Another incriminating bit of evidence: those warrants aren't going away; any investigation of LaGuerta's death / disappearance will necessarily turn up that she had warrants to track Dexter and Deborah. One thing I'm sort of disappointed about: Dexter dropped his knife within LaGuerta's reach. For a moment I thought he was being a monstrously manipulative bastard; figuring LaGuerta would go for it and Deb would shoot her. Instead, Deb just shot her. Also I have to reiterate: the resolution of the Hannah plotline was really really really lame.
Hannah's return wouldn't surprise me at all, though I don't know in what capacity she'd be back. Things certainly seem far from resolved on that front.
Is it actually resolved? I figured she would be back for the next season. Maybe that's the "happy ending" for the series - Dexter has to flee Miami at last and goes on the lam with his fugitive love (and poor Harrison, the afterthought of the season). That would leave the door open for a Dexter movie too. My guess is that the Estrada / LaGuerta killing each other line will be accepted at face value, despite what's been pointed out here.
It's not just me - they're dubbing Harrison's lines, right? Did they forget to get a child actor who could actually act?
"So have you heard? LaGuerta is missing and presumed dead." "Any suspects?" "Well, she did just arrest Dexter and accuse him of being the Bay Harbor Butcher. Remember when Quinn used to say that all the time? Anyway, did you know his brother was the Ice Truck Killer and he was in the room with Dex when his mom got killed with a chainsaw right in front of them? It's amazing how normal Dex turned out by comparison. Oh, and his wife got killed by the Trinity Killer. Imagine that. He sure has bad luck when it comes to serial killers. Anyway, his girlfriend used to hang out with another killer and she tried to kill Debra recently and now she's on the run. So we've got Dexter penciled in as a 'maybe' and we're gonna talk to him." "No way! Not Dex! Did you see the bear claws he brought in yesterday? That guy rocks!" "Enh, you're probably right."
Jesus fucking Christ. Is Deb the most retarded person in the entire universe? I'm going to CALL FUCKING DISPATCH and let them know I asked about the Captain's car and where it was THE NIGHT SHE FUCKING DIED because I had a hunch MY BROTHER MIGHT KILL HER. Then I SHOT HER WITH MY GUN and afterwards I went and LEFT ALL KINDS OF MY DNA ALL OVER HER. Which, by the way, how was Deb not covered in blood after hugging and rocking the corpse back and forth? I liked the Hannah ending. I hope she's back next year to fucking kill the shit out of both Deb and Dexter and take Harrison away somewhere nice. That poor kid deserves a nice parent who will only kill people that threaten him when he's napping, otherwise spending lots of time with him. Also all this time...all this fucking time...Dexter never thought to maybe turn off GPS on his phone? I mean. Was he checking in to foursquare each time? Dexter has ousted Hector Estrada as mayor of Shipping Container #14? Guys I can break this case wide open: CHECK HIS FUCKING TWITTER FEED! @dextermorgan Just stabbed Hector Estrada in the chest. Feels like a weight has been lifted. Off to dump the body off my boat ^^ @dextermorgan 2 more murders and I'll be the mayor of Middle of the Ocean Dumping Grounds!! :D
Brilliant! When Deb went and hugged La Guerta I thought is was all part of some plan -- let's still make it look like a double homicide. Shoot LaGuerta with Hectors gun in the same wound (wouldn't work in the real world, but since the lab rats does all the science in this series and we hardly ever see a pathologist it would probably fly). Deb followed LaGuerta fearing she would do something stupid and rushed in when she heard the two shots. Instead they just cut to them arriving at the party... Weakest ending ever. Deborah doomed herself, and I'm sure the writers feel that was really powerful and important, but I don't really care about Deborah - just Dex, who once again had somebody else save him by doing what he couldn't. A murderer and spurned lover out for revenge... or rather more likely out to kill her competition (Deborah and Harrison), so she can have Dex for herself, has potential - but a poisoner is not dreadfully exiting to watch.
The thing that made that moment weak for me was that there was no reason for Deb to shoot her. LaGuerta wasn't armed. There were lots of reasons for Deb NOT to shoot her, for example: They can trace the bullet back to her gun She's on record having called dispatch to know where LaGuerta was Someone might hear a gunshot in the container, as was the case when Dexter was first framed Dexter is going to fucking kill her anyway WHAT ARE YOU DOING!? Never mind the whole conversation about "will Hannah keep her mouth shut or out you for a deal?" MAYBE YOU SHOULD HAVE THOUGHT OF THAT BEFORE YOU FUCKING ARRESTED HER, YOU MORONS! I get it. The writers wanted to up the stakes. Deb becomes the monster she tried to protect Dexter from becoming. There are a million ways to have handled that and have it not suck. This was not one of them.
Hurm. I like my finale better. I mean, this works, I guess, and it still keeps with the property's fetish for keeping Dexter mostly morally comprehensible, but still. I like my ideas better. Not really a surprise. The only parts that I really don't like here are leaving Hannah in play without some sort of endgame for her and Deborah crossing over the line to murder territory when the "I want my brother to bone down on me like one of them Flintstones ribs" was already taken off the table is about as weak as they could have gone with that. The whole thing would have played out better if the two had been fucking, which is weird to say, but there you go. I wouldn't say that the rest is the triumphant return of the series to the best thing on television, but it's far enough away from "Hey guy on the other side of the curtain who is murdering - maybe you should stop murdering but I'll walk the other direction" and "I have to go - my planet needs me" that it still feels like a step up. Sadly, I'm still not convinced that this show won't get a force renewal (seriously - super weak season of Homeland creatively), despite what the producers say, so I kind of wonder if the creatives aren't leaving enough balls up in the air to stretch this at least until they get a final/not final call on season 8.
I really thought that Deb poisoned herself to setup Hannah, but it seems like Hannah took the fall or admitted to Dexter that she did it? I'm probably more bummed at that than the whole final showdown malarkey.
Notable things about Dexter: It'll be a summer show this year, not fall. It won't be with Homeland anymore. Dexter will be paired with Ray Donovan (a show about a fixer in Los Angeles). Homeland will be paired with Masters of Sex (show about Masters and Johnson, the sex researchers). Nobody would say that Dexter was going off the air this year yet, but they did say that there was an "endgame." I don't know how to feel about that - on the one hand, it's leads me to fear that they're contemplating force renewal, but on the other, they clearly admit that it got better once it got headed toward an ending, so I have no clue. At this point, I kind of wonder if its appropriate cancellation won't be predicated entirely upon how well Vatican (Ridley Scott supernatural show about....I mean, do I need to explain it?) is shaping up when summer rolls around.
I did like the throwback to Doakes. Doakes is now responsible for 3 times as much plot than he was actually present for. I loved that season with Doakes, because we were needing a character way back then that wasn't buying Dexter's crap. Every time they've tried to make a character like that since then it's been like "that ain't Doakes motherfucker!"
Holy Christ, I had no idea until just now that Isaak Sirko was also Volstagg the Voluminous in Thor (and also the Punisher once)!
I have to agree with Pogo's earlier comment, this show has sort of lost its way post-season 4. Season 5 was mostly a turd which picked up towards the end but fell short, and though I thoroughly enjoyed season 6 (but I'm getting the impression many here did not) season 7 was just all over the place after the opening episode, which was one of the strongest the show has had in a while. I'm glad they didn't dick around with Deb's investi It's because the writers suck. They clearly want to do a bit of a Breaking Bad, show the lines being crossed, how the rules become looser and looser until you forget they even existed in the first place. But they're not good enough to pull it off. In season 2 Dexter agonised over Doakes, to the point of deciding to turn himself in. In season 5 he murders Liddy in a van and it's never mentioned again. Hell, there's the fact that the code, and even his MO, seem to be something that are just ignored by the writers now whenever they feel like it. I mean there have been multiple situations - and it's only getting worse - where Dexter is being so lazy it's just amazing he hasn't been caught. He has committed multiple murders in places it shouldn't be difficult to place him. Hannah was dull as dishwater. It's a plot we've seen before, and the writers know it which is why they have Dexter monologue about how she's not like the women he's been with before. Sorry, but she is, and she really doesn't fulfill her role of causing conflict between Deb and Dexter. Drop all Hannah's scenes and make them all scenes between Dexter and mob guy, because that gay bar scene was the high point of the season. The writing of Deb is the weakest part of the season. It should be about how she finds herself crossing the lines, but she really doesn't put up any resistance. Dexter comes to her, and she repeats the same lines every week and it doesn't feel like there's any development. She's in this sort of accepting and depressed state, but it's like a switch that's flicked rather than a spiral as it should be. I'm actually disappointed she discovers Dexter, even though it made for a cool season 6 finale. I thought the "incest" angle was really interesting, but it becomes next to irrelevant because despite saying the words she's referring more to a past state because of the way she sees him now. I also think it would have been far more interesting if she was uncovering the truth about Dexter as part of LaGuerta's investigation. The love story and the investigation would then provide an excellent conflict for her character leading to an exciting finale where she picks a side having only just discovered the truth. As it is, she feels so damn passive in all of this, siding with Dexter because she sided with Dexter last time. Oh, and fuck that Hannah escape, that was just bloody lazy. Really? The plan was she knocks herself out and then relies on the arrival of an unrelated patient, along with her guards being morons and leaving her unattended with scissors so she could make her escape. That was the plan? Fuck you.
