The original post: /r/television by /u/splader on 2025-11-21 22:49:26+00:00.
Quick disclaimer: I haven’t yet seen Dexter: New Blood or the 2025 show either, so please no spoilers for that!
Okay yeah this went on way longer then I thought, here’s a quick tl;dr: I thought the entire show, start to finish, was good, to great, to good, to satisfying in a tragic way. The show was about Dexter and Deb and I think it did a fantastic job with their story.
Somewhat longer disclaimer: I’d only seen an episode or two of the show before and was always interested but never put in the time. Especially after I heard how awful the ending was etc. But then I saw all the praise the latest show has been getting so figured it was time.
This might get a little long and ranty, apologies in advance. (spoiler, it did)
So going in to the show, I had a few things spoiled for me. One absolutely MAJOR spoiler that I thought was going to happen in like Season 4 or earlier. And the other being some jokes about “Lumberjack Dexter”. The major spoiler, sadly, was someone telling me that “his sister dies” and a vague memory of them maybe saying Dexter killed her. So yeah, I was expecting that shoe to drop every season, not in the literal last 10 minutes of the show lol.
But back to the show, so by binging it all so quickly a lot of the seasons meshed in my mind (with a few standouts of course, like Season 4 or 2). But I didn’t think of seasons individually that much anyway, instead the show was more about the characters developing and degrading, specifically Dexter and Debra. Seeing them make progress in various ways, or destroying progress made, etc was probably the most interesting part of the show for me. Which surprised me as I had heard “the sister was really annoying” going in.
I’m not going to talk about the full details of the last season, as I do think not all of it worked. Hannah was an important character for Dexter to “become human”, but the execution was lacking. Vogel was interesting but did feel a little “shoe-horned” in, and Saxon just wasn’t a good antagonist, even though I understood their attempt to make him Dexter’s Foil, the whole “this is who you could have been.” Though I did like Zach a fair a bit. But yeah, this season did have a good amount of misses, but where it excelled imo was in continuing the journey of Dexter and Deb’s character.
I actually really liked Deb coming to terms with Dexter and his life. I was reading up on some of the reactions to the ending and it seemed a lot of people wanted Dexter to “get what was coming to him” or something, and I don’t know if I agree there. This isn’t Joe Goldberg on You, who kills innocents and uninvolved people all the time. With Dexter, even after 8 full seasons, he’s killed non-killers maybe twice? Might be a little more, but for the most part the vast, vast majority of who ends up on his table do deserve to be there. And yes, if Dexter found himself on the table, he’d deserve it too. But his downfall wasn’t something I was actively hoping to see.
Back to Deb and him, those two have been each others pillar from the start of the show imo. More Dexter being Deb’s support initially, but eventually both ways. The show, at it’s core, was about Dexter and Debra in my opinion, which I know many will disagree. Seeing Deb collapse internally from the revelations and her decision to protect her brother no matter what, even at the cost of her own morality, I thought it was really well done. (though yes, the whole “I’m in love with you” stuff was awful, fully agreed.) Probably the best part of Vogel was seeing Deb interact and relate with her father again. All in all, I grew to really like her as a character and I was dreading the ending I knew was coming. Heck a part of me was hoping my friend had been lying, especially after the bullet didn’t seem fatal initially. Hell even when Dexter pulled the plug, I was truly, truly hoping for her to start breathing again. Alas, that didn’t happen, and it was heartbreaking. I don’t usually get in my feelings with TV character deaths, but this one really got me. Not in a “bawling my eyes out” way, but in a “goddamn, I feel sad” one. Especially with her last line being, iirc, “I’ll see you soon.” It hurt doubly so because I knew there were sequel series to the show and man I was reaaaally hoping Debra would be involved in them somehow.
But let me talk really quick about Dexter and how I think they handled his character, his emotions, his relationships and his decisions really well. The entire show, Dexter struggles with his humanity, or perceived lack of. We see him start off feeling completely empty and emotionless, only really feeling the thrill of the kill. But as he deepens his relationship with Rita, Deb, and even Angel, we start to see buds of emotion on top of whatever Dexter is faking (or thinks he’s faking). I used to be annoyed that he’d show so much emotion for someone who’s not supposed to have any, but I realized the entire premise of him being “emotionless” was wrong, something Dexter himself only really figures out near the end, and something that surprised Vogel too. His son was his first major step towards becoming “more human”, and Rita was going to be the second but was of course taken from him before it really happened. Hannah was the character to take that place and while yes the execution could have been better, having someone question what he’s been taught about himself his entire life was done well. With those two bringing out the humanity in him, he finds his compulsive need to kill quenched. Which ultimately leads to him sparing Saxon from his own knife, instead opting to do what he could never do before, and have his sister bring Saxon to justice “the right way.” This was a huuuuuge moment for the character, one I really didn’t expect.
But then, of course, his newfound humanity ends up having some severe consequences. By sparing Saxon, he allows him to shoot and ultimately kill one of the most important people in his life. One of the few people he truly cares about. How it happens, sure people can complain about the execution (not that I minded it, it was alo partially Debra’s own actions coming to catch up to her,) but the end result was Dexter shattering again as a newly formed person. He comes to the same conclusion he’d been to several times in the show, but this time Harry is gone, his sister is gone (well, almost), and his family is far and away. He comes to the (pretty reasonable tbh) conclusion that he hurts everyone he cares about and that he can’t be near anyone else. He leaves his son with a woman he knows loves him, and one he trusts to take care of him (again, execution was not the best here). The show then ends with the truly heartbreaking scene of him “killing” Debra and leaving with her on another core part of his life, his father’s boat (which he also showed an emotional attachment of earlier this season). After “burying” her, he rides off into an active hurricane, presumably in an attempt to end his life. Thus ending the show with the two characters it had revolved around.
The show wasn’t perfect, far from it, but I didn’t really think one season in particular was awful, or terrible, or even a steep decline in quality. Each season had plenty of great moments, be it character or plot-centric, and Dexter’s evolution and journey was well told. The show is also, of course, a tragedy but it does so by circumventing expectations a little. I think everyone watching the show expected Dexter to have a violent end, which while still would have fit the “tragedy” definition, it also wouldn’t hit that hard. By having Deb be the character to lose her life, by showing Quinn and Dexter grieving her, by having Dexter get revenge personally inside the very building Saxon should have been most safe, all these things made a finale that hit like a truck in so many ways. And, for me at least, gave me a sad, tragic, but satisfying finale. I was truly hoping Deb would end the show simply on the machine, that in maybe one of these sequel series I’d see her appear (and not just as a vision or memory). Her story still had so much more to tell and she didn’t deserve to die like that, but that’s what made the ending so impactful imo. Heck as I write this, I’m still broken up about the loss.
Ultimately, I’m glad I watched through the whole thing and I don’t agree with those who say to stop watching at a certain season (like Season 4, etc). A big part of the show from the very start was always going to be Deb eventually figuring out Dexter, and while they didn’t do it perfectly, I thought they still did it quite well overall.
I know I’m in the minority I think here, liking the ending and even the weaker seasons, but I do think binging it all like this helps. The ending didn’t feel like it was added in later, etc, and I didn’t even realize till after I finished that the original showrunner wasn’t involved past season 4.
Sorry for the giant rant, most people I tried to talk about the show barely remember anything about it, so I put my thoughts to pen instead! What do you guys think? Have you spoken with people who binged the show rather than watching it week to week, were they more okay with the ending than others? And yep I plan on watching the new stuff soon, but I might take a small break to let everything soak in first!
For those who made it this far, thanks for giving my literal lunacy your time!