10 Things Other Shows Can Learn From the Disappointing Final Season Of "Dexter"

The sheer awfulness of Dexter's final season is universally agreed upon at this point. At press time, the final episode has yet to air, but who are we kidding? It's not going to be a magically redeeming finale that validates the boredom we've suffered through during season eight, that alleviates the embarrassing, almost squirm-inducing sloppiness that's been on display since mid-summer.

The series has always been far from perfect, but mid-way through this final year it became apparent that Dexter's writers had totally dropped the ball, exposing a gross misunderstanding of audience expectations, thematic resonance, and well, the nature of good storytelling. While Breaking Bad is putting on a clinic of how to pull off a near-perfect final season, Dexter is fast becoming a cautionary tale for what not to do. To all current and future showrunners, we're making Dexter's last season worthwhile the only way we know how to: as a learning experience. Here's what not to do. Read on for 10 Things Other Shows Can Learn From The Disappointing Final Season of Dexter.

Written by Frazier Tharpe (@The_SummerMan)

Momentum

The home stretch of any crime drama should be a relentless roller-coaster. Because of the nature of the TV business, even the best series resort to a holding pattern to stretch the show out to at least five seasons. A season that’s produced with the knowledge that it’s going to be the last should be narratively freeing. By the halfway mark, the writers' room should be going balls to the wall, with a final arc that leaves the viewer on the edge of their seats, or better yet, falling off.

We should be so immersed in each hour that we’re left wanting more when it ends, not checking our watches every five minutes to see if it’s finally over. The closest Dexter came to an ending that made us sit up was Deb intentionally driving herself and Dexter off the road, which isn’t saying much because of course the show isn’t going to kill off either of them with seven episodes left to go. As for the narrative propulsion of the last few episodes, it was far from a bullet train.

Pacing Is Key

Part two of the momentum issue. While the former deals with the episodes themselves, pacing deals with the overall season structure, and the two go hand-in-hand.

When the fifth episode of this last season resovled Dexter and Deb’s issues along with, seemingly, The Brain Surgeon, the whole season deflated like a punctured lung. It became completely aimless, with no clear end in sight, allowing for detours like Zach Hamilton (a feint that suggested the series was going to end with Dexter training an apprentice, but while his death was a surprise, it didn’t really have much effect since he’d only been around for three or so episodes) and old characters like Hannah to literally breeze in.

Oh, and the guy Dex killed four episodes ago wasn’t actually the Brain Surgeon, surprise! Sloppy pacing like this leads to a lack of momentum, which equals a disengaged audience.

Keep the Stakes High

Simply put, it’s the last year. The final arc should be grand and engrossing. It should feel like a movie, not indistinguishable from any other season. Dexter’s pursuit of the Brain Surgeon is really just the series following its playbook once more, giving off the air of a third season where the producers learned they wouldn’t be coming back mid-way through making it, and now they’re trying to pump things up. But it’s too little too late. And while we love Yvonne Strahovski, the over-long talks between her and Dexter about their strange love does not make for engaging drama.

Create and Maintain Tension

The worst part of these last episodes of Dexter has been that far too many stretches are devoid of urgency. In fact, Dexter’s been pretty happy, with a beautiful woman on his arm, a doting son, an enabling therapist mother figure, and a sister who has stopped giving a fuck that he likes to kill people.

These arcs haven’t just been paced leisurely, the characters themselves are ambling through them. That is, except little Harrison of course, who tried to run faster than his legs could handle. Actually, we did tense up a little during that scene—with uncontrollable laughter.

Reference the Rich Past

For shows that are rich in mythology and make it to a healthy number of seasons, references to the past episodes, arcs, people or even just major moments are always welcome. Not only are they cool and pleasing to the attentive fan, they lend to both the effect of everything coming full circle and the impression that a careful amount of thought went into the details of the final season. The Dexter team certainly did that, promotionally speaking, but in the actual episodes? Not much more than a tossed off mention of Miguel Prado from his wife (who we, if we're being honest, forgot existed.)

Avoid Retcons

The quickest way to piss off your core audience during the final hours: fucking with the mythology. There are revelations, and then there are retcons. Learning that Harry’s Code was actually the byproduct of a head shrink we’ve never met, let alone heard of, is walking a fine line between the two, and guess which side Dexter ultimately fell over on.

Don't Delay the Conflict

Set up is cool and all but, the fact that Oliver Saxon wasn’t outed as the bad guy until episode nine of a twelve episode season is just terrible. This is partly because Dexter’s writers didn’t remember they had to wrap the series up and, you know, introduce some conflict in the first place until around that point. You can’t ask your audience to give a damn about a showdown between the lead and a guy we only just met a couple episodes ago.

Fall Back on New Characters

This one’s a delicate balance. Of course any new season is going to inject some new blood for a fresh storyline to help propel the conflict to its conclusion. But if the audience stuck with the show for the whole journey, all they really care about is the people they’ve spent x number of seasons with: the core cast. Putting too much weight on new people who eat up the precious remaining hours can be a turn-off.

Uncle Jack on Breaking Bad works as a final antagonist because he and his pack of Neo-Nazis fit in with the mistake Walter White’s been making since the pilot: expecting the criminal element to behave as if the drug trade is just any other business. He’s underestimated and expected some level of decency from every crook he’s ever come across, only to be met with ugly violence. Breaking Bad has also given us a number of unsettling scenes that let Uncle Jack and his crew breathe. We're getting to know them.

Evelyn Vogel, on the other hand, already represents a retcon to the mythology, and despite great work from Charlotte Rampling, the show asked us to care about her far more than it actually earned. Meanwhile, instead of pitting Dexter against his co-workers or sister, we get Oliver Saxon, the (too) late-reveal Big Bad whom the writers are trying to present as a cracked mirror image of Dexter, the way he would’ve ended up without the code. In the shock of all shocks, we didn’t really give a shit about Evelyn and Oliver reconnecting to the sweet tunes of Mama Cass, and worse yet we’re not even sure why Dexter did either.

Dead-End Subplots

Look, we know Dexter has to toss its loathsome supporting cast a bone, for no reason other than the fact that Michael C. Hall isn’t a machine and can’t be everywhere all of the time. We also know that we’re generally not going to care about what the Miami Metro team is up to compared to Dex and Deb. But this season it’s almost like the writers took bets on which character they could saddle with the most boring subplot.

Masuka has a daughter...and she works at nudie bars and smokes weed! Quinn and the other cop whose name we can’t remember (did we ever learn it?) are competing to make seargent! Quinn and Jamie Batista (who's about as ineffectual and pointless as a character can be) are having trust and commitment issues in their relationship that only just started this season! Just because they service the C, D and in the case of Quinn and Jamie, Z stories doesn’t mean we’re going to forgive them for being utterly disposable. After all, we’ve spent eight seasons with these people, too. Don’t they deserve storylines with a little weight and closure?

Satisfy Your Audience

Because, as is the case with most serialized dramas, the final run is the moment they’ve been anticipating for basically the entire series. We’re not saying pander to them, but there are certain reasonable expectations. Dexter objecting to end things with a storyline that sees Miami Metro’s happy-go-lucky forensic analyst exposed as the Bay Harbor Butcher and hunted, or at the very least viewed as a monster that needs to be put down by his adoring sister, is like Breaking Bad ending with Hank, Marie and Flynn being none the wiser about Heisenberg.

Say what you will about The Sopranos finale but at least it saw Tony in one last beef that took a major toll on his family. Certain premises have certain narrative demands. Honor them.