Okay. Is the coast clear? Time to let 'er rip.
However, I did not see the show when it was first aired. I did not have HBO for a long time, but I moved and got a free trial for about a year. So I got to watch all those great HBO shows, and Six Feet Under was one of them. It was very fresh in my mind in 2006 when Dexter started on Showtime.
Who the hell am I???
I was not alone. There were thousands of other blood lovers out there, just like me. We hung out on the Dexter bulletin boards. I started this blog, though I couldn't write for it again after the ending of Season Four, till this year anyway when I knew it was over after this season.
Seems as though the bloom was off the rose with Dexter for a while for some of these blood lovers. I used to attend viewing parties with the Showtime crew (they provided us free booze and food, and we got to meet the actors!), but SHO stopped doing them for whatever reason. Most people thought that Dexter had gone downhill. In my opinion, I didn't think it went downhill necessarily. Just a few things happened that changed Dexter's world dramatically which meant he couldn't kill indiscriminately.
1) He became a father. I never liked the introduction of Harrison. I also never liked Rita, I was happy to see her go, but I was traumatized by the way she went. The whole thing with Dexter wanting to assimilate into real life never really was a selling point to me. He's a serial killer. He's different. I know forensic experts make a shit ton of money, but let's face it: he had to be paying Jaime like 40-grand a year to keep her with those crazy hours. Shit, I woulda quit if I was her, with the crazy schedule Dexter kept and last minute changes!
2) Deb found out. I also never bought the whole incestuous storyline. That creeped me out more than John Lithgow's buttocks in Season Four. Once Deb knew, nothing good was to come out of it. This came to a head in the final episode.
3) Trinity. Damn, if I want to live under the radar so I can be a serial killer, I'm moving to Miami! (note to any law enforcement agents: this will never happen. Just trust me on this)
So given all that preamble, I must confess that a comic book-like character like Dexter is something I never thought I'd get hooked on. Well, never say never. And like many shows I've gotten attached to over the years, this was one I wanted to see through.
The ending reminded me a lot of The Sopranos. I don't remember anyone being happy about that. Yet, six years later, we STILL talk about it. We wonder - is Tony alive or dead? Was that Meadow who came into the restaurant? Some shows are not going to have the closure that Six Feet Under graciously gave us (and with a show where death was a central storyline, it made PERFECT sense). I mean, think about life itself. Life often has ambiguous endings, and people looking for closure often don't get it. They may get comfort, but not closure.
So, a few weeks ago, I was talking to some other blood lovers. We were discussing the scenarios that would make us happy. One of them being Dexter finding himself on the table. Some people were okay with that. I was not. I didn't mind an ambiguous ending so long as I knew Dexter was alive. (By the way - if you haven't read the Clyde Phillips interview with E! online about how he envisioned the ending...trust me, you don't want to pass that up). Also the whole idea of him being on the table...not sure who would have had him on the table. Ya know? I wouldn't have been happy had it been Deb who had him on the table.
The other scenario which made me happy was the idea of Hannah, Harrison and Dexter, holding hands in Buenos Aires, with the sun setting in the background. It meant that they all had a clean slate. Almost a rebirth. Hannah was where she wanted to be, Dexter was with someone who he didn't have to hide who he was, and maybe he could finally provide some stability to his son.
I guess the closest thing to that was somewhere in the middle. Yes, we know now Dexter didn't exactly DIE...but the life as he knows is no longer. We know that Harry is not a part of his conscience anymore.
Yet, I think what bothered me most is how Dexter kind of martyred himself. Deb would have wanted him to be happy. She even said as much. Yet, at the same time, he's responsible, directly or indirectly, ruining those he managed to have feelings for.
I often said that Dexter reminded me of Hamlet. It was his own hesitation that led to his demise and of those he loved around him.
1.) Rita. Had he killed Arthur Mitchell when they were out in the woods, away from everyone else, perhaps Rita's plane would have crashed on the way to the Keys like I had hoped (that's how much I disliked her). But rather he got sympathetic when he saw that Trinity was crying over a hurt deer. Really? And how much did he learn from Trinity? That your family suffers silently while you kill everyone?
2.) Deb. The second he got Debra involved in the whole Dark Passenger and Harry's Code business, she was a goner. Whether she went down a spiral of her own doing, it seemed like the writing was on the wall that she was doomed, now that I think about it. Maybe he didn't have the urge to kill Oliver/Daniel. But I guess he didn't learn a goddamn thing about hesitating with Trinity right?
3.) Maria LaGuerta. Her death never sat right with me, because she didn't fit the code. Plus, maybe last year should have been the last season, with Debra killing Dexter in that container, instead of LaGuerta. Maria annoyed me at times, but she didn't deserve to go, as a byproduct of Dexter's arrogance.
4.) Harrison. Seriously, dude, you get parent of the year for sending your kid to Argentina with a FUGITIVE. I liked Hannah, but come on. Not that swift a move there, huh, Ex-Lax?
5.) Harry. They always believed he died of natural causes, but we find out that's far from the truth in later seasons. Harry, in a sense, was Doctor Frankenstein: he couldn't bear to take responsibility for the monster he had created.
See a pattern here? Another thing that didn't sit right was how Deb went. Yes, I totally get the whole taking off life support thing. Judging from what I knew and felt about her, I would have gathered she would not have wanted to live like that. But not allowing her a proper burial? Disallowing people like Masuka, Quinn and Bautista a proper goodbye? Selfish right to the end.
Yet, he was acknowledging that she was also his victim. It was also the first time that he was able to reciprocate a feeling, a true feeling. While he was in shock after Rita's death, he never truly felt towards another human the way he did for Deb. While I believe he loved Hannah, let's face it: the chemistry between them was amazing. Being around each other 24/7...he may have wanted to put her back on that table anyway after a few weeks in Argentina.
So the last scene. Dexter is living alone, presumably, as a lumberjack in what's to be perceived as the Pacific Northwest (I've seen the writers suggest it's Oregon). If you keep to yourself, you can't get hurt nor can you hurt anyone else.
Yet, watching the ending from the west coast channel, a few things we noticed (my husband and I) the second time around.
1.) He tells Harrison "One last time" that he loves him. I caught that the first time around, my husband did not. I thought Dexter was actually just going to either jump in with Deb or just coast to the hurricane.
2.) Is it any coincide that he's by water where he's made his new life?
Prior to this episode, whether they knew it or not, Dexter had enablers in his life. Whether it was Rita giving him his freedom in the form of "man cave," Deb not asking questions, Quinn saving his own butt by not talking about what he suspected, Vogel, Harry, even Hannah, or the police department by giving him unlimited access to his potential victims. Dexter has always just wanted solitude. By chopping trees in Oregon, perhaps he can achieve something that those around him who have tried to help could not do...and that's give him peace.
Yet, at the same time, his own purgatory, like Hamlet's uncle, is to walk the Earth alone while the people he cares about are thousands of miles away in Argentina. Perhaps we needed to see that the Dark Passenger was eradicated in the next to last episode. What we wanted was closure, since we got that every season, I guess it was expected now.
But like life, there are many ambiguities. Dexter was one of them. I felt the writers did us a disservice. They took the easy way out. Dexter as the loner lumberjack, sitting alone each night in his room, is basically his prison. My idea was he'd go to Argentina, holding hands with Harrison and Hannah, then maybe as an old man, he returns to Miami and starts taking out the trash again. Now we're just left to wonder. Is that good television, or bad?
