A killer ending: ‘Dexter’ starts its final season
The question isn’t when “Dexter” will end. The question is how.
The series that has made a hero of a serial killer of criminals begins its eighth and final season at 8 p.m. Sunday on Showtime. It has changed its game so many times during its run, it’s anyone’s guess as to the ultimate fate of forensics expert Dexter Morgan (played by Michael C. Hall). And, for that matter, of his protective-to-afault half sister Debra (Jennifer Carpenter).
Her discovery of his secret, lethal life at the end of Season 6 made Season 7 a wild ride, as she struggled to do her job as detective and spokeswoman for the Miami Police Department while not exposing his crimes. She ultimately had to make a phenomenally tough choice: Give him up or kill their boss, who finally had figured out the truth about Dexter. And as she typically has, Debra stayed on Dexter’s side.
That has become ever harder, though, and the show’s ending stint reflects that. Debra is in her deepest spiral yet, unable to cope with having become a willful murderer herself, and its impact on her relationship with him is quite pronounced.
As usual, Dexter has other problems, too. A neuropsychiatrist (Charlotte Rampling) has an ulterior motive for taking a deep interest in him, and his deadly ex-girlfriend (Yvonne Strahovski) returns after he placed her in the hands of justice.
Hall, also an executive producer of the series, displays no doubt that now is the time to finish the killer’s journey with his psychological “dark passenger.”
“In a lot of ways, it feels like it feels every year at this point,” he says, “but it’s a real roller coaster. Every time we shoot a scene, we don’t have a lot of time, but it comes in waves, and we’ve had a lot of lasts. There was a last first day that started all the other lasts, but I think we’re just focused on doing our jobs to bring this home.
“I probably won’t be able to process my smorgasbord of feelings until it’s finished,” he says. “I feel a lot of pride, excitement, sadness, anxiety and anticipation. Right about the time we wrapped the seventh season, I had a conversation with (show runner) Scott Buck about the broad strokes of the final season and where we’d be headed, so I’ve known generally since then.”