How would you have written the final episode? [complete spoilers for the entire show]

ixoy

So then: Assume you've been asked to write the finale but have to work with the crapfest of the previous eleven season eight episodes - Saxon,Vogel, Masouka's daughter, Zach, etc etc. What would you do? How would you finish it and wrap up plot threads and the like? Would you have done things very differently with just 60 minutes? And not just the final scene.

Here's my own attempt:

Knowing she’s a wanted fugitive, Elway informs airport security that Hannah McKay is probably trying to board a flight for ARGENTINA. Hannah sees him direct security services towards her and she calls Dexter to let him know to run. Dexter and Harrison flee over a tearful phone call.
We then see Hannah arrested because it’s clear who she is when she gets to the airport desk. Dexter worries about what to do and leaves Harrison with Jamie.

Meanwhile, Deb is rushed to hospital, with Quinn at her side. She’s in pain and gets some morphine. In her addled state she begins to ramble: “Man I can’t believe I got shot. Just because my stupid brother finally got a conscience - of all the time to let somebody go Dexter!” Quinn notes it as she goes to the hospital but doesn’t immediately question it.

At Miami Metro, Masouka’s daughter is working. A shadowy figure comes out and puts his hand on her throat. “Where’s Dexter Morgan?” he asks. It’s Saxon. Everyone else is away with Deb so he holds her hostage until they return.

At the hospital, Deb is treated for a gun wound. Batista and the others are there. They’re relieved to hear the injuries are not serious but still decide to phone Dexter despite Deb’s objections.

Dexter is desperately trying to ring Hannah when he receives a call about Deb. He goes to the hospital and they talk for a bit. Batista, determined to find Saxon, returns to the station.

At the station Masouka now walks in. He sees his daughter being held captive and Saxon uses the opportunity to hand him a disc to show to Batista.

Dexter returns to the station, more determined to find Saxon. He walks into the lab - Saxon’s there. Saxon warns him to be quiet. Masouka is there too and tells Dexter not to do anything because Saxon could hurt his daughter.
“Hello Dexter Morgan”, Saxon mocks. Saxon then begins to talk about knowing who Dexter really is because he too knows what it’s like to want to hide who you are. Dexter is getting very worried now as well as angry over Deb being shot.

In Batista’s office we see Angel watching the DVD: It’s the video of Harry Morgan confessing his worries to Vogel about a young Dexter. Quinn watches it, thinking on what Deb said and his previous concerns about Dexter.
In the other room we hear Saxon say: “I know you tried to watch what I did before but I’ve been watching you for a while. And now others are watching it all too. I recorded it all - surprise mutha’fuc*a!”.
Angel sees more videos now - inside Dexter’s house. He sees a shot of Dexter finding Zach’s body. He sees video sessions of him talking with Vogel. He’s clearly planted cameras at his mother’s and, using Jamie’s friend’s apartment, to see into Dexter’s house through a pinhole camera. It’s why he really wanted to woo her - to get close to Dexter’s life. All of this information to bring down the man he saw as replacing him as his mother’s son.
“And just wait until I tell them who strapped me down on that chair,” Saxon taunts. Dexter can’t risk it. In one smooth move he grabs a scalpel and slits Saxon’s throat. Horrified yelling from Masouka - and it’s just after this that Angel and Quinn walk in to confront Dexter. It’s chaos.

It’s later and Dexter’s being interviewed. Batista and Quinn are suspicious now - there’s too much evidence on these discs and they remember all the previous concerns that LaGuerta and Doakes had. Not to mention Dexter’s cold slaying of Saxon in front of them.They’re going to have to investigate.
Masouka is outside staring angrily at the interview room - he can’t help but remember how Dexter risked his daughter’s life to attack Saxon. He’s going to think on previous events and is immediately going to start with examining Dexter’s use of lab equipment and those times when Dexter was not in the lab.
And all this time Dexter can’t answer the phone from Hannah who is also being processed in jail. And so she falls back to her ways, thinking he’s abandoned her and gives up Dexter for aiding and abetting a known fugitive. Outside the huge storm passes over - it’s ominous.

Deb wakes up to find Quinn beside her. He kisses her and she’s happy to see him. However, he looks concerned. Harrison is also there and gives her a hug. Still she sees the worry and asks: “Where’s Dexter?” Quinn gets Jamie to take Harrison outside and begins to tell her that Dexter’s murdered many people and that he’s been covering up for years. Deb cries but it’s too late because we cut to see Dexter confessing to a string of murders including the manslaughter of Doakes and the murder of LaGuerta - he wants to be sure that he can do one good thing for Deb.

Dexter is now on a gurney, a lethal injection being administered. Only one person is there: Deb. A shot of Miami Metro just shows stone cold angry faces on Quinn, Masouka, and Batista - reflecting a moment on that man who made them all look like fools and who callously murdered people under their very noses.
A shot of Hannah in prison staring at a wall.
A shot of Harrison with Jamie in Deb’s house who hugs him when he asks where Aunt Deb is and what happened to his dad.

As Dexter starts to die we see his addled brain turn the execution chamber into one covered in plastic. Around him are the photos of all those he’s killed or who have died because of him. Standing over him is his a figure of himself but deep in shadows somehow. It’s his Dark Passenger. “My dark passenger always drove me. I thought I could push him away with love but he was always there. It’s the end now and I’m going to pay the price for the journey he took me on. I just hope there’s no heaven or hell though because I think there’s going to be a few angry people on either side. Maybe there’s one small thing here, left behind, in Harrison that can live on.” - Shot of a smiling Harrison - “Maybe my life here isn’t a complete failure after all. Or maybe I just think too much and it’s now time to be quiet”. Credits.

TerrorFirmer

This was my brief outline, funny enough it's similar enough to yours in its approach to what should have went down in generally.

Take that Lumberjack scene. And imagine that, instead of the distant Northwest, Dexter is actually sitting in court, with the same vacant, empty expression, beard and all, albiet in a suit this time - no inner monologue, no reaction, nothing whatsoever, as he is sentenced to death.

It could have been the most powerful scene in the shows history.

And ideally it would have arrived at that point via the death of Deb, Hannah being arrested at the airport, Harrison being taken away, and the whole world knowing about his true, serial killer self (perhaps Saxon could've outsed that before his death, much in the same way Trinity got to Rita) - that all could have happened in Episode 12 of the season as it played out. But at that point, Dexter wouldn't care, he's lost all that he loved, and it's his own fault, and he'd rather die than live with that. That would lead up to Clyde Philips proposed ending with Dexter on the table facing execution as all those that he has killed looking on.

As bad as Season 8 was, they could have so easily redeemed it and given us a worthy ending, if nothing else.

Actually that could be an awesome ending the more I think about it, imagine Dexter frantically and brutally stabbing Saxon to death with a Pen on say, Quinn's desk in front of everyone?

After learning that Saxon has killed Harrison and Hannah.

The ironic and satisfying part of that would be that the human emotion that escaped him for so long would be his very undoing in his murder of passion, not the fact that he was actually a serial killer up to that point.

A response to someones pitch that Vogel was playing Dexter all along:

"The last scene is Dexter waking up on a kill table, with Zach, his student, and Vogel, his teacher, staring down at him."

I've seen 20 different alternative endings, and every single one of them is better than what we got. Even if it was as simple as what you've outlined above, with Dexter ultimately deciding to abandon Miami and head for Argentina, much like the moment of realization he had with Saxon - but then, suddenly, just as he's leaving, preparing for his new life, a shadow injects him. He then wakes up on the table, as you've described. That way, Dexter dies, circle of life (or psychopaths), and all that, but Deb lives on, Hannah gets arrested by Elway, Harrison ends up with Deb, etc. Hell, even have Dexters killer past come out AFTER he's gone 'missing, or don't. Either way, I'd be much happier with that ending.

And some other musings.

That was the biggest wash out of a 'finale' ever. Even as a season finale, let alone the definitive finale, it was just the worst out of any of the 8 seasons, half of which were incredibly medicore.

It needed an ending that had Dexter being led into Miami Metro in chains, a SWAT team raiding his/Debs house, a shot of Astor/Cody dropping a glass of milk that smashes on the ground as they see a newspaper headline about America's worst serial killer with a mugshot of Dexter, Dexter in Jail, talking to Harry before he dies, before finally, very aptly, being killed by Lethal Injection as Harry, then joined by Deb, look on, and Dexter smiles and actually looks happy as a tear rolls down his cheek, injection goes in, bang, show over, and I'm satisfied.

****ing lumberjack, what the actual ****.

Saxon is arrested as per the show, but then, Quinn could intercept Dexter carrying Debs body to his boat. In the irrationality of both sides in the heat of the moment, Quinn could end up shooting Dexter, who then escapes despite grievous injury to sea, where he stops the boat, makes that same phone call to Harrison, and then proceeds to sit down, Deb in his arms, and grimace through either trauma or the hurricane as he delivers one last monologue before expiring with Deb in his arms, the boat ultimately claimed by the hurricane.

pixelburp

Well this seems like a good place to put it, because some details about the backroom production of season 8 is coming out; starting with the fact Showtime insisted Dexter could not be bumped off. I always wondered just how much studio interference was on those plotlines, and it looks like the answer was "more than there should have been":

http://www.avclub.com/articles/showtime-told-dexter-writers-they-couldnt-kill-dex%2C103892/

With that kind of constraint, there was never any hope for season 8 really...

As for what I would have done for the last episode? Not sure, but I do know what I would have done for the entire season. Considering it was to be Dexter's swansong, I would have gone for broke and go out with a bang. Start the season showing SWAT teams had surrounded Dexter during a tense siege, and made it clear that the truth was out, that the world was after him. Just as the final breach was about to be made, I'd then throw the narrative back 6 months or so and show all the events that lead up to that point.

Each episode could detail the increasingly precarious situation Dex was living in, as he desperately tried to plug the gaps and remaining inconsistencies in his life (that way we could reintroduce Quinn's missing PI and bring some closure to those dangling threads). It could be a series of escalating disasters until the mid-season finale, where Deb would die for <reasons>, coupled with the final reveal to all in Miami Metro that Dex was the Bay Harbour butcher all along. The latter half of season 8 could then be fully dedicated to the manhunt, with each of the Metro detectives having to deal with the emotionally crippling news that their friend & colleague was a vicious murderer - and that they failed to ever apprehend him. Maybe throw in a chance at redemption for some of them so the focus became Batista et al, not Dexter.

Ron DMC

Ixoy's version of events sounds brilliant.

Is it too much to hope at this point that there'll be alternative endings on a future DVD release?

Mr.Saturn

Ron DMC wrote: »

Ixoy's version of events sounds brilliant.

Is it too much to hope at this point that there'll be alternative endings on a future DVD release?

It'd be a minor shock if there's not rumblings of a Dexter revival in a 3-6 years; Showtime wouldn't be so insistent on Dexter not being dead otherwise, I'd figure.

Fred Swanson

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PopePalpatine

I can almost see it happening now: the Dark Passenger re-awakens when Dexter is in the local bar.