Dexter Season 8 Episode 12 - Remember The Monsters? [SPOILERS]

Sigh.

Well, it was always the ending I suspected might happen, given how the writers practically fell over themselves to paint Dexter as the misunderstood anti-hero, jettisoning what remained of basic logic and credibility the show had to attain that goal. I tended to presume we'd end with Dexter sacrificing himself somehow. It's the standard narrative for anti-heroes: you can't reward their darkness, so the default option is to allow them to go out with a noble death, a blaze of glory that saves others more deserving of life. Yet even the rank amateurs that make up the Dexter writing staff couldn't achieve that simple goal: instead we got that pointless, contradictory coda that undid what was already a fairly muddled decision by Dexter to kill himself. That Harrison is just forgotten by everyone in Miami, and is now cared for by a known killer hardly seems like a happy ending either.

But hey, we're here and the show's done. About 3/4 seasons too late but there you are. Doubtless this forum will die a death in the coming months as we try to forget this substandard show & move on with our TV lives. In the end the last episode ever was almost a textbook case of the redundant, anti-climatic finale; an ending so without worthiness it basically insults its own mythology. But then it had become so enamoured with its own main character, it's not that surprising that the supporting cast got short shrift (oh, Dexter killed a suspect in custody; no biggie, it was self-defence. Bye Dex!) I suppose I might have felt more about Deb dying but considering her last words to Dexter included how he 'deserved happiness', I just got angry rather than sad. It was all so contrived it was simply obnoxious in the extreme.

In many ways, the 'Masuka's daughter' plotline kinda summed up the season as a whole really: completely pointless, dreadfully plotted, contradicted established characters, it went absolutely nowhere and ultimately nobody cared that it all came to nothing.