As I detailed last week my frustrations with the final season of Dexter so far, I thought it would be only fair to offer up some solutions. Not necessarily solutions to what we’ve been given; we’re three episodes away from the finale, and who knows what’s in store. But a prospective final season, one that I think we can all get onboard with.

As I said with my previous review, “The final year. Throw it all at Dexter. It should all be about Dexter. His world collapsing. Every episode, every scene.”

The threat of this entire series is that Dexter Morgan will be discovered for what he is, and I feel the final season should deliver on that promise.

Imagine, if you will, the Season 8 of Dexter, as aired, never happened. Just wipe it all from your memory. As far as we’re concerned, Dr. Vogel doesn’t exist, she never helped Harry craft the Code, and it was all Harry all the time. This is important for a few reasons. If Harry’s responsibility for Dexter can at all be relegated to another person, then we can just see a defense for him as simply passing the buck. “The shrink told him to do this.” What else is he supposed to do? He’s a cop. He’s not trained to deal with the fragile psyche of a traumatized young boy. But if the Code was Harry’s idea and his alone, that responsibility is inescapable.

This last set of episodes should be about destruction. The destruction of Dexter’s entire life. Everything he’s ever held dear to him should be set on fire. His relationship with Deb, gone. Harrison, gone. Harry’s reputation, gone. One, this gives us good drama. Two, this sets up the Big Bad for the final season. The Big Bad is Dexter Morgan.

I know that was sort of the case in Season 2 with the hunt for the Bay Harbor Butcher, but that Dexter was very much still holding dear the Code. And what’s the first rule of the Code? Do not get caught. But what happens to Dexter’s principles if he does get caught? Remember, the basis of his entire character is that he actually really enjoys the killing. The fact that he kills what society considers “bad guys” is completely incidental. He doesn’t kill bad guys because they’re bad. He kills them because they’re easy targets and won’t be missed after they’ve gone missing.

What happens to Dexter Morgan when, instead of just inside the kill room, his Dark Passenger takes over on a full-time basis? The Dark Passenger isn’t a separate personality or even a set of philosophical ideals. The Dark Passenger is what Harry was afraid of all those years. It’s a human being walking around freely and completely willing to kill anyone it wants to simply because it feels good. And we’ve seen this personification once before in Brian Moser, the Ice Truck Killer. He had all of Dexter’s compulsions and none of the guidance or training that Dexter had. He never had a Harry or Deb to latch on to emotionally.

And with that, I present where I feel Dexter should have gone for a final season, starting with two “episodes.”

EPISODE 1:

We start the day after LaGuerta’s murder and Batista’s retirement. Her body has been found. Miami Metro is in tatters. In the race to begin the investigation into her death, someone thinks to notify Batista. Nobody wants to do it, so Matthews says he’ll do it. That’s when Masuka volunteers to make the call. Batista’s a friend, so this news should come from a friend. Right off the bat, we have our “jokey” character Vince Masuka, in mourning for a friend and superior, offering to do a notification call for his friend, because it’s the right thing to do. He’s dead serious, and this tells us exactly how serious this scenario is.

At the crime scene, everyone is devastated. Deb is practically in a catatonic state. The police do their investigation. Nobody knows what in the hell LaGuerta was doing there, or even who the guy is. Batista offers Matthews, who is at the scene, to come out of retirement. Matthews (having just come out of retirement himself thanks to LaGuerta) looks at him, nods silently, and just like that, Batista is back.

Dexter and Masuka do the crime scene. Dexter tries to further the story of how he wanted the story of the shootout to play, but Masuka notices the gunshot to Hector Estrada was done postmortem, and after he shows everyone exactly why, Dexter cannot refute it.

Back at Miami Metro, Matthews begins to hand out orders personally. He wants Dexter and Masuka analyzing the hell out of the crime scene. He wants Deb, Quinn, and Batista looking into what LaGuerta was even doing there. Batista wants to look into who the hell Hector Estrada was. Dexter tries to get him to let Deb look into that, saying Batista might be too close to the entire case, but is brushed aside by a reinvigorated and mourning Batista (“We’re all too close to this case, Dexter.”)

The first episode back covers the investigation into LaGuerta’s death, and how dead inside Deb is. Dexter tries to get her to knock it off, but she’s incapable. She’s mentally shut down from the guilt. She doesn’t have that off switch that Dexter possesses, and she’s disturbed by how calm and procedural he is.

Batista looks into Hector Estrada and sees that he was one of the people who killed Laura Moser, the Ice Truck Killer’s mother, and that he was only out and free because LaGuerta pushed so hard for his release at his parole hearing. Batista’s confused by why she would lobby so hard for not just a murderer to go free, but for a case that she was in no way related to. He looks further into the murder, and finds the same newspaper article that Deb found, detailing the surviving children, Brian and Dexter Moser. He’s beginning to piece the puzzle together.

Dexter is still trying to snap Deb out of her funk. She asks him how he can maintain the façade. He tells her killing LaGuerta was necessary, due to her closing in on both of them and especially given the fact that Dexter was the Bay Harbor Butcher. Deb says she hates him for what she’s become.

Batista goes to Matthews about his discovery in regards to Dexter and ITK. Matthews admits to knowing, and that the coverup was so Harry could try and help the then-child Dexter.

During this conversation, Deb walks into the office with her gun in hand. She fires into the air to get everyone’s attention. With everyone around her, she confesses to killing LaGuerta, and then holds up a tape recorder, and plays back for everyone the conversation where Deb and Dexter talk about killing LaGuerta and Dexter being the Bay Harbor Butcher. END OF EPISODE 1.

EPISODE 2:

Episode 2 picks right up. The conversation is still being played. Everyone is horrified, especially Dexter. Batista, still confused as to what it all means, asks the Morgan siblings what’s going on. Dexter stammers, unable to think of a way to explain it away. Deb reinforces it, saying Dexter framed Doakes as the BHB, that it was Dexter all along. He’s a serial killer. He killed Travis Marshall, too, and she helped cover it up with the church fire.

His secrets all out in the open, Dexter cannot confront an entire police department on his own, and completely refuses to be arrested. With escape his only option, Dexter Morgan must fall aside, and his Dark Passenger must come out and take control. I think it would be neat here to have this symbolized by the disappearance of Ghost Harry, who has been telling Dexter to run this entire time with the reappearance of Ghost Rudy (as he was in Season 6) telling him to kill. The “ghost” visions Dexter has been seeing since Season 3 are manifestations of the Code, i.e. Harry’s teachings, with the Code now useless, it must be discarded and replaced by the only other thing that was ever there: Dexter’s urge for murder and self-preservation.

Dexter reaches for the gun of an unsuspecting coworker, grabs it, and then reaches for the person next him, which just so happens to be Masuka. “I hate guns. I usually have a knife for this.” He holds Masuka hostage, but can’t shake the entirety of the department following him wherever he goes. He shoots Quinn in the leg, and in the commotion, manages to disappear with Masuka.

Masuka tries to reason with Dexter, but is also pretty much freaking out and begging Dexter not to kill him. Dexter says, “Well, Vince, I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t thought about it once or twice.”

Stuck at an impasse of not being to get out, but unable to stay in, once they’re in a secluded area, Dexter knocks Masuka out and pulls the fire alarm. Able to blend in with the mass exodus of people who haven’t yet heard that Dexter is being pursued, he is able to get free of the Miami Metro building.

The rest of Episode 2 details the chase for Dexter, his face hitting the news, and the madhouse of a manhunt that ensues. The FBI gets involved and rips Miami Metro a new asshole for not spotting Dexter for who he really was. Someone mentions that Lundy wasn’t able to, either, but the FBI doesn’t seem to really care about Lundy anymore.

Deb is taken into custody, willingly, and without a fight. She’s interrogated by the FBI, with Batista present, and she tells them everything. Who Dexter really is and has always been, how he became who he is, and how Harry trained him. The mention of Harry reminds Batista about Harrison.

The media descends upon Miami immediately, permanently parked outside of Miami Metro. Dexter is surprised to see no media presence outside his own apartment, but there is a lone police car. He has no idea if Harrison is still inside with Jamie, but he knows he needs to get his son and escape. There is an internal struggle and debate with Ghost Rudy over what he should do. Rudy doesn’t understand why Dexter doesn’t just leave his son and escape, while Dexter insists on having his son. He remembers leaving after Rita was murdered, and refuses to make that mistake again. He reveals in voiceover that over the years, he’s set up bank accounts and fallback identities in case anything like this ever happened.

Dexter takes out the two officers with two M99 syringes and gets up to his apartment. Instead of Jamie or Harrison, he finds Batista sitting on the couch. This gives Dexter a jolt of surprise. He hesitates, and is then he tackled from behind by an onslaught of FBI agents and police officers.

As he’s being handcuffed on the ground, Dexter looks up to Batista and demands to see Harrison. Angel kneels down to Dexter and says, “You’re never seeing your son again, you son of a bitch.” Dexter’s face tightens and he becomes deadly serious, saying, “Angel, I think I’ll kill you for this.” END OF EPISODE 2

That was the story of the final season of Dexter I’ve come up with thus far. I know everyone has a different idea of what they’d like to see, and, honestly, that’s part of the fun of coming up with hypothetical ideas for a series.

I’m also aware, as I’m not a professional writer, that there may be some substantial holes in just the story, plot, or continuity of the show in the paragraphs you’ve just (hopefully) read. I’ve tried to whittle them down to as few as possible, but I’m sure they’re still there. Let this paragraph be the disclaimer for this entire post.

@kent_graham