Did Dexter’s controversial ending make sense after all? A rewatcher’s take 

When Dexter ended its run in 2013, it left everyone in shock and asking a thousand questions. The beloved vigilante-cum-serial killer didn't get any poetic justice and die, or get caught, or get any redemption. He just trotted away and became a lumberjack. Why a lumberjack was one of the questions that everyone was left asking.

Fans waited eight whole seasons to see Dexter Morgan get some punishment for his crimes, but all they got in the end was a redheaded, brooding man in a flannel, hiding from everyone. The show was tossed into the oblivion of unacceptable endings with shows like Game of Thrones, The Sopranos, and How I Met Your Mother.

But many years and rewatches later, the shock finally wears off, and the ending of the show doesn't seem too bad. Fans learn that Dexter was never about happy endings or justice; it was just showing the thin line between morality and madness. After more than a decade, the show's ending doesn't seem as bad; in fact, it seems fitting.

Did Dexter's controversial ending make sense after all?

For years, Dexter's ending felt like a betrayal to many fans, but after years of retrospect (and rewatches), fans realized that it was exactly the ending the show had been building towards for eight years. The show was about trauma, control, and denial, but never did they say that it was about justice.

So, today, let's examine all the pieces of Dexter, like his arc, Deb's death, the hurricane, and the unexpected lumberjack era, and see how the ending made sense at all.

The tragic life of Dexter Morgan

From the very first episode, the show came out with its tragic background. It introduced Dexter Morgan (Michael C. Hall) as a man who was molded by trauma. He was raised by his adoptive father, Harry Morgan, who taught him "Harry's Code", a moral guideline directing him to only kill other murderers.

Harry's code was ethical; it was a coping mechanism to control Dexter's urges to kill people into control. But as the series goes on, viewers see that he loses control and his killings become less about justice and more about rage, revenge, love, or guilt. He stops following the Code and starts to manipulate it.

By the time the series reaches its finale, fans don't care about whether Morgan gets caught or not; they want to know whether his delusion will ever end. And in the end, they get the answer. The darkness inside of him destroyed everyone around him, leaving him alone and isolated.

He thought that he could live a double life, but his code became his prison and left him emotionless and purposeless in the end. Death would have been mercy for him; living and exiled life as a hollow man seemed much more befitting his crimes.

Deb's death was the true consequence of his actions.

If Dexter was all about control, Deb was all about love. She was irrational, self-sacrificing, and her heart was always in the right place. When she discovered his secret, it shattered her, and watching her spiral from disgust to acceptance and then complicity was one of the most painful things to watch on the show, and the show had some painful killings.

Dexter 'saved countless people' from killers, and yet he wasn't able to save her. He pulled the plug on her at the hospital. Her death was both tragic and symbolic, as it was then that he realized that he wasn't a hero but a curse. He tried to get penance by sailing into a hurricane with Deb's body, hoping that it would swallow him.

The lumberjack phase

Dex's bearded lumberjack look would have been the perfect meme if it didn't have the gruesome background to it. Throughout the series, he continuously says that he is emotionless and has been mimicking empathy, rehearsing social cues, and that he only feels alive (or any emotion at all) when he is killing people.

When Deb dies, there is no need to keep the facade going, so he exiles himself somewhere far off and becomes a lumberjack. He stays away from society so that he doesn't cause any more pain (and chaos). He is again protecting people, but this time from himself.

He is alive and free, but has to wake up every day carrying the weight of his deeds, and that's the best punishment. He has no family, no friends, no thrill, and no purpose. He is cursed to eternal damnation and its existential hell.

What went wrong?

If the ending was poetic justice, then why do people hate it so much? Well, the answer lies in the execution. No one hated the idea of the finale, just the way it was presented. In the final season, many major arcs were rushed, many supporting actors were sidelined, and many subplots were plunged (everyone misses the Brain Surgeon).

The sharp moral dilemma that was set up by the early seasons was completely lost by the end. The show had lost its charm, and thus even a morally correct ending seemed dull. So, the result was that fans were disappointed. Instead of rushing through the show, if the makers had unraveled the plot gradually, emphasizing his isolation, guilt, and loss of self-control, it would have landed better.

Tasting New Blood

Finally, after eight long years, makers felt that the fans may not have been happy with the original ending, so they decided to rectify their mistake. In 2021, they revived the series as Dexter: New Blood to redeem the series finale. In the series, Morgan is seen living in Iron Lake under a different alias and trying to stay good.

But things go south when he discovers that he can't escape who he really is, thus he falls back into his old pattern. The revival of his old pattern and the lies put a strain on his relationship with his son, Harrison. New Blood made him and the viewers realize that being isolated from society didn't really cure him; it only delayed what was inevitable.

In the end, Harrison kills his dad, and it becomes a symbolic gesture that ends the cycle. For those who think that death wasn't the right punishment, it was only an escape, know this: fate forced him to live in isolation long enough for him to come face to face with who he truly was.

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In conclusion, rewatching the show made one thing clear: the finale wasn't wrong; it was the most fitting conclusion to a story about obsession, denial, and self-destruction. The show made fans root for a man obsessed with killing people, but never promised his redemption. His punishment wasn't prison or death, it was clarity of him knowing what he was.

In his journey, he lost the person who loved him unconditionally, lost his purpose, and exiled himself till his chapter ended. That is not a bad ending, it's a Shakespearean tragedy. So, the destination made sense, but the journey didn't. The ending was air-tight, but the execution faltered.