Dexter - 12/18/11 - This is the Way the World Ends

I figured it out too but that doesn't make it any less impactful... And even when I saw it coming I thought for sure she would witness it but he wouldn't know she was there--I didn't expect him to see her. Saw it coming or not, that's a pretty game-changing ending.

I don't get all the Deb hate, and not really feeling the "I love my Brother" storyline (although I guess on some level it makes sense?), but that scene was six seasons in the making...all the lies, and especially all the near-misses, it's pretty big.

Everything else about the finale was "meh". It reminded me of season three a bit where you're just like "who cares?". I'm still shocked that the show was upped for TWO more years because it's getting and harder and harder for them to keep the emotional pace of their good seasons going... This season had it's moments but they were relying too much on Angel and Quinn, then the thing with the Captain and Laguerta, etc, because they're running out of juice.

Also WTF was up with the hand? Louis bought it on ebay, then drew lines on it and sent it back to Dex? He's obviously obsessed with him but I'm not following that whole thing. Seems like they're setting him up for something next year but he doesn't seem like a serial killer.

Seems like they had an end goal (Deb finding out) and then tried to work it out from there. They added her "being in love" with Dexter as a plot device to make her "dilemma" interesting next season. I think it would be more interesting without that twist. This reminds me of how Lucas had to come up with a Vader turning point and then wrote a steaming pile of horse manure plot to get there. Same thing here.

Not really understanding the syringe thing. Did he have one with just saline or something? Last time he got stabbed in a non-vein it did knock him out. This time it didn't. Just a minor curiosity among many. Also curious is leaving Dexter alone in the crime scene and not noticing loud hammer noises. Of course, given that his face was painted in about 3 strokes you'd think that he could have just sprayed it once with something to make it magically disappear.

This season would have been more interesting if the intern had actually jumped in halfway through and started a murderous rampage.

Been thinking about it, and the more I think about it, the more I see how badly that entire reveal was messed up. After six years, that is pretty much the biggest scene in the series' history, and yet the way they crafted it sucked.

First off, after six years they have Deborah realize she's in love with him (potential grossness aside) seemingly out of nowhere, two episodes ago. Not at the beginning of the season or even the middle, but towards the end. That "twist" seems to be out of left field and also crosses some lines/ requires time for people to accept in a way they're actually emotionally invested in it instead of grossed out (although people need to relax a bit, they're not ACTUALLY RELATED). Still, the whole plot line REEKS of daytime TV shenanigans. We didn't have time to really "buy" it, which impacted the weight of the cliffhanger.

Then she tells her therapist, who has to be the worst shrink of all time. I know it's TV but the writer's just took the easy way out here and had the therapist not only on board with Deb's plan to let him know how she feels, but she practically facilitated it. No one in their right mind would push that course of action without a TON of examination/discussion. It was just a lazy shortcut so that Deb would try to find him at the end of the hour.

Then there was the actual build up within the episode. Just so damn poor. Deb tells him he needs to go back to the church again to "clear" the crime scene so she can release it? What? I think there could have been 40000 ways the writers could have went to get them in the same room at the end of the episode, and they chose the stupidest one possible. It was just dumb.

Like I said earlier, the one thing they got me on was that Dex actually saw her too--that's pretty big. I thought for sure that most of next season would consist of Deb secretly spying/trying to unravel what he's doing while he remains oblivious, but him seeing her in that last second changes that dynamic completely.

I'm sure the whole "in love with him" thing is where the producers wanted to go because it creates an entirely new dilemma for Deb, but that's what I DON'T like about it. That moment (and the consequences of it) would be MUCH more interesting/realistic if they spent the season building up her reliance/love for him AS HER BROTHER and then just as she realizes he's truly the only one in her life that she knows she can trust, she walks in on him killing Travis. To me, the "romantic" angle makes it cheesy and boring, not interesting.