My analysis of the Dexter series finale (spoiler alert)

**Warning - spoiler alert!  If you have any desire to watch the series Dexter, do not read any further!  Spoiler alert!**

Okay, you've been warned . . .

I recently finished watching the entire 8 season run of Dexter on Netflix.  Hat's off to Michael C. Hall and the rest of the crew for an incredible show.

As I started watching season 8 and got closer to episode 12, the series finale, I wondered how it would end.  I could only think of two possibilities: he dies or he gets caught.  The reason they could really only end with either of these is because  . . . well, the series is done.  Completed.  No more shows.

So, Dexter Morgan had to either die or get caught.

Want to know what happened?  Neither.  Well, that's not quite true.  Dexter meets up with a serial killer Oliver Saxon, who was the son of the psychiatrist Dr. Evelyn Vogel.  Vogel knew Dexter's father and came up with his "code" for serial killing.  Dexter planned to kill Oliver, but at the last second said that he didn't have to.  His reason to kill was over.  He gave Oliver to his sister Debra to arrest.

Then, after Dexter left the scene, Oliver escaped and shot Debra.

In the end, Debra died in the hospital--oh, by the way, did I tell you there was a hurricane on its way?--and Dexter, in the confusion of evacuating the hospital due to the incoming storm, took his dead sister out onto his boat.

Then, after dumping Debra into the water . . . he sailed into the hurricane.  Where he died.

Or so we thought.

In the end, he escaped the wreckage and the very last scene is Dexter in the woods of Oregon, where he is a logger.  His old life had been erased.

Now, there's a lot more to the story, like with Hannah, his son Harrison, and the private investigator who is hot on Hannah's trail (she's a killer too).

I was surprised at the ending.  And pleased, nonetheless.  I thought it was wrapped up nicely.  My only criticism is that I would've added two small elements to the very ending.  First, I would've had a calendar of Argentina (where he, Hannah, and his son were planning on escaping to) on the wall.  Second, I would've had "Dexter" sit at the table and unfold a newspaper, that bore a headline like: THE FOURTH SLAYING AT TRUCK STOP.  POLICE SUSPECT SERIAL KILLER.

That would maybe give the impression that Dexter wasn't quite through with killing other killers.