The very definition of a `Choke'
I don't smoke anymore, but I feel a need to light one up.'
Contrast that to...
`What the....? That was it...? Seriously?! That was the final episode of Dexter?!
Where's mah Gun?!'
I'm not into sport but I'm aware of what a `choke' is. Apparently it's when someone is winning and at that the penultimate moment they were to deliver the goods and come romping home with glory over the finish line, something within them pushes the red button they were to never go near and they self destruct and choke. This didn't happen to Breaking Bad and thank you to those concerned for not succumbing. The same, unfortunately cannot be said of Dexter.
I don't put Dexter in the same league as Breaking Bad. The latter for me is along with the Soprano's, one of the greatest shows ever produced for Television. But it was great fun. Throughout the eight seasons it built suspense and stretched the limits of credibility to breaking point - but never went over. (well, for me it didn't.)
(SPOILERS AHEAD!!)
The hero was a `good' serial killer who only ever killed `bad' serial killers. It was aware of that absurdity and that knowing fun it enjoyed with it's audience was part of what made it such a great show. There were so many plot lines that needed to be resolved. Dexter had a family - how would they react on finding out he was Miami's most notorious serial killer, `The Bay Harbour Butcher'? How would his Police colleagues at Miami Metro, who trust him beyond doubt and have supported him emotionally over the years react when they find out the truth? Would we who have accompanied Dexter as a co-conspirator along with his `Dark Passenger', finally see him face the reality of what and who he is without the schizoid presence of his dead father?
Several times throughout the eight seasons, Dexter had come close to being discovered. It was pervasive and the longer he kept going, we felt, the bigger the fall was going to be. He had serial killer father figure mentors like John Lithgow, serial killer students and adversaries who came so close to killing and/or exposing him. He lost three women who in different ways were close to him. His innocent wife representing the normal life he could never have. His passionate girl friend who was the representation of all he could have if he gave in to his lust for killing and his mother figure, a Psychologist who had helped his father Harry draft the code Dexter lived his life by.
The ending should have been hot and explosive but in the end all we got was a luke warm, moist towelette. It's like for eight years the Studio Executives or Producers have been happy to leave the makers of Dexter alone to do as they please but on the very last show, couldn't help themselves and had to have a fiddle.
Here's what happened - As his young son accompanied his Serial Killer fiancee Hannah to start a new life in Argentina, Dexters sister Deb, who had found out and come to terms with him being a serial killer, got into the wrong end of a gunfight where she ended up in the vegetable patch. Dexter euthanised her and in the shadow of an oncoming Cyclone bearing down on Miami, dumped her reverentially over the side of his pleasure craft `The Slice of Life'. As he watched her body sink to where he had sunk so many others, he gunned his boat and headed straight into the Cyclone toward certain death.
Yeah right.
Everyone at Miami Metro see's the news that debris from Dexter's boat has been found with no sign of life from him and there are lots of sad faces. Hannah, drinking coffee at an outdoor cafe in Buenos Aires with Dexters young son Harrison, reads the news on her laptop, gets a sad face then asks the kid if he wants an ice cream. One problem is that only we the audience know that Dexter was on the `Slice of Life' with dead Deb. As far as the other characters are concerned. Dexter is alive and well in Buenos Aires. Oh well.
Buuuut...Dexter is of course, alive and well. Somehow he survived the Cyclone AT SEA. Swam to shore and made his way to British Columbia to become a FUCKING LUMBER JACK where he can sit at a table in a cabin and stare ominously at the camera. I'm a Lumber Jack and I'm okay, I sleep all night and I work all day.
Hey - Makers of Dexter!
FUCK YOU TOO!!
I'm very sad now and I'm going to re watch the last episode of Breaking Bad to see again how a highly anticipated final episode should be done. The makers of Dexter can join the makers of `Lost' and `Smallville' in the special hell designated to them for squibbed final episodes. I'm still on the fence about the last episode of the Soprano's.
