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Dexter - How Original Showrunner Clyde Phillips would have ended the show

23 Sept 2013

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Thanks to N27 for the heads up.

What do you think? Would you have preferred this Finale?

"I haven't shared this with anyone," Philips told me. "And I can tell you that this is what I personally would have done should I have stayed with the show. I chose not to stay with the show, and so everybody did what they did, and I had no problem with that…and I think they did a good job with the final episode. But here is what I personally would have pitched."

"In the very last scene of the series," Philips explained, "Dexter wakes up. And everybody is going to think, 'Oh, it was a dream.' And then the camera pulls back and back and back and then we realize, 'No, it's not a dream.' Dexter's opening his eyes and he's on the execution table at the Florida Penitentiary. They're just starting to administer the drugs and he looks out through the window to the observation gallery.

"And in the gallery are all the people that Dexter killed—including the Trinity Killer and the Ice Truck Killer (his brother Rudy), LaGuerta who he was responsible killing, Doakes who he's arguably responsible for, Rita, who he's arguably responsible for, Lila. All the big deaths, and also whoever the weekly episodic kills were. They are all there.

"That's what I envisioned for the ending of Dexter. That everything we've seen over the past eight seasons has happened in the several seconds from the time they start Dexter's execution to the time they finish the execution and he dies. Literally, his life flashed before his eyes as he was about to die. I think it would have been a great, epic, very satisfying conclusion."

Source: E!Online

52 comments:

  1. I always thought that the last thing I wanted was for the series to end with Dexter dying but after that finale... this sounds 100x better.

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  2. I like this idea so much better.

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  3. Much better idea, Dexter needed to pay for his crimes IMO

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  4. I am ok with the chosen finale but this would have been amazing!

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  5. I understand that this might have been a better finale (mostly because I think Dexter should have died), but, IMO, it's easy to say that when you're not running the show anymore. Phillips did an amazing job with Dexter, so I'm also not saying he wouldn't be able to make it happen, but there is no denying that it is an entirely different game once you're playing it.

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  6. I never even watched this show, but after hearing how the finale ended, this ending sounds much better.

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  7. Never watched Dexter, but I have occasionally read reviews. From what I read the finale actually seemed alright. I do think this is a great idea however, and I think would have been much more enjoyable for the fans.

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  8. Not terribly sold on this ending either. Hard to say without seeing it play out, but it doesn't sound very good. Last nights felt incomplete. This one just feels wrong.

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  9. I thought this was going to happen: Saxon kills Dexter and girl gruesomely. Deb nearly stops that but couldn't, she still gets Saxon though. Harrison watches how Dexter dies and gets totally horrified. Deb adopts Harrison. Deb marries her police guy friend. Years later, Harrison starts to act like Dexter. Deb told hubby about Dexter. Now hubby starts guiding Harrison with a new code. Deb is the big boss in the police... and 8 more seasons....

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  10. OMG I always said this is how I imagined dexter's end, word for word...This is nuts!

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  11. Why does anyone have to die man? what happened to unicorns and rainbows. Fuck this shit, I'm watching cartoon network only from now on.

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  12. I've just minutes ago finished watching the final episode so I'm... well a heap of blubbering, upset mess right now so basically anything would have been better than what I just saw. I'm so upset. I'm trying to tell myself it's just a tv-show but not even that is working at this point. I'm so totally upset.

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  13. Ooooh, that's kinda cool--sure beats what they did on the finale! I always felt he should get caught at the end.

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  14. Don't want to be an asshole but don't judge if you never watched the show. Dexter is not a show you can pretend to understand just by reading reviews.

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  15. No and I don't intend to try and do that. And I appreciate that many fans weren't satisfied by the ending. I do agree that from the show's set-up, it wasn't the best ending, and this would probably have been better.

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  16. Like I said in another post this ending is word for word the ending I always wanted to see. I posted about it a few months ago, word for word.

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  17. i always wanted Dexter to die. You can't do that shit and keep living. You just can't.

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  18. Wow, I'm glad they did not do this ending! XD
    Feels really cheesy to me honestly.

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  19. Dislike the banal, simpleton notion that he had "to pay" - but I guess it beats "Imma a go be a lumberjack".

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  20. MUCH BETTER IDEA. I also imagined this kind of 'final scene' to the show. It would have been perfect.

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  21. That's just what i was thinking! :D

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  22. I'm not sure which one is the worst, the real one or this one. But it's close.

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  23. well, jack the ripper did..the zodiac did... as well as untold numbers of other serial killers

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  24. I just watched some episodes (too dark for me), but I have to agree.

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  25. They fact you can even name them shows they were unsuccessful, and none of them killed a tenth of the people Dexter did. The show "Dexter" was a fantasy, and I wouldn't have minded it ending on a more redemptive note.


    I just have to say this: I loved Harrison. /offtopic

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  26. It's a simpleton notion that it's unlikely, if not ridiculous, that you can murder close to a hundred people--some of which were innocent, many of the murders done sloppily and impulsively, and plus have people dying and disappearing all around you constantly--and get off scott free? To think this show wasn't a pure fantasy is banal and incredibly naive.

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  27. It is a little cheesy. It's kind of easy for him to say from his position. But i wouldn't have minded Dexter dying.


    It was really sad, though, to see him all alone, completely cut off from a very real life that he tried to lead. But with Deb dead, what life was there for him? Everything ratchet nightmare that his dad told him would happen if he tried to be a real little boy happened, in splendid technicolor, in horrifying detail, almost exceeding what he could imagine. That psychopathic drive to live never left him, but he had to retreat back into that lizard brain part of him that we saw in the first episode. That lone person crawling around just surviving and killing, a slave to his impulses.

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  28. There was some good stuff in this. I almost can't bear the thought of Harrison watching Dexter die.


    What is Hannah gonna say when Dexter never shows up?

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  29. well, i would say it says they were very successful.. because they are famous years and even centuries later (not saying they should be..but they would have liked it im sure) and yet never spent a day in jail for their crimes..

    i thought it did end on a very redemptive note.... the fact that he was willing to die to protect others from the monster he thought he was... and /or live a tortured existence for the rest of his life if he lived through the hurricane, i think, shows that he was in fact 'human' and could have went with hannah to have a good life

    time and again earlier in the series, he showed that no matter what, he thought he was in control and selfishly would not believe that he could not make things work... but he changed, he grew. the sad part is, again in my opinion, the time he finally makes that decision, he happens to be wrong about it :(

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  30. fuck this guy^ crap end is crap. ain't no body want a dream end even tho it always comes up, hey could this be all a dream, stfu clyde as much as the current finale was bad in the last 2 min i would still rather have that then ur crap.

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  31. Exactly.
    Dozens of serial killers get away with their murders...

    Dexter was close to being apprehended numerous times, much like a number of real serial killers as we discovered after they were killed or arrested.

    There is one thing though, the show did not say Dexter would NEVER be caught. He is assumed dead for now, but at some point could turn up in society again, kill again, or be arrested for his crimes. However, that was not part of the story that Showtime told. Not every story has to end at the end or start at the beginning.

    Showtime's story ends at the pivotal moment in Dexter's life where he evolves into a real boy.

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  32. this is a TERRIBLE idea. what we got was a much more fitting end. for the people who said Dexter isn't "paying" for his crimes, death is too easy. you could say that his fate is worse than death to be honest. he destroyed everyone around him. harry killed himself because of dexter. rita died. he killed his brother. deb became a murderer because of him and died because of him. and he has to live with all of this. death is too clean. this is much better.

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  33. What we've seen on finale is so much better. This is worse idea.

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  34. I actually did think this was going to happen.. Somehow i expected this (Batista finding out about Dexter, arresting him (in Flashbacks and with Dexters voiceover) and then we see Dexter on the table.. So i actually kinda liked the whole ending how it happened..


    Only hated what he did to Deb but if you think about it, i also understand it from Dex point of view..


    And when i was watching Dex trowing Deb in the water all i could think of Deb saying "What the f**k Dex?" .. haha..

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  35. I hate this idea, but it does point out what a liar Sarah Colleton is. (see recant EW or TV line interview where she states that there were no other endings thought of)

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  36. Yes!!!


    And just to add to this conversation.


    I think Dexter was complex, because the show challenged viewers with these killers, especially Dexter, because it's not always someone's fault that they do things, let alone the justice system doesn't always work, which ultimately points out that this is a story about human flaws, which makes it occasionally tragic.


    At least for time, Dexter lived long enough to prove to himself that he didn't have to be that way, because he found a bigger pull "LOVE". IMO if we don't care about helping and having empathy for people who either have experienced traumatic things and/or have been physiologically altered, then humanity hasn't progressed at all and IMO there is no justice in that.

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  37. I had originally thought before the season started and before I know they were going to have him forgo his DP, that they would have him "sacrifice" himself for those he loved in some way, because it would meet those on both sides of the let Dexter live or die spectrum halfway.


    But knowing that the franchise may live on, I predicted that Hannah would be with Harrison in Argentina at the very end, but keeping Dexter alive also points that one of those two characters might be where the spin off goes, because then if he would appear in flashback and/or appear very late as a guess star to that series, it would be acceptable given he is the one who made their futures whatever they are going to be and there for would only enhance their stories...

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  38. Katarzyna Musial ✌24 September 2013 at 16:38

    I don't this idea. I prefer that final as the did. And Debra's dead was shockig but just because of that was perfect

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  39. Maybe they left it open, not for another season in the future, but for a movie... I don't know but it seems they didn't dare to really finish it, just in case...

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  40. The show wasn´t complex. Game of Thrones is complex. This show might have been challenging... in year one. Afterwards, it was just a show. Nothing more, nothing less.

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  41. What crimes? He killed killers and therefore saved lives!

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  42. I disagree. It's not that I don't hink game of Thrones isn't more complex, but it's because it political and has an ever expanding universe, but I meant that Dexter is complex in the way it looks at subjectivity of one's own reality and therefor what it is to be human.

    Each season of Dexter, much like it's abstract aesthetic, tried to keep things presented in a neat and tidy way, where GOT does not. But if you look at subject matter and compare characters an situations you will see GRAND juxtapostions which challenge who those character believe they are and that it never is completely any one person's fault things turn out the way they do.

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  43. He still saved more people than the innocent ones he killed! Do the math.

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  44. I'm beyond amazed that people here thinks Dexter didn't pay for his crimes. Living alone with your pain is a fate way worse than death. You die, it's over. Dexter lives and he's away from his son, from the woman he loves, from the life he made for himself, his sister is gone forever... He lost everything. He IS paying.

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  45. I didn't have a problem with Dexter escaping, but I would have still liked everyone to find out what he did. Most of the series was shown from Dexter's perspective, and I think that seeing the reaction of his peers or other people, especially those whose lives he impacted throughout the years (whether good or bad) would have been far more interesting.

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  46. I would absolutely agree, IF the writer´s would have went down the line. If they would have kept Dexter in his emotions conflicted and his environment being deterred from him.
    But instead they went down turgid pity road and try to make Dexter a victim. perfectly paraphrased through Deb´s words: "I don't want you to feel guilty about this. I don't want you to feel guilty about anything. You were meant to be happy, so you need to go fuckin' be happy."
    Dexter wasn´t a victim. He killed people out of choice not out of urge. He´s not an animal. He has a clear mind, seen through all the choices he made to cover up his deeds.
    The show WAS so challenging in the beginning. We had the classical antagonist presented as a protagonist. Later he became more like a vigilante. Everything he did was considered "okay" because he had a code. The fact that he liked the killing, that it aroused him, was completely neglected the last few seasons.
    The moment this character complexity was out the window, the show´s moral and philosophical complexity was as well, and therefore it´s meaning.
    I guess that´s why so many people don´t like the ending. It´s not that Dexter wasn´t punished or redeemed. It was just sloppy written, choosing a scenario that other shows like 24 or even Monk have used.
    The Meaning, the complexity was thrown out the last few seasons, what many fans have already pointed out (but still hoping that it all would shine in a different light, once the finale has rounded up the story) Now, that it hasn´t it just leaves a bad taste and a missed chance on moral/ philosophical complexity in a modern way.

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  47. "I would absolutely agree, IF the writer´s would have went down the line. If they would have kept Dexter in his emotions conflicted and his environment being deterred from him."

    In the end he made some very decisive decisions, but it is the deterring that allowed it be complicated, because he was conflicted through out the series, but not in the final scenes.

    I don't think it's sloppy, it's muddy. There's a difference. Dexter and all the characters exist in a world where (just like ours or even GOT's) you have people seeking control, but one way or another it's set up that they all make mistakes and/or do not think about their actions in which inevitably none of them get what they think they want at the time they want it. (humans are flawed, killers or not) This ending is no different, because it's open --so true to Dexter thinking he can hide his life a way (have control), will something most likely come along an force him to reconsider yet again. Additionally I think it's NO secret that this open ending has to do with the possibility of a spin off. So ends in a certain time/transformation in Dexter's life with the capacity for there to still be something left to the imagination of his existence for better or for worse.

    I felt that the show tried to give justification to a certain type of killer in relation to a flawed legal system and flawed society, and of course people who feel all killing is wrong, won't ever accept Dexter (but IMO that is exactly why they don't get the series and they don't see the complications or the karma). The ending proves that even though Dexter did the right thing by NOT KILLING, he still lost his sister and by extension the belief in himself to have a happy future. That's complex because it's completely opposite to the former argument. (as there is something bigger in Dexter's universe and the fact that Deb was holding him back from reaching an emotional acceptance from himself sooner).

    Dexter audacity to live is also a sign of something true to himself. He is a survivor of the fittest.

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  48. Such a cool, original, and proper ending to the show it would have been! Unfortunate that we got a poor, almost nonsense ending.

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  49. and ended up breaking the so called code and killed people (both directly and indirectly) who weren't murderers and some who were innocent.

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