Review: Dexter Finale Stunning, Polarizing

Bizarro Post Television Bureau- As if Breaking Bad's grueling, breathless ride to the finish weren't enough for us to endure, Dexter came to a polarizing conclusion after eight seasons of acclaimed drama.

Dexter began so long ago that it seems like an eternity, but countless fans of been drawn to its riveting tail of a young boy genius trying to claim the highest honors in science while concealing his vast secret lab from his parents.

An empire was built on lies, deceit, and violence as Dexter attempted to conceal the massive electrical demands of his facility, launder the money produced by his government contracts, fend off the ill intentions of international superpowers seeking to obtain or destroy his brilliance, and escape the many threats of the evil mastermind, Mandark.

Both Dexter and the viewers were lead to believe that Mandark was successfully disposed of by Dexter's plot to goad Mossad agents into eliminating his rival while he was in Turkey assisting in the construction of a perpetual energy machine. When he appeared in the previous episode, now augmented with super-powered cyborg assassination implements, we were forced to watch in disbelief as Mandark ended the tragic existence of Dexter's drug-addled sister, Dee Dee.

Now the walls were closing in, and excuses were getting less and less plausible. It all culminates in a tragic scene where Mom confronts Dee Dee about her strange behavior, and inadvertently discovers her daughter has been replaced by a robot.

Call it Emmy-bait all you want, but Mom's performance in this scene is top-notch. She tearfully demands answers from her son, the only person she knows that would be capable of building such a device. Dexter spills everything. The lab, the money laundering, the feud with Mandark that grew into a massive international incident.

"So you did it. All of it. You bastard! How could you!?" Mom screams.

Indeed, how could he? Dexter could have stopped so long ago, refusing government contracts entirely. Instead he sold to the highest bidder, even if they had the worst intentions. Dexter could have negotiated with Mandark when he offered to take his business to North Africa and the Middle East, leaving Dexter with North America's market. But Dexter wanted it all. And for his hubris, he everyone he loved was punished severely.

"Mom, I can explain! Everything that I have done, I have done it for this family!" Dexter explains. Now that he's no longer in control of his circumstances, his lies aren't smooth and convincing. They're desperate, frantic, and insulting.

"Get out of my house, you monster."

It's a line that resonates like a gunshot. Dexter's lab is in ruins after Mandark's retaliatory strike. And it now becomes apparent why he was so careful to let Dexter's parents live, and to minimize damage to the house. It wasn't enough to take the lab. Dexter had to loose the very last support system he had to make the victory complete. Dexter had to lose his family.

Years pass by, and we see a slow pan of news articles tacked to a crudely constructed wooden wall.

"PSYCHO SCIENCE: DEXTER DEVELOPED NERVE AGENTS FOR SYRIA"

"MELTDOWN: DEXTER DESTROYS LOVING NUCLEAR FAMILY"

Outside, we see a landscape of frigid white. Dexter, now bearded and disheveled, chops away at the trunk of a tree with an elderly axe. Isolation is the only thing standing between him and war crime trials. This is Dexter's purgatory, his prison. It is bitter and inescapable. These are the fruits of Dexter's Lab.


Rating: A-