‘Dexter’s’ series finale: Ready for more meddling over show’s ending?
Maybe, after some other awesome show manages to completely screw up in the final season of the show we will start to be able to forget about the atrocity of what happened with “Dexter.” The amazing ending of “Breaking Bad” just makes the pain here even worse.
The thing that is starting to become even weirder about this series is just how many different things we are hearing about how the show came up with its conclusion. First, the buzz started to gain steam when the original showrunner in Clyde Phillips presented an ending that was far superior to what actually came to pass; and to add some fuel to that fire we have a writer on the show saying that there was some serious meddling that went on courtesy of Showtime.
This revelation comes courtesy of John Goldwyn, who gave the following comment in a chat with Vulture about how Showtime actually told them that Dexter could not die:
“They won’t let us kill him. Showtime was very clear about that. When we told them the arc for the last season, they just said, ‘Just to be clear, he’s going to live.’ There were a lot of endings discussed because it was a very interesting problem to solve, to bring it to a close. People have a relationship with Dexter, even if it doesn’t have the size and the ferocity of the fan base for Breaking Bad. But it has a very core loyal following.”
Maybe you can take this as a sign that the writers wanted to kill Dexter? It’s hard to say, but the one thing that we clearly take from this is that the network clearly felt like there would be no redemption that would come out of the character dying. Also, they may wanted to leave the door open for some sort of possible return to the show in the future (or at least for a possible spin-off, which could be hard to do now that everyone hated the ending).
The one thing that we can say for sure here is that while we understand that networks like to be involved and have a stake in a show doing well, creators have to create. They trust the showrunners to get the series to a point where there can be a finale, so you have to trust them at that point too. Next thing you know, they will tell “Homeland’s” executives that Nicholas Brody has to be left alive so that he can go to work as a lumberjack alongside Dexter in the Pacific Northwest.
Photo: Showtime