An ode to 'Dexter'

Dexter looks over his infamous victims. Will he join them on the wall in this final season?

It's particularly surreal for me to conceive the beginning of the end of 'Dexter' for a particularly disconcerting reason: I've just been briefed on the first seven seasons of Showtime's accredited drama series in the last four months. The first season aired back in 2006, my brother has forcibly demanded my viewership since around 2010, and I submitted this past February, eager to learn about the commotion surrounding television's most coveted, Emmy award-winning serial killer.

I will never forget my several desperate attempts at completing the pilot episode, highlighted by those distinct piano chords, eerie yet comforting background vocals, (Rolfe Kent won an Emmy award for the theme song) and Dexter's patented, "Tonight's the night". Starred and co-produced by Michael C. Hall as Dexter Morgan, the gutsy concept essentially urges the audience to empathize with a troubled murderer who possesses dedicated morals. That is, he only kills people who do harmful things. Bound to a code implemented by his late adopted father, Harry, Dexter uses his position as blood spatter analyst for Miami's Metro homicide unit to help scope out additional talent for his personal stash ("stash" meaning stored blood slides of his victims).

You can't mistake Dexter Morgan for a vigilante. That's not what he is. He naively flirted with the "dark defender" moniker in season two, commonly mistaking himself for a justified good-doer, a defender of the people. Now it's just his "dark passenger". What we learn and ultimately learn to love about Dexter is the complexity of his psyche. He refers to killing as a hunger, a craving, something he feels was planted within his being when he witnessed the brutal murder of his mother as a baby. We grow fond of his character because we're in his head as he narrates us through each thought, memory, kill, and each empty epiphany of emptiness. Not to mention that despite his tragic flaws, he exhibits a humorously awkward demeanor, and besides the whole murderer aspect, shows us a really nice guy with a very troubled past.

Ever since the major reveal of season one, learning of Dexter's biological brother aka "The Ice Truck Killer", his path endured dire obstacles, most notably his attempt at cultivating further relationships. Lola came along in season two as someone who seemingly accepted Dexter for what he was, but her madness became too severe even for our beloved Dexter. Season three's Miguel Prado, an assistant district attorney, became a close friend of Dexter's for all of the wrong reasons, preventing yet another potential friendship. Tragically, the only sincere relationships since manifested have either deceased (Rita) or face grave implications (Debra).

"Is this the end of the beginning, or the beginning of the end?" This question posed by Dexter in this season's trailer lurks in the minds of those who have traveled this long journey. As aforementioned, mine just began this year. I still remember the anxiety during James Doax's obsessive investigation of Dexter; I remember Travis Marshall's truly psychopathic nature; I remember Rita's untimely death at the hands of "The Trinity Killer"; these events are still ingrained in my immediate memory. Now, in the wake of the eighth and final season of 'Dexter', the stakes have peaked. Debra is seemingly paying the price for killing Maria LaGuerta to protect her brother's secret. Amongst the typical twists will be some form of closure for television's most popular serial killer, which conventional speculation suggests Dexter could end up joining the many perpetrators he's mounted on his table for the last seven years.