While Dexter's infamous season 8 finale made a lot of odd choices and regrettable moves, Dexter killing again in the revival undoes one big mistake. Dexter is unquestionably one of Showtime's most famous original dramas, but at the same time, it's a common opinion among fans that the show's quality went on a fairly steady decline over its last few seasons. That's especially true of what was formerly Dexter's final season, which most fans found to be a very disappointing sendoff for the Miami-based serial killer.
During the first half of its run though, Dexter was one of the best-written shows on premium cable, and that was no mean feat considering some of the content being made by HBO at the time. It was also part of the mid-to-late 2000s wave of shows centering on villain protagonists or antiheroes, seemingly spurred on by the smash success of The Sopranos, which starred a violent, bigoted mob boss that was often part of murders.
It's the memories of the good times that are no doubt fueling a lot of the hope surrounding Dexter's upcoming revival season. While only a bit of footage has been released so far, it's already confirmed that Mr. Morgan is back to his deadly ways, and as weird as it might sound to say, that's most definitely a good thing.
How Dexter's Revival Corrects A Huge Season 8 Mistake
It's no secret that Dexter's original series finale was received with widespread scorn from fans. Those who had spent eight years watching Dexter's adventures in serial killing expected some kind of actual conclusion to his story, but instead what they got was the death of Debra Morgan, and Dexter faking his own death to go become a lumberjack in the pacific northwest. Nothing was really resolved, and that's never sat right with most. Beyond the laughable lumberjack twist though, a bigger mistake was when the finale implied that due to what happened to Debra, he had somehow been so traumatized that he was able to overcome his urge to kill and fade away from society.
This is a ridiculous idea to anyone even remotely familiar with how real-life serial killers operate, and more importantly, to anyone who had watched Dexter Morgan operate for the previous eight seasons. Dexter has a psychological compulsion to kill, to the point where his adoptive father Harry instilled him with a code so that he could channel his murderous nature in a more positive direction, or at least as positive as it could conceivably be used. Dexter even has a specific name for this serial killer need of his, "The Dark Passenger." Real serial killers don't just decide one day that they're turning off their compulsion to take lives, and Dexter can't either. The implication never made sense, and thankfully, with golden age showrunner Clyde Phillips back at the helm, Dexter's revival will put that wrong right.