(Season 3, Episode 12 – “Do You Take Dexter Morgan?” – Season Finale)
Well, I was just all kinds of wrong about how this season was going to end. And you know, I’m really glad for that. For the past two seasons I’ve thought this show has been easy to predict, and I just did not see the finale playing out this way at all. However, I wish there was a lot more meat to it, so to speak.
It’s certainly a change of pace to have things end on a rather happy note. Is that what fans of Dexter really want, though? How many of you wanted things to end happily ever after, and how many of you wanted to see a huge shocker of an ending? Does a shock-less finale make for a bad one? I’d say it certainly makes for a forgettable one, in this case.
So, what was good in this episode? We got to see Dexter take the high road with Ramon and with his father, then come to realize that he really does want to raise his new family as best he can. This is likely the direction we’ll see Dexter take in upcoming seasons, as he continues to merge normalcy into his life in order to be a good father for Rita and the kids. Obviously this won’t make Dexter’s Dark Passenger very happy at all.
I’m liking Angel more and more throughout this series. He’s a kick-ass cop with some dimension to him that, since season one, I didn’t think mattered for much. Now he’s someone I like to see in charge and in more scenes. I just wish his making out with Barbara wasn’t so awkward and sloppy looking.
The way Dexter dealt with King was also fantastic, though a bit short. The sadistic tone in Dexter’s voice shows why Michael C. Hall is up for a Golden Globe this year. When Dexter opens up his secrets to someone, just as he did with Miguel, it’s as though the Dark Passenger is speaking for him. It’s chilling.
We also got to see the end of The Skinner, but it was just an OK ending for that piece of trash. I’m not exactly sure why Dexter snuck out of the warehouse before the police showed up. Is he just trying to avoid having questions asked of him? He was Miguel’s best friend, after all. Wouldn’t it be reasonable that Dexter was sought by King because he worked on the Freebo case?
There are a few holes to fill from this season. What’s Quinn’s story, for example? That just seemed to vanish into thin air. And Deb’s dig into her father’s C.I. files? Rita’s first marriage? These are reasons why you’d hate for a show to get an early multi-season pickup — since the writers knew they were set for a season four and five, they could set up a slew of stories and leave us hanging. Hopefully such a long setup will make for an amazing payoff.
This episode dealt a lot with “skeletons in the closet,” secrets that everyone on the show is keeping. This isn’t all about what Dexter’s hiding anymore, but what everyone has as a Dark Passenger … or maybe just an off-white one; greyish, at best. It’s going to be interesting to see how the next couple of seasons play out.
As for the season as a whole, I’d say it was my least favorite of the three, but not by much. I’m not sure anything could beat season one, but these last two seasons were rather close in quality. I really hope the series starts to ramp it up rather than having me call one season worse than the previous ones.
Quote of the episode:
Deb: “Me in a dress. I feel like a transvestite.”
Clacked by Keith McDuffee 
on Dec 14, 2008 @ 22:49 EST5EDT
“There are a few holes to fill from this season. What’s Quinn’s story, for example? That just seemed to vanish into thin air. And Deb’s dig into her father’s C.I. files? Rita’s first marriage?”
They discussed Quinn’s situation. He was partnered with that Internal Affairs lady and some other dude. Life got tough, that other dude killed himself, Quinn knew of his problems but didn’t get involved, the IA lady blamed Quinn and set out to ruin his career. She was just holding a grudge.
Deb and her father’s CI is most likely a storyline for next season since it wasn’t introduced until like 3 eps from the end of this season. Will she find out her dad had an affair with Dexter’s Mom? Probably, but the bigger question is will the file tell her that her former boyfriend The Ice Truck Killer was Dexter’s brother?
And Rita’s first marriage wasn’t really the point. It was used to emphasize that everyone has secrets and Dexter realized that if he was allowed to keep his, then Rita was allowed to keep her secrets. Rita was probably just embarrassed about the stupid mistake she made and didn’t want Dexter to think she was a lost cause and change his mind about marrying her.