The Bay Harbor Butcher lives! - Dexter Morgan returns to television

By Christmas 2009, US Showtime’s Dexter had attained high standards that it even rivalled HBO’s The Sopranos, The Wire, and Band of Brothers in terms of sheer quality. It is because in December that year Dexter released the finale for its fourth season and it’s easily one of the best seasons, in any show, in the television history. The season featuring Arthur Mitchell aka the Trinity Killer, portrayed by the peerless John Lithglow captivated, shocked, and awed audiences across the globe. However, fast forward four years into the eight and final season, the series finale was met with anger, disgust, and disappointment. It was universally panned and one of the most beloved shows of all time became an afterthought.

The reaction to Dexter's finale closely resembles people's reaction to HBO’s Game of Thrones’ divisive final season. However, the situations are not very similar. Game of Thrones ran out of material by season 6 as George R R Martin is yet to release the final books of his A Song of Ice and Fire saga, which forced showrunners David Bemioff and D B Weiss to add commercial value to it with more action, more dragons, and less dialogue. This alienated the hardcore fans and they vented their anger on social media, and just like how most social media trends work, the rest of the fandom just went along with it because using phrases like ‘lazy writing’ and calling the showrunners ‘dumb and dumber’ (based off of their first names Dan and Dave, D & D), became a fad. Objectively, the finale on its own was far superior to almost anything else on television at the time, but Game of Thrones set the standards so high that any dip in quality would feel like an episode of Riverdale. The final season is considered a failure because it was Game of Thrones; in other words its own success was its downfall.

Dexter, on the other hand, had contrasting circumstances; showrunner and executive producer Clyde Phillips left the show after season 4 along with writer Meslissa Rosenberg. The show’s steady decline can be pinpointed to the exact moment they left, to make matters worse, Michael C Hall who portrayed Dexter was diagnosed with cancer a year later. He has since made a full recovery and will be reprising his role as Dexter Morgan. The series did manage to produce a strong seventh season, but ultimately was unable to follow it up for season 8. It ended in a way which gave off the impression that the people involved with the show would rather move on from it sooner rather than later, which in fact led to poorly developed storylines as result of ‘lazy writing’ as the Game of Thrones fans would like to frame. It also did not help that Breaking Bad, which was not even in the same league when season four Dexter came out, released its series finale titled almost at the same time as the finale for Dexter. Breaking Bad is now regarded as the best television show ever made with AMC managing to improve its product season after season culminating in what is widely regarded as the greatest series finale ever produced, thanks to showrunner Vince Gillgan’s brilliance. The comparison between both finales did not bode well for Dexter and its legacy.

Eight years after the forgettable finale, Dexter Morgan has a shot at redemption. Clyde Phillips, the mastermind of the unrivalled first four seasons of Dexter, is returning as the showrunner. The revived mini-series will be set in a small town in Canada where Dexter had gone into exile by the end of season eight. Jennifer Carpenter, who played Debra Morgan, is unlikely to return except for, maybe a few flashbacks. It is unclear whether Yvonne Strahovski, who played Hannah McKay or even Harrison Morgan, Dexter’s son, would make a brief appearance in the series. The series offers great promise to give everyone's favourite killer a fitting conclusion.