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"He lives. After eight seasons, Dexter comes to an end. Its highs (season one finale, Trinity Killer) were astounding. Its lows (Doomsday Killer, Debra in love with Dexter), I&amp;#039;m still trying to pretend never existed. But no matter good or bad, Dexter&amp;#039;s novel concept - a vigilante cursed with the desire to kill - demands that the Showtime drama deserves a proper ending. Coming up with a satisfying conclusion is almost an impossible task. Dexter, an antihero responsible for the deaths of not only numerous heartless criminals but also, indirectly, innocent colleagues and his wife, deserves comeuppance. Getting caught and dying are the two obvious solutions, but instead, the show takes a leaf out of The Shield&amp;#039;s book, coming up with a fate for the lead character that is both undesirable and slightly left-field.  Dexter&amp;#039;s decision to exile himself comes after Debra is left brain-dead from complications in surgery. Her death is foreshadowed in the siblings&amp;#039; final scene together (&amp;quot;The next word I&amp;#039;m going to hear you say is &amp;#039;goodbye&amp;#039;&amp;quot;) but it&amp;#039;s not completely unexpected. Dexter is already fully aware and apologetic that he has ruined his sister&amp;#039;s life, but there&amp;#039;s still hope that it&amp;#039;ll all turn out okay in the end. Her passing is the harsh trigger that&amp;#039;s required to make him really re-evaluate everything. &amp;quot;I destroy everyone I love,&amp;quot; he VOs. &amp;quot;And I can&amp;#039;t let that happen to Hannah, to Harrison. I have to protect them from me.&amp;quot; It&amp;#039;s tragic, as he heads towards the hurricane on the Slice of Life. Faking his death wipes out any connection he had with everyone. Working as a logging trucker far away from everyone else, he shuns all human contact and resigns himself to a fate of loneliness. While all of that was executed fine (although Debra&amp;#039;s death wasn&amp;#039;t the gut-wrenching scene I had hoped for), the rest of the episode was a bit of a mixed bag - though, to be fair, my gripes are targeted more at the direction the whole season took than what the finale does.  This season has been appalling by the show&amp;#039;s once-lofty standards set several seasons ago. Given the writers had time to plan its end, it was a pity that the stakes weren&amp;#039;t more significantly raised. I was never really invested in the Vogel storyline, and there were too many plot holes that were glossed over too readily. In &amp;#039;Remember the Monsters?&amp;#039;, Angel and Quinn seeing Dexter&amp;#039;s dark side as he jams his pen into Saxon&amp;#039;s neck could have been a great moment to build on - had it happened earlier in the series. While it was nice to see the duo back up their friend, for Miami PD to go the entire time without discovering Dexter&amp;#039;s double life seemed silly given the several incredibly close shaves Dexter&amp;#039;s had in the past. I felt Dexter&amp;#039;s relationship with Hannah was one of the weaker parts of season seven, and the character&amp;#039;s reintroduction (let&amp;#039;s not forget the ludicrous drugging) failed to win me over. She became an integral part of Dexter&amp;#039;s life by the finale, so it was natural for her story to reach a conclusion. Her and Harrison&amp;#039;s Argentina ending just struggled to provoke any sort of reaction from me. But perhaps the biggest letdown about the episode was its lack of urgency for most of the hour, which is strange as this is supposed to be the climax of Dexter&amp;#039;s story. The plodding, poor and uninspired build-up in the previous 11 episodes didn&amp;#039;t help.  The resolution we got is probably the best we could have hoped for given the circumstances and the loose ends. It&amp;#039;s not an ending I would have accepted after seeing LaGuerta shot in last season&amp;#039;s finale, but it makes a degree of sense here given this season&amp;#039;s journey and themes. There is a sense of sad irony that for so long Dexter felt the desire to feel something, and when he finally does, he wants his emotions to go away. Despite a divisive final four seasons, hopefully Dexter will be remembered fondly. Michael C Hall and Jennifer Carpenter have been fantastic all the way through, and its popularity means Showtime will have a tough time replacing the void left behind.   "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/tv/dexter/review/a517651/dexter-series-finale-recap-does-dexter-morgan-live/>