Dexter was a great show until it wasn’t, but more so than most shows that are great until they’re not. Of course, something is going to stop being great if it, you know, stops being great, but television shows rarely nosedive to the same extent that Dexter did. You can argue it happened twice, with Seasons 5 and 6 generally being a step-down compared to what came before, Season 7 sort of getting things back on track, and then Season 8 was… well, you’ll be given a chance to answer for your crimes, Season 8.
As for the basics? Dexter was a show about a serial killer who killed other serial killers, for the most part, and hid in plain sight as a forensic technician working for the Miami Metro Police Department. It was a good premise for a show, and the best seasons of Dexter are really fun, tense, and wonderfully pulpy, but the back half of the show saw some truly clunky episodes, and the following are the worst of the bunch.
10
“Are We There Yet?”
Season 8, Episode 8 (2013)
Is it tempting fate to call an episode in the back half of an awful season “Are We There Yet?” It feels almost self-aware, because if you’re talking about the show and are a hack, the joke is right there. It’s the TV equivalent of Disaster Movie being called Disaster Movie and also being a disastrous movie; the jokes (especially in reviews) write themselves.
Anyway, “Are We There Yet?” answers its title’s question with a deflated “no,” because there are still four more episodes after this one, and they’re all worse. As for the premise… you know what? It’s Season 8. It goes nowhere. It spins its wheels to a greater extent than any of the other seasons, and then hits you with some unemotional drama in the penultimate and final episodes. “Are We There Yet?” doesn’t deserve to have its plot summarized, because what plot?
9
“The Angel of Death”
Season 6, Episode 5 (2011)
If Season 8 isn’t one’s personal pick for the worst season of Dexter, then there’s a good chance that person will go with Season 6 instead. This one is sloppy as hell, focusing on the solving of a series of ritualistic killings that are possibly linked to religious fanaticism. Think Se7en if it was written with crayons, and the person wielding said crayons was using their non-dominant hand.
As for “The Angel of Death,” it does tie into the overall story of the season, with the villains (played by Colin Hanks and Edward James Olmos) appearing, while Dexter (Michael C. Hall) does indeed chase leads on his own, but it’s a bit underwhelming by the show’s standards. It crosses the line from mediocre to kind of bad, though, by having one of the only interesting characters of the season, Brother Sam (Mos Def), get shot, and he dies as a result in the very next episode.
8
“First Blood”
Season 5, Episode 5 (2010)
Dexter’s fifth season peaks early, seeing as its first episode is kind of interesting, given it deals with the aftermath of Season 4’s iconic conclusion, which wasn’t so much a cliffhanger, but more the most impactful moment of the show up until that point. In its wake, Season 5 otherwise struggles to maintain the momentum, and “First Blood” is indicative of that.
Dexter worries about his son possibly becoming like him, which would eventually be explored in the first of the show’s resurrections, Dexter: New Blood. But here, Harrison is an infant, and it seems a bit whatever. And “First Blood,” like much of Season 5, wastes its main guest star, Julia Stiles, by having her dynamic be a bit reminiscent of the unlikely/tense partnership between Dexter and the third season’s main guest star, Jimmy Smits.
7
“Sin of Omission”
Season 6, Episode 8 (2011)
Season 6 of Dexter is kind of the opposite of Season 5, in terms of where it peaks. The finale of Season 6 is the closest it gets to feeling vital and exciting (like some of Dexter‘s actually good episodes), while Season 5, as mentioned before, peaks entirely too early. Both seasons are kind of unsatisfying, as a result, but Season 6 is still a bit more of a slog, and messier on a writing front, too.
“Sin of Omission” isn’t Season 6 at its very worst, but it’s not far off. It just has Dexter doing some more repetitive investigations, the villains continue to stumble around and not be super interesting, and Debra (Jessica Carpenter) clashes with LaGuerta (Lauren Vélez) because the supporting cast has to be given something to do or whatever. It’s just all very whatever.
6
“This Little Piggy”
Season 8, Episode 5 (2013)
There’s a part in Pulp Fiction when Marsellus Wallace (Ving Rhames) is asked by Butch (Bruce Willis) if he’s okay, to which Marsellus answers: “Naw, man. I’m pretty f**kin’ far from okay,” and it’s easy to feel similarly far from okay at this point in Season 8 of the once enjoyable Dexter. Little has happened that’s made it feel like a, you know, final season, and episode 5, “This Little Piggy,” de-intensifies things further.
In this episode, boring things happen with two of the show’s most boring characters: Dr. Vogel (Charlotte Rampling, who’s completely wasted) and the more outwardly villainous Yates (Aaron McCusker). Both are apparently important, in the eyes of the writers at least, but good luck finding the energy to care about them, as a viewer. Meanwhile, no one else does very much, and the main cast all look very tired.
5
“Ricochet Rabbit”
Season 6, Episode 10 (2011)
Relief is close by “Ricochet Rabbit,” considering the status quo shakeup that happens in just a couple of episodes from this point. But that’s relief forwarded by another part of the season, and “Ricochet Rabbit,” on its own, is pretty bad. It’s dull, continuing on a pretty lackluster plot twist revealed in the previous episode; one that makes the villain side of things even less interesting.
Maybe that prior episode (“Get Gellar”) should get a dishonorable mention, even if it did technically try and change things up… just through a twist that probably wasn’t as surprising as intended for most. “Ricochet Rabbit” feels like the TV episode equivalent of a repetitive paragraph in an already less-than-great essay placed a little before the conclusion: just there for the sake of it, and not adding all that much.
4
“Make Your Own Kind of Music”
Season 8, Episode 9 (2013)
It’s predictable to end a ranking like this with a string of episodes that close out Dexter’s worst season, but Season 8 is Season 8, and Season 8 inspires hate. “Make Your Own Kind of Music” does not do nearly as much as it should to ramp things up, and it certainly doesn’t suggest the series finale (of a show that racked up almost 100 episodes, not counting those aforementioned sequels/spin-offs) is just hours away, even though it is.
Vogel is center stage, and is boring as ever, and ditto for Oliver Saxon (Darri Ingólfsson), the latter of whom becomes the final main antagonist of Dexter’s original run. And he’s boring; he has nothing by way of dark charm or genuine menace, and the dynamic/history between him and Vogel is so dull for Dexter, at this late stage, to be focusing so intently on.
3
“Goodbye Miami”
Season 8, Episode 10 (2013)
If “Goodbye Miami” was what most of Dexter was like, then it’d be up there (or down there?) as one of the worst dramas in TV history. Boring family drama is what this episode is all about, with Vogel and Saxon continuing to be terrible, and Hannah (Yvonne Strahovski), never a very popular character, getting more screen time than deserved, with much of this episode spending time with Dexter’s kid.
At least the scene where said kid has an accident on a treadmill is laughably bad… not that a kid falling on a treadmill would ordinarily be funny, but it’s executed so sloppily here, complete with the kid momentarily becoming what looks like an adult stuntperson. At least someone dies at the end of the episode? It’s almost something happening? But it still feels like a bit too little too late, and that sensation only worsens in the episodes to come.
2
“Monkey in a Box”
Season 8, Episode 11 (2013)
You get a very forced plot twist of sorts in the penultimate episode of Dexter, but in the interest of still keeping a bad show kind of spoiler-free… um, someone else gets shot. Not killed like at the end of the previous episode, but it looks pretty severe, and it is something of consequence happening to someone major, which is, you know, what you’re able to do in a final season of television.
Status-quo shakeups can—and should—happen near the end of a show with life-and-death stakes, and it’s wild that it takes Dexter this long to do it with just, like, an hour to go. Besides that, most of the episode sees Dexter just hesitating over whether to flee the country or stay, but there’s not much urgency. He procrastinates, and then something bad happens. 52 minutes has scarcely felt so long.
1
“Remember the Monsters?”
Season 8, Episode 12 (2013)
A series finale can be shocking for reasons either good or bad, or maybe even a bit of both. Take a wild guess where “Remember the Monsters?”, the final episode of Dexter, falls? It deals with the aftermath of what happened in the penultimate episode with very little passion or energy, it wraps up the “arc” of the season, and then it has a final shot where Dexter is a lumberjack.
Spoilers? The lumberjack thing is just a fun non-sequitur, and an endlessly baffling place for things to end up. Even going through how Dexter gets there in just this last episode wouldn’t make it make all that much sense. “Remember the Monsters?” is an all-time shocker of a finale, to the point where they seem to keep making Dexter shows so it’s no longer close to the end for the titular character. But people who’ve been with the show for a while, unfortunately, do remember “Remember the Monsters?,” even though it would be oh so wonderful to forget.
