If you watched Dexter from the beginning up until the final episode a few weeks ago, you know just how much of a let down the finale was. (Assuming you weren’t in the small majority that loved it.) The show’s original showrunner, Clyde Phillips had a far more sinister ending for Dexter Morgan than what fans were given.
While the show has been a bit of a roller coaster of a series, having fantastic seasons followed by lulls, perhaps no other season failed to meet expectations than the eighth season (many will argue the show lost its killer instinct after season four). Clyde helped shape the series up through the fourth season when he left to spend time with his family before starting work on another Showtime show, Nurse Jackie. E! tracked Clyde down and talked with him about what he had in mind for Dex’s final days had he remained on the show…
“In the very last scene of the series,” Philips explained, “Dexter wakes up. And everybody is going to think, ‘Oh, it was a dream.’ And then the camera pulls back and back and back and then we realize, ‘No, it’s not a dream.’ Dexter’s opening his eyes and he’s on the execution table at the Florida Penitentiary. They’re just starting to administer the drugs and he looks out through the window to the observation gallery.
“And in the gallery are all the people that Dexter killed—including the Trinity Killer and the Ice Truck Killer (his brother Rudy), LaGuerta who he was responsible killing, Doakes who he’s arguably responsible for, Rita, who he’s arguably responsible for, Lila. All the big deaths, and also whoever the weekly episodic kills were. They are all there.
“That’s what I envisioned for the ending of Dexter. That everything we’ve seen over the past eight seasons has happened in the several seconds from the time they start Dexter’s execution to the time they finish the execution and he dies. Literally, his life flashed before his eyes as he was about to die. I think it would have been a great, epic, very satisfying conclusion.”
Can we get a re-shoot please?