‘Dexter’ Finale: Was His Death Vetoed? Did Showtime Executives Reject Final Draft? Will The Series Return?

The truth must come out. The producer and writers of 'Dexter' originally planned to kill off their serial killer protagonist but Showtime will have none of that.

In an interview with Variety, producer John Goldwyn laments: "They [wouldn't] let us kill him. Showtime was very clear about that. When we told them the arc for the last season, they just said, 'Just to be clear, he's going to live.' There were a lot of endings discussed because it was a very interesting problem to solve, to bring it to a close. People have a relationship with 'Dexter,' even if it doesn't have the size and the ferocity of the fanbase for 'Breaking Bad.' But it has a very core loyal following."

However, Executive Producer Sara Colleton relates that it wasn't a 'veto' scenario, but the idea of killing off Dexter was not an option at all: "No, and the reason there wasn't is that it's not a fitting enough punishment for him. Going into exile away from everything that he knows and has become attached [to] in his whole infrastructure is a more fitting punishment for what his journey toward being a human being has cost everyone around him. If the central idea from the pilot on was: Here's a guy who thinks of himself as a monster and yet yearns to be human... We've seen him on this journey - he started off as faking it but then became real somewhere along the line - and we've seen year-to-year what this journey has cost him. So, in the finale, the final price comes through... If he had listened to the Dark Passenger and stuck to the Code, he would never have left Saxon, he wouldn't have thought that he didn't need to kill, that he's got a stronger pull. Deb, who was his touchstone and soulmate, died - and this was the only fitting punishment. He banishes himself, if you will, into exile. When he looks into the camera in the end [of the finale], the rest is silence; there's not even a voiceover there anymore. It's just emptiness... Committing suicide is too easy; that's letting himself off the hook."

Nevertheless, fans were disappointed by the ending for its lack of closure. In contrast, the 'Breaking Bad' finale had tied up all of its loose ends. Perhaps the only justification is a possible spin-off series to offer fans some closure.