FTA-TV Dexter Season 8

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The villain has been cast

variety.com

‘Dexter’ Revival at Showtime Casts Clancy Brown in Major Role

The upcoming “Dexter” revival at Showtime has cast Clancy Brown in a leading role, Variety has confirmed. Brown will star as Kurt Caldwell, the primary villain of the show. Caldwell is …
variety.com variety.com

The upcoming “Dexter” revival at Showtime has cast Clancy Brown in a leading role, Variety has confirmed.

Brown will star as Kurt Caldwell, the primary villain of the show. Caldwell is described as the unofficial mayor of the small town of Iron Lake. He’s realized the American dream by going from driving big rigs, just like his father did, to now owning several trucks and the local truck stop. Powerful, generous, loved by everyone – he’s a true man of the people. If he’s got your back, consider yourself blessed. But should you cross Kurt, or hurt anyone that he cares for, God help you.

Brown joins previously announced series lead Michael C. Hall, who will return as the titular serial killer. The role also brings Brown back to Showtime, where he previously played the character Waylon “Jock” Jeffcoat on the network’s hit series “Billions.”

Brown is no stranger to playing villains, starring as the monstrous Kurgan in the film “Highlander” as well as the evil Captain Hadley in “The Shawshank Redemption” among many other roles. He is known for his lighter side as well, having voiced the character of Mr. Krabs on “Spongebob Squarepants” for over 20 years.
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GG.exe said:
i loved the finale of Dexter, was the best way to end it -- a tragedy. Far more compelling than any other idea. I don't think the series as a whole was great tho. Seasons 1 and 2 were great, Seasons 3 and 4 average, and then it was mostly mediocre after that. But...the finale was just right imo. A tragedy.
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Season 4 was easily the best in my eyes.

If the ending had been an actual tragedy it would have been fine but that season as a whole was on the nose.
 
GG.exe said:
i loved the finale of Dexter, was the best way to end it -- a tragedy. Far more compelling than any other idea. I don't think the series as a whole was great tho. Seasons 1 and 2 were great, Seasons 3 and 4 average, and then it was mostly mediocre after that. But...the finale was just right imo. A tragedy.
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So the original writers left after series 5 I think. I read an interview with one and the last episode was planned to have Dexter being caught and on death row. When he is about to be executed all of the people he had killer were there to witness his execution

Wow have been a much better ending imo

Sent from my SM-G981B using Tapatalk
 
00Stinger said:
So the original writers left after series 5 I think. I read an interview with one and the last episode was planned to have Dexter being caught and on death row. When he is about to be executed all of the people he had killer were there to witness his execution

Wow have been a much better ending imo

Sent from my SM-G981B using Tapatalk
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I'd heard of that ending. I don't like it tbh. The idea of him getting caught, all his peers knowing, and that ending on death row is a bit commonplace imo. I still prefer the actual ending....Dexter indeed got away with everything but to what end?...he destroyed everyone, ruined the lives of all whom he most cared about with his precious code (dont get caught)...hes free but homeless, alive but dead, a sad lonely figure. And, just when he'd finally healed himself of the need to murder, finally discovered that human part of himself full of feelings, love, hope....he ends up in a living nightmare of guilt, shame, sorrow -- not hope and love. Perfect.
 

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Carbine Chaos said:
Dexter the lumberjack a perfect ending?

First time I’ve heard that.

Up there with GoT as one of the least satisfying finales of all time.
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Not that he's a lumberjack per se. But that it ended up him staying alive, not caught, because that's all he truly cared about, put everyone else that was close to him in harm's way thruout the show because he only really cared about himself. The best karma, best outcome...was what they ended up doing....dexter stays alive and free, but he ruined everyone's lives, even himself, his chance of being a normal human with a happy non-violent life. Ends up alone, without Debra, Hannah, Harrison, or his "friends" in homicide to have a semblance of genuine human contact. He's trapped in his own prison of misery.
 
GG.exe said:
Not that he's a lumberjack per se. But that it ended up him staying alive, not caught, because that's all he truly cared about, put everyone else that was close to him in harm's way thruout the show because he only really cared about himself. The best karma, best outcome...was what they ended up doing....dexter stays alive and free, but he ruined everyone's lives, even himself, his chance of being a normal human with a happy non-violent life. Ends up alone, without Debra, Hannah, Harrison, or his "friends" in homicide to have a semblance of genuine human contact. He's trapped in his own prison of misery.
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I should clarify a little and say that I think the show generally took a downwards turn after Season 4.

I think what you say has merit for sure. But I feel we were ultimately robbed of some more exciting directions the show could have taken with the revelation becoming public.

I half expected in the finale itself when I saw there was a hurricane or whatever that Dexter’s body was going to wash up on the beach surrounded by some of his bagged victims, for all the world to see. The cop out of him steering into the storm only to appear alive inexplicably reminded me of the ending to The Dark Knight Rises, which was also bungled. Don’t show who Alfred is looking at FFS.
 
Carbine Chaos said:
I should clarify a little and say that I think the show generally took a downwards turn after Season 4.

I think what you say has merit for sure. But I feel we were ultimately robbed of some more exciting directions the show could have taken with the revelation becoming public.

I half expected in the finale itself when I saw there was a hurricane or whatever that Dexter’s body was going to wash up on the beach surrounded by some of his bagged victims, for all the world to see. The cop out of him steering into the storm only to appear alive inexplicably reminded me of the ending to The Dark Knight Rises, which was also bungled. Don’t show who Alfred is looking at FFS.
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I agree with you. The first four seasons were good drama. Things unraveling. Seasons 5-8 were just treading and re-treading, tires spinning.

I also agree that the show suffered in basic story-telling (S5-8 especially). So many things happened without any danger, risk, just Dexter forging on. All those bodies dumped surely would've/should've got washed up at some point again to bring the heat back on. And that getting exposed, doubt on Doakes, heat on Dexter, would've opened up possible different storylines than what we saw in seasons 5-8, where it was just the same tired formula again....a big bad adversary for Dexter to ride again. The show went on too long, the story lost its direction.

However, I can also understand why they decided certain things....they already did bring the heat back on Dexter with LaGuerta re-opening the case and actually named Dexter and looked into him. They couldn't re-hash that again so soon after. But they handled that whole concept poorly I agree. It was the premise of S1-2, ending with Doakes death. That was fine. But when they re-hashed it with LaGuerta in season 6 (i think?), it wasn't done right. The bodies should've washed up at the very least. But they couldn't have re-hashed that again in Season 8 after the flippant way it was all resolved after season 6. They played that card too soon before the final seasons and played it poorly.

There was a lot in the Dexter show where realism was made a joke of. How easily Dexter just navigates around, finds info, can manipulate every crime scene without suspicion, disposes of all his victims without risk, never is forced to change tactics because Miami Metro is tightening the ropes around him, making it harder for him to operate, forcing him to make more mistakes etc. That's what SHOULD'VE happened as a basic story imo. After Doakes took the fall....the story should've focused on how Dexter sighing in relief, still can't stop himself from killing again, but, he can't keep doing it how he did before, and Miami Metro is slowly cottoning on to him or the case still open because the bags started washing up again, so he was forced to change tactics, MM closing on him more and more, him making more mistakes. I still would've made it that Dexter found a singular clever way to remove suspicion by the stage of the finale, cos all he cared about was himself getting away with it at everyone's expense. Still causing Debras death, Hannah/Harrison dead too or like what happened. Instead, the show just kept repeating the same formula of each season....a new bad guy is around, Dexter kills them, easily without realism skirts danger and getting caught, rinse and repeat.

Even tho seasons 3 and 4 were really good, with the Trinity Killer....i still think Seasons 1 and 2 were prime Dexter. The height of the show. The Brian Moser and Doakes storylines were perfect. Season 3 and 4 were good but started that rinse repeat trend that got more and more tiresome. But for sure, they should've started in Season 5 with a new direction. Bags and bodies washed up. Miami Metro re-opens case. Not immediately thinking it's Dexter, but gradually Dexter's safety is unraveling, he's making mistakes, forced to keep killing with different methods, the noose tightening. Such that say the whole series ended by a season 6. Still the same kind of finale tho -- Dexter ultimately deceives MM, but only by his own actions to cover his tracks causing the deaths of Debra, Hannah caught, Harrison in protective care without a parent, the toll of Debras death on her friends/husband/BF in MM, LaGuerta, Quinn a wreck, Jamie at Dexter's apartment in the line of fire dead instead of that neighbor, Angel thus affected by his sisters death....etc.....every one ruined by Dexter by the finale of that hypothetical season 6....he still ends free, but he's ruined everyone WHILST trying to create a semblance of a real human life, alone and imprisoned in his own misery, realization.
 
Simply, the show needed to take a different path from 5 onward.

Specifically that Dexter's signature killing method, bags in bodies, started washing up again start of 5, and now the story focused on Miami Metro re-opening the case, slowly but surely tightening in on the identity of the killer, and Dexter, so hell-bent on his code (don't get caught) that he causes the lives of all those around him to suffer -- Jamie dead, Angel grief-stricken, Quinn a wreck, Debra dead sooner, Hannah/Lumen concept sooner and also wrecked by Dexter's self-preservation, Harrison ward of the state, etc. Would've started that storyline season 5 and wrapped up the whole show season 6 with all that unraveling sooner.

But...I still would've kept the same finale. That was near-perfect imo. Karma, best outcome. All he cared about was remaining uncaught, whilst trying to find humanness in himself, that he ends up free, but at the cost of his sister, his nanny, his friends, his lover, his son...free but alone, in a prison of his own misery. Still fakes his own death, but all of Miami Metro etc know he was the killer, but Debra dead, Hannah imprisoned, Harrison foster care, Dexter with a new alias living a lonely rural life. That would've been the perfect touch to an almost perfect finale (if they at least knew it was him).

Don't think him getting caught and on death-row with everyone alive to judge him would've been a good ending at all.
 
GG’s idea that Dexter ruins everyone else’s life and ends up in a kind of purgatory isn’t particularly wrong but boy oh boy wowee did they miss the mark with what they did.

Personally, I think there were only two ways to end it. Caught, about to be executed, facing up to exactly what he was. Or, given the show was inmany ways about his attempt to become more human, being forced to sacrifice himself for Deborah or the kids after being the ones to put them in mortal danger.

The books nailed the ending better.
 
The whole show is a study on a psychopathic killer without emotions following a simplistic code to live by. Of utmost importance -- don't get caught. He puts everyone in his life in harm's way in order to sate himself on his bloodlust and not get caught, but also forever yearning to be human, to feel basic emotions like love and friendship, to have a semblance of a real life. When things start to develop for him that way, he is torn between both those worlds, and can't have both, as Ghost Harry constantly pointed out to him.

It follows then that the best way to end a show founded on that is to have all those aspects collide together. If he gets caught, there's no real payoff there. It's a cliched ending...don't do bad things because you will get caught and will serve time/die. But to end it how it did (specifics aside) reaches Shakespearean tragedy, layers of grief and irony. He achieves freedom but the cost is heavy. Debra died due to him, also he slowly brought the happy Debra down into the mud of depression and self-ruination once she found out, even before she died he ruined her. The love he found (Hannah) and the child he adores, he could never be with, realizing they're better off without him. it's a shattering truth for him to deal with, worse than death. He lives out his pathetic free life in a prison of shame, guilt, and without any way to share those new human feelings that have awoken in him. His need to kill ended, but he lost that conduit to be human -- his sister, lover, child, friends all gone.
 
Didn't realise after season 4 they changed show runners. New season has the original person back at helm, so should be a cracker.
 
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