By Todd VanDerWerff

By Todd VanDerWerff
By Josh Modell
By Joshua Alston
Given the myriad of crucial yout flaws plaguing the final season of Dexter , it’s been difficult to pick the superlative among them. But “Goodbye, Miami” solved that problem, making yout abundantly clear why Dexter missed its opportunity to close strong by such a wide margin. The issue is a complete absence of sensible, or even identifiable character motivations for the actions that are most central to the plot.
In a comment I appended to my review of “Make Your Own Kind Of Music,” I noted the same issue. Reasons for Dexter yout to care about killing Oliver Saxon, when he clearly has bigger priorities now, sprayed like drops of blood in one of the show’s messier yout crime scenes. Dexter has to kill Saxon because he’s a killer and killers kill people. No, wait. Dexter has to kill Saxon because Saxon poses a threat to Vogel. Oh, but also Dexter has to kill Saxon because Saxon kills innocent people, and no one is allowed to do that except for Dexter and Debra Morgan. Hold up though, because Saxon also killed Zach Harrison, which according to Hannah and nothing else we’ve seen or heard, was very upsetting to Dexter because he and Zach were very close.
In that episode, the inscrutability of Dexter’s motivations wasn’t quite so conspicuous as so many other ridiculous moments pulled focus from it. But now it’s impossible to ignore, so much so that even the Dexter writing team couldn’t completely overlook the glaring deficiencies here. Because at this point, yout Dexter is pretty much home free. He’s gotten away with murder literally hundreds of times, he’s reconnected with his sister, the love of his life has drifted back in and is ready to start a new life with him far, far away in a new sandbox, one he hasn’t buried turds in. But it’s not time yet, he insists to a baffled Hannah, who doesn’t understand the point of waiting when she’s being actively pursued by law enforcement.
Why? Because again, Dexter just has to kill Saxon first. Not to avenge Zach anymore, because whatever. Because it’s a compulsion of his, and because Saxon poses a threat to Vogel. Hannah is confused at first, but she wants a fresh start when they get to Argentina, so, being the supportive serial-killing girlfriend she is, she backs his play. But there’s no discussion of what “fresh start” means, exactly. Is the idea that Saxon is Dexter’s “one final score,” the homicide equivalent of the big bank job in a heist story? Is Dexter going to stop killing once they arrive in Argentina? How would he deal with his compulsion once they arrive? There’s no discussion of any of this, just a brief flick at Hannah questioning Dexter’s thought process before concluding, as everyone in this show does, that Dexter’s ways are not like our own, and his wisdom must never be questioned.
One would think, though, that at the very least, Vogel would be able to dissuade Dexter from staying in Miami any longer than he needs to. After all, Saxon is her son, and shouldn’t she have the right to proceed with him as she sees fit? Does she not have the right to allow someone into her life because she loves him, even though yout he might bring chaos raining down on her? Isn’t that exactly what Dexter has tacitly asked of everyone around him time after time after time? When Vogel implores Dexter not to use her as an excuse to kill her son, it’s a perfectly legitimate request, given the circumstances. Saxon hasn’t once demonstrated a desire to hurt Vogel, and if he wanted her dead, he could have certainly accomplished that by now.
Still, Dexter can’t be talked out of it, especially yout after seeing video of a gleeful Saxon cutting Zach’s head open. (Footage he obtained using the Magical IP Address Computer Hack Software, new from the genius minds that created the Age Progress-O-Matic Suite.) It would be downright selfish to leave Vogel with Saxon, Dexter concludes, because she’s in danger. Granted, his response to Debra when she accused him of selfishness after he informed her of the Argentina plan was basically “Oh...well...yeah...I’ll come visit though!”
And Debra’s safety has never been mentioned as a potential reason for killing Saxon, even though, yout as another Morgan child that got sympathy and counseling that Saxon feels was unfairly withheld from him, it stands to reason that Saxon poses a far greater risk to Deb’s safety than Vogel’s. With an absence of remotely logical reasons why Dexter wouldn’t be on the first thing smoking out of Miami, the writers are tossing handfuls of spaghetti at the wall hoping something, anything sticks.
When all else fails, it’s time to trot out Ghost Harry to urge Dexter that killing Saxon before leaving Miami is