OMG Dexter

Don't read this if you haven't seen the "Dexter" finale.

Major spoiler alert.

Wowser. Plain and simple. The last moments of this episode were shocking, and for a show build on shocks that's saying a lot. The image of Rita dead in the bathtub and Harrison sitting in a pool of her blood is unforgettable. Two complete innocents fouled by Dexter's cat and mouse game with Trinity. Dexter won, in that he finally killed Trinity on his own terms, and Dexter lost, bigtime.

Both killers' stories came full circle, in a way. Trinity had his final serial cycle, although he was the one massacred by the hammer. And Dexter saw his son become him, bringing his own story around again in a particularly tragic way.

I have really mixed feelings about this season. One the one hand, the plotting seemed sloppy to me. I'm wondering if the writers are even going to address the fact that Trinity's family knows Dexter by face, not just name. They will undoubtedly say Dexter was in their home moments before the police burst in, right? I understand that Dexter has changed, and he is now sloppy; but the writers still need to account for how he gets away with things.

On the other hand, the way the writers mirrored Dexter's family life with Trinity's was clever, if a little obvious by the end. Dexter was clearly trying to kill something about himself as he became so obsessed with killing Trinity. But he failed, in spite of or because of his newfound humanity. He is now responsible for the deaths of a number of innocents, and not so much better than Trinity when it comes right down to it.

Dexter was a better person when he was an automaton. As a man with feelings and a family, he's causing plenty of harm. That's a very cool irony.

The other things I liked about the season: John Lithgow, although his campiness was getting old by the end, and Jennifer Carpenter as Debra. This was Debra's season, to some extent; she came into her own in many ways, after the death of Lundy, her father-figure. And Carpenter played it beautifully. She deserves an Emmy nod.

What did you think? Will Rita, like Harry, now haunt Dexter? How will Dexter get out of his connection to Trinity, especially after Rita's Trinity-styled murder? Thoughts? Feelings?