Dexter: End of Season 2 Comments

SPOILERS! Please don't read unless you've finished season 2.

Season 2 was pretty fun in that there was a whole lot of tension and excitement throughout the entire season. There was also more introspection into Dexter's past, which I enjoy. However, I and many other fans can't help but feel a little disappointed with the plot developments. Doakes ends up dying, getting blasted to smithereens, and is pinned as the Bay Harbour Butcher (BHB). Doakes is no different from Dexter. He's a good cop that wants justice and to kill bad guys. Everyone who watches the show roots for Dexter. He's the loveable serial killer. The feeling of disappointment comes in when you realize that Doakes' blood is on Dexter's hands. Even though Lila killed him, Dexter was planning to frame Doakes for the BHB murders, which would probably have lead to him getting the death penalty since it is legal in Florida. So even if you're not the one doing the killing, but you set them up to be killed, you are absolved? I also think that was a weak plan by Dexter, considering Doakes' accusations would at least cause investigation into Dexter's past, basically screwing him over. The chances of them finding something in Dexter's past to connect him to the BHB would be way higher for him than Doakes. As well, season 2 saw a markedly different Dexter, who battled much more moral problems (since his hand was forced by the law and revelations by Harry's code), and he got a lot closer to people, such as Lila, and caring for Rita and the kids. At times you wonder, if Dexter stops killing people, then wouldn't this be just a normal cop drama?

I loved the conversations between Doakes and Dexter once Doakes knew that he was the BHB. Towards the end, you felt that Doakes layers were being knocked down, and he somewhat understood Dexter. And Dexter also helps Doakes from being killed by those drug lords. What a team those two would make! That would have been epically cool, if there weren't the problem of the law hunting down at least one of them as the BHB.

I did write one alternative ending, which I think would have tied things up much better:

Doakes survives the blast - but is in a coma, and when he wakes up has retrograde episodic amnesia. He is able to be a cop, but not homicide, as he has lost his episodic memory for a few months back (forgetting that Dexter is the BHB). He still hates Dexter for some reason. The law acquits him because they find out that Lila is the BHB, after its discovered she was trying to make Doakes her latest victim in a plea to get Dexter back. (I suppose her fingerprints were found on something in the cabin, and they identify her motive). Lila as the possible BHB could have worked well if the writers developed it more. The viewers of the show know that she can kill, and that she had all those body parts in her studio, alluding to chopping up bodies. From the law's perspective, they first find she has an alias and no paper trail. All that would be required is writing in on how she was a killer of chopping a person up 15 years ago in Britain before coming here, yadda yadda yadda. Anyway, before the law gets to her, Dexter has already "taken care" of her, both framing her and killing her in the process, making it look like a suicide because she was "found out." This way, Dexter doesn't have any of Doakes blood on his hands, Doakes lives, and Dexter goes on being his old self.