I could swear I read somewhere before they announced that season five would be the last that Vince Gilligan said the show was going to go for five seasons. Which would have me think that he at least has somewhat of an idea of what he was going to do with the series. Not every episode is written out and ready to go but I think he has ideas already to some extent of what he wants to do.

The plan (if Gilligan had one) couldn't have been that solid since Jesse was supposed to die in season one before he started to like the character, and now he's such an important part of the show that I can't see how they had planned to do it without him.

I'm not saying that anything was completely set in stone and totally decided. I'm saying I'm fairly certain he had somewhat of an outline for the series and certain points he wanted to hit. That's all I meant, obviously changes can be made along the way though.

There's even a quote in this article that seems to lead me to believe that he had at least some plans for the series. He may not have had the exact stories for how he intended to get to his outcomes but I'm thinking he had some ideas.

"it was always intended to be a finite, closed-ended show. You have to know when to hold ‘em and when to fold ‘em.”

http://www.movietvnews.net/2011/12/0...series-finale/

Season 2 was the only one that was planned in advance at the outset of the season, with the plane crash being hinted at, and the letters of each episode title spelling out the distress call. If I remember correctly, Vince Gilligan said that was so exhausting, that they were going to go play it by ear for season 3.

But I agree with mike about hitting certain points. Of course they would change those based on who is alive, but yeah. On a somewhat related note, I think it's a nice touch that characters still wear the ribbons for the plane crash....granted it is still in the recent past within the context of the show, but that's one of the things that stands out.

Poor Deb. Just when she's found the guy of her dreams (literally), he turns out to be just as messed up as her other paramours.

Girl just can't catch a break.

Oh, well. Even if Dex had reciprocated her amorous attraction, explaining the situation to Harrison would still have been quite a challenge. Would he call her Aunt Deborah, or Mommy? Or one term in public and one at home? Kid's already been traumatized enough.

Then again, there are a lot of different family arrangements these days, so maybe it wouldn't have been a problem. Point's moot now unless Deb is a very liberal thinker and can compartmentalize.

Hopefully, Harry's ghost wouldn't pop up in the bedroom while Deb & Dex got it on. Now, THAT would be creepy.

Back to the bitching about the Bay Harbor Butcher....

I will continue to watch Dexter do his thing until the show ends, but I think its flaws are becoming more glaring each additional season. I guess there aren't too many long-running dramas that don't fall victim to that, however. I still love the character and the premise, but I just found myself laughing too many times this season - at the show, not with it (even though Masuka had some great one-liners). I'm hoping next season starts out with a bang and stays strong, as long as it isn't Deb banging Dexter because that's just really weird in my opinion. I don't see myself buying into it at all.

Two things that popped in my head while watching the last 2-3 episodes that haven't been mentioned yet:

Quinn's hair gets crazier and crazier. Fast-forward through the second-to-last episode and maybe you'll see what I mean.

For some dumb reason, it "bothered" me that after the gas attack, there was really no mention of it potentially happening again. I know it would be redundant and I guess you could feasibly say that that particular tableau was over and done with, but I would think that Travis would try and repeat in on a larger scale. I know Travis wasn't the stereotypical domestic terrorist, but when Deb told all units to respond to that house to save Batista I couldn't help but think that Travis could/should have rigged the place with explosions or saran gas (or whatever it was) to take out as many cops as he could, a la Speed (I think). Either way, it's a minor thing compared to some of the leaps in logic this season had.

Well he said it was "miles beyond most". I don't think Dexter was miles beyond anything this year. Better than some shows sure, but not by miles.

I haven't given up on the show. I've loved/liked it for 5 seasons so one weak one isn't going to completely ruin everything and make me lose faith in everyone involved.

NO! It was NOT a dummy needle. Read my post #38. I explained it and I'm 95% its accurate.

LOL Yes!!! Why does the guy sport a comb over... he isnt bald!

I'm not a fan of shows being made up as they go along, but if that's the case with BB, I'm even more impressed because they are doing it quite well.

You say Bukka-key, I say Buka-Kei!

NOOOOOOO.......the last 20 seconds...this is torture...the next 10 months...
So unfair.
Ugh.

And frick this bro-sis romance, its very icky. How could the writers not see this?
The bro-sis relationship has been a safe unchanging pure thing in Dexter. And they have messed it up.

I swear he looked like a Troll doll in one scene late in the season. Maybe I'm just jealous that I can't pull off that "Something About Mary"-look.

From EW:

Yeah, that pretty well summed up the season. Started off strong, got really weird and they stuck in a bunch of shit just because.

While I agree with the view this was the weakest season of Dexter, that's only compared relative to the other seasons of the series. So it was still good... just not as good as the other seasons.

People seem to be going off on the lowlights of this season, so I'll instead list what I think are some highlights of the season:

- a killer who was very creative in his kills. Travis was the first one to be creative like this since Season One's Brian the Ice Truck Killer. (And, no, Trinity doesn't count because he was just re-enacting the same personal deaths again and again, which is simply being repetitive and not creative).

- it dealt with the subject of religion. Most show don't touch this subject with a 10-foot pole because it's such an emotional thing for people, so I like that the show finally focused on this (Dexter's hobby, murder, is kind of a big deal in religion) and wasn't even afraid to possibly offend religious people with a very religious villain (and it didn't even go overboard with a positive religious role model to balance that, as most show would've done).

- a killer with an imagined dark passenger. This was figured out here at the DVDTalk Forum, but for viewers who didn't figure this plot twist out, that had to be an amazing WTF moment. I just wish they had kept that going on AFTER Dexter found out! It seemed too convenient for Travis to basically cure himself of his dark passenger by Dexter simply telling him that Gellar was dead.

- Deb finally fucking found out about Dexter's secret. It should've happened last season (a season I liked a lot but thought totally wimped out on this in the season ender), so I'm glad it finally happened this year. (BTW, although I haven't read the books, I understand that Deb found out about Dexter pretty early on in the book series.)

- Dexter had no love interest in the season (sorry, Deb doesn't count). Note that I am counting Lumen from last season as a love interest of sorts. Although I'm sure that will change next season, it was the first one without a love interest for Dexter (not counting the couple of times he got laid/blown because those were just wonderful slutty women and love had nothing to do with it) which was nice for the show to leave that out for a change.

- No one in Rita's family showed up in the season. Some fans may wish they had been in it, but I didn't miss them at all.

They were far enough from the shore to give him time to rob them without anyone having a chance to jump (since that was the plan) but not too far that he'd have to wait a very long time holding them at bay with his gun.

I'd like to know the purpose of the robber. Showing Dexter get rescued by refugees was fine, but did we need to see that 30 second piece of drama?

And wouldn't someone talk about how Dexter came aboard the boat and likely mention that he killed someone as well?

Amen to that. They had 5 outstanding seasons (IMO). And while I admit this was not their best season, it was still better than 90% of the crap out there on TV. Cut the writers some slack. Keeping up that high a level of creativity is HARD. Even the very best long story arc TV shows in history have had a less than stellar season here and there. Lost? BSG? Buffy? The Sopranos? X-Files? If I were creating a show, I'd hire the Dexter writers over just about anyone else out there.

What in the world would you call Brother Sam? Dexter even made reference to Sam in the last episode when he was putting Travis down for using religion as an excuse to hurt people instead of helping them.

They made every attempt to counterbalance Travis with a positive portrayal of a religious person.

They have no idea who Dexter is. Maybe they'll see him on TV or something one day, but I wouldn't expect the boat of illegal immigrants to show up at the police station anytime soon. Not to mention they'd be ratting out a guy who just saved them.

I actually like the religious part of the first part of the season, like they were trying to discover something. But at the end I didn't like the results. I wouldn't say I disliked it, it has a lot of positives but I didn't like how they resolved that part.

I also wonder about the "disappearance" of Dexter's dad.

Brother Sam was a murder and felon who turned to religion... not exactly the P.C. over-the-top positive religious role model to counter-balance Travis.

...and became a redeemed goody two-shoes with no negative qualities, who died a martyr and left behind a group of followers and people he directly influenced to do good.

Have you read the Bible? Brother Sam is a classic story.

Have you see a movie or tv show? When counter-balancing a negative depiction of a group, they go overboard to make a positive role model absolutely perfect with no flaws whatsoever.

Being an ex-con and murderer is not exactly flawless.

I thought it was pretty ironic that the religious-themed season ended with Dexter saying, "Oh God..."