For better or worse (much, much worse), 'Dexter' has finally carved its last cheek with this past Sunday's series finale, "Remember the Monsters?," bringing the Showtime serial killer series to a close after eight long years, the latter of which many fans proclaim to have taken a rather steep nosedive. And while we've had our own issues with the current season, producers Sara Colleton and Scott Buck stepped up to answer lingering questions, defend Dexter's ultimate fate, and discuss the future of the troubled series.

Be warned of SPOILERS ahead, but just as it seemed Dexter had decided to finally answer for all the hurt he'd caused his loved ones over the years, including the loss of his adopted sister Deb's life, "Remember the Monsters?" pulled the rug out from under us to reveal that Dexter had miraculously survived driving the Slice of Life into a hurricane, and elected to spend his life as a lumberjack rather than reconnect with Hannah or his son. Despite the ending's tacked-on nature, EP Sara Colleton assured TVLine that no alternate ending had been scripted for the character, and all involved felt that Dexter dying by the series end wouldn't have been harsh enough punishment.

Going into exile away from everything that he knows and has become attached [to] in his whole infrastructure is a more fitting punishment for what his journey toward being a human being has cost everyone around him. If the central idea from the pilot on was: Here’s a guy who thinks of himself as a monster and yet yearns to be human… We’ve seen him on this journey – he started off as faking it but then became real somewhere along the line – and we’ve seen year-to-year what this journey has cost him.

So, in the finale, the final price comes through… If he had listened to the Dark Passenger and stuck to the Code, he would never have left Saxon, he wouldn’t have thought that he didn’t need to kill, that he’s got a stronger pull. Deb, who was his touchstone and soulmate, died — and this was the only fitting punishment.

He banishes himself, if you will, into exile. When he looks into the camera in the end [of the finale], the rest is silence; there’s not even a voiceover there anymore. It’s just emptiness… Committing suicide is too easy; that’s letting himself off the hook.

Many had argued that Dexter's so-called penance also left his true love and only son to believe he was dead, a rather harsh abandonment from someone who only hours earlier wanted to ride off into the Argentinian sunset to lead a happy life with them. The producers kept deliberately vague on exactly when Dexter might have decided to fake his death rather than actually go through with it, let alone how he could have possibly managed to return to shore with a life raft, though Colleton argued that Dexter would have seen Hannah as a fierce and devoted protector for Harrison, rather than a fellow serial killer to abandon his son to.

As for the series-long question of whether or not Dexter would ever have been exposed to his Miami Metro cohorts, both producers felt as if the idea would have crowded an already-overcomplicated final season, and ultimately detracted from the impact of Dexter and Deb's final ends. Batista managed to see a hint of Dexter's darkness in the security footage of Saxon's murder, while Quinn fully understood the man's intents in visiting his sister's killer. Rather than realize the full scope of Dexter's ways, however, Colleton revealed that Quinn fully endorsed Dexter's actions with a knowing look.

So, what about that spinoff we most recently heard Showtime President David Nevins was giving serious thought? Both Buck and Colleton assured that no specific plans or ideas have yet been discussed, though Colleton wouldn't want to proceed without Michael C. Hall's involvement in some capacity. At the very least, we can rule out a sitcom starring Masuka and his daughter, as Buck stated to Entertainment Weekly, "we won't see the current cast again."

Well, what say you? Do you think 'Dexter''s isolated end made for a more fitting punishment to the character than suicide via hurricane? Would you want to see the franchise revisited with a spinoff of any kind? Tell us in the comments what you thought of the 'Dexter' finale, and hear what the cast had to say in the video below!

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