‘Dexter’ Series Finale: Were Writers Forbidden from Killing Off the Character?

The shipwreck of 'Dexter''s final season has largely since been washed away by time and the vastly superior end to 'Breaking Bad,' but dedicated fans of the Showtime serial killer drama may still be scratching their heads about the character's finale fate. We may finally have an answer to the controversial closer, as a 'Dexter' producer claims Showtime execs refused to allow the ending series finale "Remember the Monsters" had built toward.

Spoilerists be warned, but it seems even fans of the series weren't alone in their belief that Dexter should have gone down with the series, perishing in the hurricane he'd driven the Slice of Life toward in the final minutes of the finale. Via Vulture, we've learned that the bizarre final sequence that saw a miraculously-surviving Dexter in a bearded new life as a lumberjack came about through one irrefutable caveat courtesy of Showtime: "They won't let us kill him."

Those words come from 'Dexter' producer John Goldwyn, who spoke from a recent premiere in no uncertain terms to say:

Showtime was very clear about that. When we told them the arc for the last season, they just said, 'Just to be clear, he's going to live.' There were a lot of endings discussed because it was a very interesting problem to solve, to bring it to a close. People have a relationship with Dexter, even if it doesn't have the size and the ferocity of the fan base for Breaking Bad. But it has a very core loyal following.

While it's hard to say if Showtime maintains any future designs on the character that killing Dexter off might have thwarted, it remains a fair consensus that "Remember the Monsters" ended the uneven season on a note that proved as infuriating as it was perplexing. To learn that Showtime expressly vetoed the character's death does help to explain the ending we were left with, given how long the network held onto its biggest money-maker, though it doesn't quite wash away the bad taste altogether.

What say you? Would 'Dexter' have come to a more satisfying conclusion if its titular hero had been killed off after all? Are you still holding out hope of a spinoff or sequel series someday?