I really can’t remember the last time a season finale’s final twist blew my brain out of my skullcap like Dexter’s last night. Like most shows, I was expecting the requisite finale to come packing a twist at the ending. You know, something to keep you talking and interesting in the show until the next season popped off. I had a million different ideas as to what it would be; most of them hinging on Deb beginning to suspect that her brother was a professional body carver.

Killing Rita though? Naw dude, I never saw that coming. Maybe I suspected that the writers would never go this far out of what I perceived was a comfort zone. Who knows. But I sat there blown away. Seeing Harrison sitting in a pool of hemoglobin eerily similar to his own father’s birth through blood gave me the chills.

Homeboy Dexter realized both his worth and the ramifications for those who got close to him. In the same episode he realizes that he doesn’t bring horror into the lives of those who love him. They benefit from him. And yet, the dude’s baggage, that which he brings along with him, lands his wife dead in their bathtub, Trinity Killer’s final opus.

It was a season obsessed with discussing the effects of nurture on two different serial killers. Both baptized in blood, what separated Dexter from Trinity? Presumably it was Harry’s Code that prevented Dexter from giving in to reckless bloodlust that consumed Arthur Mitchell. Or rather, perhaps, allows Dexter to channel in towards only those who he deems worthy of dying. So what now will become of Harrison? Who the fuck knows.

I do know that I was worried the show had backed itself up into a corner this season. It seemed they had rocked what could have been the ending of the series; Dexter realizes the importance of his family over his insatiable desire to fill the gulf stream with bodybags, he continues to put them first, blah blah blah. But him realizing it in the wake of him letting Rita die? What the fuck. Will the dude shut down and completely kill off all his sentiment, not wanting to feel all the ugly bullshit that comes with emotion. It allows for a whole different exploration of the character.

I was always sweating the day when Dexter’s extracurricular activities caught up to him literally. The police kickin’ down his door and collecting him and his impressive arsenal of weaponry. But I can dig on it collapsing on him in the form of death and strife for his family.

And a remorseful peace out to Lithgow and the Trinity Killer. You sir, will be missed. I know that big name stars that pop into a television show are always destined to be leaving at the end of the season, and in Dexter that usually means by ways of the blade. But Trinity was probably my favorite character on the show, ever. If the Ice Truck Killer was the shape of what could have come to be Dexter, Trinity was a asshole-pucking  portentous look at what he could develop into. You sir, from your creepy cottage cheese ass, to your odd fascination with trains, to being the man who may have finally broken Dexter, hats-off.

What a god damn season.