Everyone has a favorite Dexter season. No matter when you started watching the show, you know that certain arcs just worked better than others. It might not be possible to be truly objective, but we’ve compiled a list of the best and the worst of Dexter’s eight seasons.
Season Eight
When we knew that Dexter was ending, we were at once excited and inconsolable. One of television’s best shows was going away, and we didn’t know what we’d do. Fortunately, Season Eight gave us every reason to try to forget the show as quickly as possible. This wasn’t just a bad last season – it was a bad season of television, period. Those last few minutes felt like they undid almost a decade’s worth of character development.
Season Five
Everything wrong with Dexter Season Five can be summed up in one word: Lumen. The character is incredibly polarizing, and if you didn’t love her, you hated this season. Season Five just seemed like a whole lot of nothing at the time, especially coming off of Season Four. It’s the precise kind of bad TV that frustrates dedicated viewers.
Season Six
Dexter Season 6 was the moment when we learned that the writers really didn’t have any idea of how this series was going to wrap up. The show meandered about, introduced a horrible plotline with Deb’s feelings for her adopted brother, and generally made everyone just a little dumber than they’d been in the past seasons. The one good thing is that the season didn’t focus on Lumen.
Season Three
Dexter’s a dad! That’s the core of this season, serial killer partnerships aside. It’s not a bad season by any stretch of the imagination, but Season 3 definitely wasn’t a highlight of the show. Instead, it was another building year, helping to cement the show’s relationships and writing while putting out inoffensively bland episodes.
Season Two
Season Two was tense and full of everything we love about Dexter. It had a great antagonist, featured some truly fantastic writing, and explored the themes of the show well. Everything really came together until the very end, where we got a bit of a cop-out of an ending. That one small swerve took the season from being an absolute shoo-in for the top of the list to the middle of the pack.
Season One
It’s astonishing to look back at Season One and think about what could have been. This was when the show was full of promise, almost totally focused on Dexter, and entirely without the problems that would plague later seasons. Season One was still finding its footing by the time it ended, but it’s a great example of the show at its best.
Season Seven
This should have been the series finale. We finally have Deb coming to grips with Dexter’s secret, some major character deaths, and a good number of callbacks to what had happened during the prior seasons. This was the Dexter that everyone fondly remembered. It’s not quite the best, but it’s very close.
Season Four
Dexter Season 4 wins due to the Trinity Killer. This was Dexter’s high water mark, where all of the writing was at its best, where the stakes were the highest, and when hearts were broken. This is the unbelievable season that elevated Dexter to more than just a show.
