Dexter: Original Sin Finale Recap: Born This Way

Are people born wicked, or is wickedness thrust upon them? It makes sense that a Dexter origin story would crib this question from Wicked, and it’s one the finale is primarily concerned with, but I’m not sure how satisfying of an answer we get. To be fair, that’s true of the way all the show’s plotlines are resolved in this episode. At the risk of being branded a hater — I read the comments on these recaps, and I know I skew more negative than many of you — it’s clear to me that the series bit off more than it could chew. To its credit, Original Sin has tried to stretch the limits of what a prequel can do, but as “Code Blues” reinforces, that’s often at the expense of coherent plotting and basic logic.

We start with another flashback within a flashback, as Brian shares his own origin story with Dr. Paul Petrie, soon to be his first victim. We see Brian’s life after being removed from the Morgans, with his violent tendencies flaring up at each new home he’s placed in. He finally lands at Harbor Light Mental Hospital, where he’s diagnosed with Antisocial Personality Disorder — some doctors even call him a psychopath. (Brian was mutilating animals well before any of the trauma he blames for turning him into a serial killer, so it’s hard to imagine another path for him.) Now an adult and out of the hospital, Brian appears to be in a place of peace. Petrie is impressed, but Brian’s fixation on reconnecting with Dexter gives the doctor pause. If Brian keeps pressing, Petrie warns, he’ll be sent back to Harbor Light. That vague threat is as good a reason as any for Brian to attack, bashing Petrie’s head against various hard surfaces before beating him to death with a fire poker. Original Sin is devoting so much of its runtime to Brian’s origin story, which feels like a bit of a bait-and-switch to me, but your mileage may vary.

Back in the present, Harry and LaGuerta are called to the scene of a more recent Brian victim, poor Barb Plimpton, who has been chainsawed into pieces. Harry recognizes her as the woman responsible for placing Dexter and Brian with the Morgans — and then yoinking Brian out of there once he tried to smother baby Debra. I’m really not sure what Harry’s plan is here, but there’s a lot about this storyline that doesn’t make sense to me. Like, for example, LaGuerta asking if Barb could be another victim of their serial killer. Recall that the only thing linking past victims was that they were loners who were ostracized from society. LaGuerta doesn’t know about Brian’s connection to these people, so there’s no reason for her to suspect that a chainsaw execution would be part of a larger pattern. On the other hand, Harry is acting shady enough to arouse some suspicions. He even wanders off before Tanya can ask him how forensics should handle the body.

Meanwhile, Dexter tailed Spencer to Nicky’s location, which turned out to be a cargo ship half a mile from the police station. (Convenient!) Dex confronts Spencer, who’s obviously adept at fighting back as a decorated police captain who didn’t donate two pints of blood earlier that day. He also has very little to lose, which becomes clear when he floods Nicky’s cell to drown him. “That’s your son!” an outraged Dexter protests. “Is he?” demands Spencer. So, yes, as a commenter suggested last week, Spencer may be motivated by finding out (or at least strongly suspecting) that Nicky is the offspring of Becca’s affair with Nelson. Dex says he understands Spencer’s rage but that there are better ways to handle it, and just before it seems like Dexter’s about to teach him the code, Spencer gives him a choice — save Nicky or chase Spencer. Obviously, Dexter is not going to let a child drown, though Nicky comes close. Dex gives him mouth-to-mouth to revive him and then … leaves him on the cargo ship. Don’t worry, he fires some flares into the sky before he flees, and we do see police approaching.

Back at the crime scene, Brian is eyeing the cops from above, waiting to see if his brother shows up. (It’s giving obsessed.) Just then, Harry arrives to hold Brian at gunpoint and demand an end to his “twisted revenge quest.” The conversation between these two is fairly compelling, and it’s not something we ever thought we’d get, since Harry was long dead by the time Brian appeared on Dexter. Brian reveals that he made contact with his brother, and Dex didn’t recognize him, which Brian, of course, blames Harry for. He’s not buying Harry’s explanation that Dexter simply repressed all the bad shit from his childhood, including his big brother. That’s also a convenient way for Harry to evade responsibility; he never has to tell Dexter that he “fucked his mom, forced her to snitch, and sent her off to the cartel to get chainsawed to pieces in front of him.” That is an extremely fair point from Brian!

But Harry’s response is also fair. He tells Brian that coming back into Dexter’s life will just bring back all the pain and suffering Dex has successfully repressed. “You can hate me for good reasons and still know that I am the best thing for Dexter,” he says, and I guess I can agree to that, as lackluster a parent as Harry has been all season. (Remember Deb? He sure doesn’t!) Harry says he’s taking Brian into custody but pleads with him not to say anything about his past that would get back to Dexter. Best of luck with that! It’s a non-issue, however, as Brian ends up knocking Harry out and leaving him on the roof — not before writing “YOU’RE RIGHT” in blood. Seriously? This violent psychopath was so convinced by what Harry said that he’s given up his attempt at reconnecting with Dexter and will retreat back to the shadows for the next 15 years until he reemerges as the Ice Truck Killer? This strikes me as a lazy way to wrap up the storyline, but once they introduced Brian to Original Sin, it was always going to be a stretch to square that with season one of Dexter.

Speaking of wrapping up storylines, Becca is at home watching the news and hoping for an update on Nicky when Spencer attacks her. He says he’s going to kill her because she lied to him about Nicky being his son, but thankfully, Dex shows up to knock him out. When Spencer wakes up, he’s strapped to a kill table once more, this time on Camilla’s boat. There’s a little more back-and-forth — including Spencer, I think, alluding to the big secret Harry has kept from Dexter — but by the time the captain says, “Enough, just get it over with,” I felt that. So yes, Dexter kills Spencer, and I’m left feeling like a fool for ever thinking there was more to this story. I understand (through the lens of toxic patriarchal bullshit) how finding out about Nicky’s parentage could have made Spencer want to punish his ex-wife, but why on earth did he kidnap and kill Jimmy Powell? Why did he frame the cartel? What was the point of instigating that shootout? I can’t tell if I’m being dense or if this ultimately doesn’t make much sense (and feel free to tell me if it’s the former in the comments). I get that Spencer would have wanted to throw people off his trail, but there had to have been an easier way than murdering an unrelated child.

Perhaps I’m overthinking this, by which I mean both Spencer’s motivation and the show as a whole. What’s important is that Dexter is “a little closer to his final form” as he disposes of body parts in trash bags off the side of a boat for the first time. Back at home, he fills Harry in on what happened, and Harry apologizes for not trusting his son’s instincts. I still feel like they could have used evidence to have Spencer arrested, but what do I know? Harry can’t believe his friend of so many years turned out to be a child killer, though Dex assures him that the captain was once a good person. “Spencer wasn’t born a monster; he became one,” he explains. “But me, I was born this way.” It seems to me that anyone who would murder and mutilate kids was always a monster, just as Brian was clearly a serial killer from the jump. Regardless, the show has decided to answer Wicked’s question with a wishy-washy “Some people are born wicked, and some other people have wickedness thrust upon them.” All that really matters is that Dexter — who chose to save a child instead of going after Spencer — has been changed for good.

At Miami Metro, Batista and Harry debrief and decide that Spencer was so clouded by anger that he wasn’t making logical decisions. Sure, let’s go with that. Harry also shares that he doesn’t think there was ever an NHI serial killer, which LaGuerta overhears (as if she needed another reason to distrust this man). More importantly, Tanya promotes Dexter to a full-time position! The Morgan family goes out to celebrate, and it’s there that Deb reveals she, too, has news. Instead of going to FSU next year, she’ll be enrolling at the police academy. Guess that conversation with Tanya made a real impression. As she showcases some truly wild moves on the dancefloor, Harry and Dexter have another conversation about how far Dexter has come. He’s channeled his urges into something good! It’s a happy ending — for the Morgans, at least. Outside, Brian lurks sadly, probably realizing that for canon reasons he’s a decade and a half away from reconnecting with his brother. As for us, Showtime’s commitment to this franchise means that Dexter will likely never be out of our sights again.

Blood Spatter Analysis

• There was a lot of ground to cover, so I didn’t get to talk about Bobby, who does regain full consciousness. I like Bobby, but Original Sin has done a lot of telling instead of showing when it comes to how beloved he is and how important he is to the Morgan family. If the show continues, I hope we get to see more of him as a character.

• Hi, it’s me, the logic police. So, everyone knows Spencer did it, and they just think he’s on the run now? Would they not be devoting a ton of resources to finding him? Also, because Dexter didn’t just turn him in, Becca and Nicky now have to spend the rest of their lives in fear that he’ll come back to kill them. Not very thoughtful of our hero!

• Logic police one more time, sorry: I really don’t know where we’re going with LaGuerta’s suspicion of Harry, but there are still multiple murders to solve. I can’t imagine she isn’t going to continue looking for whoever chainsawed poor Barb to death, for one. I guess I have to suspend disbelief that amateur serial killer Brian Moser didn’t leave a single clue behind.

• Not a question of logic, but I did think we’d get more resolution about Gio. It’s possible the show is saving that for a second season, so I’ll give the writers the benefit of the doubt there.

• When Deb is telling Bobby how bad her life has been (mom dying, dad having a heart attack, Dexter being absent, losing a boyfriend and a best friend), I did feel for her, as annoying as the character has been. I’m glad she made up with Sofia!

• Thank you to everyone who has read these recaps and for all the thoughtful comments. If you liked this season more than I did, I’m thrilled for you. I never set out to not enjoy something, and if they make more Original Sin, I’ll continue to watch it with the openest mind I can muster.