Dexter's End, Chapter One

"A Beautiful Day" began the final season of "Dexter" on Sunday night. The question all along has been how will it end? Dexter (Michael C. Hall) has always managed to work his way out of trouble and evade capture. But as we've reached the end, and as more and more people have seen the real Dexter, the question remains whether he can keep it that way.

In the novel, "Darkly Dreaming Dexter," his sister, Debra (Jennifer Carpenter), finds out his secret by the end. In the show, it took much longer. But last season she faced a choice — kill her brother or kill the police captain that figured out the truth. She choose to kill the police captain, and Sunday night's premier explored the damage made from that choice.

Deb has never been a moral paragon, but she has always had a firmly grounded sense of the law. She saw the world in black and white, and learning who her brother really is threw her into some serious shades of dark grey. Her response to taking the life of a fellow officer was to quit her work with the police and dive into shady arenas as a private investigator.

Cut off from contact with Deb, Dexter begins to believe she's lost. When he finally confronts her, the anger is palpable. Deb is racked with quilt over her decisions and how she's strayed from her path, and she's rightfully angry with Dexter for dragging her there. Of all the ways Dexter has damaged those around him, it might be Deb that has suffered the most.

Many people have died so Dexter could keep his secret, or because of who Dexter is. His own wife, Rita, was killed because Dexter squared off against another killer. Though Deb hasn't suffered that fate, she may have suffered the most because bearing the weight of Dexter's secret has taken a huge toll on her. She has drifted from her path, and the damage appears to be permanent.

Yet, for all her struggles, Deb is in a better spot than her brother. Without the anchor she represented in his life, Dexter is spinning out of control. When Deb points out it's Dexter who's lost, not her, he begins to reel. Dexter has been painted as a pure psychopath, one incapable of forming meaningful emotional connections. But that's never really been true. He has always had an emotional connection to his family. His father, and the love of his father, is what helped define his path. And his love for his sister has always grounded him.

Now that it appears to be gone, it's hard to say how Dexter will respond. My guess is it won't be pretty.