Episode 812: Remember the Monsters?

Remember the Monsters? is the twelfth episode of Season Eight of DEXTER, and the series finale and ninety-sixth overall episode of the series. It first aired 22 September 2013 on Showtime.

The estimated number of viewers for the episode during its original airing was 2.40 million.

Dexter is faced with impossible odds as a brewing hurricane makes its way towards Miami.

Summary
Hurricane Laura is threatening the city of Miami.

At Miami International Airport, Dexter and Harrison hurry to their gate, but Hannah isn’t there. Just then, Hannah calls Dexter to say that she’s hiding in the ladies’ room because Jacob Elway is in the boarding area. She’s worried they will miss their flight to Rio de Janeiro. Dexter has an idea and tells Hannah to wait there. He buys a backpack at a gift shop and fills it with various items and places it under a nearby chair. He then approaches Gate Attendant Casey and introduces himself as a Miami Forensics analyst. He tells Casey that he saw a man leave a bag under a chair and suspiciously walk away. He points to Elway who is nearby speaking on his phone. Casey calls airport security and Elway is detained. Unfortunately, all passengers are ordered to exit the area and they can’t board their plane.

Meanwhile, Miami Metro quickly locates Debra in the old Rendall Psychiatric Hospital where she was shot in the gut by Oliver Saxon. Accompanied by Joey Quinn, Debra is rushed to the hospital in an ambulance. Upon arrival, Debra is readied for surgery. Before she passes out from the sedation, she mumbles to Joey that she loves him.

Chief Thomas Matthews calls Dexter to inform him that Saxon escaped after shooting Debra. Dexter drops Hannah back at the hotel and asks her to find another way to leave Miami.

Meanwhile, Oliver Saxon hijacks a man's truck after knocking him out. Unable to check himself into a hospital, he drives around looking for someone to stitch up his lacerated arm, a wound received from being shot by Debra.

Dexter arrives at the hospital and hands Harrison over to Jamie Batista. Angel, Quinn, Matthews, and Masuka assure him that Debra is tough and she will pull through.

Elway is finally released by airport security and he tries again to call Max Clayton, but still can’t reach him. When he contacts the U.S. Marshal’s Service, Elway is told that Clayton was killed in the line of duty.

Dexter sits down in Debra’s hospital room and waits for her to wake up. Still groggy, she asks why he’s not in Argentina and why they never went hiking when they were kids. Dexter blames himself for what happened because he left Saxon alive. Debra, though, corrects him by saying that it’s all Clayton’s fault. Dexter remarks on how things changed after she found out he’s a serial killer, adding that he screwed up her life. Debra doesn’t want him to feel guilty.

Dr. Kruper briefly appears to check Debra’s wound. She’s optimistic that Debra will eventually recover.

Debra tells Dexter that he deserves to be happy and demands that he leave to be with Hannah. On his way out, she comments that she’ll see him soon.

Jamie hands Harrison back to Dexter. As he holds his son, Dexter tells Harrison that this is the hospital where he was born. In a flashback, Dexter is with an excited Debra in the hospital nursery as they view baby Harrison. She tells Dexter that everything is going to be different now.

Because Saxon is on the loose, Matthews stations two uniformed officers outside Debra’s room to protect her.

As he’s leaving the hospital, Dexter encounters Elway who first inquires about Debra's injury, and then asks if he’s hurrying to get back to Hannah. When Elway accuses him of being partially responsible for Clayton’s death, Dexter pins Elway against a wall and orders him to stay away from him. Dexter picks up Harrison and walks out as he hears Elway say, “Storm’s comin’, buddy. And it’s gonna be real hard to find a way out. Don’t go down with her, Dexter.”

Saxon finds a local veterinarian, Dr. Turner, whom he holds at gunpoint and forces to tend to his gunshot wound.

Back at the hotel, Hannah suggests taking an evacuation bus to Jacksonville and flying out from there. However, Dexter is still worried about Debra and is reluctant to leave. Hannah offers to stay in Miami but Dexter says it’s not safe with Elway on the hunt. They agree that Hannah should go on ahead with Harrison and he will meet them later.

The terrified veterinarian, in the face of a gun, finishes stitching up Saxon’s arm and promises that he won’t say anything to anyone. Saxon notices a news report on TV about the shooting and decides to finish Debra off permanently. He puts his shirt back on and orders the vet to get his keys.

At the bus stop, Dexter says goodbye to Hannah and Harrison and promises to meet them soon. He hands Hannah a bag containing water, snacks, and a few “essentials.” Harrison whispers to Dexter that he loves Hannah, and Dexter replies, “So do I.” Hannah kisses Dexter and she boards the bus with Harrison.

Saxon forces Dr. Turner to drive to Miami Central Hospital where Debra has been admitted. While parked outside, Saxon cuts out Turner’s tongue and sends him stumbling into the hospital, choking on blood. While everyone is distracted, Saxon sneaks past them to search for Debra.

Dexter, having returned, realizes that Saxon is in the hospital and attempts to kill him with a fork. Dexter, though, is intercepted by Batista who holds a gun to Saxon's neck and arrests him on the spot.

When he enters Debra’s room, Dexter discovers that she isn’t there. Quinn, in tears, informs Dexter that she stopped breathing and was rushed to the ICU.

Dexter and Quinn find Debra in a new room. Dr. Kruper informs the two that after her surgery a blood clot formed that triggered a major stroke. Debra’s brain was deprived of oxygen for a period of time. She is now intubated and on life support. Quinn is distraught and states that miracles happen all the time. Dexter replies that he’s never seen a miracle and walks out.

In another flashback, Dexter is awkwardly holding baby Harrison for the first time. When he tells Debra that he doesn’t know how to be a father, she says that he will be great because he always took care of her during their childhood. When she was scared of monsters in the dark, he explained to her that they were just shadows.

While on the bus, Hannah tells stories to Harrison until he falls asleep. Suddenly, someone takes hold of her arm. It’s Elway who is sitting across the aisle. He tells her that at the next stop, which is Daytona, he’s going to take her to the U.S. Marshal’s Office and hand Harrison over to child protective services and then collect his hard-earned reward.

At the station, Batista and Quinn interrogate Saxon as Dexter watches through a one-way mirror. They tell Saxon about the footage they have of him killing people and ask about his stitched up arm. Saxon, though, won’t admit to anything, causing Quinn to lose his temper and accuse him of shooting Debra and his own mother. When Saxon asks for his attorney, Angel slams his head on the table and calls him a “fucking piece of shit.” Dexter considers letting the State of Florida kill Saxon so he can depart for Argentina.

As the bus approaches Daytona, Hannah pours a cup of tea from a thermos and offers it to Elway but he scoffs. Suddenly, she injects his leg with M99. Before he passes out, Hannah tells Elway that he will wake up in two hours in Tallahassee. She and Harrison exit the bus.

Under the pretense of performing a GSR test on Saxon, Dexter enters a holding cell. He notes the location of the security camera and sits down across from Saxon, who eyes him with suspicion. Dexter slowly opens his kit and begins placing its items on the table, including a pen. He tells Saxon that he was forced to look at himself and saw a trail of blood and body parts. He accuses Saxon of taking away his dream of having a happy life.

Aware that the security camera is on, Dexter baits Saxon into attacking him by saying that he’s there to kill him with the pen. Saxon preempts this by seizing the pen and stabbing Dexter in the shoulder. In apparent self-defense, Dexter instantly grabs the pen and stabs Saxon in the neck with it. As Saxon lies on the floor bleeding out, Dexter pushes the alarm button. Two officers rush in while Dexter cowers against a wall, pretending to be terrified.

Afterward, Dexter is questioned by Batista and Quinn as they view the security footage. Batista seems particularly baffled by Dexter’s actions and asks why he was even there. Dexter explains that he had to make sure the GSR test was done perfectly -- and he wanted to look Saxon in the eye. Batista seems to understand. Quinn states that it’s obviously self-defense and nods to Dexter. Batista agrees that they have all they need to clear Dexter. Quinn says that he’s glad that Saxon is dead and wishes he could have done it himself. As Dexter leaves, Batista tells him that he’s praying for Deb, but Dexter doesn’t answer.

Dexter is standing on his apartment’s balcony, feeling unwanted emotions. Now dressed in his kill outfit, he walks down to the water’s edge, jumps into his boat, and heads to the hospital. He docks at the emergency boat ramp as lightning flashes in the darkening sky. Dexter walks past patients who are being moved by nurses and orderlies and enters the hospital.

Dexter is torn when he sees Debra’s condition but chooses to mercifully shut off her life-support. As she is dying, Dexter leans close and whispers, “I love you, Deb.” Among other patients who are being evacuated, Dexter carries his sister's sheathed body out to the Slice of Life. He drives the boat out to sea and calls Hannah and Harrison for the last time. He then throws the phone into the ocean and gently drops Debra's body overboard, watching her sink below the waves. He concludes that since everyone he cares about dies, he must protect Hannah and Harrison. He heads his boat towards the approaching storm.

The storm clears and patrols find the wreckage of Dexter’s boat off the coast with no apparent survivors. Batista is notified and it’s widely assumed that Dexter died in the hurricane.

Now in Argentina, Hannah and Harrison are sitting at an outdoor cafe as she reads a tablet about Dexter's fate. She wipes away a tear, forces a smile, and asks Harrison if he’d like to get ice cream.

Later in the Pacific Northwest, several logging trucks loaded with felled trees arrive at a lumber mill. The driver is the focus as he unties the logs and walks home to a rented room. He closes the door behind him, takes off a cold-weather vest, and sits down at a wooden table. He looks out the window on his left before he faces forward. Behind his grown-out beard and flannel jacket is the face of the Bay Harbor Butcher. He closes his eyes for a moment, and then opens them, staring straight into the camera.

Quotes

 * I always thought that if I ever left Miami, I’d be running for my life… not running towards a new one. - Dexter
 * As much as I may have pretended otherwise, for so long, all I wanted was to be like other people. To feel what they felt. But now that I do, I just want it to stop. - Dexter
 * I destroy everyone I love. And I can’t let that happen to Hannah, to Harrison. I have to protect them from me. - Dexter (last lines)

Related Pages

 * Argentina
 * Dexter's Apartment
 * Dexter's Rented Room
 * Hurricane Laura
 * Miami Central Hospital
 * Miami International Airport
 * Slice of Life

Trivia

 * Remember The Monsters? may have two meanings. For one, it could mean the mention that Debra made in the flashback when Harrison was born in which she said that Dexter helped her in getting rid of her fear of the "monsters." She then asked Dexter, "What, don't you remember the monsters?" The second meaning could be saying that this is literally the end of the show Dexter, and it wants us to "Remember The Monsters" that were the antagonists in the show's run. Monsters are all of the main antagonists in DEXTER.
 * Oliver Saxon (Daniel Vogel) walks past an ice truck owned by Miami Chills Refrigerated Delivery, the same company that owned the truck used by Brian Moser aka the Ice Truck Killer, in Season One
 * At a New York Film Festival premiere, producer John Goldwyn revealed that Showtime manipulated the outcome of the show by not allowing the writers to kill the main character of the show.
 * In the finale of Season Four, when Dexter is talking to Arthur Mitchell, he asks him if the alternative to getting caught would be to fake his death and start over somewhere else. That directly foreshadowed this episode where Dexter does just that.
 * The hurricane that hits Miami is named Hurricane Laura, which alludes to Laura Moser, the name of Dexter's mother.
 * Jacob Elway is the only living person, apart from Dexter and Hannah, who knows that Harrison is with Hannah. However, he likely would report it.
 * The writers explained afterward that Dexter survived by using an emergency life raft.