About Last Night…DEXTER, HOMELAND and LEVERAGE

We’re going to be talking about Sunday’s television shows, but given that the Showtime series’ aired their finales last night, I wanted to give an extra warning that there are going to be some major spoilers here for the HOMELAND and DEXTER finales. So if you haven’t watched, don’t ruin the episodes for yourself. Go watch then and then come back and tell me what you thought of what went down.

For those of you who did watch, let’s talk…

When a show has a strong season, the finale is always a little nerve-wracking. Will the final hour of the year sour the taste of the previously strong episodes? Will it leave you wanting more? Will it build on what has already been shown? For me, HOMELAND was a fantastic end to an amazing season. No, I certainly didn’t want Brody to die, but that doesn’t mean I feel cheated he didn’t ultimately kill himself. For me, the fact that he absolutely intended to go through with it — and my God, Damian Lewis was magnificent in Sunday’s finale — was enough. His Achilles heel has clearly been children, and had his daughter not insisted on him swearing that he would return, I have no doubt he would have gone through with the bombing. And he’s right, as much as I’d like for Brody to be “good,” as someone close elected officials, he’d have much more power versus simply killing the Vice President.

Meanwhile, the fact that Carrie doesn’t know that she truly was right about Brody’s intentions and that she stopped the suicide bombing by reaching out to Brody’s daughter, is absolutely heartbreaking. Claire Danes was fantastic as Carrie said goodbye to Brody, finally deciding to get electroshock therapy to try and fix herself. (Though the Carrie-related scene of the night for me was probably when Carrie realized Saul had betrayed her and sent people to contain her.)

Now, we have to wait many months for the new season. I can’t wait to see what happens next. How soon will Carrie remember that pieced together how Brody was involved while under anesthesia? Who has Brody’s filmed confession of why he was going to do the suicide bombing?

DEXTER. Wow. And not in the good way for 99.9% of it. This is not something I relish, because DEXTER has always been one of my favorite shows, but man, the vast majority of this season did not work for me. I get that Dexter lives by his code and wanted to take care of Travis on his own terms, so he didn’t share his intel about where the location was from Gellar’s sketch. But the second Harrison was taken, how did he not immediately call for help? He nearly lost his son because he needed to make Travis pay. After losing Rita, you’d think he wouldn’t have taken any chances with Harrison.

Oh, and Debra Morgan being in love with her brother is indeed “horribly wrong.” They may not be blood-related, but they. were. raised. as. siblings. As she was going on and on about her newfound love for her brother, I wondered how she would react when she inevitably discovered he was a serial killer. Last year, I felt suspense wondering if Deb would actually discover what her brother did. This year, it felt like we had been jerked around for a couple episodes with this “I’m in love with my brother” BS just so Deb could find out the truth. (However, Dexter’s “Oh, God” final line, was a perfect way to close out a season based on religion. That probably was the best moment of the entire season.)

As for the other show I watched last night, I only made it halfway through LEVERAGE, which makes me sad. But, I loved Nate’s call to his “ex-wife” as Hardison and Eliot tried to figure out WTF he was talking about.

What did you think of the Showtime finales? Or did you watch something else?

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