Michael C. Hall Knows Fans Hated ‘Dexter’ Finale
“Dexter” star Michael C. Hall knows where the show went wrong. The 43-year-old actor admitted that the now-defunct series had let done the viewers with its lacklustre ending.
In September 2013, the once critically acclaimed drama show aired its last episode after eight seasons. Instead of a satisfying conclusion, viewers were treated to an anti-climatic finish.
Hall said he understands how the fans feel because he isn’t even sure if he would like the finale himself.
“Liked it? I don’t think I even watched it,” the actor told The Daily Beast when asked if he liked the ending.
“I thought it was narratively satisfying – but it was not so savoury.”
[SPOILER ALERT!] The show ended with the titular character, whom Hall played, going on a self-imposed exile after euthanizing his adoptive sister Debra (Jennifer Carpenter). He faked his death and began to live as a lumberjack alone.
Fans weren’t so thrilled about the ending, with critics giving it a scathing review. Some called the finale sloppy and ambiguous, while others simply said it was unsatisfying.
Hall has an idea of how the show lost love from the fans, and that’s even before the much-maligned ending aired.
“I think the show had lost a certain amount of torque,” he continued. “Just inherently because of how long we’d done it, because of the storytelling capital we’d spent, because our writers may have been gassed. Maybe some people wanted a more satisfying – maybe they wanted a happy ending for him, either a happy ending or a more definitive sense of closure.
“They wanted him to die or something, but I think the fact that he’s sort of exiled in a prison of his own making is, for my money, pretty fitting.”
Now Hall is ready to move onto other things, though his new role appears to be similar to his old one. He is starring in the crime drama film “Cold in July,” based on the novel of the same name by Joe R. Lansdale.
In the film, he plays a suburban dad who accidentally kills an unarmed intruder.
“This guy felt closer to me than Dexter, inasmuch as I would be horrified if I actually shot and killed somebody. I wouldn’t kill somebody then go eat a sandwich after I dismembered them.”
“Cold in July” premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January, and has been released in the U.S. on May 23.