The Predator Became the Victim: An Alternate ‘Dexter’ Ending Fans Never Saw

Clyde Phillips served as executive producer and showrunner of Dexter in its early years, helping to shape the series through its first four seasons, until he decided to leave the show in late 2009, at the conclusion of the season “The Trinity Killer” (John Lithgow), which ended in the shocking death of Rita.

“I didn’t share this with anyone. And I can tell you, this is what I would have done if I had stayed on the show. I decided not to stay on the show, and that’s why everyone did what they did. But what I would do is this: Dexter wakes up. And everyone thinks, ‘Oh, it was a dream.’

And then the camera pans back and forth and back and the audience realizes, “No, this is not a dream.” Dexter opens his eyes and he’s on the execution table in a Florida prison. They’re just starting to inject him with drugs and he’s looking out the window at the observation deck.

And in the gallery are all the people Dexter has killed. They’re all there.

Literally his whole life flashed before his eyes as he was about to die.

“I think it would be a wonderful, epic, very satisfying ending,” the showrunner enthused about the proposed ending.

List of t/s “Dexter”

This logical ending, however, was not predestined. The creators who remained in the project chose a much less healthy and fan-pleasing path. But at least nothing can be changed. The only thing left is existence in the subjunctive mood.