As far as controversial TV endings go, Dexter is pretty high up there, but the original series finale was actually hinted at by a Trinity Killer scene in season 4. Dexter’s premise follows a police blood-spatter analyst, Dexter Morgan, who moonlights as a serial killer. As Dexter tries to hide his own murderous identity from those around him, he tracks down killers who evade the justice system as well as whichever serial killer the Miami Metro PD is hunting.
For much of the fourth season, Dexter uses his own methods to find the notorious Trinity Killer, a man believed to be an FBI myth as he went undetected performing ritualistic murders for 30 years. Before realizing just how dangerous Trinity is, Dexter befriends him under an alias, admiring him as someone who can maintain a seemingly normal family while keeping his killer persona secret. Trinity is considered one of the greatest television villains of all time, arguably the best villain on Dexter, so it’s not surprising Dexter’s fate was hinted at by his final interaction with Arthur Miller.
In the season 4 finale, Dexter is finally able to catch the Trinity Killer after he tries to run away from his family and adopt a new identity. In Dexter’s ritualistic kill manner, Dexter vents his personal worries and issues with the man on his table before stabbing him. Arthur tells Dexter he prayed to be changed and stop being a monster, saying it worked because Dexter caught and will kill him. Dexter asks him what the alternative to waiting to be caught is: “Leave? Disappear? Fake my own death and start over again?” Dexter’s question is facetious, pointing out that abandoning one’s family can’t make the monster disappear. The irony is that this is exactly what Dexter does in the season 8 finale. After sending Harrison and Hannah away and faking his own death by heading into a storm at sea, Dexter adopts a new identity, first in Oregon, and later in upstate New York.
When Dexter finally put Arthur on his table to kill him, the interaction became much more personal than many of Dexter’s other long-term victims. Dexter saw a worst-case scenario version of his future in Arthur, figuring out Trinity was actually a physically and emotionally abusive figure in his family’s life, only appearing perfect on the outside. It also made him realize he actually has much more of a moral compass and genuine emotional attachments with his family than Arthur, giving Dexter more confidence in being able to raise his children and be a good husband. As Dexter exclaims before killing Arthur, he would never hurt a child, which supports why Dexter abandoned Harrison in the series finale; he wanted to set him free from the harm that comes from being close to him.
Trinity had a much more profound impact on Dexter than any of the other serial killers he hunted before or after, and not just because he killed Rita. Arthur Miller’s picture-perfect life as someone who could emulate being a dutiful husband and father while secretly being a serial killer haunted Dexter as he worried about his own family man act. It was also Trinity who put an infant Harrison in Rita’s pool of blood after murdering her, mimicking Dexter’s own psychopathic origin story. Because of this, Dexter would forever worry that Harrison would turn out to be like him and develop his own invincible dark passenger. The season 9 New Blood reboot bringing back John Lithgow proves that Dexter still harbors guilt over doing what he told Trinity he wouldn’t in Dexter’s original series finale, and that his interactions with Trinity still influence his actions today.
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