'Dexter' in a creative slump as series finale looms

AP

Michael C. Hall as Dexter and Jennifer Carpenter as his sister and co-worker, Debra Morgan

(Warning: spoilers ahead.)

The final season of “Dexter,” sadly, has been anything but a killer.

That’s not a final judgment, since the closely guarded season and series finale doesn’t roll out until Sunday (9 p.m., Showtime).

But a final run that started with such promise at the beginning of season seven has spent much of this last eighth season wandering aimlessly in search of the characters and stories that were so involving before.

As season seven began, Dexter Morgan (Michael C. Hall) was outed. His adoring albeit troubled sister, Deb (Jennifer Carpenter), found out he was a serial killer.

Deb almost turned him in, then instead shot the cop who found him and joined the coverup.

This raised the stakes for both of them and held the promise of a tense, fascinating path to the end.

Then someone decided to hang the final two seasons on a new character, Dr. Evelyn Vogel (Charlotte Rampling). She was the psychologist who created “The Code” for the young Dexter: that he would channel his sociopathy into a bizarre form of “good,” killing people who needed killing.

Unfortunately, Rampling, a fine actress, never brought Vogel to life. She felt less like a character than a plot device.

Her presence also triggered other uninteresting moves, like giving her a sociopathic son, Saxon.

Saxon (Darri Ingolfsson) isn’t a bad villain, but we never get to know him the way we knew the great villains of seasons past, like John Lithgow’s Trinity Killer.

Meanwhile, characters we do know have been left to lurch. Dexter’s love Hannah (Yvonne Strahovski), a cold-blooded poisoner, became a 1950s housewife.

The impetuous Deb, played marvelously by Carpenter, fell in love with Dexter. When Dexter made it clear he wanted Hannah, Deb shrugged, said okay, acted like besties with Hannah and went back to her old boyfriend Joey (Desmond Harrington).That’s not the Deb we knew.

The big reveal for Dexter himself is that after all those years as a sociopath, he suddenly has real feelings. This places him between two worlds, and given what he’s done, can he live in either one?

Fans will still care how that question is answered, presumably on Sunday. They will also want to see what happens with Deb, particularly since she just got shot.

But overall, the road to Sunday has been curiously uninteresting, the kind of trip where you look at your watch.

That doesn’t negate the good work “Dexter” has done. It does mean that barring a remarkable resurrection on Sunday, we can say, “It was time.”