Welcome to the B-Hive, the regular feature written by Blaire Knight-Graves. Something’s got her buzzing in TV-land… Will it be something good, or something bad?

It’s no secret that I’ve been displeased with Dexter for many years now. I can definitely site proof from last season, and almost every episode from the current season leaves me feeling genuinely angry. But the crux of my anger is not necessarily in the now fantastical stories the series has chosen to tell; it’s in the protagonist himself. I’ve argued relentlessly that he is an evil person, but I’ve not necessarily spelled it all out for your reading pleasure. With no further ado, here it is:

The 5 Reasons Dexter Morgan Needs to Be Put Down

5. He’s Directly (and Indirectly) Responsible For the Deaths of Countless Good(-ish) People

Doakes, LaGuerta, and Rita are probably the best examples of this. But there are other examples such as Ellen Wolf that come to mind (Prado’s lawyer nemesis). Let’s face it: if Dex had never entered the lives of these very good people they would probably still be with us. I know the unfortunate argument that Rita was a little bit of a control freak, LaGuerta slept her way to the top, and Doakes had the temper of a starving predator, but these are not characteristics that warrant execution. They were all pretty normal humans, and therefore they were flawed just like the rest of us. Dexter, on the other hand, started killing puppies when he was a child (which of course lead to the killing of humans later).

4. He’s Broken The Code** and Gotten Sloppy

I don’t need to go on another tirade about the code, but Dexter has been pretty loosey goosey with his code for quite some time now. Obviously the most egregious error he’s made is killing Hannah’s father, but there are definitely other examples such as not killing people in time to stop them from killing again. The Trinity Killer, Lila, Saxon, and Travis are all examples of killers who he let get past The Code for some reason or another, and because of this they got to kill again. And again. And sometimes they killed Rita, my favorite character of all time. Seriously, if he’d stuck to his guns he’d have been allowed to remain a monster in my book… But no, he’s killed those who have not met the code and let others get away with it. As far as I’m concerned, he should have killed Hannah (please and thank you!) and Deb (I can’t believe I’m actually saying this) because they met it, too. He’s been too sloppy, and it’s ended up causing a lot of pain.

3. He Turned Deb Into A Killer

I thought that Deb was supposed to be the hero of Dexter. She’s the character who’s had the hero’s journey: she’s suffered immense loss and came out on top, bringing many bad guys to justice as a true hero… She once believed whole-heartedly in justice and procedure, but through the persistent breaking of her character down, she eventually killed the woman who showed Deb how hard it is to be a woman and a cop. Sure, LaGuerta wasn’t always the nicest boss to Deb, but in a lot of ways Deb was forced to kill her mentor when she got to the shipping container just in the nick of time to pick between her brother the serial killer and LaGuerta the good cop. Things have only gone down hill for Deb since then, and any morals she may have once had are now Stockholm Syndromed away… or gone forever with her passing. Only the finale will tell the fate of the one of the five good people left in Miami (Batista, Quinn, Jaime, and Masuka being the other four). Now I’m worried for the other four, great.

2. He’s Killed 132 People (To Date)**

Do I really need to explain this one? Almost all societies have decided that killing is wrong, and ours (the United States) has explicitly decided that everyone gets a fair trial. It sucks sometimes, I know, but those are the rules we’ve established and Dexter has broken them time and time again.

1. By His Own Code, He Needs to Die*

If his code establishes that those who have killed repeatedly are serial killers and serial killers need to die, shouldn’t Dexter meet his end in the series finale? If the show has any desire to practice what it used to preach, there really is no other way.

I’ll be live-tweeting the series finale. I’ll also probably be screaming and crying… I hope you’ll join me @BlaireLovesTV.

* – Thank you to Shana Lieberman (@evilapprentice) for brainstorming the #1 reason Dexter Morgen needs to be put down with me.

** – That link includes all of Dexter’s kills, including the handful of kills that do not meet the code.