Jeff Kravitz/Getty ImagesIf you've been obsessed with Dexter lately, you are not alone.
"I'm nerding out right there with you!" Jennifer Carpenter (aka Mrs. Michael C. Hall) tells us, while admitting that she stuck around the set to watch the last few scenes of the finale because, "I couldn't wait to find out!"
The first of Dexter's final two episodes airs this Sunday on Showtime, and according to Jennifer (who kicks serious gluteus maximus as her real-life husband's onscreen sis, Debra Morgan), the fourth season finale is well worth the wait—though you might need to invest in a little psychotherapy after it.
"I hope you have a good time talking to your therapists about it because it's beyond whatever you may think," Jennifer says.
So what's in store? Will Deb find out Dex's big secret? Without giving away anything too spoilery (we don't want to be responsible for that therapy bill!) here's the awesomeness Jennifer reveals...
Give it to us straight. How good is the season finale?
I have to give a lot of our fans credit. The stuff that they come up with and the guesses that they make on how it's going to end are really impressive, but you just can't top our writers. All the time you put in [episodes] one through 11 watching the show, you'll be glad that you did in 12. Everybody matters in the end. Everybody matters. We all had to be there to shoot the finale.
How does it set up season five?
At the end of every season, collectively, the writers, the producers, the actors, we all sort of cry, "What are we gonna do next year?" And this season it ended and everybody said, "Well, what can't we do next year?" I know the mold is sort of breaking and that's an exciting thing. I think people are kind of getting comfortable sitting in their living rooms with a serial killer, and my hope is to make him more dangerous.
Will Deb find out about Dexter's mom? It seems like she's getting close.
They've been sort of unraveling that cord for four years now, so I can't say that anything is finished. That's sort of the brilliance of the finale and the twisted psyche of our writers. It's sort of epic and vast, and it all counts. I feel like a lot of viewers are waiting for the big payoff, the big reveal when Deb finds out, but I think it will be more exciting and feel more dangerous if the blanket's not just ripped off the secret, if it's slowly discovered. So I guess we'll all get there someday.
Do you think Deb will ever discover Dexter's big secret, that he's a serial killer?
Personally, being a player in this game, I want to see it happen, partly, just because I'm curious. I think I know Deb as well as anyone, and I think they [the writers] would claim to know her just as well, and I'm interested to see if we're all on the same page about what it would look like. We all throw around ideas just for fun when we're waiting on-set, or even after when we're on hiatus and all hanging out as friends we all say, "Well, what if this happened?" and "What if that happened?" And I have real responses to what people say. I get angry about it; I get hurt about it. I get protective of it. So I'm ready to go in any direction that they tell me to move, but I don't think you can tease an audience the way we have about her getting close to it without giving them the payoff, whatever it is.
Deb has been a punching bag for a while now. Will she ever find happiness?
They certainly tested me all year long; I went to work afraid almost every day, and that's the way it should be. It's really visceral when you're living it. I think that I've earned a little bit of happiness on this show. I think it's coming. I think it will be all the more solid when she finally does get some safe ground to stand on because it will have come so hard earned. And Deb never ignores the lessons, so through all of this pain and all of this mourning and grief are opportunities. It will make her sharper and make her do better police work and will make the Dexter-Debra relationship all the more interesting.
Well, thanks for talking to us and keep up the good work.
Thank you. I've been so excited about this season. It's amazing to be four years into a television show and still be excited about your job.
It shows, right? (And BTW, confession: Jennifer Carpenter is officially our new favorite girl crush here at Watch With Kristin headquarters, 'cause she's kinda awesome.)
So what do you all think will go down in the finale? See if you can prove Jennifer wrong and come up with something just as good as what the writers have planned and post it in the Comments. Go on. We dare you!
And if you're digging Dexter this season, holler below...
—Reporting by Megan Masters