The whole arc of Deb's from last season was geared at getting her to a place where she could let "Number 13" & her mysterious accomplice go free, and obviously intended to lead her to the point where she could plausibly accept Dexter as a killer. Of course, the showrunner from last year seems to have moved on to the equally impressive "Homeland" leading to the amateur preparations for her discovery this season - namely the episode and a half buildup of Deb falling for Dexter out of the blue. Talk about your obnoxious character manipulations...all done to plainly increase the emotional stakes of her discovery as well as give a more ham-fisted justification for her silence or acceptance of his secret.

Anyway, with idiotic character developments shoehorned in at the last moment to cover for the big reveal, can you be surprised that they'd pull off a stunt like the ending? Now they don't have to deal with the game-changing things they threw in there for almost a year, and no doubt some of those responsible will use their part of this "dramatic and shocking" storyline on Dexter to move on to other writing jobs as Chip Johansson did after last season, or to get attention for their own pilots, and leaving the corned they've painted themselves into for next year, and months to decide how they're going to spin this and where they're going to go with the characters.