SPOILER ALERT: Don’t read this until you’ve seen the Dexter and Homeland season finales. You’ve been warned!

Catch your breath yet? Showtime just gave me insomnia tonight, because my adrenaline is rushing from two awesome season finales.

Up first is ‘Dexter‘, with the finale ‘Surprise Motherf—-r!’

When the episode started, things looked bad for Dex. LaGuerta had him arrested on suspicion of being the Bay Harbor Butcher.

She thought she had him dead to rights, but he sneakily managed to make it look like she planted evidence to frame him for killing Estrada. Now it looked like she just had a vendetta to clear Sgt Doakes, and breached protocol by granting Estrada parole to catch Dexter in the act.

So problem solved, right? Nope.

She later found evidence linking Deborah to Dexter the night of Travis Marshall’s murder.

Dexter was then put in a precarious position. Would he have to kill LaGuerta to make this disappear?

Through a series of flashbacks, Dexter realizes Doakes saw through his deception. This seems to be the season’s theme given Hannah and Deb’s discovery of his Dark Passenger.

And Hannah pulls off an implausible escape (no biggie for a series that never met a plot-hole it didn’t love). She then vanishes after putting a plant by Dexter’s front doorstep.

Dexter also pursues Estrada. But he shrewdly decides to use him as bait before he kills him. Estrada calls LaGuerta and tells her to rescue him from Dexter. When she arrives, Dexter sedates her and prepares to make it look like she and Estrada killed each other in a shoot out.

Deb races to the scene. When she shows up, LaGuerta pleads with her to stop Dexter. Dexter tells her whatever she has to do, he’ll understand. And then….she shoots LaGuerta!

Jennifer Carpenter’s rush of emotions after killing LaGuerta was incredible. She tells Dexter she hates him while she holds her dying body. She’s gone from just protecting Dexter to becoming a killer herself. It was chilling, and sets up the endgame for the forthcoming final season. Hopefully it’ll be more even and cohesive then Season 7.

On to Homeland, with the finale ‘The Choice’. As the show starts we see Quinn eyeing Brody and Carrie, waiting to take his shot. But he never does. He reports to Estes that he can’t kill him, he think’s he’s a hero. He also has concern for Carrie; “Killing Brody would kill her … The collateral damage will be to wreck a woman you already wrecked once before, and I ain’t doing that.”

He also makes a veiled threat that should Estes try to kill him, that he’d come for Estes.

Afterwords, Estes frees Saul from his sequestering, and tells him he’s agreed to let Brody go.

Brody and Carrie visit the cabin from Season 1, and discuss running off together. But first, both must attend Vice President Walden’s funeral.

Saul offers Carrie the station chief job, but she seems reluctant. He realizes she still loves Brody, and says the best line from any show I’ve heard this year: ““You’re the smartest and the dumbest fu—g person I’ve ever known!”

They both feel betrayed; she feels her paternal figure is casting judgment, and he feels his surrogate daughter is shirking his generous promotion.

Then Saul prepares for Nazir’s burial at sea. This cuts back and forth with Walden’s Memorial, along with a sense of impending doom.

Brody and Carrie sneak out and discuss their plans in an office across the way. She agrees to leave with him. But then he sees someone has moved his car. AND THEN….a massive explosion wipes out the funeral procession. Estes, the VP’s wife, and her hit and run son…are dead, along with hundreds more.

Carrie pulls on a gun on Brodie and thinks he’s behind it. He pleads he’s not.

Meanwhile the CIA go to sweep his home, worrying his estranged family. They then see a cable news channel airing his video confession, followed by an Al Qaeda member praising the attack.

Brodie and Carries see the same broadcast. They get fake passports and prepare to exit the country.

Saul arrives at the bomb site; Carrie and Brodie are unaccounted for. But he learns Brodie’s vehicle carried the explosive.

He then hears from his concerned ex-wife, who is flying back to be with him.

Carrie tells Brody that after the attack she can’t go with him, but she’ll work to clear his name. She says this isn’t goodbye, but Brodie knows better, and walks off into the dark.

As the episode ends, Saul stands in front of the bodies at the bomb site. He begins chanting a Yiddish prayer.

Carrie arrives, and Saul looks at her with an expression of simultaneous relief, love, anger and distrust. Does he know something she doesn’t? Was he the mole hinted at in earlier episodes?

Now we only have to wait until next year to find out. Agh!

What did you think of the ‘Dexter’ and ‘Homeland’ Season finales? Chime in below! And check out my Best of Television in 2012.

Want some Dexter merchandise for holiday gifts? Check out the link below as well as my Holiday Gift collection of Best Blu-Ray and DVD Box Sets, and Best Geek Gifts for more Dexter Goodness!

**You might also be interested in my ‘Boardwalk Empire‘ and ‘Walking Dead‘ Season Finale Recaps…