'Dexter' Finale On Par With Last Year

Randy Tepper/Showtime

The fifth season finale of Showtime's Dexter delivered a strong and on par performance for the drama.

A total of 2.5 million viewers tuned in Sunday night to watch Dexter match wits with motivational serial killer Jordan Chase, with an additional 400k viewers at 11 p.m. That matches last year.

Overall, season five will be the highest-rated season of Dexter to date, averaging 5 million viewers per week once all forms of viewership are counted.

After the fourth season's grimly nihlisitic closer, last night wrapped up the show's storyline on a downright sunny note. Here's a Q&A with executive producer Sara Colleton about the finale and more.

Also Sunday: Kate Gosselin and Sarah Palin joining forces on TLC gave Alaska a boost to 3.1 million viewers. That's only up 11% from last week, though, a pretty mild gain considering the pre-air publicity and Gosselin's normal star power on the network.