better ending for Mike Dexter?

After all, the man is a role model.
Seriously though, he showed redemptive qualities towards they end, especially when he took the rap for William with the police - which he'd have done while sober and with nothing to gain from it.
While he was still a d**k to William the next day/later that day, he was bound by peer pressure and lack of maturity - don't forget he's a high school sports hero in a small town - his entire life to this point everyone around him (including parents, teachers, and other adults who should be keeping him in check) would have been pumping him so full of hot air that he's never had to take responsibility for his actions, work hard or show empathy or consideration for others. Therefore he was always going to develop later than others and, in helping William off the hook less than 24 hours earlier, showed potential to grow.
I'd like the ending to say something like he'd drifted away from his other jock friends after he went to college, and just generally stopped being an a**hole. Didn't become a sports star or anything but is now a well adjusted adult living a meaningful life.
I also find it hard to believe that, even if college hadn't worked out, he'd end up a down-and-out working in a car-wash. He's good looking, popular, and charismatic so I can see him being a used car salesman or bartender or something. Or maybe one of the town's sports fans would have given him a sinecure out of appreciation.
I like those rare movies in which the "villain" sees the error of their ways and changes, rather than getting their "comeuppance". And it looked like Can't Hardly Wait was going to give us that, only to ruin it with that epilogue.