Dexter
Season One: Anatomy of a Serial Killer
“My
name is Dexter. Dexter Morgan. I don’t know what made me the way
I am, but whatever it was left a hollow place inside. People fake a
lot of human interactions, but I feel like I fake them all. And I fake
them very well. And that’s my burden, I guess. I don’t blame
my foster parents for that. Harry and Doris Morgan did a wonderful job
raising me. But they’re both dead now. (Pause.) I didn’t
kill them. Honest.”
Thus states
Dexter Morgan (Michael C. Hall) at the beginning of the pilot episode
of the self-named Showtime series. While Dexter, at its most
basic level, follows the life of a serial killer, the series is more
a psychological study of a classic socially-inept and emotionally-void
character struggling with fitting into society as well as “doing
the right thing” despite his murderous tendencies. Dexter works
by day as a forensics expert for the Miami Police Department, specializing
in blood-splatter analysis; by night, however, he hunts down the criminal
elements of the Florida community who have found a way to escape justice
and exerts his own punishment by ritualistically killing them.
This makes
Dexter more vigilante than serial-killer, although a murderous one nonetheless.
He follows what he refers to as the “Code of Harry,” which
amounts to both making sure his victims are “deserving”
of their fate as well as taking the necessary precautions to prevent
being caught. Dexter thus plays judge, jury and executioner, and his
death settings are shrouded with evidence of the acts of his accused—from
newspaper clippings of their crimes to photos of their victims to the
consequences of their actions.
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Dexter
Season Five Review
It
would be easy to dismiss the fifth season of the Showtime drama Dexter
as a transitional one. By the end of the previous installment, for instance,
the main original creative forces behind the series, including Daniel
Cerone, Clyde Phillips and Melissa Rosenberg, had all left the show.
Title character Dexter Morgan (Michael C. Hall), meanwhile, found his
own life in an equal period of upheaval after the events of season four
led to the loss of his wife Rita at the hands of the serial killer known
as Trinity. Just as that season was an exploration of whether or not
Dexter could “have it all,” however, season five is an examination
of what happens when someone loses everything—and
ultimately measures up to the standards set by its predecessors.
The first
few episodes do indeed feel “transitional” as past events
are both immediately dealt with and pushed into the background so that
a new direction for the series and the character can emerge. That is
not to suggest that Rita’s death was simply swept under the rug
and forgotten—its impact still hangs in the air throughout season
five as Dexter struggles to deal with both grief and guilt even if the
murder itself is not at the forefront of the narrative. The “transitional”
element also evaporates once the main storyline fully kicks in and Dexter
Morgan finds himself on an actual journey of further growth rather than
merely crossing a bridge between two distinct phases of his life.
Whereas
past seasons of Dexter primarily featured a solitary “Big
Bad,” the fifth installment centers on a group of villains that
are arguably more brutal and sadistic than any that the anti-hero of
the series has faced in the past. The group—led by a charismatic
self-help guru named Jordan Chase (Jonny Lee Miller)—preys on
young women, rapes and tortures them for extended periods of time before
killing them and dumping their bodies in a swamp. Dexter initially believes
there is only one culprit but realizes otherwise when he discovers a
lone survivor locked in an attic.
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The
Shared Beginnings of Dexter Morgan and Bruce Wayne
In
his essay “From Silver Bullets to Duct Tape: Dexter versus the
Traditional Vigilante Hero” from Investigating Cutting Edge
Television (I.B. Taurus, 2010), Stan Beeler compares the main protagonist
from the Showtime drama Dexter with other anonymous crime crusaders
from the past, including the legendary comic book character Batman.
Although Dexter Morgan is a serial killer who unleashes his murderous
tendencies against homicidal criminals who have escaped justice, his
actions nonetheless help make the streets of Miami safe in much the
same way that Batman’s clandestine efforts do for Gotham City.
That is not to say that the author considers Dexter to be a traditional
hero—the character brutally dismembers his victims afterwards
and disposes of their bodies in a watery grave, after all—but
merely that Dexter the series is the modern day equivalent
of pulp fiction of the past, albeit taken to the extreme. While his
observations are both legitimate and insightful, in actuality the similarities
between Dexter Morgan and Bruce Wayne run even deeper than Stan Beeler
implies.
“Every
good superhero saga includes an origin story,” Randall M. Jensen
comments in his essay “Batman’s Promise” from Batman
and Philosophy: The Dark Knight of the Soul (John Wiley and Sons,
2008). “Such stories are memorable and powerful, coming close
to real mythmaking. Origin stories are typically driven by incredible
and fantastic events: genetic mutations, strange laboratory accidents,
alien encounters, dealings with the devil, and so on. But Batman’s
beginnings are different. The crucial catalyst—an alleyway mugging
gone bad—is all too tragically ordinary. And the rest of the Batman
genesis is built upon a boy’s extravagant and seemingly foolish
promise to his murdered parents that he’ll cleanse Gotham City
of crime.”
The story
of Batman was created in the late 1930s and has been told many times
in comics, graphic novels, television and film ever since. As Randall
Jensen alludes to above, a very young Bruce Wayne witnesses the murder
of his parents and swears justice afterwards, not only on their behalf
but for all victims of crime within Gotham City. Wayne is not equipped
with supernatural powers like Superman or Spider-Man but he did inherent
a substantial fortune and dedicated his life to learning combat techniques,
fine-tuning his mind to outmaneuver opponents and used his financial
resources to build a high-tech Batcave to assist with his criminal investigations.
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Dexter
is a Cutting-Edge Series That's Worth Investigating
While
cable subscription stations have raised the bar on original television
series in recent years, they have also pushed the boundaries on the
nature of traditional narratives. Because of their status as pay channels,
as opposed to network television that is broadcast for free over the
airwaves, HBO and Showtime are subject to a lower level of scrutiny
by the Federal Communications Commission in regards to content. Although
nudity, violence and explicit language are thus fair game for the shows
that they produce, the two channels have also taken advantage of the
relaxed guidelines to explore series that feature lead characters of
a dubious nature. From Tony Soprano on The Sopranos to Nancy
Botwin of Weeds, these are not the types of “heroes”
found on traditional television. Then there’s Dexter
on Showtime. The vigilante-like serial killer title character, despite
an obvious “anti-hero” persona, has amassed a large fanbase,
critical acclaim and—most astonishingly—a sympathetic quality
that allows viewers to not only “root” for Dexter Morgan
but identity with him as well.
The premise
of the series, coupled with the “hero” versus “anti-hero”
nature of Dexter Morgan’s personification, makes Dexter
ripe material for academic dissertation. Publisher I.B. Tauris has therefore
released a collection of essays about the show as part of its “Investigating
Cult TV” series of books. Edited by Douglas L. Howard, Dexter:
Investigating Cutting Edge Television (2010) is filled with numerous
treatises that discuss and dissect the Showtime series from such vantage
points as the show’s structure, ethics, character relationships
and place within various narrative genres.
“Never
before has serial killer pop culture been so mainstream, so accepted
in American society as with Dexter,” David Schmid comments
in his essay, “The Devil You Know: Dexter and the ‘Goodness’
of American Serial Killing.” “As Such, Dexter represents
a turning point in the willingness of Americans to embrace the serial
killer as one of their own, as the personification of essentially American
values.” Schmid goes on to argue that American culture and society
has always had a fascination with murderers, dating all the way back
to the Puritan Age and public executions. There is a moral dilemma that
goes along with such fascination, however, one that the producers of
Dexter have been able to resolve through the originality of
their storytelling techniques.
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The
Wisdom of Dexter Morgan: Seasons One and Two
Dexter
Morgan, the main character of the Showtime drama Dexter, leads
a double
life—by
day, he is a blood analyst for the Miami
Police Department; by night, a serial killer who rids the streets of
other murderers as a form of vigilante justice. His actions, however,
stem from a childhood trauma which turned Dexter into an emotionally
void social outcast. He thus masquerades his way through life but his
internal thoughts, which serve as a form of complimentary narrative
on Dexter, offer words of wisdom that are relatable to anyone
looking for answers in a world filled with confusion.
“My
sister puts up a front so the world won’t see how vulnerable she
is. Me, I put up a front so the world won’t see how vulnerable
I’m not.”
“Most
people have a hard time dealing with death but I’m not most people.
It’s the grief that makes me uncomfortable. Not because I’m
a killer, really I just don’t understand all that emotion. Which
makes it tough to fake. In those cases shades come in handy.”
“I
find people around me are all making some kind of connection, like friendship
or romance. But human bonds always lead to messy complications. Commitment.
Sharing. Driving people to the airport.”
“I
like to pretend I’m alone. Completely alone. Maybe post-apocalypse
or plague. Whatever. No one left to act normal for. No need to hide
who I really am. It would be freeing.”
“I
don’t get birthdays. The party, the song. Celebrating another
year just being alive feels forced.”
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Dexter