Darkly Dreaming Dexter

I have just finished the first season and about half the second season of Dexter, Showtime's series with a serial killer as the hero. I am somewhat shocked that the show is in its fifth season. For those of you who have been watching it through to the present, bear in mind that I don't know anything beyond season 2, episode four.

So far, it has been magnificent. It isn't as good as HBO's Deadwood, but it's the best thing I have seen since Deadwood. The writing, casting, and acting are all superb. Best of all, it raises very interesting questions. The first season was based on the novel Darkly Dreaming Dexter, by Jeff Lindsay.

Dexter Gordon Morgan works as a blood spatter expert for the Miami police. In his spare time he hunts down and kills other serial killers. His adopted father Harry Morgan was a cop. Harry recognized his son as a psychopath with an irresistible need to kill. He dealt with this parenting dilemma by giving the boy the "code of Harry". Dexter can only kill those who really need killing, and only those who the law cannot reach. Harry taught his son the skills he would need to indulge his "dark passenger" and survive. He turned Dexter into a weapon. So far, Dexter has remained scrupulously faithful to the code. On the other hand, he is still doing what comes natural to a psychopath.

If I thought for a moment that the series was justifying vigilantism, let alone serial killer vigilantism, I would have been too offended to watch it. It doesn't do that. Instead, it abstracts from that issue in the same way as all superhero dramas do. Batman is a vigilante. So are Superman and Spiderman, and most superheroes.

Dexter is a superhero with the Bruce Wayne dysfunctional personality twisted five steps to the weird end of the dial. Batman didn't kill, but the Shadow and the Green Hornet did. Okay, so Dexter wraps his victims in plastic and dispatches them with power tools instead of just blowing them away with pistols. Still, dead is dead.

Being a psychopath, Dexter doesn't have the normal pallet of emotions. He gets by imitating normal people. He has a girlfriend and is a good father figure to her kids, because that's what normal people do. He discovers along the way that normal things, like sex, aren't really so bad. What about other normal things, like love?

That raises the interesting question: can a human soul be built from the outside in? You couldn't really enjoy the show if Dexter was as immune to ordinary feelings as he pretends to be. In the second season Dexter tells his girlfriend, Rita (Darla from Angel) that he is an addict. She thinks that means heroin, and she is an old hand at dealing with an addicted partner. She pushes him into a twelve step program. It turns out to help him deal with his addiction to killing, though it does nothing to curb that addiction. Dexter has feelings alright, but he acquires them largely by observation.

The first and second seasons are on Netflix instant watch. I am salivating for the second one. Dexter is brilliant TV.

ps.  It occured to me tonight that Dexter's character is analgous to Mr. Spock and Data on the first and second Star Trek shows.  He is supposed to be without normal emotions.  Such characters work because we can't really believe the premise.  An automoton can't really be a character. 

Dexter, in fact, shows plenty of emotion.  When the disturbed Lila threatens his girlfriend and her children, he reacts pretty much as I would. 

Comments

[Douglas Wiken]

Maybe they can work the Palin family into the script.

I saw one or two of the first bunch and decided I did not need to see any more of them. Your video tastes must run toward raw meat. I guess my tastes run toward the humbug half-baked humor shows and news programs. Even so, I do like the "Closer" on KELO 2 or whatever it is.

[A.I.]

I've enjoyed all five seasons. You are in for a very good performance from Jimmy Smits in season three and an outstanding performance in season four from John Lithgow. Season five is entertaining, but lacks the attention to detail and great acting of it predecessors. And I sense the series is losing its sense of humor about itself.

[KB]

Doug: there is surprisingly little "raw meat" in most of the episodes. The overwhelming theme is psychological and moral. I have yet to find anything in Dexter that was as terrifying as The Joker in The Dark Knight Returns.

A.I. here is something we can agree on! So far at least. If I get four seasons at the level of the first two, I am a happy viewer.

[A.I.]

I agreed with your post on MLK too. Lets not make a habit of this, OK.

[KB]

I'll try to be wrong again pretty soon.

[hg]

Ummm, yeah, its Dexter MORGAN, not Gordan.

[Aimee]

This is my favorite show on television. Usually by season 5, I'm over it. But season 4 was fabulous! And I loved the last season too due to the appearance of a new star I didn't know was coming. I read the books too, and they're just as good. I like the fact that the books tell a different series of stories starting with the second one.

[joe]

will there be a season 6 ?

[Ben]

Dexter MORGAN... and it blow Deadwood out of the water.

[MattyP]

Who is "Dexter Gordon?"

[Jason]

Regular readers of SDP should know about Dr. Blanchard's love of jazz. Dexter Gordon was a fine jazz saxophonist. Looks like the good Dr. got his interests confused momentarily. After viewing a few episodes of Dexter, I would recommend a few tracks of Dex's album GO

[Jenny]

Seasons 2 and 4 were the best seasons of the best show on television!

[KB]

Ah...yes, it's Dexter MORGAN. I think that was a genuine typo, but Jason may be right that it was a jazz fan's Freudian slip. Dexter Gordon was a fine sax player, but so far as I know, he never dismembered anyone with a chain saw.

Thanks for the feedback from other fans. I just finished episode 8 from season 2. Keith Carradine is brilliant as the super sleuth. Again, the acting is superb and the cast is perfect. Those things, however, are not all that rare in modern TV. Consistently good story telling is what makes or breaks a series, and this one has it in spades over the first two seasons. I am very encouraged by what I read here about the next seasons.