We <3 Dexter
Mar. 11th, 2008 05:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
andrasteMy plan to watch Dexter in between BSG episodes, er, didn't work out so well. Having hit the doldrums of BSG Season Three, I seem to have spent all last Monday mainlining the last third of Dexter's first season. Whoops. It's just taken me this long to finish writing it up. (Damn work and classes ...)
For anyone who has somehow not heard the buzz, the show is about Dexter Morgan, a guy who works forensics for the Miami PD. He has a wonderful, foul-mouthed foster sister who's a cop. He has a lovely girlfriend who is recovering from domestic violence, and the girlfriend has two children who adore him. He tries his best to be a good brother and boyfriend, while dealing with his own intimacy issues. And at night, Dexter goes out killing people and cutting them up. But it's OK! Because they're bad people!
... except things are not that simple, at least not in this gloriously complex show.
Below is some spoilery reflection on Season One. If you spoil me for Season Two in any way, the code of Harry may save you from Dexter, but it will not save you from me.
In the first episode, Dexter claims not to 'have feelings about stuff', but by the end of the season we've seen that this is not the case. He does have an emotional life, albeit one that is distorted and limited by his sociopathy. Indeed, things would be considerably easier for him if he really didn't feel anything.
Dexter ends the season as he began it, feeling cut off from the world. While he does care for both Deb and Rita (to the limits of his capacity) he believes that he can never truly connect with them. His foster father is dead, and the discovery of Harry's lies has cast a shadow over their relationship. Worst of all, Dexter has killed the only person he feels did understand and accept him, his long-lost serial killer brother.
Throughout the first season, the people Dexter has opened up to most easily, those he has most frequently reached out to or turned to for advice, have been his fellow monsters. This is often hilarious, as when he asks the couple he's about to murder for dating advice, or puts off finishing his latest victim because he needs another therapy session. It's also terribly sad, as when he seeks to reach out to a younger killer only to find that the boy has taken his own life. This pattern has its ultimate expression in his intense bond with the Ice Truck Killer. Dexter's tragedy is that any authentic, open relationship he forms is doomed to end in cling wrap and drills. Deb, Rita and the rest can only love him for as long as they don't truly know him.
But that's not the whole story. There is someone else who knows Dexter and loves him anyway: us.
That may be too simple a statement - the audience reaction to Dexter is inevitably going to be complex and contain horror and repugnance for his actions. (Er, at least I hope it inevitably contains horror and repugnance for his actions. Heroes fandom makes me think it might not, though.) At the same time, though, it's hard not to get emotionally attached to him despite everything. That affection in turn raises questions in the viewer - what does it say about us that we like this character and want him to survive and succeed? Is the series itself part of the glorification of serial killers that La Guerta mentions in relation to the first suspect arrested as the Ice Truck Killer? And yet despite those questions, the affection and sympathy remain.
I think a large part of the reason Dexter remains such a sympathetic character even with the knife in his hand is that he shares so much with us. The audience is privy to all kinds of information about Dexter that not even his brother knows, through his voice over narration.
It's debatable who all that commentary is directed at on an in story level - is it Dexter's internal monologue that we here in the narration? Who does he imagine that it's addressed to? But the important thing for the audience is that he chooses to share it with us, to make real connection with an imaginary audience, to allow us to make a connection with an imaginary person. And to quote Neil Gaiman's death, nobody is scary from the inside.
For anyone who has somehow not heard the buzz, the show is about Dexter Morgan, a guy who works forensics for the Miami PD. He has a wonderful, foul-mouthed foster sister who's a cop. He has a lovely girlfriend who is recovering from domestic violence, and the girlfriend has two children who adore him. He tries his best to be a good brother and boyfriend, while dealing with his own intimacy issues. And at night, Dexter goes out killing people and cutting them up. But it's OK! Because they're bad people!
... except things are not that simple, at least not in this gloriously complex show.
Below is some spoilery reflection on Season One. If you spoil me for Season Two in any way, the code of Harry may save you from Dexter, but it will not save you from me.
In the first episode, Dexter claims not to 'have feelings about stuff', but by the end of the season we've seen that this is not the case. He does have an emotional life, albeit one that is distorted and limited by his sociopathy. Indeed, things would be considerably easier for him if he really didn't feel anything.
Dexter ends the season as he began it, feeling cut off from the world. While he does care for both Deb and Rita (to the limits of his capacity) he believes that he can never truly connect with them. His foster father is dead, and the discovery of Harry's lies has cast a shadow over their relationship. Worst of all, Dexter has killed the only person he feels did understand and accept him, his long-lost serial killer brother.
Throughout the first season, the people Dexter has opened up to most easily, those he has most frequently reached out to or turned to for advice, have been his fellow monsters. This is often hilarious, as when he asks the couple he's about to murder for dating advice, or puts off finishing his latest victim because he needs another therapy session. It's also terribly sad, as when he seeks to reach out to a younger killer only to find that the boy has taken his own life. This pattern has its ultimate expression in his intense bond with the Ice Truck Killer. Dexter's tragedy is that any authentic, open relationship he forms is doomed to end in cling wrap and drills. Deb, Rita and the rest can only love him for as long as they don't truly know him.
But that's not the whole story. There is someone else who knows Dexter and loves him anyway: us.
That may be too simple a statement - the audience reaction to Dexter is inevitably going to be complex and contain horror and repugnance for his actions. (Er, at least I hope it inevitably contains horror and repugnance for his actions. Heroes fandom makes me think it might not, though.) At the same time, though, it's hard not to get emotionally attached to him despite everything. That affection in turn raises questions in the viewer - what does it say about us that we like this character and want him to survive and succeed? Is the series itself part of the glorification of serial killers that La Guerta mentions in relation to the first suspect arrested as the Ice Truck Killer? And yet despite those questions, the affection and sympathy remain.
I think a large part of the reason Dexter remains such a sympathetic character even with the knife in his hand is that he shares so much with us. The audience is privy to all kinds of information about Dexter that not even his brother knows, through his voice over narration.
It's debatable who all that commentary is directed at on an in story level - is it Dexter's internal monologue that we here in the narration? Who does he imagine that it's addressed to? But the important thing for the audience is that he chooses to share it with us, to make real connection with an imaginary audience, to allow us to make a connection with an imaginary person. And to quote Neil Gaiman's death, nobody is scary from the inside.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-11 10:39 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-16 03:46 am (UTC)I am looking forward to it! But on the other hand, once I watch it I will have to wait impatiently for Season Three along with everyone else.