Warning: This article features spoilers for the television show Dexter.
A writer needs a steady source of dense fuel, an influx of mutable ideology which can churn within to be released as a coherent structure of prose. This may come in a variety of formats—books, visual art, life experience and dreams all serve as viable articulations of transmutable energy which allow for the expressible visions of one creator to be converted into foundational inspiration for another. Recently, I stumbled upon a new love affair in the form of digital media, in perfect timing as I continue to ponder the origins and essentiality of morality—the wonderfully dark world of hit TV show Dexter.
Dexter Morgan is a friendly, lovable serial killer in the bustling metropolis of Miami, operating on a moral code instilled in him by his cop foster-father Harry, deceased as of the show’s pilot episode. Dexter works with Miami PD as a forensic blood-spatter expert with his adopted sister Debra, a sensitive, driven police officer, giving him prime access to the tools and wherewithal to perform in his alter-ego. He has had atypical urges and desires relating to bloodlust and killing since a young age, recognized and redirected by his father in an effort to protect him and the society he lurks through. As such, Dexter only kills criminals, people who murder, rape and pillage innocent victims, only doing so after obtaining concretized proof of their evil deeds.
Dexter is a fascinating exploration of morality in the contemporary age—the line between right and wrong is twisted and blurry as our complex protagonist personally breaks down walls of the criminal justice system, avenging the destroyed innocence of deeply affected bystanders. As many others surely have, I found myself rooting for Dexter throughout his wild endeavoring to cleanse the streets of cardinal sin, until tragedy inevitably struck and I was forced to question that support. The show offers a valid critical overlay of the legal structure, elucidating issues ranging from technical loopholes, privilege in wealth and status, and the slow-moving bureaucracy of hierarchal institutions, as well as the complicated interconnection between the public eye and inner workings of derived justice.
Undoubtedly by design, Dexter’s character is endearing—viewers are granted unfiltered access to his mental dialogue as he grapples with his own morality, typically convinced of his righteous methods yet at times horrified, teasing the notion of retiring or turning himself in as innocent lives get tangled up in his devious behavior. The concept of the “mask” is a recurring theme—the faces people wear in certain situations with certain people, psychic protectionism caused by past conditioning to appease society or acclimate within culturally-imposed norms. Acutely aware of his masked persona, Dexter finds liberation through his limited moments of complete self-exposure, generally occurring in the time immediately prior to killing his captives, a ritualistic dance of ultimate power where he showcases photos of the innocent lives taken to ensure his victims understand exactly why they are there.
A pivotal moment in the show is the uncovering of Dexter’s original underwater graveyard, a small section of the ocean historically utilized to dispose of his neatly chopped-up bodies. This leads his own crime squad to partake in a widely publicized manhunt for the “Bay Harbor Butcher,” creating a nearly-comical conflict-of-interest as he manipulates evidence and dissuades the narrative to prevent his own demise. Citizens of Miami are shown celebrating him, chastising the professionals for letting dangerous individuals freely walk the city despite their horrendous acts being evident, silently affirming Dexter’s incessant longing to enact justice through his own secret means. This crafts a convenient duality—the architecture he resides in prohibits public disclosure through the guise of harsh punishment yet so many praise and applaud his work, in theory viewing him as an enigmatic superhero who gets done what the realm of official legality ought to but cannot.
Naturally, Dexter faces perpetual opposition both from within and without; particularly, an internal dialogue that cycles him in and out of focus with the higher-purpose of his self-proclaimed inner monster, a select few co-workers who periodically sense something askew with the laboratory-dwelling blood-geek, and a slew of menacing psychopaths hellbent on dissolving his existence while he casually profiles and hunts them. Dexter has accepted who he is and although this clarity tends to waver, he is as peace with it, cherishes it even so long as he fervently upholds his code, a literal collection of rules developed together with his father, two most important of which are to never kill innocents and never get caught. This makes for an interesting tension between him and the people he kills, cold-blooded murderers reduced to pitifully trapped and wounded animals, often accusing him to be no different as they die in deadlocked gaze with pictures of the undeserving people they harmed.
At some point, Dexter come to an important contemplation—whether a higher power may be looking out for him, watching over him and allowing him to continue his acts of disposal. This arises owing to the seemingly inescapable situations that he does indeed evade, a culmination of small-scale occurrences that seem far too serendipitous to be random, wonderous factors that anyone would plausibly connect to divinity. Were he to be stopped, the butterfly-effect of uncontrolled psychotic action would be substantial, yet simultaneously, his reign of well-fortuned precision cannot surely last forever, can it? I asked this question frequently as I watched—is there any possible happy ending to this story? The potential interconnectivity with God is intriguing, underlining a critical discussion posed in a previous article here—if God knowingly acts above and beyond cultural standards of right and wrong, what does that suggest about the fundamental basis of morality?
Another palpable theme intricately woven into the fabric of the show is trauma—specifically, childhood trauma and its impact on ethical and logistical operability in extended adulthood. At some point early in the series, Dexter learns of his grisly past—witnessing the brutal murder of his own mother at the ripe age of 3 years old, sitting in a pool of her blood for days before being rescued—cluing him in to the pathological nature of his obsessions. He was “born in blood,” a statement he comes to hold closely as an elementary component of his worldly manifestation, seared into his DNA as a developmental marker. This memory was repressed for much of his life despite his father’s knowing, having found him in the abandoned shipping container that housed his early foray into non-innocence.
Dexter’s underlying motivation to kill does not directly stem from an intrinsic desire to clean up society—it is merely a byproduct, a means of his own subsistence crafted in part by his father’s worry, having understood the magnitude of effect transplanted from that traumatic incident, accepting who he was and gently guiding him into the most virtuous possible arrangement. Harry always saw his adopted son for who he was, with compassion and non-judgement yet with a deliberate sense of sustainable practicality. Dexter’s emotional system rescinded deep into his psyche on that day and his habit of killing is a means of filling the dull, painful void in his soul, creating the momentary illusions of power and control for an inner-child forever frightened and trapped. He experiences the world non-ordinarily, something I can relate to in various paralleled ways.
We watch as Dexter grows and evolves with non-linearity—his trajectory is generally a function of accumulated risk resulting from his actions, especially with respect to those he cares for. Putting his family in acute danger is unavoidable yet he goes to extreme lengths to protect them until getting so wrapped up in elaborate scheming that he loses sight of that which is important. It is a constant dance—an intertwined harmony of his “inner monster” and a desire to retain a semblance of outward normalcy, a veiled essence of disguise that undulates between genuine and deceptive, always gravitating towards his demonic, animalistic instincts. He is an explicit convolution of a sick environment and viewers witnessing his high-octane endeavors cannot help but love him, always maintaining a level of separation yet silently admiring his devotional feeding of raw, pure longing.
I am in no way condoning the unorthodox vigilante work that Dexter performs—neither do the producers—it is made seamlessly clear that to do so in real-life would necessitate a highly-unique specimen of meticulous nature and elevated judgement. The hazard of promoting such a role is that every emotionally-stunted, narcissistic person with a subtle God-complex would assume themselves capable of taking it on, inevitably leading to disaster and grave harm inflicted on decent bystanders. Dexter exists in a class separate from all those around him, possessing superb-intelligence, morally-anchored principles and a distinctive cleverness.1 He is obviously playing God and we, his third-walled audience, hold the fortune of judging the adequacy of his decisions. Without knowledge of the psychic chain-of-events and logic that underlie his actions, the whole situation would appear to be evil yet through scrutiny of predicated choice, it gains credibility.
On paper, Dexter is an upstanding citizen—he cares for his own vigorously and is relatively loyal and well-intentioned, albeit subject to careless mistakes in later seasons, possibly due to complacency or as an artifact of lapsed-quality in writing. He is a worthy friend and certainly not someone to have as your enemy. We watch his transition from unrestrained loner to family man, getting married and having a child, forcing him to reevaluate his priorities and reminding us that “camouflage is nature’s craftiest trick.” An averagely-adjusted person has a difficult time adapting to cultural norms—imagine hiding a habit so deeply taboo that it can result in lifelong imprisonment, regardless of the motivation that drives it.
In ways Dexter is relatable—although I have never killed another person and hope that I never will, I understand viscerally his grappling with a “dark passenger,” an ominous presence lurking within that is primal and frightening. The show conjectures that this darkness is engrained in all people on a spectrum of severity and that it is largely suppressed by societal standards. A healthy community asks of its denizens that they do not act on these shadowy urges, that they refrain from surrendering their willful actions to demons hiding below the surface—meant to prevent chaos from erupting akin to a “purge” type event depicted in popular horror movies.2 In return for abiding with civility, we have systems in place designed to protect and serve the common people, a complex framework of infinite moving pieces that is unfortunately vulnerable, workable and unreliable.
As I continue through the series, I contemplate whether I would support this concept in reality—it is one thing cheering on a fictitious character, extrapolating it into our shared physical world is a totally different venue. To establish the required level of trust through relationality would be an impossible. In the case of Dexter, we have access to his stream-of-consciousness, the intimate thoughtforms and beliefs that persuade us to empower him—we know who he is, what he does and why. If only life were so simple—I do not know if one can ever truly and thoroughly know another, especially enough to accept that they are not at least somehow corrupted in their agenda. We all house secrets, relics of an involuntary past that we would prefer to remain unearthed lest they be spun into re-contextualization and utilized against us.
I am definitely biased—every person I have let close to me has hurt me, a common theme being parts unrevealed that were ineluctably dangerous, tricky bits of compartmentalized personality that were against me from square-one. It would make for a lonely world, a comedic punishment of higher design, if the complete and unadulterated connection between two organic beings was unattainable. We are placed here unwillingly with an inherent need for human bonding yet our culture shapes us into such complicated packages, wholly unequipped for intensive transfer of our deep-rooted facets which is necessary for an authentic partnership of unbridled, mutual trust.
I am willing to be mistaken; however, for now, like Dexter, I wield a well-warranted sense of caution, a sophisticated guardedness which acts as a protective shield as I sift through the underbelly of humanity. Also like Dexter, I realize that I am ultimately alone, too sectioned-off from the bulk of civilized existence to peacefully coinhabit a residence, travelling deeper into psychological isolation daily. I have accepted this fate, embraced it and strive to continue developing a strong working relationship with both myself and higher-spirituality, prerequisites for any healthy connection. At one point in the story, Dexter gains a friend despite advice from his father’s spirit, the image of a morally-oscillating policeman that sits on his shoulder offering commentary on the unfolding world. This companionship becomes ornately entangled to the point of purposeful severance, in Dexter’s world not a pretty sight, a cataclysmic situation of once high-potential brought to extinction due to the other party’s non-disclosure of their true intentionality.
Dexter is a tale of survival—a child so fragmented by his abhorrent surroundings that he is naturally-born into a killer, molded into a societal abnormality by the moral-failings of the legal system and rational-minded intuition. This survival is most commonly in the form of conformity—simple things done to blend-in, precautions to cohere the cracks of his liabilities, and, most importantly, his code of action, a set of irrefutable guidelines that promote self-preservation and communal betterment. I question the structure of my own code, an ever-developing standard founded by lifetimes of hardship and persistence. I know survival well, both physically and psychologically—I have fought back from innumerable boxed-in corners, disinhibited to the point of complete rupture from normality. Some situations were orchestrated by circumstance and others entered in volition, rites-of-passage I cannot envision prevailing through in my now-stabilized state of mind. For years-on-end I floated in a life-or-death mode of endurability that has laid the groundwork for how I presently perceive others and the world, for better or worse.
We all must contend with the beast inside, just as we all must expose and assimilate a radical acceptance of that who we truly are. We all battle the overwhelming power of cultural conditioning that yearns to shackle us in place, frozen in adherence to a past we truly did not request yet had no choice in experiencing. As do most human characteristics and behaviors, inner darkness presides with a wide-range of variability—some, like our wholesome neighbor Dexter, must wage war with extreme levels of anti-cultural permutations. This “dark passenger” may be weaponized or it may be transfigured into altruistic reach, creating a binarized choice common to all living persons—be engulfed by compulsive terrorizing or configure a channel of flowing light, transmuted from chaos.
As are Dexter and the majority of people on earth, I am not always who I appear to be in social interactions—ideally, I intend on being authentic everywhere I go yet in practice it is not feasible to continually reveal myself to every stranger and acquaintance I encounter. I know myself, however, and for now that is sufficient. To divulge oneself absolutely is to introduce risk, endangerment to one’s obtained shell of sanity and levelheadedness, for not all of our worldly peers are creatures of integrity. Unfiltered evil roams amongst us all, people with immense capability for harm and duplicity. The generalized goodness of others is dwindling, plausibly resultant of the still-affective pandemic, a global event that forced innovative solutions for survival and left an adapt-or-perish climate that vacuums the ethical conviction of mortal souls.
As such, the need for transparency in fostering connection is maximized yet the probability of full personal revelation is minimally trending, a tragic convening of divergent philosophies. This knowing is useful in my own survival—never again will I be contained with another in an abyss of toxicity, drowned by guilt and farced control so unequivocally that I cannot breathe. I have built a fortress and within it I am safe, just as Dexter remains uninjured inside his complex regime of counter-cultural rebellions. I understand that I cannot stay here forever. I hold faith that my perfectly-fitting tribe will one day absorb me, transforming my held beliefs about others and connection, just as surely as I know that Dexter will one day be faced with an ultimatum—either give up his atypical structure of self-realization or face an untimely end to his foreseeable future. A conclusive lesson is imparted by the untamed adventuring of Dexter Morgan—that nothing in life is black-and-white.
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A similar argument could be spun to the open-availability of unlimited narcotics—a small fraction of individuals would utilize the drugs for good measures and keep their practice honed in tight control while a solid majority of customers would enact chaos and destruction upon themselves and their communities, willfully or otherwise.
For those unaware, I am referring to the movie “The Purge” where there is a nation-wide sanctioned day for people to murder and generally break the law, designed (in the movie) to allow issues to work themselves out internally rather than by the justice system.