For weeks I've been spending this time on Sunday nights wrapping things up so I could glue myself to the chair in front of the TV to watch what may be my all time favorite show, Dexter. Last week was the finale' and tonight I am having my first withdrawals and assessing the realization that Dexter will be no more.
I've been curious about my like for this program all along because 1. Generally I don't enjoy watching TV, 2. I abhor violence especially the graphic kind and 3. I instantly felt the need to determine where I stood on Dexter's character. For those not familiar with the show, Dexter was found locked in a shipping container with his brother when he was three years old where they were left after watching their mother be murdered with a chain saw. They were found in a pool of her blood. Harry, a policeman who it was later discovered was using Dexter's mother as a mole, adopted him and upon discovering he had psychopathic tendencies, taught him a code of conduct that included the number one rule, never get caught and all other rules were related to him focusing on only killing other serial killers to release what he came to call, his dark passenger.
That first season I was forced to admit that if what happened to the three year old Dexter had happened to me, I might have been the same way due to no fault of my own other than due to how trauma at an early age may affect us for the rest of our lives. In the case of Dexter, he was given a code to live by that somewhat saved him and innocent victims from his damaged person but his brother who turned up in season two, did not turn out as well and he was also a psychopathic killer that Dexter eventually murdered to protect his step sister from his brother's harm.
So the curiosity for me began because I could find sympathy for Dexter knowing that he was who he was because of his early trauma and the intensive training by his father in how to control and direct his urges. But it grew to include other mysterious feelings that I had for the character. I found myself rooting for him as Dexter was destroying the most evil of persons that he came in contact with. In one sense, he was doing society the same favor that would have occurred if the criminals had been captured, tried and put to death for it by the state. It seemed like a bonus savings of tax dollars to have them removed so quickly and I justified it by considering there are times these types of people never leave enough evidence to convict or a trivial mishandling of evidence might allow them to walk free. There was no such error in final judgement once Dexter proved beyond a doubt that those he went after were guilty of monstrous acts. But this is in stark contradiction to my feelings about the value of life and the need for every one to have the same opportunity to be tried by a jury of their peers. When ever my belief system kicked up, I found myself easily swinging to the many cases of injustice that we see play out in our system and once again taking Dexter's side for his actions. I tried to brush it off with the idea that none of us have avoided having thoughts of taking matters in our own hands if we could to prevent the pain and suffering of innocents.
The underlying story all along was Dexter's exploration of what it meant to be human when he could not feel emotions. During the eight seasons, his cover life of being a forensic technician for the Miami Police Department, for a while a husband, permanently a father and opening his eyes to the value of his sister in his life changed him. In the end, he was no longer going through the motions to fit in and hide his true self, but he found himself experiencing, understanding and transforming because of the one most powerful thing that can transform the worse of us into the best of us, love. I believe this possibly intrigued me the most because of things that happened in my own life that at the time left me going through the motions hoping no one caught on to how messed up I was inside. I could relate. Unlike Dexter, most of us have a reasonable expectation that we can recover and move on from such traumas where he had been given none and was told that he would never change.
This show left me analyzing myself as much as I tried to second guess what was coming next in this mostly well written series. I discovered that things I previously perceived as black or white were often instead to be determined by every related factor and most of the time falling in the gray area. Bottom line for me, the thing that was the most interesting about the series was observing my reactions to it and how I was able to justify the horrors of Dexter's actions and excuse him for his lies. These are things I would not have thought that I could have tolerated. The inner conflicts I experienced as a fan were far more than I could have imagined as possible for me.
I thought the end was brilliant. Dexter finally became human instead of a psychopath but it was just in time to experience the tragedy of the death of his sister and loss of his son and lover Hanna. He blamed himself for all of it because it was due to his actions that any of it turned out the way it did. In the end he put himself in his own form of prison by disappearing into the new anonymous role of being a lumber jack with nothing he cared about left in his life. The sense of Justice he measured against the serial killers he murdered through the past eight years, he measured also to himself to protect his son and Hanna who had flown off to start the new life and clean start that he longed for. He made a full circle to become human again, which was something he always dreamed of, only to find how painful it can be.
I worry about the many fans I've read complaining about the ending because it seems to me they were mesmerized by the heartless Dexter and his murdering ways. I was never that kind of fan and those who were may be displaying their tendencies to glorify gore and vigilante justice. Or maybe it was their vicarious connection to the desire to get away with things without repercussions. Maybe they need to validate that if a horrific thing can be justified by a redeeming measure that makes okay in the end. I'm not sure. But for myself I can say that the end felt right in showing that there is no getting away with being a bad person without it hurting those around you and that the ultimate price for being human will always include the price of pain which we gladly pay for the gift of love. And like Dexter, too many of us only discover that when it is too late and the love we were given is lost because of our own faults.
Goodbye Dexter. I miss the show and I will miss learning more about myself during every episode.
