With the return of everyone’s favorite serial killer in a new limited series (that feels weird to write and definitely says something about culture at large, though we’ll get to that in a minute), fans everywhere are getting the finale they always wanted, even if they didn’t know they needed it.
Much like antiheroes Walter White and Tony Soprano, Dexter Morgan (played to perfection by Michael C. Hall of Six Feet Under and The Defeated) isn’t your average protagonist. This guy makes some really, really bad choices and yet we can’t stop watching. And not just watching, but rooting for.
“I’m a very neat monster,” he declares in the pilot and proves it with his methodical rituals and love of plastic wrap. While I don’t keep that particular kitchen staple in the house anymore, I can appreciate his attention to detail. But why do we keep watching someone who is essentially a murderer with such fascination and sometimes even empathy?
This multi-hyphenate genre series — is it police procedural? Mystery? Dark comedy? More like a bad nightmare if you were actually living it, and yet I completely understand that label — has a very marketable hook. So while there are a lot of layers, the concept is simple and catchy; the screenwriters deftly melded story elements to craft a compelling series that was entirely fresh when it aired on Showtime for the first time in the fall of 2006.
The first season was largely based on the novel “Darkly Dreaming Dexter” by Jeff Lindsay before (much like Dexter evolving from Harry’s teachings) the show morphed into its own entity for better or worse for the remainder of its 96-episode run. Shot in the uncomfortably bright and sunny yellow hues of the Miami sun, the original series aesthetic feels almost campy, if not oppressively hot and itchy if you happen to be keeping a killing spree under wraps. It totally got me, too, that he’s always eating in the pilot. Simply underscoring that this is all just business as usual in Dexter’s world — of which he is the epicenter as:
And at the heart of it all, without which Dexter simply would not be a man who murders only other bad guys according to The Code of Harry because, well, “they deserve it.” Or so says Dexter’s adoptive dad, Harry Morgan (James Remar), in a pilot flashback as he begins training his son to become a serial killer while reminding him, “You are not alone and you are loved.” It’s heartbreaking. It’s also downright terrifying as we watch the monster evolve. And perhaps that is what this psychological thriller does best; it brings us right into the mind of Dexter Morgan with a can’t-miss-it monologue voiceover in that chilling monotone. You want him to give something away by tone, but he doesn’t. He just... states it. As is. Whereas we’re always told as screenwriters to show everything we have to say, in Dexter’s case telling is far more effective as it both echoes what we see while taking us deeper into the mind of this high-functioning psychopath. Which is exactly where we need to be as an audience to make this show work. If we just watch him, we could never understand.
Dexter’s double life as a blood spatter analyst for the Miami Metro allows him all kinds of outlets and hindrances for his after-hours vigilantism. It’s debatable whether his murderous tendencies are his fatal flaw or the fact that he’s so hyperaware of them that he attempts “normalcy.”
His very clear and strict moral code goes in a downward spiral through the seasons, muddying through the relationships with his adoptive sister Deb (Jennifer Carpenter) and those he forms with Rita (Julie Benz), Lumen (Julia Stiles), and Hannah (Yvonne Strahovski). It’s that pull toward wanting to be normal; from pretending to feeling real feelings, at which point he understands the (usually tragic) consequences of what he does. As Hall was once quoted as saying, “I guess a lesson that’s emerged is that you can’t have your cake and kill it, too.”
At its core, a friend of mine noted, the show is an echo of our internal struggle of good versus evil. That timeless tale, however, is taken to a much more extreme and gruesome level in the case of Dexter’s “Dark Passenger.” So, while on the most minute level we can empathize with Dexter’s motives, we can simultaneously distance ourselves from it — well, we would never go that far to exact justice on our own, right? — just as he does by boxing up his tendencies as a different persona of sorts.
For eight seasons, we watched him think he had control over his inner demon, before realizing that perhaps, he and his demon weren’t so mutually exclusive until he imprisons himself by banishment in the end. This examination of the human condition is an excellent study in how to do compelling characterization; make binging Dexter for character arcs your homework this weekend. It’s all part of the writing process.
There’s a reason Hall won a Golden Globe® for Best Actor in a Television Series or Drama and was nominated for five Primetime Emmy® Awards for Outstanding Lead Actor In A Drama Series for his role in Dexter. They always say to write characters that will entice top-tier actors and clearly Dexter Morgan had all the meat and bones an actor could chew on for years. Not to mention the supporting cast (what made Lt. Angel Batista so great was David Zayas had been NYPD in real life), and guest stars — including John Lithgow, who received an Emmy for his turn as the Trinity Killer in season four.
Screenwriters can catch showrunner Clyde Phillips on Final Draft's “Write On” podcast where he discusses his methodical process of breaking Dexter’s new spin in Dexter: New Blood. The mini-series is now on Showtime starring Hall, along with some other familiar, returning faces.