Dex, you slay me

I’ve always had an irrational—yet arguably rational—fear of serial killers. I think it has something to do with the fact that I associate serial killers with the outdoors and the ability to sneak up on people in empty isolated houses. For whatever reason, I feel safe in the city, where serial killers get lost in the crowd, or at least the crowd prevents them from really lashing out. This was all just a flimsy theory, but it allowed me years of sound sleep, at least in New York.

This theory, however, was blown apart when I was given season one of Dexter, the Showtime series. Now I not only know that serial killers do, indeed, live and work in cities (especially Miami), but I also know now that they can be absolutely charming. I love the antagonistic protagonist, Dexter, FOR all his faults—not despite them. His appeal rests in the bad good guy theory that I delved into with my Bourne Ultimatum entry. Nobody’s perfect, and since Dexter flaunts his imperfections—as twisted as they are—we can accept him and love him all the more easily.

The true appeal of the show is the sociological and psychological critique of society. Dexter emphasizes how inhuman he is, not only because he loves to kill, but also because he feels he fakes every human interaction. He doesn’t fit in, and his outsider perspective shows humans to be odd, often malicious, and perhaps not worth fitting in with after all. It’s the age-old exploration of what is considered normal, and why exactly we hold such standards to ourselves. I don’t want to go into the plot, but I will say the psychology intensifies with each episode to a truly awesome apex in the final episodes. The problem with having the season at your disposal is that you watch too many in one sitting and may be prone to turbulent serial killer nightmares, particularly if you watch right before bed. I have managed to counteract these dreams by revisiting my thoughts on the movie Enchanted, which has enough fluff to blot out all homicide.

Dexter, a forensic blood specialist that moonlights as a serial killer who kills serial killers, allows us to openly embrace how fascinating murder is. It’s not that we want people to murder, but we do relish the ritualizing of homicide. Turning the serial killer fascination on its head and making us love the murder and hate the murdered is scandalous and, in a way, scrumptious. We happily stow away our memories of each episode just as Dexter stows away a drop of blood of each of his victims. Dexter isn’t just good—it’s killer.