Dexter, the serial killer who changed the face of TV violence

Dexter’s a loving son, brother and father who lives by an unwavering moral code. And most importantly he’s a mass murderer.

Dexter Morgan, Miami Metro Police Department blood spatter analyst, has a double life. When he's not helping the Homicide division solving murders, he spends his time hunting and killing bad guys that slip through the justice system. He spends his sun-drenched days solving crimes - and moonlit nights committing them.

Set in Miami, the series centers on Dexter Morgan (Michael C. Hall), a forensic technician specializing in bloodstain pattern analysis for the fictional Miami Metro Police Department, who leads a secret parallel life as a vigilante serial killer, hunting down murderers who have slipped through the cracks of the justice.

Story Synopsis

Orphaned at age three, when his mother was brutally murdered with a chainsaw by drug dealers, Dexter (Hall) was adopted by Miami police officer Harry Morgan (James Remar). Recognizing the boy's trauma and the subsequent development of his sociopathic tendencies, Harry has manipulated Dexter to channel his gruesome bloodlust into vigilantism, killing only heinous criminals who slip through the criminal justice system. To facilitate covering his prolific trail of homicides, Dexter gains employment as a forensic analyst, specializing in blood spatter pattern analysis, for the Miami Metro Police Department. Dexter is extremely cautious and circumspect; he wears gloves and uses plastic-wrapped "kill rooms", segments the corpses, and disposes of them in the Atlantic Ocean's Gulf Stream to reduce his chances of detection. Dexter struggles to juggle his double life. Although his homicidal tendencies are deeply unflinching, and he originally claims detachment (via narration), throughout the series he strives to and in some cases feels, normal emotions and maintain his appearance as a socially responsible human being.

Dexter's Morning Routine

For years, societies have worried about the bad things that happen when people see graphic barbarity on-screen. After Dexter we might ask a different question: when such a challenging drama can only be enjoyed by a select few, what does society lose when people can’t hear what the tragic forensic expert had to say?

Harry teaches Dexter to put his unwell perversions to excellent use, cautiously looking down the responsible and administering his very own manufacturer of retribution. Dexter stated that Harry gave him a policeman’s training. “He taught me how to suppose like one; he taught me how to cowl my tracks,” he says. “I’m a very neat monster.”

Certainly he is a fastidious one. Dexter drapes his killing rooms in cut back wrap and dons plastic shielding apparel and a welder’s visor to sever his victims’ limbs. Like so many serial killers, he continues trophies, however his are nearly clinically tidy. He places a drop of the victim’s blood on a microscope slide and archives it in a timber field saved hidden in the back of the air conditioner in his clean, sunny waterfront apartment.

Dexter’s killings are some thing of a sideshow, however. The series’s essential plot revolves round the police department’s effort to tune down the serial killer accountable for the path of cold corpses. Only Dexter views these crimes as a playful undertaking from a like-minded maniac, and his collaboration with the police is fueled by using his experience of complicity with the killer.

Dexter Morgan (Michael C. Hall), the hero of Showtime’s new collection “Dexter,” is a smart, wittily self-aware homicidal maniac in the way of life of Richard III and Hannibal Lecter. But Dexter is a made-for-television serial killer: he kills solely human beings who deserve to die. In his spare time he works as a blood-spatter sample analyst in the forensics lab of the Miami-Dade Police Department.

The show, which starts on Sunday, is based on a crime novel by means of Jeff Lindsay, “Darkly Dreaming Dexter,” however it serves as the subsequent step in the relentless escalation of eroticized violence on television, a “CSI” for top class cable. The top man is as perverted as the perp; in truth the forensics specialist is a serial killer. But it’s O.K., the exhibit nevertheless has some redeeming social value; he practices vigilante regulation enforcement, concentrated on murderous pedophiles and drunken drivers who would in any other case get away justice.

I for one can't wait to see the subsequent episode.

“There’s some thing atypical and disarming about searching at a murder scene in the sunlight hours of Miami,” Dexter says in a dime-story detective’s first-person narration. “It makes the most grotesque killings appear staged, like you’re in a new and daring area of Disney World: Dahmerland.”

The first corpse he is summoned to take a look at is so tidily dismembered that there is no blood, and analyzing the sample of blood spatter for the police is Dexter’s day job. He hides his exhilaration below a veneer of expert callousness. “How does he do it?” he says aloud to the officers staring at the neatly butchered hunks of flesh. “How does the killer get rid of the blood?” In his personal head, he is inspired. “Why haven’t I notion of that?” he says to himself. “No blood. What a stunning idea.”

Certainly he is a fastidious one. Dexter drapes his killing rooms in cut back wrap and dons plastic defensive garb and a welder’s visor to sever his victims’ limbs. Like so many serial killers, he continues trophies, however his are nearly clinically tidy. He places a drop of the victim’s blood on a microscope slide and archives it in a timber field saved hidden at the back of the air conditioner in his clean, sunny waterfront apartment.

Dexter’s killings are some thing of a sideshow, however. The series’s predominant plot revolves round the police department’s effort to song down the serial killer accountable for the path of cold corpses. Only Dexter views these crimes as a playful venture from a like-minded maniac, and his collaboration with the police is fueled via his feel of complicity with the killer.

DEXTER

John Goldwyn, Sara Colleton and Clyde Phillips, executive producers; Daniel Cerone and Michael Cuesta, co-executive producers; Melissa Rosenberg, consulting producer; Drew Z. Greenberg and Robert Lloyd Lewis, producers. Based on the novel by Jeff Lindsay.

WITH: Michael C. Hall (Dexter Morgan), Julie Benz (Rita Bennett), Jennifer Carpenter (Debra Morgan), Erik King (Sergeant Doakes), Lauren Vélez (Lt. Maria LaGuerta), David Zayas (Angel Batista), James Remar (Harry Morgan), C. S. Lee (Masuka), Geoff Pierson (Captain Matthews), Christina Robinson (Astor), Daniel Goldman (Cody), Devon Graye (teenage Dexter), Dominic Janes (young Dexter), Cristos Pappas (Norberto Cervantes), Rudolf Martin (Ramon Guerrero) and Scott William Winters (Detective McNamara).