Psychological Moratorium: Dexter Season Four Ender

Originally Posted December 30, 2009 @ http://joneser.wordpress.com/

So yesterday I watched the last five episodes of Dexter Season four. What a wild ride this season was. Some history is needed here. Being a student of Psychology I was originally adamantely against watching a television show that sensationalized a serial killer. My wife and I watched the first episode over a year ago, maybe longer, and she was so grossed out that she made me shut it off. I can’t say that I wasn’t upset by it either, but I was willing to give it a go.

It wasn’t until I spoke with Gypsy, and then my Therapist/Mentor that I finally decided I could take a gander at this show. Let me now say that as a Psychology Student, this is a goldmine of Psych candy for us to ping pong in our brains, it is a must see.

So I fell in love with Dexter, the show, and I started to empathize with a sociopath. My training in this type of psycho-pathology is limited to two undergrad Abnormal Psychology courses, and a sprinkling of units in each of my psychology courses. So I’m no expert by any means (yet) in either Forensic Psychology or Clinical Psychology. So I’m not so sure just how accurate the show’s depiction of sociopathology is. I however know from my own experience as a human being, that nothing is cut and dry, nothing is as easy as a DSM diagnosis. Humans like to place things in easy symmetrical little boxes for understanding, but we are far more complicated than that allows.

So four seasons later I’ve witnessed Dexter’s little game, his juggle from sociopath to family man to forensic scientist. I have to say this season, more than any other, I was starting to feel the stress of his charade. I really felt like Dexter was going to be given a choice, an ultimatum, from himself, whether to be the Dark Passenger’s puppet, or to be Dexter the family man and finally give up the Dark Passenger.

As the final episode approached Dexter seemed to realize the error of his ways. He could not fence with criminals without collateral damage ensuing. His family, the one he finally realized he did love, was becoming the target of his cat and mouse games.

Dexter isn’t that much unlike Batman, or other Marvel/DC exlpoits into vigilantiism. However, Dexter gets off, feeds offs, and lives off of the hunter and then ritualistic kill of his criminals, which is where the line ends in the comparisons between Dexter and super heroes. Some would say that Dexter has done a service to the world by his exploits, others would condemn him as a sicko. I can say that it is definately an interesting thought, what evolutionary gain have we ever had from this type of DNA?

Maybe perhaps all those wars that needed fighting throughout history? Maybe some people are just built genetically to kill and to live to kill. Much of what we read and think about war is this noble crusade of sacrifice and discipline. Maybe it isn’t so at all. Nowadays I’d more than likely change the brutal berserker in the field chopping down enemies for his noble lord, to a government filled with cowardly bloodsuckers sending my generation to war in exchange for a shot at the American dream. That is a whole other blog I think.

So the real reason for writing this is because I’m still upset by the last episode. My disturbance in the last five minutes of the last episode just has been eating at me since I watched it. So much invested in Dexter, empathizing with Dexter, rooting for Dexter. I saw myself in parts of Dexter, his issues with fitting in, with trying to maintain a relationship, with trying to maintain social relationships that often end awkwardly.

I saw myself in him, because he was a married man trying to build a family while balancing his career, obviously I didn’t relate to the murdering stuff, but you get the point. And now I can’t seem to get the image of his baby boy being born in blood just as he was. To the lifeless face of his angelic bride dead in the bathtub, murdered by what can only be called his arch nemesis. They didn’t show it, but I imagine the terror she suffered, the panic of knowing her last moments would be felt wondering if her child would suffer the same fate she did. It breaks my heart. I wonder why they would write it this way, and then I realize it is really the only way for them to end the series without crushing us.

Now we are like Dexter even more. This tragedy leads us searching for a sense of peace. I find myself wanting Dexter to end it, to kill himself or get caught. For all the secrets and lies to come to the service, for everyone to know the truth. Rita was the one thing keeping us on the Dexter team, with a hope that someday she could change him, and they could live together happily ever after and ride off into the sunset. That somehow Dexter’s dark passenger would be defeated…that all of our dark sides can be defeated.

Dexter can never be the family man now. I just hope he doesn’t become a worse monster in his grief. I look forward to seeing how this all comes to an end.

In season four, Rita and Dexter are seeing a marriage counselor and she notes that Rita knew how Dexter was before she married him, and so therefore she holds some responsibility for her being in the situation she was in. It could not have been told to me in a more truthful way. I knew he was a serial killer from the moment I put the DVD into play, and now I only have myself to blame for thinking I could change him.