Saying goodbye to Dexter, tv's most-loved serial killer

It’s no secret that America loves its serial killers. Just this year, they launched four shows on both network and cable channels that focused on their favourite sociopaths, old and new: Hannibal on NBC (Hannibal Lecter, the old bat is back!), The Following on Fox (a new serial killer creates a Charles Manson-like cult), Bates Motel (say hello to the original psycho, Norman Bates) on A&E and Keeping Up With the Kardashians on E! (stupidity kills). Don’t be surprised if they start launching serial killer comedies soon. Bob Saget plays the father of two annoying teenage kids, who drives around the suburb popping other people’s children so he doesn’t have to shoot his own. (Coming soon on ABC Family!) While I admit to thoroughly enjoying serial killer shows because I am as fascinated with criminal minds as the next nut, my favourite, and by far the best serial killer show I have ever watched, is Dexter. And not just because it’s a well-written drama with an abundant sprinkling of dark humour, but also because it warps your sense of right and wrong as you slowly but surely find yourself falling in love with a serial killer. [caption id=“attachment_918709” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Sadly, the last few seasons of Dexter have been marred by poor storytelling and lacklustre villains. Courtesy: Facebook[/caption] For those of you who’ve never had the chance of acquainting yourselves with Dexter Morgan, blood-spatter analyst by day, serial killer by night, he’s a man with a code – kill only those criminals who’ve escaped the justice system. Except he’s not hacking the bad guys because of some misplaced sense of righteousness. He does it because he thinks murder is fun, and his cop father has helpfully trained him to kill the bad guys without getting caught. I watched the first episode of the first season of Dexter in abject fear that the show would take my already delicate moral fibre and blow it to smithereens. That the blood and gore would be too much for my intestines, which have notoriously campaigned against horror movies in the past. Or worse, I’d meet Dexter’s Dark Passenger and feel something stir inside me. And I did. I felt my Dark Passenger stir. Everyone I know who has watched the show has felt their own Dark Passenger stir, although mine got stopped at Dadar station by a TC for ticketless travelling and then got sent to the Bhoiwada police station where I’ll go rescue it from once I’m done with this column… but you get the picture. Sadly, the last few seasons of Dexter have been marred by poor storytelling and lacklustre villains. Since Season 4’s Trinity Killer, none of Dexter’s nemeses have been as sinister or as capable of getting under your (and Dexter’s) skin. I find myself thinking fondly of the Ice Truck Killer, a monster seductively beckoning our hero down a much darker path. Even Sgt. Doakes, Lila Tourney and Miguel Prado were fascinating and able distractions, the way Jordan Chase and the Doomsday Killers could never be. On a character level, we have seen Dexter fall in love, become a loving father, test the boundaries of his own code, and pull everyone who loved him down into the abyss created by his high-functioning sociopathic brain. As he returns today for the final time, the 8th season, I can’t help but wonder what lies in store for the world’s most-loved, crazypants killer. Perhaps they’ll kill him. Perhaps he’ll go to jail. Perhaps he’ll be killed by another serial killer who kills serial killers, and the irony will make us all giggle in our couches. In a society that divides everything into black or white, Dexter is so grey that there’s a plan to call the spinoff “Dexter’s Anatomy”.  So perhaps, predicting the end won’t be such a black and white task for fans. All I hope is this: that the end of the show be everything the last three seasons have failed to be. As we chop it into pieces and scatter it into the Gulf Stream, I hope that Dexter finally gets the chance to rest in the glory his character deserves.