I've been watching the whole first season on DVD (while stuck in a hotel room this week), as the second season is coming out on DVD next week. I'd previously only seen the edited-for-NBC episodes on Sunday night, so it's nice to see the whole episodes. I may have to actually get SHOWTIME. It's one of the best shows on TV.
Something occured to me while watching:
With WATCHMEN coming out next year, there's been a lot of discussion of that graphic novel and the upcoming movie as one of the first post-modern looks at superheroes and what they would be like in reality. (Also examined by UNBREAKABLE and HANCOCK.) DEXTER, in a way, is a look at what a vigilante superhero, a la Batman or The Punisher, would be like in "real" life.
Consider the backstory (MILD SPOILERS FOLLOW)
A young boy orphaned by an act of criminal violence is adopted by a kindly police officer, who raises him to follow a strict code of honor and to fight evildoers that the law can't touch. His foster father teaches him everything he needs to know to carry on his fight against crime, and although working within the police department, he has to keep his secret identity hidden from his friends, his sister the police officer, and his girlfriend as he stalks criminals in the night. He even wears a sort of costume when he works.
In such broad terms, Dexter could be seen as one of many non-super-powered comic book heroes. What makes the show interesting and transgressive, is, of course, that Batman probably never stripped his victims naked and secured them to tables with saran wrap, nor did he take such pleasure in vivisecting them with power tools.
I'm not sure if the Lindsay (the novelist) or the team behind the TV series intended it that way, but it's kind of an interesting perspective on the American myth of the superhero.
"Flow with the Go."
- Rickson Gracie