Dexter 10-1-6 Showtime *spoilers*

[BrooklynKnight]

I just finished watching Showtimes Dexter.

A new show about a miami serial killer that targets other serial killers at night, while holding down a Day Job working as a Miami PD Forensics Blood Splatter expert. Jeez, talk about liking your job.

The show is absolutly excellent. It really gets behind the mind of this particular serial killer. It makes you really like him, as weird as it sounds.

Due to some "event" in his youth Dexter is left with these unnatrual urges. His father a Miami PD Detective) detects these urges early on and tries to control them before they overtake his son. Eventually he discovers the urges cannot be stopped so he teaches Dexter to use them for "good". To kill people that deserve it.

Is Dexter really evil? Or is he just a poor damaged soul making the best of his life and trying to leave the world a better place.

Thats for you to decide.

I for one, am hooked!

 

[Lhorgrim]

When I saw the previews for this I was really interested. I have not gotten to watch it yet, but the extended previews have made me even more interested. I just think the premise is really cool. The way I understand it, Dexter will use different methods each time he kills someone in order to avoid detection.
I read somewhere that the series is based on a book or series of books, but I can't remember the name.

 

[KenM]

I'm interested in watching it but I don't have Showtime. Looks like I'll wait for the DVD. I have a feeling this show will cause alout of alignment discussion.

 

[BrooklynKnight]

It definatly brings up a lot of moral questions.

Is he LE, or CE? or CG?

He doesnt just kill someone, he investigates that particular killer with painstaking accuracy in his spare time to make sure without a shadow of a doubt he has the right person.

He confronts the individual with their crime, using torture (as indicated in the first episode both "victims" admit to their crime after one cut to the cheek) if you could call it that. THEN he kills them.

Each murder is painstakingly planned and arranged in advance. He uses everything his father taught him and everything he knows as a forensics detective to avoid detection and blend in to normal life.

So what is he? (lets keep this next question to the confines of the show and gaming ONLY please). If we can accept within D&D that killing evil things is a good act. What about in this psuedo reality? Is killing always evil? We "know" these people are guillty. DOES their guilt NEED to be "proven" by their peers before they can be killed or imprisoned in the name of good?

Hehe, this show makes my head tingle because of all the moral implications!

 

[Sir Brennen]

"It's an invitation to play. Oh, yes. I want to play."

I'll have to go with LE - would have probably ended up CE if his foster father hadn't intervened to help him "channel" his impulses.

No way he could be considered good in any context. The results of his killing may be to improve society by handling murderers that the police can't catch. But the motive behind the killings is... he *likes* to kill. He does so without regret. He lacks empathy (except for other killers). He's a sociopath. He knows he is. He's just a sociopath with well-defined boundaries. Who he kills is really just secondary.

edit: (As one reviewer of the book points out, his "conscience" is as much an artificial construct as his emotional facade. He doesn't have one, but he's learned how to act like he does.)

The personal justice/vengeance themes of D&D as well as most action movies is escapism, and we're allowed to think it's "okay" because we have the hero's back-story, his context, his circumstances. We as the audience know, as you say, who the bad guys are because we've been show they're the bad guys.

But IRL, you don't get to have that sort of information, and there are plenty of people who kill because they think they are "right", but are you going to just take their word for it that the person they killed deserved it? You need to have all the facts to make that call, and that's why we need due process of law.

As Dexter shows, vigilantes might easily be just as psychotic as the people they punish.

(There are plenty examples going on right now in the real world that also show why we need due process of law. If it's acceptable to allow individuals to perform such acts in the name of "good" outside the rules, then why would the government need to stay within the confines of the law doing things "for the good of the country"? That's all I'll say on that topic before I cross the "no politics" forum rule.)

 

[Sir Brennen]

I read somewhere that the series is based on a book or series of books, but I can't remember the name.

Darkly Dreaming Dexter and its sequel, Dearly Devoted Dexter. Looks like the Showtime series is following the first book pretty closely.

 

[Fast Learner]

I watched half of the episode but stopped and wiped it from my dvr. No question that the actor was good, as is the concept, but the body scenes were way too gruesome for me. I enjoy a fair bit of gore, but that was beyond what I can stand.

No judgement on those who were fine with it, of course, to each his or her own. It's just more than I can personally take.