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| Dexter Morgan |
| Dexter character |
 |
| First appearance |
Book Series:
Darkly Dreaming Dexter
TV Series:
"Dexter" |
| Created by |
Jeff Lindsay, |
| Portrayed by |
Michael C. Hall |
| Information |
| Gender |
Male |
| Occupation |
Blood Spatter Analyst
Serial Killer |
| Family |
Joe Driscoll (father TV Series; deceased )
Laura Moser (mother TV Series; "deceased")
Harry Morgan (adoptive father; deceased)
Doris Morgan (adoptive mother; deceased)
Debra Morgan (adoptive sister)
Brian Moser (brother; deceased in TV Series) |
| Spouse(s) |
Rita Bennet Morgan (wife; deceased in TV series) |
| Children |
Astor Bennet (step-daughter)
Cody Bennet (step-son)
Harrison Morgan (son TV Series) |
The character is unusual in that he is a
serial killer, but also the
protagonist of the story, which is possibly why he has attracted so much attention as a character.
In 2006, the first novel was adapted into the television series
Dexter. The First Season had many similarities to the first book, however events in the following seasons veered away from the novels. Also, the writers altered Dexter's personality as the show continued, whereas this did not happen in the novel, but while there are many differences between the two characters, they are essentially the same person. In the TV series, Dexter is played by
Michael C. Hall, who won a
Golden Globe award in 2009 for Best Actor in a Television Series or Drama for his portrayal of Dexter Morgan in the fourth Season.
Character overview
Dexter Morgan is a
forensics blood spatter analyst for the
Miami Metro Police Department who lives a double life as an emotionless
vigilante serial killer.
[1][2] His foster father, Harry Morgan found out about his homicidal tendencies at an early age and taught him a Code by which to live, dubbed the "Code of Harry". It is based on a set of rules, crafted by Harry, which abide to the moral ambiguity of the kill, such as whether the person he chooses is deserving of death and taught him how to cover his tracks and not be found out. He teaches him to only kill those who have killed others, mainly those who have escaped the legal system.
[3]Character History
Early Life
Dexter Morgan, (then Dexter Moser), was born only a few years after Brian Moser by parents Laura Moser and Joseph Driscoll. His father was in the
US army and served in the
Vietnam War and later became a drug-addicted
criminal. His mother, Laura, was involved in the
drug trade and had a habit for painting her fingernails in different colours. Laura was a
police informant for Harry Morgan, Dexter's eventual
foster father and was also his lover, she was trying to get evidence against Santos Jimenez's boss. However, when Dexter was 3 years old, he and his brother Brian witnessed his mother die by the hands of three men (one of which was Santos Jimenez), along with 3 other people and was left, crying, in a pool of his mothers' blood in a shipping container, with his brother Brian. This is what led to his and his brothers'
sociopathy and violent tendencies. However, Dexter soon after repressed this memory but it would leave him mentally scarred emotionally disabled but only rememebers the ordeal later in his life (during Season 1). Brian, however, did not forget the massacre of his mother and was put in a
mental institution for disturbed children and also grows up to be a serial killer.
Harry Morgan was the first on the scene of the crime and took Dexter, guilt-ridden for breaking his promise that nothing would happen to Laura. However he leaves Brian, possibly because he wanted Dexter to forget his past, but according to Brian it was because he was too "messed up" to take. Harry adopted Dexter Moser and gave him the name Dexter Morgan. However later, when Dexter was 7, he spots Dexter's tendency to kill neighbourhood pets and presumes that Dexter is a
sociopath and a budding serial killer with an innate need to kill. From this point Harry starts to give Dexter a code and trains him to cover his tracks and to not get caught and also gives him a moral code by which to live by. He decides to channel Dexter's urges in a positive direction and teaches him to be cautious, meticulous and an efficient killer and most of all to never leave any clues. He also teaches the boy how to fake human emotions and the natural reactions that are expected of him. The central part of this code are to only kill those who are deserving of death, such as killers. He also taught him not to be a bully on the grounds that people remember bullies and constantly reminds him to blend in. Harry always tried to shield Dexter from his past and tried to make him forget the ordeal that he went through.
Slightly later, Dexter gets a large wound in his
abdomen whilst climbing over a fence to get Debra (his adoptive sister)'s football. Hereby Harry discovers that he has a very special
blood type and has to find a person with the same type, after searching for many alternatives he is forced to go to Dexter's biological father, a man who presumably blames Harry for the death of his girlfriend, Laura, and gets his blood for Dexter. Dexter still has a
scar from this event.
In Dexter's teenage years, Debra starts to become envious of the time that Harry spends with Dexter, feeling that she is left out when he takes Dexter hunting and not her, when really it is so that he can fuel his serial killing needs into killing animals on the hunt. She even goes as far as saying: "Sometimes I almost wish that he had never brought you home!" but apologizes for it soon after. Harry constantly has to remind Dexter of the code during these years and has to even go as far as to stopping him from lashing out at a bully at school once. Dexter, during his adolescence always questioned why he couldn't feel anything and whether later in life he would and even goes as far as standing at a high height and spreading out his arms in order to feel something, but ultimately does not manage to. Doris Morgan, his adoptive mother died of cance when he was 16. She had been suspicious of Dexter and was the one who suggested that he be tested by a psychologist. When he reaches a sexually mature age he realises that he is uninterested in the opposite, or indeed any, sex and therefore needs instruction by his father on how to act with women. He started studying
jujitsu at this age. Dexter was the top of his class in
medical school but gave it up to become a forensics expert.
When Dexter was 18, Harry fell ill of
coronary artery disease and was confined to a
hospital in which Harry spots a nurse, called Mary, who kills people by overdosing them on
morphine, whereby Harry gives Dexter his "permission" to kill her which would turn out to be his first kill. Here he embedded several ritualistic qualities to his kills which he would come to do again and again, such as the strapping of the victim to some sort of long and flat object, the covering of everything in sheets of plastic, the syringe injection to the victim, but his trademark blood-slide collection would not begin here, only later would he start that particular ritual.
Dexter's second victim was a murdering pimp called Juan Rinez. Juan was arrested but let off due to a faulty warrant and Harry is enraged by this fact and tries to convince himself that he was right in training him. However, when Dexter goes on to kill him, Harry accidentally walks in on him with the dismembered body parts of Juan Rinez and vomits and unbenknownst to Dexter, commits
suicide because he couldn't face up to the reality of what he had trained his son to do. Only later does Dexter discover this however.
His ritual of taking a blood slide from his victims would begin with Alex Timmons, a
child killer.
In Season 1
At the start of Season 1, it is obvious that Dexter has settled into a steady life of ritualistic killing doubled with his life as a
forensics blood splatter analyst. He is seen by his colleagues as a quirky lab geek and only one man, Sgt. James Doakes suspects him of being anything other than this. He maintains emotionless relationships in order to fit in with society and is constantly hunting for serial killers to satisfy his sadistic need to kill. At the start of the season, Brian, his long forgotten brother starts to send him friendly clues in the guise of messages as a form of friendly competition between them. He leaves
puzzles in order to maybe trigger Dexter's memory of his past, such as the prostitutes with painted fingernails in homage to Laura Moser's habit and a room filled with blood, to remind him of his "birthplace". During which, Brian befriends Debra in order to get close to him under the name of Rudy Cooper.
Meanwhile, Dexter struggles to keep his relationship with Rita sex-free, because he believes that if he has sex with her, she will feel his emotional dysfunctions and he starts to grow fond of her and doesn't want to blow it. Later, during a therapy session with Emmett Meridian (a future victim), he is put into a state of calm, wherein he remembers a small part of his past, seeing an image of a boy in blood. He becomes emotional and is able to sleep with Rita because of this, which makes the relationship more intimate. Come the end of the season, their relationship is very nearly normal.
Later on, Brian leaves a room filled with the
blood of prostitutes in order to remind him of his dark past and it opens up several memories of him in blood and later researches it and discovers that it was his mother whose blood he was in and that he not only has a brother but that his brother was with him during the massacre of his mother. But after Brian abducts his adoptive sister and tries to murder her, Dexter is forced to kill him for "the safety of his sister". Dexter is very nearly heartbroken by this because he has killed the one person who truly saw him for what he was and didn't turn away from him.
In Season 2
Dexter becomes distracted after the death of his brother and loses his ability to kill momentarily at the start of the season. He realises that this is because he needs to say goodbye to his brother and move on. From this point Dexter starts to become more in contact with his emotions, but still, by no means, emotionally adept. Debra, traumatised by her ordeal with the Ice Truck Killer, moves in with Dexter, much to his annoyance and hinders his killing even further. Also, his bodies are found and every person in his station start searching for the elusive "Bay Harbour Butcher", which is Dexter.
Doakes takes a huge personal interest in Dexter in season 2, suspicious of everything that he does. He tails him everywhere and confronts him on several occaisions. When Doakes gets closer to discovering who he is, he takes precautions to making sure that Doakes has no authority by getting him suspended. When Doakes catches Dexter in the act of transporting dismembered body parts, he is forced to encage him and goes through the process of framing him for his crimes.
His relationship with Rita starts to become very shaky and he is forced to admit (falsely) that he is a heroin addict in order to cover for his being a serial killer and he starts going to Narcotics Anonymous programs for her as part of her cover. When he starts dating his sponsor, Lila Tournay, the relationship ends and from Lila he learns how to pleasure a woman and interact with them. He eventually ends up killing her for her murder of James Doakes and other murders from arson. Dexter frames Doakes for his crimes, escapes the justice system and gets back with Rita at the end of the season.
At the very end of the season he decides to begin his own code and to try new methods, different to Harry's original idea and buys a new blood slide box (to replace the old one that had been confiscated by Miami Metro) and come the start of the third season he has filled it considerably.
In Season 3
In season 3, he is content with his life and enjoying his relationship with Rita until he discovers that she is pregnant. He is initially worried that the baby will turn out to be a serial killer just like him, but Debra talks him into it and he decides to be a part of the baby's life and after a few failed marriage proposals he gains inspiration from a fellow criminal and proposes to her and she accepts, with the permission of the children. He marries her at the end of the season, with a drop of blood on her dress signifying that his serial killing ways would eventually touch her life.
Meanwhile, Dexter forms an unlikely friendship with a man named Miguel Prado, a district attorney, after killing his brother and killing Freebo which Miguel catches him in the middle of. He pretends to be Dexter's friend and becomes a companion of him whilst using him throughout the season in order to gain information on how to kill people and get away with it and ends up being discovered by Dexter when he kills Ellen Wolf. They start playing a game of leverage and they both try to control each other but Dexter eventually decides to kill him.
In Season 4
In season 4, Dexter is constantly tired and becomes careless in his killing. He starts making mistakes and crashes his car causing him to temporarily get
amnesia. Throughout the season he stalks a killer called Arthur Mitchell, known by his colleagues as the
Trinity Killer. He tries to gain insight into how he has remained undetected in all the years that he has been killing and also tries to learn how to keep a family from him. Dexter feels that he can learn something from one of the most successful serial killers on the planet. He constantly tries to worm his way in to Arthur's life and is initially shocked when he finds out that he has a family and wonders how he does it but eventually discovers that he seriously mistreats his family and that he, Dexter, has a far better relationship with Rita and the children. He tries to protect Arthur's family and kills Arthur Mitchell when he tries to skip town but not before Arthur wreaks havoc upon Dexter's family.
His relationship with Rita in the season was very mixed. At times shaky and sometimes very strong, his love for her by now is concreted and he even admits (in a rare moment of emotion) that he would rather get caught than kill his family. He also appears to have a brilliant relationship (and always has) with Cody, although Astor's adolescence causes her to be distant. Come the end of the season he finds out that he wants to let his Dark Passenger go for a while and settle down for a honeymoon with Rita and is emotionally devastated to find his wife bled out in a bath tub with his child crying in his mother's blood and blames himself for her death. Saying about her death that:
"Harry was right. I thought I could change what I am, keep my family safe. But it doesn't matter what I do, what I choose... I'm what's wrong. This is fate." - Dexter Morgan, at the end of Season 4.
Personality and psychological profile
Dexter considers himself emotionally divorced from the rest of
humanity; in his
narration, he often refers to "humans" as if he is not one of them. He makes frequent references to an internal feeling of emptiness and says he kills to feel alive. He claims to have no feelings or
conscience, and that all of his emotional responses are part of a well-rehearsed act to conceal who — or
what — he really is. He has no interest in romance or sex; he considers his relationship with Rita to be part of his "disguise."
There are holes in Dexter's emotional armor, however. He acknowledges loyalty to family, particularly his late adoptive father: "If I were capable of love, how I would have loved Harry." Since Harry's death, Dexter's only family is his sister, Debra, Harry's biological daughter. At the end of the first novel, Dexter admits that he cannot hurt Debra or allow Brian to harm her because he is "fond of her." In the final episode of the TV show's second season, he finally admits that he needs the people in his life.
[4] In the fourth season, Dexter hunts a female police officer whom he discovered murdered her own husband and young daughter. While he is preparing to kill her, Dexter finds himself admitting that he does not want to lose his new family. He appears to be nearly overwhelmed by this emotional revelation, before quickly killing the woman.
Dexter likes children, finding them to be much more interesting than their parents. The flip side of this affection is that Dexter is particularly wrathful when his victims prey on children. In
Dearly Devoted Dexter, Dexter realizes that Rita's son Cody is showing the same signs of sociopathy as Dexter himself did at that age, and looks forward to providing him with "guidance" similar to that which Harry provided him; in his way, he sees Cody as his own son. This also gives him a reason to continue his relationship with Rita; in
Dearly Devoted Dexter, he gets engaged to her because of a misunderstanding (Rita finds a ring in Dexter's pocket that actually came from a severed finger). The beginning of the third book reveals that Cody is not the only one with violent impulses, as both children pressure Dexter to "teach" them. Dexter has come to accept his role as stepfather to both children very seriously in
Dexter in the Dark, albeit in his typical fashion. For example, while on a stakeout, he begins to wonder if Cody had brushed his teeth before bed and if Astor had set out her
Easter dress for photo-day at her school. These thoughts distract him from hunting an intended victim, which thoroughly annoys him. In the TV series, Dexter also takes a detour in his code of only killing murderers in order to dispose of a
pedophile who is
stalking Astor.
Animals don't like Dexter, which can cause noise problems when Dexter stalks a victim who has pets. He once owned a
dog that barked and growled at him until he was forced to get rid of it and a
turtle that hid in its shell until it died of starvation rather than having to deal with him.
Modus operandi
Dexter's
modus operandi serves not only to maximize the satisfaction he derives from his victims, but to minimize, if not eliminate, any forensic clues and evidence, and ensure that he does not target innocents. Dexter spends a significant amount of time selecting each victim according to his adoptive father's code, following them to learn their routines and (in the TV series only) meets them prior to killing them to establish if they are likely to kill again. He then ritually prepares a kill site, located in a place that would fit the way in which they lived (e.g. killing a boxer in a boxing ring and a gambler in a Casino's storage shed), completely enclosed in clear plastic
tarpaulin to catch all spilled blood so as to leave no signs of the murder, often adorning it with evidence or photos of his victim's crimes, and in some cases the actual exhumed corpses of their victims.
The actual capture of his victims differs between the books and the television series. In the television series it usually entails approaching the victim from behind and injecting them with an
anesthetic (specified to be an animal
tranquilizer called
etorphine hydrochloride, or M99), which renders his victims temporarily unconscious.
[5] The injection is a tradition established with his first victim, the hospital nurse.
[6] He uses the alias
Patrick Bateman (the serial killer protagonist of
Bret Easton Ellis'
American Psycho) to procure these tranquilizers.
[5] Other times, Dexter incapacitates his target by using either his hands or a
garrote to cut off blood flow to the brain. In the books, as in the opening scene in the television series'
pilot episode, he hides in the back seat of his victim's vehicle, then wraps a noose of fishing line around his victim's throat when they sit down. In the books, Dexter always wears a mask to keep them from identifying him, while in the show he doesn't wear a mask at all. He then uses the threat of
asphyxiation to force his victim to drive them to his prepared kill site. This was only used once in the Television series with the very first kill of the series -- a pedophiliac preacher.
Once they arrive, he will either strangle them into unconsciousness or use the noose to drag them to the kill site proper. In such cases he anesthetizes them once he has informed them of his judgment. When victims awaken, they are naked and secured to a table with plastic wrap and, for stronger victims, duct tape. If he has not already done so, he confronts them with narrative evidence of their crimes. In the novels, the method usually involves an extended "exploration" with various sharp knives; in the television series, Dexter's favored method usually involves an immediately fatal wound to the heart, neck, or gut, with a variety of weapons. He occasionally varies his methods to fit particular victims; he kills Brian by cutting his throat with a silverware dinner knife;
[7] he stabs gang lord
Little Chino in the chest with a
machete;
[8] and impales
Lila West with a knife.
[4] He also kills his mother's killer, Jimenez Santos, in the same manner in which his mother was killed; by dismembering him with a chainsaw.
Just before the murder, Dexter collects trophies from his victims so he can relive the experience. Dexter's trophy signature is to slice the victim's cheek with a surgical scalpel underneath the victim's right eye and to collect a small blood sample, which he preserves between two laboratory slides. In the TV show, Dexter keeps blood slides from all his victims neatly organized in a wooden filing box, which he hides inside his air conditioner; in the novels he keeps them in a
rosewood box on his bookcase.
Ultimately, he dismembers the bodies of his victims into several sections, wraps them and the plastic sheeting in
biodegradable garbage bags, then adds rocks from the dock where he keeps his boat as anchor weight and seals them with duct tape. He then takes the wrapped bags out on his boat and disposes of them by dumping them overboard into the ocean at a defined location; in the TV series, his dumping ground is a small
oceanic trench just offshore. In one episode, it is inadvertently discovered by scuba divers, so he changes tactics, taking the bodies further offshore, where they will be intercepted by the
Gulf Stream and carried out to sea. In the books, lesser detail is placed on his methods, with Dexter usually improvising depending on the victim. He has dumped some victims into the ocean due to the victim owning a boat and doing the same with his victims, but uses anchors to weight the bags. Another is disposed of by dumping the body in a vat of
hydrochloric acid.
Biological family
Both the television show and first novel in the series reveal that Dexter and his older brother Brian were trapped as children in a storage container at the docks in
Miami, Florida, for two days. They were surrounded by corpses, starving, and sitting in a puddle of blood. One of the corpses was their mother. A small-time criminal had murdered her with a
chainsaw, something which both Dexter and Brian had witnessed. Dexter was adopted by the investigating detective, Harry Morgan, while Brian was left to the
child welfare system. Dexter does not find this out until he is an adult, when he encounters his brother at the end of a homicide investigation. His joining of the Morgan family is somewhat different in the books. Harry is never identified as the investigating officer who found Dexter. The show also deviates from the books by portraying the boys' mother as a police informant with whom Harry was having an affair at the time of her death. At the end of the first novel, it is implied that Harry knew about Dexter having a brother, but chose not to adopt him because he was older and more likely to be traumatized; however, it is never directly stated. In the TV series both Brian and Tom Matthews, Harry's best friend and former superior, say this to be true.
In the novels, Dexter's brother is known simply as Brian; when Dexter was little, he had trouble saying Brian, so he called his brother "Biney". In the television series, Dexter's mother's name is Laura Moser.
[9][7]In the TV series his father's name is given as Joe Driscoll; however, Dexter cannot find any record of a Joe Driscoll's existence before 30 years ago.
[10] The lone point of contact between father and son comes when a young Dexter sends his father a thank you card for a
blood transfusion he received after an accident (it is revealed that Dexter has a rare
blood type, AB Negative).
[10] As Harry convinced Driscoll to donate the blood secretly, Dexter had no idea where it had come from.
[10] It is implied that Brian murdered Driscoll with an injection of
insulin to mimic a
heart attack, as it is revealed that Driscoll had been visited by a
cable repair man prior to his death, and an elderly neighbor recognizes Brian as the repairman (and is afterwards "visited" by him, in order to silence her).
[10] However, the body is
cremated before Dexter can obtain proof.
[10] Near the end of the first book Brian and Dexter meet in a storage container similar to the one they were held in as children, and Brian recounts what happened. He says that one of the bodies they were surrounded by could have been their father for all they knew.
In the novel, Brian escapes Miami after killing Laguerta and so far never reappeared in the books. In the shows, however, Dexter catches and tearfully kills his brother, knowing he would never stop trying to kill Deborah or other innocent people.
The "Dark Passenger"
Dexter Morgan is driven to kill to satisfy an inner voice he calls "the Dark Passenger." When that voice can no longer be ignored, he "lets the Dark Passenger do the driving".
In
Dexter in the Dark, the third novel of the series, it is revealed through third person narrative of an entity referred to as "IT" that the Dark Passenger is an independent agent inhabiting Dexter, rather than a
deviant psychological construction. Later, Dexter realizes the Dark Passenger is related to
Moloch, a
Middle Eastern deity worshipped in
Biblical times. The Dark Passenger is one of Moloch's many offspring; Moloch had many children (formed through
human sacrifice), and learned to share its knowledge with them. Eventually, there were too many, and Moloch killed the majority; however, some of them escaped into the world. In the novel, Dexter learns of the Dark Passenger's true nature when it briefly "leaves" him, frightening him into researching possible reasons for its existence.
Critical Reception
The character of Dexter Morgan has been given mostly positive reviews and
Michael C. Hall has been highly praised for his performance, winning many awards. The
New York Daily News said of the character that it was "a central character and performance that takes your breath away." The Hollywood Reporter noted that "Hall... is brilliant at conveying the subtle complexity of Dexter."
The Detroit Free Press said that "Hall invests strange, demented Dexter with real heart and humanity." The Variety said that "Michael C. Hall's portrayal of the title character remains a towering achievement, one that eclipses the show's other shortcomings and rough patches." and gave it's review of season 2, 70/100. The
San Francisco Chronicle said of the actor that "the allure of the series always has been and always will be Hall, who manages to make a killer (who kills only people who deserve it, mostly) likable, believable, engaging and funny." giving the show in season four 100%.
References
- ^ "Meet Dexter Morgan, personable serial killer, in offbeat debut.". The Miami Herald (via Knight-Ridder/Tribune News Service) (August , 2004). http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-8635154_ITM. Retrieved 2008-03-05.
- ^ "'Dexter' delivers dark, lively thrills". USA today. http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/reviews/2004-08-11-dexter-darkly-dreaming_x.htm. Retrieved 2008-03-05.
- ^ "Character profile". New York Times. 2006-10-01. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/01/arts/television/01mitc.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin. Retrieved 2007-10-21.
- ^ a b "The British Invasion". Dexter. Showtime. 2007-10-14. No. 9, season 2.
- ^ a b "Return to Sender". Dexter. Showtime. 2006-11-05. No. 06, season 1.
- ^ "Popping Cherry". Dexter. Showtime. 2006-10-15. No. 03, season 1.
- ^ a b "Born Free". Dexter. Showtime. 2006-12-17. No. 12, season 1.
- ^ "Waiting to Exhale". Dexter. Showtime. 2007-10-07. No. 02, season 2.
- ^ "Truth Be Told". Dexter. Showtime. 2006-12-10. No. 11, season 1.
- ^ a b c d e "Father Knows Best". Dexter. Showtime. 2006-11-26. No. 9, season 1.
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