Dexter

[hanshansen]

I downloaded Season 1 a couple of weeks ago and have started watching it. (No TV.)

Has this show struck a chord with anyone else here? It's resonated more with me than any number of coming-out movies.

Yeah, I know at bottom it's sentimental feel-good entertainment with a veneer of edginess, but still ...

I'm watching this series and thinking: this is what it feels like to be me. Not the urge to kill and the lack of empathy, obviously. But the feeling that at some level other people don't get you and you don't get them. The uncertainty whether what you're feeling is at all like what other people are feeling in the same situation. The feeling of hanging somewhere close to the ceiling and watching you and other people in the room going about your business. Talking to super-friendly people and smiling and making the right noises and thinking, if only you knew all the stuff that you can't see. The desire for the human feelings and connections that other people seem to be able to tap into and the feeling of victory when you do discover an unfamiliar response in yourself or when you see it in someone's eyes and body language that you've made that connection.

At least, this is what it felt like to be me for years. It's got a lot better. And with a not too large number of people, I don't feel like that any more, at all.

The thing is, we're not serial killers. We do have feelings which have something in common with the feelings of a lot of other people. And presumably a reasonable number of normal Americans have a bit of Dexter in them as well, otherwise the show wouldn't be commercially viable.

 

[levenshulme31]

Hmm. Dexter is one of my favourite programmes at the moment. Just started on season 2.

Can't say I ever pitched it as sentimental.

I think I know what you mean about the detatched nature of Dexter. I feel remote from people myself sometimes (though without the psychpopathic hobby)

 

[G-Lexington]

Watched a couple episodes. It really didn't do anything for me.

Mr Tran, however, kicks ass.

"BEAN CUP!!!"

Lex

 

[chipity]

I always liked the beginning of Season 1, Episode 5:

[Dexter looking at the sky as the camera circles round, palm trees in the background, minimalistic piano in background]

Dexter, voiceover: "I like to pretend I'm alone. Completely Alone. Maybe post-Apocalypse or plague. Whatever, no one left to act normal for. No need to hide who I really am. It would be... freeing"

[snap back to reality, we see the crime scene in the background]

Sergeant Doakes: "Stop grinning like a fucking psycho and get back to work"

Dexter: "Sorry sergeant, I was just waiting for forensics to wrap up before I tear the bed apart"

 

[Georgiadude]

I really like the show. I became an instant fan after watching it once. I can't afford Showtime right now so I have to catch up on free weekends or rent the season series when it comes out. I thought I had heard they were going to bring it to broadcast tv but I haven't heard anything for a long time. I'm sure some group got their panties in a bunch over the nature of the show and the networks folded. Too bad if that's what happened. I would love to be able to watch the series as it unfolds instead of having to wait. I hate being poor.

 

[hanshansen]

Can't say I ever pitched it as sentimental.

Come on ... the father-son bonding? The brother-sister bonding? Rita and the kids - they're every Dexter's ultimate fantasy.

Sentimental might be too strong - but this show has a soft and gooey centre.

 

[levenshulme31]

It is a little odd to feel sympathy for Dexter given what he does.

I think it is my dark sense of humour - like laughing at Pulp Fiction when Jules shoots the kid in the back seat of the car.

Oh, Lex, that's DOCTOR Tran. Tsk Tsk.

 

[Martkell2007]

I love this show. It has a cool mix of wit, humor, and irony.

 

[newcastle]

*Spoilers ahead, don't read if you plan on watching the show*
First of all he fakes it with the people he seems to care for an extent only for his own benefit. He finds a need to protect them but he doesn't live in the same reality that they do at all. He sees their happiness only vicariously which helps hide his overall evil... He draws connections only through a sociopath's level as to what benefit does this relationship hold for benefiting himself... Don't kid yourself with his connection to anything in the show, he had a strong connection to his brother yet that was pushed behind the fact that the brother being dead benefited Dexter far more than it would to keep him alive. His facade of a life is comfortable for him and he will fight for it at any cost as it holds a strong shield to what he really is (why he frames his girlfriend's ex to get him back in jail, for example)...

Yet I associate with him just as much as one of my best friends in that we have to fake it all of the time... He has to fake it in his respect, and I also have to fake it in my own, which includes the reason i came to this site of course. That is why the show is so appealing is that Dexter has to fake it in all aspects of his life to a sociopath's extent and we have smaller faking it which usually refers to liking work or coworkers, acquaintances, or liking family members etc. The appeal is in how he has to associate in aspects of his life fit exactly with many of our own. (With-out the killing of course-which is what draws people to the show in the first place and what makes the show so macabre in its entirety.)

 

[tdot3304]

I love Dexter and completely relate to him on some level. Not so much on wanting to kill people! Just the fact that as someone who is still in the closet. I've got this big secret that keeps me distant from many of my friends and family.

That and Michael C. Hall = Hot