Dexter - a show that didn't understand moral dilemmas

Hey everyone! Thanks for watching my video. I made it a couple years ago but the majority of the attention it's gotten has been very recent, which has been an awesome surprise. I've been reading through the comments, which I really appreciate, and I keep seeing two that I wanted to address... First, people can't believe that I don't give season four more credit. And I get it. John Lithgow was incredible. The whole season was. I rank it only behind seasons 2 and 7, for reasons I explain in the video, and season 1, which is a sentimental favorite. Second, a lot of people are upset that I spoiled the ending of Murder on the Orient Express. I don't get this one. The whole video is about moral dilemmas, so I was comparing the two big ones on Dexter with ones from other stories. It's kind of impossible to compare dilemmas without discussing what happens during them. And I put a spoiler warning at the start of the video. So my question is, are people missing the spoiler warning, or do some people not understand what a spoiler warning is? I don't mean for that to sound snarky. I'm seriously asking. If the spoiler alert is too quick then I'll make it longer going forward because I don't want to spoil anything.   I appreciate any feedback here.  Thank you again so much. Dave Oh, I forgot to mention that yes, I do mispronounce episodic, as so many people have been nice enough to point out. LOL. Please keep roasting me for it;-)

I have this rule. Don't write dark stories if you're scared of dark implications. The writers of Breaking Bad understood this. Writers of Bojack Horseman knew this. The writers of Dexter did not.

Truly, the biggest mistake in the series is that the code should have been: Don't get caught. Don't kill the innocent. Stay away from small town cops armed with the power of google.

Good point! Never bail your characters out of their moral dilemmas.

Okay but Doakes going to prison after being framed by Dexter and trying to convince everyone of the truth would have been such a perfect escalation for their antagonism: Doakes has gone from being able to freely pursue the truth about Dexter, to being in full possesion of the truth but unable to do anything about it. It would also be a great escallation from the previous dilema where Dexter framed his girlfriends ex husband, showing him developing new codes/patterns of behaviour for new situations, and how impossible it is for a strict set of rules to be applied to a variety of situations with an equal moral outcome. The stakes would have been raised because any slip up on Dexters part would cooberate Doakes story. You could also have a character like Angel, who had significant emotional beats with both of them, put in the middle of the fight and have him start to question what actually happened. Theres just so much potential for where the story could go from there its such a waste of potential.

When I watched Dexter I always liked to think that he wasn't actually a psychopath and that he was just a disturbed child poorly raised by his disillusioned Dad. There were so many instances where he seemed to have convinced himself that he couldn't feel but he clearly could... Then they went and scanned his brain and destroyed any question

You didn’t mention the ultimate moral dilemma in Poirot, where in the finale he is unable to prove that the killer is guilty so he kills him and then out of the guilt of becoming a murderer he doesn’t take his heart medicine so he would have a heart attack, effectively killing himself as punishment.

"He's now a lumberjack and he's Okay"

I think the perfect solution to this problem would have been to keep the course of events the same, but with Dexter resolving that he’d have to kill him with that not having to happen. The fact that he knows he would have done it will have still shaken him to his core, and the technicality of him not actually doing it but still being torn up over it keeps him a sympathetic character from the POV of the audience while not canceling out the effect of the dilemma.

The interesting thing is that Dexter did break his code, but they never touched on it. In season 5 when he’s reeling from Rita’s murder he kills a random guy at a rest stop. Sure they made it seem like he was unsavory and possibly could’ve fit the code, but there was no way Dexter could’ve known that for sure. Instead it’s undone by the introduction of Lumen and the code being reinvigorated in Dexter. Could you imagine if that first few episodes it showed Dexter hunting outside of his code, maybe actually targeting an innocent and then maybe that leads him to Lumen and it actually gives him a reason to use the code again.

“Why isn’t Dexter allowed to be bad, HE’S A SERIAL KILLER” I love that quote. Killing Doakes made so much narrative sense to me. He finds out in the episodes before that Harry finally saw what the code has wrought and couldn’t live with himself. Dexter should have the thought that if Harry didn’t respect the code, why should he? The rules were so vague that Harry never considered when the 2 rules became mutually exclusive. Dexter could say Doakes deserved because of his vigilante Justice toward the Haitian in S1. Hell, he killed and would kill for a lot less. But unfortunately the writers thought we would riot if the serial killer killed someone and gives Dexter a convenient out and then the chickens take 4 seasons to roost because he forgot a blood slide (something he’d never do) only to do the same song and dance again, fuck it.

YES, this perfectly explains why season 2 was so exciting and then so disappointing. It made me hate Dexter that he got everything he wanted, by doing absolutely nothing, then punished Lyla for it by killing her at the end, as if she wasn't his easy way out for the most compelling problem of the show so far. Everything leading up to that ending had been so delightful but it made me lose all interest I had in continuing. This really put it into words. Also same, Jane's death was so harrowing that even expecting the worst, it was so shocking I didn't know how to live with it for a second there. It's amazing how Walt is so awful yet I don't feel cheated by his actions the way I felt cheated by Dexter

5:25 Reminds me of the Doctor Who Quote “Sometimes, the only choices you have are bad ones, but you still have to choose.”  Funnily enough, this is in the Orient Express episode!

Maybe the problem was trying to imply that there was a moral dilemma in the first place. Dexter never truly had a code. He had his father's code. He held onto it because of how it served him. It allowed him to move freely in the world, feeling good about himself, indulging his worst impulses, with people still holding him in high esteem. I think his real dilemma was more of an identity crisis... He seemed to have a serious case of imposter syndrome because he could never really be himself and was afraid to try. It's pretty telling that others had to do the really "dirty" work for him. In some ways I think that was the real moral test, which he obviously failed. Especially when Deb, a deeply feeling person, was the one to "take care of" Maria. I haven't watched the series in years, though. This was a nice reminder to rewatch!

Killing Doakes would've broke his code, but there was enough gray there to have the character justify it in the moment. He talks about how Doakes shoots a lot of suspects and how he's not 100% innocent, given his past, and that's absolutely true. Killing Doakes would've led to some interesting character development for Dexter as he struggled with that choice for the rest of the series. Instead, as you said, it was a return to the status quo. The interesting thing about LaGuerta is that he couldn't even half-heartedly justify that killing. And he ends up running anyway in the end. It feels like the writers made it way harder on themselves than it needed to be just to allow Dexter to remain a "good guy". When the whole point of the series was (or at least should've been) that Dexter is not at all a good guy. Dexter is a puzzling series when it comes to the writing. Some of it is astonishingly well written (even, as you said, when they go off-book) and then some is so amateurishly written it shocks me that people were getting paid to write it.

I just stopped after season 2 of Dexter, and I could never put into words why. Just felt like a good ending to the show. You've put the reason into words fantastically!

It's very strange how the show refuses to accept the absurdly obvious reality that a "good guy serial killer" is paradoxical and impossible. He's not killing as a means to an end to rid the world of evil people, he's finding evil people as a means to the end of fulfilling his urge to murder. Harry's code doesn't work because you might identify bad guys incorrectly, disproportionately administer death to someone who didn't deserve such a severe punishment, or get caught and be forced to act in self preservation. Instead of writing Dexter the character with his code against the reality of the universe and letting it hit its natural conflicts, they molded the universe around Dexter to allow him to kill people for pleasure and get away with it.

9:00 Might have been interesting if Dexter had realized that Lila was going to find Doakes and now had to make the choice: 1) Stop Lila, leaving him with the same dilemma about how to deal with Doakes. 2) Let Lila fix his problem for him, technically following the code, but also knowing full well that he pulled a fast one.

The thing about Dexter's "moral code" that allows him to be a vigilante killer while still considering himself a good person is that it's a facade, and always was. It was a lie he told himself time and time again because the ugly truth was always that he kills because he wants to. There are several points throughout the show where Dexter's true nature shows itself when he's backed into a corner. Had season 2 stuck to its guns and had Dexter commit to that choice -- had he killed Doakes to protect himself -- then season 3 could have been the start of his downward spiral. Dexter would have no idea what to think of himself, and he would have to wrestle with everything that's just been outlined, until eventually things came to a head, and he accepted what he really was. We would see a version of Dexter without this false sense of justice telling him that what he's doing is okay, and he would start killing anyone he wanted to without remorse, which would inevitably cause the perfect little life he built around himself to crumble. Fans might not have liked this--because a lot of people seem to misunderstand Dexter and consider him some kind of hero--but I think that would have been the best direction to take here.

I really love how Barry handled similar themes basically perfectly.