How many individuals has Dexter Morgan killed?

This text incorporates spoilers for “Dexter” and “Dexter: New Blood”.

“Tonight is the nice evening. And it will occur many times. It has to occur.” These opening traces thanks the pilot episode of “Dexter”, wherein blood splatter specialist Dexter Morgan (Michael C. Corridor) circulates whereas mendacity in wait. What units this collection other than most police procedurals is the direct positioning of Dexter as a morally complicated character, a killer who (largely) murders different killers who’ve managed to flee the justice system. Nonetheless, this ethical positioning begins to crumble as soon as his meticulous plans start to spiral uncontrolled and jeopardize the false id he has painstakingly constructed through the years. This pressure between our intimate information of Dexter’s biased vigilantism and the rising suspicions about his crimes offers “Dexter” the sting it must develop into the tense, thrilling character-centered procedural that it’s.

That stated, even the best shows get lostand “Dexter” fumbles and makes questionable storytelling decisions in its last seasons. To treatment this, “Dexter: New Blood” was provided as a deal with to longtime followers, the place the story picks up 10 years after the unique collection finale, in which Dexter (apparently) faked his death. “New Blood” provides a contemporary begin for Dexter, who appears to have suppressed his killer instincts in favor of an earthly existence, removed from the scenes of crime. Nonetheless, the “Darkish Passenger” (the conceptual personification of his trauma) inside him is destined to awaken as soon as he’s compelled to confront the previous, and “New Blood” proves that previous habits and impulses have life laborious.

This could come as no shock, however Dexter has killed individuals. A number of individuals. He is a serial killer with an elaborate modus operandi designed to evade detection, and even a few of his extra spontaneous killings illuminate a longtime worldview. How many individuals has Dexter killed? The reply is 149.

Private definitions of justice can shortly develop into a slippery slope as soon as intentions and egos go unchecked. It isn’t unusual to match Dexter’s (self-perceived) ethical superiority to that of Gentle Yagami from “Dying Observe”, who begins sincerely believing that killing criminals who escape the system is morally justified. Gentle’s standards for utilizing the Dying Observe could also be extra arbitrary and egocentric than Dexter’s traumatic quest to develop into a vigilante serial killer, however each undergo from the identical twisted, inflated morality that conveniently bypasses self -exam. Whereas Light’s intentions turn into megalomania and an obsession with enjoying God, Dexter’s interpretation of Harry’s Code spirals more and more uncontrolled as soon as his ethical compass (or lack thereof) is named into query.

Not the entire 149 individuals Dexter killed participated in his killing ritual, wherein he reimagines the murders as an providing to harmless victims, whose recollections and private belongings are reworked into objects of reverence. There are murders exterior of Harry’s Code, the place he focused individuals who hadn’t killed anybody earlier than, comparable to killing Oscar Prado in self-defense and performing a mercy killing on Camilla Figg . There have been occasions when Dexter mistakenly killed an harmless individual, like Jonathan Farrow, whose assistant, Timothy, turned out to be the true killer.

Dexter’s urge to kill is an impulse attributable to childhood trauma, and the Code is a technique to rationalize these needs with as few victims as attainable. Nonetheless, it’s unattainable to extract private justice from private vengeance, as the 2 usually go hand in hand: this has led to personally motivated killings all through the collection. Examples embody his brother, Brian Moser, who murdered intercourse employees for years, and Arthur Mitchell/The Trinity Killer, whose strategies he admired for years.

At the end of “Dexter: New Blood”, Dexter realizes that his code is flawed and {that a} vigilante should be judged by the identical requirements that apply to the murderers he killed. If you wish to know extra about Dexter, you should definitely take a look at the prequel collection “Dexter: Unique Sin,” which premiered on December 13, 2024 on Paramount+ with Showtime.