Decidedly Disparate Dexter

When Jeff Lindsay first wrote Darkly Dreaming Dexter, he gave us a “hero” with an interesting twist. Dexter Morgan, forensics specialist for the Miami P.D. and all around nice guy, was a serial killer. Granted he only kills the bad guys, but still, killing people is a little screwed up no matter how much it may actually help society. Not long after the sequel Dearly Devoted Dexter dropped, word came down from on high that Dexter would be stalking his victims on television courtesy of Showtime.  Dexter fans became instantly excited, as well as nervous. That nervousness was dispelled in the fall of 2006 when Michael C. Hall first appeared on our screens as Dexter Morgan. The show’s first season was a fairly strict adaptation of Lindsay’s first book, with a few small differences and one giant one that helped change the course of the show. The first season brought to life a wonderful world with the help of a colorful cast (C.S. Lee’s Vince Masuka is my favorite) and has continued through four more seasons and just started its sixth.

Just a bit of warning before we proceed, there will be spoilers from here on out. Though the books may lack such wonderfully delightful characters as Miguel Prado, a Miami district attorney who for a time becomes Dexter’s partner in his nighttime rituals, or the startlingly creepy Trinity killer, played by the truly amazing John Lithgow, they have their own charmingly deviant group of villains that even includes a gang of ‘vampires’, human cannibals who file their teeth and feed their own delusions. The true difference between the villains of the show and the villains of the book is that many of the show villains actually find a way to work their way within Dexter’s walls for a while, most specifically season three’s Miguel Prado, and season two’s Lila. In the books Dexter never connects with a fellow killer except for his own brother Brian, whom he kills in the first season finale of the show, unfortunately severing what could have been a delicious future plot hook, but whom he spares in the book series much to the delight of the readers when he returns in the fifth book. Another difference here is the fact that one of the show’s villains, John Lithgow’s morbidly fascinating Trinity killer, kills Dexter’s wife Rita at the end of season four, while in the books she is still happily living, not knowing of Dexter’s deviant dalliances, with her ‘loving husband’.

As for the friends and family in Dexter’s dismal and dreary life, the main difference lies in the fact that in the television series they all have their own darkness and secrets which we know about because we get to see many scenes that are not from Dexter’s point of view. In the book series, limited as we are to Dexter’s point of  view, we only know about each character what Dexter knows about them, which isn’t always everything. In the show, Cody and Astor, Dexter’s stepchildren who are the children of his wife Rita, while moody and disruptive like any good nine year old and his teenaged sister should be, are still good children without any hint of Dexter’s deviant darkness. In the books, however, the two are much more like Dexter.  The beatings they were given by their father and  the violence they saw him commit have given them their own dark passenger, their own need to kill, and when Dexter realizes this he takes the two under his wing and begins to teach them the Code of Harry and the Way of the Knife.

On the show we get to see Dexter’s relationships with other women besides Rita. Season two’s Lila does not last long as a paramour, though, writing herself out of the picture when she attempts to murder Dexter and his soon-to-be stepchildren. The death of Rita in season four, as mentioned above, leads us to the two largest story points of season five:  Can Dexter maintain his killer lifestyle as a single father and just what exactly is his relationship with a young woman named Lumen? Lumen is season five’s love interest, a young woman who, by being the victim of a vicious gang rape, has her own dark need to kill. Dexter helps her learn how deal with her urge and along the way he falls in love with her. By showing  Dexter being involved with women other than Rita, the show offers a different look into Dexter’s emotional well being, or perhaps lack thereof. A last note while still on the subject of family and friends:  the show gives us a unique look into Dexter’s mind by way of his conversations with his conscience, which is portrayed by a hallucination of his foster father Harry.

Despite the fact that the two mediums have taken the same story and  gone completely different ways with it, they are both absolutely amazing. The show survives on the creepiness of Michael C. Hall’s Dexter and the wonderfully rich cast of supporting characters such as Angel Batista and Detective Joey Quinn. The show’s other trademark is of course its season-long villainous counterparts to our own dearly demented Dexter. The books are best in times of tense action, such as Dexter’s hunts or his confrontations with other killers, when Lindsay’s terse prose really has a chance to shine. The other joy of the books is watching Dexter’s life with his family continue to grow in strange new ways, a chance that the television show cruelly cuts short at the end of the fourth season with the death of his wife Rita.

With the show on one side and the book series on the other, many people are often confused about which one to get into. This often happens with other books turned into television shows, especially with George R.R. Martin’s Game of Thrones. The only advice that I’ve had for those who have come in and asked me that question is: Why not do both? I know time can be an issue, it is for all of us, but both universes are equally amazing and neither one should be missed. Dexter is a dark, creepy mass murderer who avenges those for whom the justice system cannot provide. Sure he’s a killer, but in either medium, amazing television show or outstanding book series, he is also a darkly demonic hero, and the world needs its heroes.