After having lost all interest in CSI, I stopped doing episode reviews. But there is this other show that’s forensic science related, something called Dexter. Now I don’t have Showtime, so I pretty much know nothing about the show. The combination of repeated recommendations by Dexter enthusiasts, and a general lack of things to watch on TV, my wife and I decided to give Dexter a try.
Finding season one wasn’t easy, but I picked up a triple pack of the first three seasons. Last night my wife and I watched the first two episodes. For those of you who don’t watch, a BRIEF summary of what we’ve learned:
Dexter is adopted. Dexter was adopted by a police officer. Dexter liked to kill animals at a young age, and had urges to kill people. Dexter’s cop father decided to encourage Dexter to channel those urges towards people who “deserve it”. Dexter was taught how to “cover is tracks” by his father. Dexter is a blood spatter forensic expert for Miami-Dade PD. Dexter has extremely poor interpersonal skills. Dexter “fakes” his interactions with other people, in order to appear normal. Dexter has NO interest in sex. Dexter is a sociopath.
OK. So far so good. I can get behind that. Basically it’s a CSI show flipped backwards. He uses his “forensic skills” to kill killers. In doing so he satiates his perverse need to kill people (I imagine some day we’ll find out what happened to him as a kid to screw him up), and rids society of bad people.
OK. One thing. I’d LOVE to be a full-time blood spatter expert working for a municipal agency. There is no way it could be a full time job.
Another bonus is that I’m not all that into blood spatter analysis. So I can enjoy the show and not catch EVERY LITTLE technical error in the show.
So between character developing flashbacks and a nicely done narrative by our main character, we are beginning to learn about Dexter. One would imagine having a sociopathic working for your police department, that can really “think like a serial killer” because he IS a serial killer would come in handy.
In both episodes Dexter is enamored? by a serial killer who is leaving behind victims bodies that are but into fragments. Three sections to the legs for example. The odd thing though is that there is no blood at all in the bodies, or at the scene. This of course freaks our friend Dexter out, because he LOVES blood.
Eventually he figures out or serial killer is using a refrigerated truck to kill his victims (all prostitutes), so that the cold will slow the blood flow. As luck would have it, Dexter happens to run into the exact truck late one night on his way to his girlfriends house (right after killing another serial killer). Dexter follows the truck, and gets a severed head that was missing from the latest victim.
When Dexter returns home he discovers someone has been in his apartment. He finds the head of a plastic doll on his freezer door, and a cut up plastic doll (cut in the same manner as the prostitutes) in his freezer, laid out just like the prostitutes were. One hand of the doll has the finger nails painted a particular series of colors. Basically the serial killer is challenging Dexter.
The freezer truck is located by Dexter’s foster sister who is a cop working vice (soon to be homicide). The truck is clean of all evidence, save for a block of ice which contains five severed fingertips. The cops figure the killer is taunting them, because now they can identify the body from fingerprints. Dexter knows the killer is actually taunting him, because the fingernails were painted in the exact same sequence as the doll hand.
Later in the show, the doll head is placed back on his freezer door, and the doll body has been removed. Dexter is enjoying his new playmate.
Throughout the course of the show, Dexter manages to track down, and kill 3 or 4 other serial killers. He has a particular ritual. He injects them with a drug that paralyzes them, then strips them naked, binds them down with strips of cellophane wrap, cuts their right cheek with a scalpel, collects a blood drop, puts it on a slide (which he keeps in his collection contained in a wooden slide box hidden away behind/above his apartment A/C unit), kills them, cuts up the bodies, and disposes of them. It’s all very dark and gruesome. A little dark for me and the wife. I think the director could have accomplished a better effect with a “less is more” approach. Leave more to the imagination of the viewer kind of thing.
One part of the show that did resonate with me, was when a particular detective (the only one who senses Dexter is a freak), gives Dexter a series of photographs of the blood spatter from a case dubbed the “Cocaine Killer”, and tells Dexter the killings are a drug deal gone wrong and I your report is going to say as much. Of course Dexter looks things over, and later reports to the detective and the detective’s lieutenant (who has a thing for Dexter – ewww) that the “Cocaine Killer” offed the husband quick and easy, but took his time with the wife. Therefore the killer is an ex-boyfriend of the wife.
Apparently I have REALLY missed out on my forensic training. I’ve never been sat down and been taught how to psychologically understand the physical evidence. But regardless, Dexter is right, the detective is pissed.
It resonated with me because I had a case where I was asked to look at bullets recovered from autopsy. There were two different kinds of projectiles. Each had specific design aspects, that allowed me to identify what make/brand of ammunition they were. This information was passed along to the detective in charge of the investigation. A while later, said detective arrived in the lab with a request for analysis, a copy of my original report, and a firearm with loaded magazine in a plastic evidence bag. He beamed confidently he had his gun. Look! It has the right kind of ammunition mixed in the magazine.
I confirmed that the mix of ammunition was indeed the same. I then looked at the muzzle of the firearm, where I could see the ends of the rifling, read over my original report, and sadly informed the detective he might have the right guy, but this isn’t the right gun. The rifling was all wrong.
The detective looked like I had run over his favorite dog. He then got playfully angry. Saying that at least the guys down the hall in questioned documents OPEN the evidence bag before telling me I’m an idiot. I said I’d open his bag, work the evidence, enter test fires into NIBIN, give him a written report, but next time if he has a specific result in mind when he submits evidence, he needs to include an answer-key with his request for analysis.
We all had a laugh.
For my wife and I the jury is out on Dexter. I’m cautiously optimistic. My wife is regretting the money spent on the DVD set. So just in case we don’t end up liking the series, this blog entry is my justification for claiming the DVDs off as a tax deduction!
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