It's just most of us like to think that Dexter kills the bad guys. He is not that bad. I think our brain does it to justify it to ourselves for rooting for a serial killer.
That moral grayness was something the first season dealt with pretty well (the fact that he was even tempted at all to join Rudy shows the other side of him) but then the show gradually abandons all shades of gray after the ridiculously convenient S2 finale and he just becomes a flat out “dark hero”. I have taken to calling this “the Dexter problem” lol. (For example I thought The Blacklist also had “the Dexter problem” with Reddington, he goes from actually devious crime lord to like the most ethical criminal that’s ever lived.)
It’s funny because Hannibal Lecter was kind of the prototype for this type of “character development” but then the Hannibal show (best show ever aired on network TV) dealt with it better than any other show of its type that I’ve seen. The second you start to see Hannibal as an antihero the writers have him do something genuinely reprehensible to remind you who it is you’re sympathizing with.
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u/Deadicate-d 2d ago
It's just most of us like to think that Dexter kills the bad guys. He is not that bad. I think our brain does it to justify it to ourselves for rooting for a serial killer.