Rooting For A Serial Killer

To tell the truth, I had never even heard of the TV show Dexter before I moved into the Testosterhome and several of my roommates had started watching it. Maybe that was because I had never had the luxury of Showtime as a channel option.

Since that first contact, I have definitely become engrossed. Granted, I have only seen probably 70% of the first two seasons, but I am trying to get around to more. Maybe I'll even catch up with where the show is now?

When I started to get involved in the show, I had to ask myself "Why are you rooting for a serial killer?" It would be easy to play the "he only kills bad people" card, but that's not his goal. Dexter doesn't kill because he wants bad people gone, he kills because he is screwed up and needs to satiate his desire for killing in some semi-socially-acceptable manner.

I have been thinking about this for a while, and a recent Paste article essentially coalesced my thoughts. I like Dexter because he's jacked up in the head. In one sense, I like him because he's more obviously jacked up than I am, but we are both really screwed up and really fallen.

Sure, my brokenness isn't manifested in a life-long systematic murder rampage, but what about a life-long systematic lust binge? Or my repeated instances of pride and anger. Or my ignorance of those in need around me?

I like Dexter (the show) because while it places a semi-psychotic serial killer in the position of protagonist and therefore the position of favor, the show never attempts to glorify, deify or in any way support his killing habits. Dexter himself wonders if he is a monster, if he should bring an end to it, if he can bring an end to it.

I like Dexter, the man, because he shows me a lot of myself. What does an seemingly insurmountable urge inherent in a man's psyche do when it is given full control?

So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil is right there. I enjoy what God has decreed as right (his law) in my heart and soul, but I see in my flesh another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that lives in my flesh.

Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin. Sound familiar?