Pensamientos Acerca de Televisión

Dexter: “Father Knows Best” and “Seeing Red”

As one of the few people in America who read the Dexter books before the start of this show, I must confess to having an unfair advantage over most of this show's viewers in that I already had a rough idea which way the show's plot is going. True, they have changed things up a little. But all in all, they've done a good job of trying to be true to the spirit of the books while at the same time exploring facets of Dexter Morgan's character that were never adequately explored by the original author.

In any event, it was inevitable that the show would tackle the issue of how Dexter got to be the way he is and for that matter, reveal the fate of his missing parents. First, Dexter's biological father turns up dead in the “Father Knows Best” episode; then the show reveals what happens to Dexter's mom in “Seeing Red.” And given the fact that the show established early on that Dexter was an orphan adopted by a local policeman whose only known living relative is his foster sister Debra, even those viewers who have not read the books can guess that whatever happened to Dexter's mother was not a good thing.

And at the risk of posting yet another spoiler, it is safe to say that those viewers would be right.

In fact, describing the fate of Dexter's mother as “not a good thing” is an understatement.

After years of enigmatic visions, Dexter suddenly remembers the whole experience in “Seeing Red” and almost goes catatonic as a result. If you've seen the episode, you can guess why.

Even monsters can have mothers and even mothers can die in monstrous ways. Dexter Morgan finds all that out the hard way in this episode which contains one of the most emotionally powerful moments I've seen on a TV show this year.

And the bad times for poor monstrous Dexter are just beginning...