Dexter: A Murderous Angel?

I'll admit, I like TV just as much as the next guy. I grew up watching countless hours of various shows, some of which I don't remember and others which I'll never forget. I would watch every genre of show you can think of from teenage soap opera's to wrestling. I had my favorite shows and I had the ones I avoided, but overall there were always 5-10 shows I would have to watch religiously. I tended to stay away from shows that dealt with major religious undertones such as 'Touched by an Angel' or '7th Heaven', and generally avoided most of the reality shows that dealt with various religious issues such as '19 and Counting'. Looking back I guess it could be concluded that when it came to my television experience, I didn't want to give any religiously themed shows a chance.

Today I don't watch as much television as I used to due to various reasons and excuses, but I do still have a few shows that I keep track of weekly. These are Jersey Shore (don't judge me), True Blood, Entourage, and most important of all, Dexter. As you can see, I still don't follow any shows that have religion as a major factor in their storyline. That is until Season 6 of Dexter came along. It all started with this trailer:

When I first saw this trailer it was apparent to me that Dexter was obviously going to be taking a religious spin in the upcoming season. You see, Dexter is a show about a man who works for the Miami Dade County Police Department as a Blood Spatter Analyst. He is a pretty boring guy overall, aside from the fact that he is secretly a serial killer. It is exactly what I would consider a perfect show for me, it has action, thrill, blood, and a superb storyline. The underlying theme for each season is that there is a serial killer which Dexter eventually catches and kills, but not before learning something important about himself in the process. As can be seen from the trailer, the theme was going to incorporate religion into the mix for this season.

This seemed like an odd concept to me. The trailer was leaning towards the notion that Dexter could be viewed as a Christ-like figure in the series, that what he did was for a greater cause. Out of all television series, this was the last series which I thought would adopt Christianity into the storyline. After all, Dexter murders people. This act in itself goes against one of the 10 Commandments (Thou shall not kill) and on top of that, the series for the first 5 seasons had prided itself on the notion that Dexter followed his own religion which was taught to him by his father and which embraced the killing of people if it was viewed that they deserved it.

Needless to say, I was pleasantly surprised when Season 6 became arguably my favourite season of the series when all was said and done. The storyline was so well incorporated with Christianity, and it helped play on one of the most common mistakes in Christianity which is taking the bible literally. It showed (granted in an extreme way) what could happen when faith and the bible are used as an excuse to advance your own beliefs. Dexter also faced a dilemma throughout the season as to whether or not his own religion was not the right religion, due to the fact that his son was reaching an age where Dexter had to decide if religion should be a part of his life.

Seeing as the subject of our course is Christianity and Popular Culture, I feel that Season 6 of Dexter is a prime example of how eventually religion is tied into most forms of popular culture. As I said in a previous post, it is like adding Christianity (or a christ-like figure) to a show (or movie) is part of a fool-proof method to make a good product for the viewers. It might be frowned upon by some that Christianity is abused in such a way, but in another way it opens up the minds of those who are not as welcoming to the thought of Christianity in their popular culture (in this case a television show). I know personally, if Dexter was able to incorporate Christianity so well, then maybe I will start to give other shows a chance when I hear that they have Christianity entwined in them.