Next week season two of Dexter will be released on DVD. What’s interesting to note is that season two actually lived up to season one. And who would have thought? A socio-pathic, lying, serial killing protagonist who’s harnessed his taste for blood in order to do the work of good - seems like an obvious shtick that could quickly be outgrown. But somehow, it’s working as entertainment and he’s working as a hero.

Maybe it’s because we’re allowed into Dexter’s thoughts. His rationalizations are surprisingly...common. Despite how different he claims to be, when made accessible, his thoughts are totally comprehensible and rather normal. The only sure difference in him is just an impulse; an apparently uncontainable desire that propels his sadistic behavior forward, despite the odds, cultural norms and so forth. And although he’s particularly clever and almost always willing to lie, he’s terribly normal - and this can have, at once, the effect of being banal (the killer’s mind is...well, not that special or interesting). Or of being, shall we say, too close for comfort? Terrifying in the fact that it’s so similar, that the psychological boundaries between us and him are rather slim, left up to chance rather than choice.

Or maybe it is simply that Dexter’s taste for rationalized irrationality and violence appeals to American audiences. God knows, I certainly want to kill someone and am always simply waiting for a justification to come along. But I think, to make an extended analogy: anyone who drives in LA, rather than simply getting angry when cut-off, is probably angry all the time. Rather than being the laid back west coast culture we portray ourselves as, we’re simply waiting to be cut-off, or for someone to drive too slowly in front of us, so that we can start screaming and getting crazy. And maybe - and I don’t think I’m pushing it when I say this - when we cut people off, it’s not for our own benefit. Rather, it’s to let other people scream and shout and honk and cry. A kind of gift. And not because it’s cathartic, but maybe because it’s the only thing we actually enjoy anymore. Screaming and crying and yelling in our cars because it’s the closest to lashing out violently that we can get most of the time.

That kind of rationalization certainly helps explain, at least a little, why Hollywood green lit a television drama from the perspective of a serial killer. And even goes to explain why many viewers seemed to love the increasingly convoluted dramatic machinations of season two. If you missed any of it, be sure to pick up the DVD.

Story by Greg Sidman.