Posts Tagged 'dexter'

Amanda Bowers is a psychotherapist and aspiring writer of young adult fiction. She currently lives in Los Angeles with her husband and dog-child, Ruby. When not writing, she enjoys flash-mobbing, dream interpretation, and coloring on her walls.

As if watching Dexter isn’t enough with its colorful setting in bright, multi-cultural Miami and its dark musical motifs and darker characters. As if it isn’t enough to find yourself instantly intrigued by the idea of rooting for a serial killer, and as the series unfolds, to find yourself consistently rooting for this character and enjoying the intricate way that the writers and actor Michael C. Hall bring the many layers of Dexter’s past and present to light. As if it isn’t enough to have original plot lines and award-winning guest stars such as John Lithgow, the writers of Dexter still find time to create and firmly support the development of character Debra Morgan, Dexter’s police detective little sister as played by Jennifer Carpenter.

Hardly anyone could introduce Deb’s character better than Dexter himself. After listening to a voicemail she left him in the first episode, he tells us, “That’s my foul-mouthed foster sister, Debra. She has a big heart but won’t let anyone see it. She’s the only person in the world who loves me. I think that’s nice. I don’t have feelings about anything. But if I could have feelings at all, I’d have them for Deb.” This dialogue says as much about Dexter as it does Deb and the ever-important role she plays in his life and on the show.

When you first meet Debra Morgan, or Deb as she’s most often called, she’s scantily clad while working an undercover prostitution sting and desperately wanting to get in on the action of being a homicide police detective. It would be easy enough to dismiss her character as someone who has mismatched her true talents and her career aspirations given her hooker attire, modelesque beauty, and her constant need to check out her hunches with Dexter rather than trust her gut. And then when she proves herself more than competent as an officer and rises to the rank of homicide detective for the Miami Metro Police Department, it would have been easy enough for the writers to pigeon-hole Deb as “one of the guys,” a hard-nosed, explicative-dropping ball-breaker. But instead, they have consistently chosen to write Deb as a multi-faceted character – so much so, that by the fourth season she is easily one of the strongest characters (and actors!) on the show.

In a throwback to what Joss Whedon got right about his female-empowering character Buffy Summers on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, what I most appreciate about Deb is that she is physically strong while also being emotionally vulnerable. Yet just like in real life, the reverse is also sometimes true – Deb is capable of portraying great psychological strength while struggling with her lack of physical prowess in comparison to other characters trying to [fill in the blank with malicious details here] . . . yes, she’s a favorite target for suspense and drama on the show.

When her colleagues are exhausted and out of ideas, Deb’s intellect and determination help the department find their next lead on a difficult case. When everyone else realizes she might be making a big mistake, Deb plunges ahead, more willing to be wrong than to be invisible or pretend she doesn’t feel something when she does. When faced with complicated ethical choices, Deb carefully weighs her loyalty and her integrity, usually unwilling to sacrifice either while figuring out a compromise that still let’s her sleep at night. And when Dexter is out of line, Deb doesn’t hesitate to reel him in: “I love you, bro, but sometimes you’re a fucking ‘tard.”

Deb is intense and unwavering, yet as highlighted above, she still knows how to take and make a joke. Although at first her foul mouth seems like a bit of a caricature, Jennifer Carpenter owns that aspect of Deb’s character so much that it’s not only one of those familiar things you can count on when you cozy up to your TV on Sunday night, but Deb also serves out happy helpings of much-needed comic relief! In one of her quintessential Deb moments, she delivers the following line after Dex anxiously confides to her that his girlfriend Rita is pregnant: “A baby? A mother-fucking, rolly-poly, chubby-cheeked shit machine? Are you kidding me?” And she delivers this line with a joyous, big-toothed grin. As an audience, we all have permission now to be happy for Dexter. Deb has that kind of power.

Deb’s fiercely loyal to her family, but not at the expense of being devoted to her job. She’s an incredibly intuitive detective, yet still vulnerable to letting her personal feelings get in the way of solving a case. She weeps her heart out in one scene and kicks ass in the next and it doesn’t feel at all unrealistic. It’s no short order to portray all of the seemingly contradictory facets of Debra Morgan’s character. But award-winning actress Jennifer Carpenter more than rises to the occasion, turning Deb into a fleshed out person loved by her fictional character companions and TV-viewing audience alike. The writers and Jennifer obviously understand that real people are always walking contradictions. As such, she has become one of the most vital female characters brought to the TV screen in recent years (and there’s been tough competition from ground-breaking shows such as Battlestar Gallactica and Mad Men). Debra Morgan refuses to fit nicely in any of the oft-prescribed stereotypes written for women, and in doing so she inspires her viewing audience with her bold, crass, intelligent maneuvers while also being relatable as someone who gets her heart broken, makes mistakes, and (falsely) feels as if she’s “fucked up” beyond redemption.

Perhaps most importantly, Deb serves as Dexter’s foil and someone he consistently leans on to keep him planted in humanity. Where Dexter is calculated, Deb is impulsive. Where Dex is logical and seemingly incapable of expressing human emotion, Deb is spewing emotion all over the place in tears, f-bombs, and lusty encounters. Where Dex doesn’t trust anyone other than Deb, Deb lets people into her life and her heart over and over again, even when that decision is unwise. However, as a crackerjack, brother-sister, blood spatter analyst and homicide detective team, Dex and Deb do have one thing in common: they are both cunningly good at nabbing the bad guy by the end of the season.