I don’t know, they really seemed to show him having irresistible urges to kill. I have a feeling that the “appropriate treatment” would have meant a life time of antipsychotic medications.
They’ve often showed him resisting his urge to kill as well, and Harry’s rules are all about channeling that urge into targets that Harry would deem appropriate. We’ll never have an answer of course but I still gotta lay a good chunk of the blame for Dexter’s activities squarely at Harry’s feet.
…
What would Harry have made of the little girl from Forbidden Games, who IIRC staged funerals for small animals and desecrated a graveyard?
Maybe the books make it more clear than the series has done, whether Dexter was irreparably damaged. Whatever Harry’s reasoning was for training Dex to kill, it’s made for some kickass drama and a wonderful character.
I am sooo fucking hooked on this show. The lulls between each episode are getting more excruciating every week. It’s gotten to the point where I don’t just want to watch, I need to. I’ve just gotta find out how it’s all going to end.
Here’s my prediction (spoilered as it contains extensive discussion of the series thus far and may ruin episodes for people who aren’t up to date with the day-to-day connivances of our favourite serial killer).
FWIW, I reckon that Doakes is going to figure out that Dexter’s blood samples all belong to victims of the Bay Harbour Butcher. Because he does everything “Out in the open”, he’s going to want to want to present his findings to La Guerta as soon as possible. Also, I think that the way he figures it, once Dexter has been taken into custody, people will no longer be skeptical when he argues that Dexter did in fact lie about the blood report.
Of course, the police simply cannot find out about those slides. So I think Dexter will quickly find out that they have been taken (and perhaps some outwardly insignificant forensic ‘tell’ will point him towards Doakes). He will connive some way to either put Doakes temporarily out of the picture, or destroy the evidence.
I really doubt he would kill Doakes. Doakes may be a merciless asshole, but by and large he’s a good guy. He has killed two people, but one was pointing a gun at him and the other deserved it far more than any of Dexter’s victims. In the end Harry’s code is the only thing separating Dexter from turning into a carbon copy of his late brother, and I don’t think even the possibility of jail time will entice him to break it by killing Doakes. Ultimately, I think Dexter will somehow destroy or contaminate the slides before they can be used to incriminate him.
The real danger, I think, is Lila. She’s obviously completely unbalanced and may ultimately pose a serious threat to Rita and the kids. I mean, she’s already started stalking the poor woman based on a vague suspicion Dexter was sleeping with her. A suspicion founded on nothing more than the realisation that, on just one night, Dexter wasn’t working quite as late as he said he would be. Most people would shrug that off. She’s obviously obsessive and the further Dexter pulls away, the more likely she will blame Rita for the dissolution of their fledgling relationship. Dexter may not break Harry’s code to save himself from Doakes, but he may break it if he realises that Lila is planning to harm Rita & the kids. Especially (and this seems likely) if he finds out that her proclivity for pyromania is more extensive than he first knew.
Assuming he does have to kill her, it would be the first time he’s killed someone obviously connected to him (Rudy doesn’t count. No-one knew they were brothers). This is going to bring serious heat his way, especially from Doakes who would already be looking for a new way to trap Dexter now that the slides had been ruined. I predict that, eventually, Dexter will be arrested on suspicion of killing Lila and Doakes temporarily vindicated as the investigation proceeds. However, Dexter will eventually wheedle his way out of the situation (perhaps by exploiting Deb), making Doakes look foolish and restoring his “good name”. The ultimate irony, and one whihc I wouldn’t put past the writers, would be that if Lila in fact committed suicide rather than acknowledge the end of her relationship with Dexter. Then he would be in danger of being exposed for the one murder he didn’t commit.
I told you I was hooked on this.
This episode of Dexter is the highest watched of a Showtime series ever.
I still think Dexter’s going to find some way to play Doakes against Lila, so that one appears to have been killed by the other, removing Dexter from suspicion. Maybe he’ll find some way to imply that the slides are Lila’s, hidden in Dexter’s apartment when she was sleeping with him. Doakes gets tricked into going after Lila, the Bay Harbor Butcher. Lila ends up dead at Doakes’ hand. At that point, Doakes either has to admit to another wrongful killing, or let the “Bay Harbor Butcher” case be closed. Of course, he’ll be on Dexter more than ever, but he’ll have to focus on catching Dexter for new murders.Or… Dexter sets up Doakes as the Bay Harbor Butcher, and Lila as his next victim. Lila ends up dead, and Doakes is on the run or killed by police (which may still be more merciful than his fate in the books). I don’t think this one is as likely, simply because the Doakes character may be too good to write out of the series.