I got to view the last episodes of season 2 of Dexter this past Friday. Really cool. Doakes dies and that kinda sucks but Dexter and he have a couple of short conversations that I think were revealing. I think that�they showed how much Doakes and Dexter have in common. They both had traumatic childhoods and they both are very violent people, but where Dex was encouraged to use his cravings to serve outside of the law as a vigilante and was told he was a monster, Doakes channels his rage and violence against enemies of society and considers himself restrained by the rules of that society. Doakes was in the military learning both how to release and restrain his violence. Dexter was taught to channel his cravings to give in to them and encourage them (as shown in what he's studies: martial arts, blood spatters, etc.)�on an orderly basis that would make use of it's immorality to provide a "service" to society. Doakes learned to serve by releasing his "monster". Dexter learned how to hide and feed his monster so it could "serve" society.
They both kill, but they have different focuses in their outlooks, which is something� Dexter hasn't really thought about. He's more concerned with justifying his actions than with the actual implications. He really has never dealt with his monster. Ultimately it is control of him. Harry is responsible for that. Dexter was a relatively good kid. He wasn't rebellious. He didn't have a problem with authority. he knew right from wrong. Dexter could have learned to deal with his urges but Harry came along, labeled him a serial killer and a psychopath, and then taught him to use his darkness to do what Harry always wanted to do, namely get rid of criminals who slip through the cracks in law enforcement. The very fact that Dexter has so many moral dilemmas with what he is doing attests to the possibilty that he would not have become a serial killer if left on his own.
In the�end�Harry gets a taste of the horribleness of his crime when he walks in on Dexter at work. The realization of what he's done causes him to kill himself. It should be noted that he doesn't kill Dexter. Perhaps because he realizes how little Dexter is to blame for what he has become.
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