O P I N I O N

NOT THAT PROFOUND

By Nathan Graziano

Here is a personal secret: I have difficulty moderating my behavior.

Here is another personal secret: I just sailed through eight seasons of the Netflix series “Dexter” in less than a month. Each episode is roughly 50 minutes, and there are 12 episodes in each season. I started watching “Dexter” in late-January and finished two days ago, at the beginning of March.

February is the shortest month at 28 days, and it wasn’t even a freaking Leap Year. Does anyone care to guess what I did with my free time?  You can do the math. 

Here is yet another personal secret: I am gravitationally pulled toward any story that involves a psychopath and/or serial killer. Give me some of Ryan Murphy’s “Dahmer”¹ or let me cuddle up with Brett Easton Ellis’ “American Psycho” in bed with my dog sleeping by my feet, and I’m as happy as Happy Gilmore in his “happy place.” 

For those who are unfamiliar with “Dexter,” the premise—or my elevator pitch—is this: The show’s antihero, Dexter Morgan (Michael C. Hall), is a forensic expert in blood spatter for the Miami-Dade PD who moonlights as a serial killer adhering to strict code—imposed by his non-biological, former-cop adopted father, Harry Morgan (James Remar)—that dictates that Dexter can only slaughter people who have bloodlessly killed others. 

It was an ingenuitive concept, based on the novels of Jeffrey Lindsay, that became a runaway success. 

But this column is not about “Dexter,” or my critique the series finale². This is about the fact that I am inexorably drawn to stories that involve psychopaths and serial killers while I tend to identify as a fairly normal, somewhat pacifistic, middle-aged guy.

So what is wrong with me? Why am I seduced by these shows about serial killers and psychopaths? 

It turns out that I’m far from alone. The rise of the antihero—especially in series that were able to skirt the stuffy content restrictions of network television—likely started with Tony Soprano. Then came Walter White, the hapless high school science teacher who used his chemistry skills to cook meth in order to provide financial security for the family he purportedly loved in “Breaking Bad.” 

Add the actress who played Tony Soprano’s wife, Edie Falco, who played Jackie Peyton in “Nurse Jackie,” as well as Dexter Morgan, and we have a stable of characters who behave antithetical to the way decent people are supposed to behave. 

So why are audiences so drawn to psychopaths? If we weren’t, the shows would bomb. And what does this say about me?

Between episodes of “Dexter,” I searched this question on my phone—what we now call “research” these days—and found an article from The Los Angeles Times by columnist Joel Silbermann addressing this phenomenon. 

The article includes quotes from various experts in both television and psychology, and the responses range from a morbid fascination—in some cases, admiration—with serial killers, to sating a primal urge to be scared without the element of actual danger, to the fact that psychopaths are just interesting and exotic characters.

But I also was able to finger the most plausible reason why I, personally, am drawn to them. 

You see, I’m an anxious guy. In fact, I can barely have a bowel movement without having a panic attack. For me, psychopaths and serial killers represent the unfettered id. They exist entirely without anxiety, fear, shame or guilt—feelings that leave me in an almost-perpetual state of Prufrockian paralysis. When I’m watching these shows, and these psychopathic characters, I get to vicariously experience what life looks like without anxiety. 

I certainly don’t condone hurting other people in any way. I find people who harm others to be the most loathsome of our species, but I’m truly fascinated by how these people sleep, or become the President of the United States. 

I’m also aware that there is a prequel titled “Dexter: Original Sin” available for streaming, and I’m about to buckle in.     

1. Chef’s kiss to most seasons of “American Horror Story” ↩︎
2. I have my issues with the way the series concluded. Feel free to shoot me an email if you’d like to discuss. ↩︎

You can reach Nate Graziano at [email protected].