Alan B. Shepard High

Alan B. Shepard High School (a.k.a. Shepard High) is a location in the Showtime series DEXTER.

It's a public high school that Dexter Morgan attended in Miami, FL -- home of the "Panthers". Twenty years after Dexter graduated, he returned for a class reunion to kill a former classmate.

Season One (Flashback)

 * “Shrink Wrap”

During a session with a shrink, Dexter has a brief flashback. As a teenager, Dexter is walking across the school’s playground with a knife in his hand. He is heading towards Joshua, a bully, who is alone shooting basketballs. At the last moment, Dexter's adoptive father appears, grabs Dexter, and stops him from killing Joshua.

Season Six

 * "Those Kinds of Things"

Dexter had previously ignored his school’s reunions as neither he or his classmates cared much about each other. However, he returns to the 20th reunion for a specific purpose. Dexter believes that an old classmate, Joe Walker, murdered his wife, Janet. He knows that Joe, as the former captain of the football team, will likely be at the reunion.

To Dexter’s surprise, quite a few of the participants remember him. He is warmly greeted and treated as a popular attendee. This leads to Dexter ending up in a few uncomfortable situations (including dancing to MC Hammer 's "Can't Touch This.") Then, on the next night of the reunion, Trisha Billings (who copied from his tests), gives him oral sex in a classroom.

To confirm that he has the right man, Dexter needs to get a blood sample from Joe. At first, he tries by using his sharpened class ring while shaking hands with Joe, but it doesn't work. He then joins in a flag football game, hoping that Joe will bleed at some point, but he doesn't. Dexter finally resorts to “accidentally” elbowing Joe in the nose to collect the blood.

Convinced that Joe is Janet’s killer, Dexter soon has him on his table in the school's maintenance shed. During the kill, Dexter spots a tattoo of Jesus on Joe's shoulder, and asks how he reconciles the murder of his wife with the teachings of Jesus. Joe answers that Jesus will forgive him because he has repented. Dexter doesn't buy it and bashes Joe in the head with a hammer, before stabbing him in the chest.

Quotes

 * “High school -- a small world unto itself, combining all the warmest elements of a federal work camp with those of a third-world poultry farm. It's a miracle I graduated without killing anyone. I was invisible in high school. Just a shadow passing through the hallway.” - Dexter

Reunion Attendees

Of the former classmates who attend this reunion, some are named on a whiteboard or their name tags, while others are not.


 * Dexter Morgan
 * Joe Walker
 * Trisha Billings
 * Alan
 * Mindy Taylor
 * Kenneth Bennett
 * Joyce Edwards
 * Sandra Martin
 * Man With Glasses

Flag Football List


 * Jerry Thomas
 * Nate Fuller
 * Eduardo Nalasco
 * Josh Meltzer
 * Remaining names are illegible due to writing style.

Trivia

 * In the Dexter Comics and the Dexter Novels Dexter attended Coconut Grove High School.
 * Woodrow Wilson High School in Long Beach, California was used as the filming location.
 * Alan B. Shepard (1923–1998) was the first American astronaut to travel into space.
 * Continuity Error - Dexter was born in 1971, so he would be twenty years old when he graduated with the class of 1991.
 * Most high schools host a class reunion for its alumni near the anniversary of their graduation year (eg. every five or ten years). These reunions give former students a chance to meet with former classmates, pulling them in from all over the country. They compare where they are in life with an old friend (or enemy), and see how each has physically changed.