Thread:DexDevotee/@comment-27661556-20200321190444/@comment-33030488-20200321224053

Hello there!

Happy to hear that you are again watching Dexter! I’ve lost count. It is awesome!

As for the Dark Passenger, the “urge” or “need” to kill (along with similar terms) are used throughout the show, with “need” being the most common. (Perhaps we should use that word.) Here are a few explicit or implied examples of his need / urge to kill. I welcome any feedback. :)


 * “Popping Cherry”

When Harry takes teenage Dexter hunting, he tells him to stab a deer and says, “For now, this is how we’ll control the urges you feel and channel them.”


 * “Shrink Wrap”

After Harry prevents teenage Dexter from killing Joshua, Dexter says he still wants to kill him and wants to know when it will go away.


 * “It’s Alive”

While he's bowling, Dexter thinks to himself, “I really need to kill somebody.”

In the same episode, teenage Dexter and Harry are at a shooting range. When Harry tells Dexter he has to postpone their boar hunt, Dexter has a meltdown, claiming he can’t wait and really needs this.


 * “An Inconvenient Lie”

In a diner, Lila describes what it feels like to have a rising dark need, and Dexter is freaked out.


 * “Dex, Lies, and Videotape”

Dexter has Ken Olson on a kill table. Dexter feels that he’s in “recovery,” and tells Olson that he doesn’t feel the need that comes from within that always drives him to the table.


 * “Sunshine and Frosty Swirl”

Dexter tells Debra that Harry found him sitting in his mother’s blood and understood why he had these urges. He says he has a need deep inside him that he calls his Dark Passenger.

Debra reads an article written by Lundy that claims serial killers have an addiction; Dexter tells her it’s not untrue. (Back in Season Two, he also referred to his need to kill as an addition.) Debra thinks that if Dexter can channel his urges, he can control them.

While staying at her house, Dexter imagines a conversation with Harry, who says he was correct in channeling Dexter’s urges, not suppressing them. During dinner with Debra, Dexter describes in detail what his need to kill feels like.


 * “Buck the System”

Because Dexter hasn't been able to kill for a time, he imagines himself slicing the throat of a postal worker and stabbing Masuka in the throat.

He tells Debra that if he doesn’t control his need to kill, it will control him. He says he can only control it by channeling it - not suppressing it. He reminds her that when he had the urge to kill Louis Greene, he called her.


 * “The Dark... Whatever”

With murder on his mind, Dexter tells Hannah that his Dark Passenger wants him to be some place else. She finds it ridiculous when told that’s his name for his need to kill. He describes it as a thing living inside him, saying he has to kill. She laughs and says it’s only him, and he has a choice. He thinks his compulsion can’t be explained any other way.

It’s revealed that Dexter mentioned the Dark Passenger for the first time at age twelve to Harry. This was after Harry remarked, "It got into you too early in the shipping container." Young Dexter thought it meant an entity controlled him, but Harry was referring to his trauma.

Cheers!

DexDevotee 22:40, March 21, 2020 (UTC)