Since the sixth season of Dexter is taking on religion, I'm blogging episode-by-episode, exploring the themes the show brings out. Plus, the baddies are Revelation-themed. Enjoy, and remember: spoilers abound!
Dexter on Faith
Season 6 opens a full year after Season 5, and we find Dexter in the midst of a killing streak, a season in which everything that can go well does. His son, Harrison, is ready to start pre-school. He’s referred to Our Lady of the Gulf, an elite Catholic preschool. But his interview causes him to reflect on his own (total lack of) faith. He says he believes in
A certain set of principles, a set of rules on how to conduct myself in the world so I don’t get into trouble.His sister Deb says that’s a cold and empty kind of faith, something you might teach a puppy. Ouch. Dexter's description of his "faith" hits a little too closely to what I've experienced in a lot of churches and other Christian organizations.
Deb's description of Dexter's "faith" is a withering critique of so much of the religion we find in our churches. I wonder where the show will take this idea.
By the end of the episode, Dexter has decided he’s content to live his life believing in nothing, though he wants Harrison to have every opportunity to explore religion and faith. It will be interesting to see how Dexter’s choice impacts his confrontation with this season’s bad guys:Meet the Villains
We meet the season’s main baddies, Professor James Gellar (Edward James Olmos) and his protégé Travis Marshall (Colin Hanks). They’re harvesting baby Florida water snakes – seven of them. In the next scene, Travis, under Gellar’s direction, murders a fruit stand vendor. Before he strikes the killing blow, he quotes aloud Revelation 22:2:
And on either side of the river was the tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit every month.
The fruit vendor’s body washes up onto the beach, his intestines removed and an alpha and omega carved into his stomach. The seven water snakes are in his stomach, totally baffling Deb, Quinn and their team.Later, we listen in as Gellar quotes Revelation 13:1 (from the King James) to Travis:
I stood upon the sand of the sea. I saw a serpent rise up form the sea having seven heads.And Travis finishes,
And upon his heads, the names of blasphemy.Do these quotations give us some insight into what these guys are doing? Possibly. Revelation 22 is a vision of the restored creation, the End of All Things. In the Revelation, Jesus calls himself the “Alpha and Omega”. Is it possible that Gellar and Travis see themselves as harbingers of the Apocalypse? That through their actions they are bringing about the end of the world?
In the Revelation, the Beast that comes out of the Sea is empowered by Satan (who is a Dragon and also called a serpent). The Sea Beast is often identified as the Antichrist. It makes war on the Church, and is the ultimate enemy of Jesus, the Lamb. He’s joined by a second Beast from the Land. Thus, we see two Trinities in the Revelation: the Devil, the Sea Beast and the Land Beast vs. God, Jesus/the Lamb and the Holy Spirit/the Church.
The question at this point is, Which trinity do Gellar and Travis think they’re with? I think they’re evil.
By carving Alpha & Omega into the fruit vendor, Gellar and Travis are destroying someone associated with the new Jerusalem. By placing the snakes inside him and throwing him into the ocean (so he “rises up from the sea”), they seem to be enacting the role of the villains. Could Gellar see himself as the Sea Beast and Travis the Land Beast?Hail Mary Plot Prediction: The Sea Beast suffers a fatal wound in Revelation 13 but rises from the dead. I bet at some point Professor Gellar dies and Travis takes over as the architect of their plot.
Dexter on Hypocrisy
The former classmate Dexter kills at his high school reunion has a Jesus tattoo on his chest. Joe killed his wife so she couldn't divorce him and take his money. And before Dexter kills him, he asks Joe to reconcile his faith with his choice to murder his wife.
Joe claims that everyone makes mistakes, that God forgives us if we truly repent. Then he warns Dexter that if he kills him, God will smite Dexter with rocks and swords and thunder. Finally, when all else fails, he shouts (as Dexter drops the killing blow), that he's safe because he's been washed in the blood of the Lamb (a reference to Revelation 7:14).
None of Joe's appeals to Dexter phase him in the least. It's clear that Joe is interested only in Joe, that religion for him is an air vent, as Peter Rollins says, that allows him to live however he wants. Dexter, who adheres strictly to his own "faith" - that set of rules, trusts that his honest faith will protect him, whereas Joe's false faith will (obviously) not.The question here is, Who is the bad guy? The serial killer who is avenging the innocent? Or the person who uses God as an excuse to murder his wife and live a cruel, selfish life? Is Dexter, in fact, some sort of avenging angel?
BONUS: Dexter on Evangelism
The scene where Angel “witnesses” to Dexter is classic. Which of us hasn’t felt that same kind of awkwardness when trying to explain God? Angel finally tells Dexter, “When you really get down to it, it’s all about faith. It’s something you feel, not something you can explain. It’s very hard to put into words.”To which Dexter’s inner monologue replies, “That’s because it makes no sense.” I’m curious to see how Dexter’s opinion of God morphs throughout this season.
