Orphaned at the age of three due
to the murder of his mother, Dexter Morgan is adopted by Miami police officer
Harry Morgan and his wife Doris. After discovering that young Dexter has been
killing neighborhood pets for several years, Harry tells Dexter that he
believes the need to kill "got into" him at too early an age, and
that he believes Dexter's need to kill will only grow. To keep Dexter from killing
innocent people, Harry begins teaching The Code to Dexter: Dexter's victims
must be killers themselves who have killed someone without justifiable cause
and are likely to do so again. Dexter must also always be sure that his target
is guilty, and thus, frequently goes to extreme lengths to get undeniable proof
of his victim's guilt. Most importantly, Dexter must never get caught.
Flashbacks throughout the series show Harry (who died several years previously)
instructing Dexter on how to masquerade with typical human behavior, how to
cover his tracks after a kill, and even how to stranglehold a target to knock
them out and capture them.
Dexter has followed The Code
religiously to satisfy his "Dark Passenger" (the name he has assigned
to his urge to kill). However, in Season 4, he hastily kills a photographer who
then proves to be innocent. Like many serial killers, Dexter keeps a trophy for
each kill. Before dispatching a wrongdoer, Dexter makes an incision on his
victim's cheek with a scalpel and collects a blood sample, which he preserves
on a blood slide. He stores his collection in a box concealed inside his air
conditioner.
In the beginning of the series,
Dexter believes that he has no emotions, and he has to work non-stop to appear
normal and blend in with the other people around him. Initially, Dexter is
(with varying success) able to fake 'normal' emotions and maintain his
appearance as an unremarkable friend and neighbor. He does maintain a few
personal relationships early on, stating that he is "fond" of his
adoptive sister Debra. She is unaware of Harry's training but harbors lingering
jealousy of the perceived preferential treatment Harry gave Dexter. As part of
his "disguise" in Season 1, Dexter dates a woman named Rita who is too
traumatized from years of abuse at the hands of her ex-husband, Paul Bennett,
to be intimate with Dexter. This suits Dexter, who believes getting intimate
will reveal his darker side to Rita. He is fond of (and good with) children in
general, particularly Rita's two children, Astor and Cody. However, his
attachment to Debra, Rita, Astor and Cody (and later his biological son,
Harrison) complicate his double life and cause him to question his
"need" to kill.
source: wiki
