10 Fictional Characters Dexter Would Love to Kill
After last season’s shocking finale (Spoiler Alert), Dexter’s friends at Miami Metro, including his sister, will no doubt be taking a long hard look at our favorite serial killer, whose days of freedom may very well be numbered.
What’s a wound up killer to do? Knowing Dexter, make hay (and blood slides) while the sun still shines. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if the new pressure of his situation caused Dexter to reach further and higher in terms of scope. Here’s a list of the kinds of folks he might like to get his hands on assuming time (and co-habiting the same fictional universe) would allow.
Gus Fring
As Seen In: Breaking Bad
Criminal Activities: Illegal drug manufacturing (specifically methamphetamine), sales and distribution; money laundering; multiple counts homicide
Criminal Persona: squeaky clean drug kingpin
Community Impact/Body Count: Substantial. While Gus himself hasn’t killed that many people or been directly responsible for a high number of deaths (that we know of), his spearheading of the drug trade has doubtlessly ruined a lot of lives. Behind that yummy, greasy chicken is a man with a heart of ice.
Degree of Difficulty: High. Gus is a master criminal. He is circumspect and cautious, in charge of a vast criminal enterprise that crosses state and international borders. Taking him by surprise would be difficult. But part of his success lies in blending in, being perceived entirely as a law-abiding businessman and community leader. In that respect, his defenses may be compromised and present an opportunity to get close enough.
Appeal to Dexter: Gus is no doubt responsible for a lot of suffering; but the real appeal, the thing that would cause Dexter to sit up and take notice, is how Gus manages to hide who he is and what he does in plain sight. In that respect, they have a lot in common.
Tony Soprano
As Seen In: The Sporanos
Criminal Activities: Multiple counts of: grand larceny; racketeering; fraud; pimping; tax evasion; money laundering; loan sharking; illegal gambling; grand theft auto; aggravated assault; obstruction of justice; murder; murder as part of an ongoing criminal conspiracy
Criminal Persona: mafia capo
Community Impact/Body Count: Heavy. Between everything he’s stolen, and the bedrock of violence and murder on which his criminal enterprise is founded (which, incidentally, goes back in his family at least one generation), Tony is directly responsible for a great deal of suffering. He profits on human misery, and as a higher-up in the organization, profits on the misery caused by his numerous subordinates. He’s killed or arranged the deaths of many, including his own friends and family.
Degree of Difficulty: High. Tony didn’t become the head of a crime family by being soft or stupid. He’s survived multiple assassination attempts, and is usually surrounded by friends and family. Abducting him for a little alone time would be difficult; best chance to snag him would be going to or coming from his goomar.
Appeal to Dexter: Tony skates out of trouble routinely and with comparative ease. But even more offensive, he pretty much commits multiple felonies on a daily basis. The life he has built is based on flouting the law, and on violating the order that Dexter craves to impose, where the guilty get punished.
Francis Dolarhyde
As Seen In: Manhunter
Criminal Activities: murdering and mutilating entire families; setting fire to reporters
Criminal Persona: fetishistic serial killer
Community Impact/Body Count: Dolarhyde targets only families, murdering them, subsequently mutilating them (by inserting pieces of mirrored glass into their eyesockets), and (in the cases of adult female victims), molesting their corpses. He moves from state to state committing his crimes, using a complicated M.O. to locate his victims and elude the authorities. The psychosexual emphasis of his crimes, and his inclusion of children amongst his victims is particularly heinous.
Degree of Difficulty: Moderate. While Dolarhyde understands very well how to elude authorities, someone like Dexter could probably stalk him undetected. However, Dolarhyde’s psychological instability and paranoia will make him difficult to approach. He’s good with guns, and while it may seem like an obvious move to sneak up on his house while he’s blasting Inna Gada Da Vida, he’s probably laying in wait with a shotgun for whoever comes calling.
Appeal to Dexter: This one is a no-brainer. Dolarhyde kills completely innocent victims, including children. While at one point his romantic relationship causes him to try to curb those impulses, he’s gone way too far for too long to have a fate other than drifting up the gulfstream in multiple Hefty bags.
Jeff Kohlver
As Seen In: Hard Candy
Criminal Activities: child molestation, kidnapping, rape, and murder
Criminal Persona: pedophile
Community Impact/Body Count: Jeff is responsible (and, if you believe him, only partially responsible) for the kidnap, rape and murder of a teenaged girl. He’s not exactly Pol Pot, but nonetheless this is the kind of crime that sticks in everybody’s teeth.
Degree of Difficulty: Low. Jeff is the kind of soft hunter who stalks weak/naive prey, the idea that someone could be sizing him up for a kill is unlikely to occur to him. He hides his incriminating shit in a rock garden, for fuck’s sake!
Appeal to Dexter: This guy is Dexter’s bread and butter. The crime isn’t directly attributable to him, so it’s unlikely the justice system will ever catch up with him; he’s rationalized away his own guilt; and, based on his chat room transcripts, he’s clearly looking for a new ‘girlfriend.’ Dexter would look on killing Jeff as community service.
Patrick Bateman
As Seen In: American Psycho
Criminal Activities: animal cruelty, kidnapping, rape, murder, desecration of a corpse, cannibalism, attributing Huey Lewis, Genesis and Whitney Houston with cultural significance
Criminal Persona: yuppie mass murderer
Community Impact/Body Count: Depends. Most of New York (or his immediate social circle, anyway) seems oblivious to Patrick’s crimes. He largely targets people no one will miss: homeless people, prostitutes. Those he murders amongst his own social circle are either not missed or mistakenly attributed as alive, often mistakenly identified as other people. Living in a satire makes things easy, though frustrating; the one time he seeks to confess, his own attorney doesn’t believe him.
Degree of Difficulty: High. In great physical shape (1000 stomach crunches a day), and usually armed, Bateman, while often picking weaker/unprepared victims, is crazy enough and lethal enough that nothing less than complete surprise would be required. Given his social circles, anyone approaching him who doesn’t belong would stick out like a PB & J on the table of one of those haute cuisine restaurants he routinely overspends at. Still, he doesn’t seem to notice the ‘little people’ that much; pose as a doorman, taxi driver, or delivery boy and he probably won’t know what hit him.
Appeal to Dexter: If anybody deserved to die based on musical taste alone (Whitney Houston as the world’s all time greatest R & B artist? REALLY?) it would be Patrick. If anybody deserved to die for being an effete, elitist, style and status obsessed snobbish asshole totally out of touch with the world at large, it would be Patrick. The facts that he likes to dissect girls and is utterly insane are just gravy.
Jason Dean (aka JD)
As Seen In: Heathers
Criminal Activities: murder, forgery of suicide notes
Criminal Persona: the ORIGINAL trenchcoat mafioso
Community Impact/Body Count: JD casts great ripples in small ponds, by murdering popular assholes, then forging their suicide notes to get away with it; this has the unintended consequence of upsetting the natural order of a high school, sometimes for better, sometimes for worse. Eventually, though, he’ll get tired of that bullshit and want to take out the whole institution in one big nihilistic bang.
Degree of Difficulty: Moderate. JD pretty much always packs heat (granted, sometimes the loads are blanks), has a decent skill for improvisation (of the no rust build-up variety) and a facility with explosives (like father, like son). His single greatest weakness, though is himself; feeling alone and unloved, what he wants most is a partner in crime. That, more than anything else, makes him sloppy.
Appeal to Dexter: Another case of ‘there but for the code of Harry…’ who will no doubt remind Dexter of himself. The temptation to remodel JD to be more like himself would no doubt be strong, but JD is far too self-centered for that to ever take. Given the scale of JD’s ambition, correction of the more permanent variety would be called for.
Detective Alonzo Harris
As Seen In: Training Day
Criminal Activities: drug use/possession, grand larceny, bribery, extortion, abuse of police authority, murder, attempted murder
Criminal Persona: the LAPD’s answer to King Kong
Community Impact/Body Count: Alonzo is a blight on the LAPD. Deeply entrenched, a political animal who knows full well exactly how to work the system, Alonzo uses it to get everything he can for himself. He’ll take what he wants from whoever he wants, and he’ll either buy or kill whoever might get in his way, whichever’s cheaper or more expedient.
Degree of Difficulty: High. Like others on this list, Alonzo didn’t get as far as he has without having good instincts to protect his own well-being. He’s a cop, which automatically raises the difficulty, and worse, he’s a crooked cop who surrounds himself with other crooked cops that have just as much to lose as he does. On the other hand, being such a ruthless, greedy bastard has engendered quite a lot of ill will, both inside the department and out. If he were to go on a one way boat ride, chances are no one would look too hard for him.
Appeal to Dexter: Alonzo’s the kind of hypocrite that would be almost impossible to resist. Outwardly projecting himself as a man of the people, part of the thin blue line between order and chaos, Alonzo in actuality is responsible for causing as much, perhaps more crime than he stops. Bad enough in and of itself, but abusing the department to the point where he commits murder and gets away with it is inexcusable. That earns him a one way ticket to being a blood slide.
Karen Crowder
As Seen In: Michael Clayton
Criminal Activities: obstruction of justice, perjury, murder, attempted murder
Criminal Persona: corporate button pusher
Community Impact/Body Count: Karen’s pretty selective in terms of who she kills and why; it’s always to the benefit of her clients. When her clients are soulless conglomerates who make carcinogenic herbicides, and the victims are key witnesses in lawsuits, it’s safe to say that the impact she creates is overwhelmingly negative.
Degree of Difficulty: Low. While the corridors of power she occupies during business hours are undoubtedly secure enough to protect her, after hours she’s probably protected by nothing better than a burglar alarm system and double pane windows. The obfuscation of the corporate world is her best protection from detection, and retribution. The idea of someone seeking her out and holding her accountable for the things she has done would probably never occur to her. But it would occur to Dexter.
Appeal to Dexter: Out of all the people on this list, Karen is the most removed from killing an actual victim. To her, murder is as simple and as bloodless as making a phone call. Which means that she’s due for an education as to how messy murder really is (hence all the obligatory cling-wrap), and who better to educate her than Dexter?
Henry Morrison (aka Jerry Blake, aka Bill Hoskins)
As Seen In: The Stepfather (the original, not the crappy remake)
Criminal Activities: establishing multiple false identities, murder
Criminal Persona: Father Knows Best-style psycho
Community Impact/Body Count: Henry’s a pillar of the community in his own mind; it’s everybody around him in his immediate family who needs work. But they’re probably hopeless. Better for him to slaughter the whole bunch (children and pets included) disappear, and start clean somewhere else. Wash, rinse, repeat; leaving multiple corpses, distraught relatives, and shaken communities in his wake.
Degree of Difficulty: High. Henry knows how to blend in, and he knows how to get when the getting’s good. If he even catches a whiff of suspicion off of someone that he can’t allay, he’ll kill them rather than take a chance. If the heat still comes too close, he’ll slaughter his family, alter his appearance, and move on without hesitating. The trick for someone like Dexter to get his hands on Henry would be to get close enough to sniff him out, without alerting him and getting killed himself, or causing unintended collateral damage with Henry’s current family.
Appeal to Dexter: There are a number of odd correlations between Henry and Dexter. Henry’s pathology revolves around an obsession for the family life and connections that Dexter feels so incapable of understanding or needing for himself. But like Dexter himself, Henry is hollow inside; his obsession is only for the superficial aspects of that life, and once he realizes that it’s not going to be sustainable, he unleashes his own ‘dark passenger’ on the family he once so desperately craved. The sight of someone so out of control, who could unleash that anger and violence on his family, on children, would no doubt gain him the attention of Dexter’s own ‘dark passenger.’
Anton Chigurh
As Seen In: No Country For Old Men
Criminal Activities: murder for hire; murder for professional honor/reputation; murder to fulfill a threat to someone already dead; murder because a store clerk might remember his face; murder because the victim lost a coin toss; trying to single-handedly bring back the Prince Valiant haircut
Criminal Persona: walking death to anyone who hears his name or sees his face
Community Impact/Body Count: Did you miss the walking death comment? Seriously, this guy is a killer’s killer. Hire him and he’ll kill your target along with however much collateral damage might get in the way, free of charge. He’ll walk up to someone in broad daylight and punch a hole in their skull with a compressed air gun because he needs to switch to a new car. Killing is all he does; he’s like a shark. Only with guns. And on land. And with that haircut.
Degree of Difficulty: Nigh impossible. Always armed, difficult to surprise, and possessed of more experience in murder than everyone on this list combined. Displays little fear, tremendous resolve, and skilled improvisation-setting a car bomb to steal medical supplies when injured, strangling a cop holding him captive with the handcuffs on his wrists – you get the idea. One shot would be pretty much all you get, if you can even get close enough to him to try.
Appeal to Dexter: Chigurh is truly the biggest fish in this pond. Not killing him guarantees death for someone else, and given how prolific and proficient he is, it wouldn’t be long until that happened. Difficulty be damned, trying to kill him is pretty much obligatory. Chigurh is all ‘dark passenger,’ the epitome of killing without restraint or remorse. He’s got to go.
This new season of Dexter should be killer.
