Throughout the original eight season run of "Dexter," Dexter Morgan made some pretty questionable
decisions.
We're looking at you, Hannah McKay.
Keep watching to see if the moments you flipped out over made the list.
When leading a life fraught with compulsion and bloodshed, there will always be moments
when things go awry.
Dexter learned this rather quickly at the start of Season 3 when tracking a drug dealer
by the name of Fred "Freebo" Bowman.
Destined to be the next occupant of Dexter's kill table, the operation to nab Freebo is
a bust as Dexter must kill an innocent man out of necessity.
In self-defense, Dexter kills Oscar Prado, the younger brother of Assistant District
Attorney Miguel Prado, while Freebo escapes.
Naturally, Dexter manipulates the crime scene in an effort to frame Freebo.
"I went to kill Freebo and ended up killing a total stranger."
Dexter eventually hunts Freebo down and kills him.
Meanwhile, Miguel is also on the prowl in an effort to seek revenge for the death of
his brother.
When Dexter confesses to Miguel that he killed Freebo, Miguel is relieved, and the two begin
a friendship on the foundation of murdering criminals.
The ugly truth that Dexter is, in fact, Oscar's killer takes the entire situation to another
level.
It requires him to frame another man for the act while lying through his teeth to his newfound
friend over the ordeal.
After it's revealed that Dexter orchestrated the arrest of Rita's ex-husband, Rita incorrectly
assumes that Dexter is also a drug addict.
"Yes, I have an addiction."
As a result, Dexter attends Narcotics Anonymous to continue the lie.
While attending the meetings, he meets Lila, who becomes his sponsor.
Quickly, Lila demonstrates a rather manipulative element of her personality as she coaches
Dexter to accept himself despite his sins.
While she doesn't know of Dexter's Dark Passenger, she understands that he harbors a secret.
Eventually, Rita finds out about Dexter's relationship with Lila and breaks up with
him.
Later, Dexter learns that Lila also has a strange fixation, as she is something of a
pyromaniac and sets her apartment on fire to manipulate Dexter.
Eventually, she attempts to blackmail Dexter into getting back together with her, all while
Debra learns that her real name is Lila West, and she has a criminal history.
Eventually, Lila kills Sergeant Doakes, an innocent man, in an effort to protect Dexter.
Simply put, Dexter should have put a stop to her dangerous actions long ago.
Sergeant Doakes always had it out for Dexter.
He suspected the titular character of being strange and likely hiding something, and he
wasn't wrong.
In fact, he eventually learns the truth about Dexter Morgan.
When Doakes tries to arrest Dexter, the serial killer overpowers the sergeant and locks him
in a cell at a remote cabin.
At this point, Dexter lays it all out on the table and tells the sergeant that he is the
Bay Harbor Butcher.
Ultimately, Dexter commits to evading law enforcement by framing Doakes as the serial
killer.
Dexter then kills one of his targets in the cabin in front of Doakes.
After he witnesses the shock of the police sergeant toward his bold crimes, he starts
reflecting on his past.
That's when Dexter realizes that Harry actually committed suicide because he couldn't cope
with his son's actions despite teaching him the code and trying to protect him.
The sergeant's shock reflects what Harry must've felt, and Dexter considers doing the noble
thing, which would be turning himself in.
Unfortunately for Doakes, Lila finds the remote cabin and burns it to the ground with Doakes,
and any evidence proving Dexter is a serial killer, inside.
The FBI then concludes that Doakes is the Bay Harbor Butcher, allowing Dexter to walk
free.
While a moment of introspection almost leads Dexter to do the right thing, he still originally
planned to frame an innocent man for murder.
That's low, even by Dexter's standards.
While Dexter's relationship with Rita begins with the sole purpose of providing him with
the camouflage he needs to hide in plain sight, it eventually flourishes into some form of
legitimacy.
Unfortunately, however, his sociopathic nature leads to many cringeworthy decisions early
in his courtship with Rita.
One egregious example is when he plagiarizes his marriage proposal from a killer who romanticized
a non-existent relationship in her head.
"My life was an unanswered question."
"Unanswered question."
While this killer may have been far too forthright with her delusions of love, Dexter is the
exact opposite.
Therefore, he lifts her words and uses them as his own when seeking Rita's hand in marriage,
once again, for the benefits it affords him.
Dexter had his fair share of ups and downs, but he always took pride in following Harry's
code to the letter.
However, during the Season 4 episode "Slack Tide," the Miami PD is hunting for a killer
after finding the arm of a model inside the belly of an alligator.
This turns Dexter on to Jonathan Farrow, a photographer who takes twisted pictures of
female models who all appear tortured or under duress.
"Even I'm disturbed by this."
Dexter becomes intent on nabbing Farrow before the Miami PD finds the evidence that they
need to make the arrest.
He gets the suspect on his infamous kill table.
The photographer adamantly insists that he never killed anyone and that his photographs
are merely art.
Dexter pulls the trigger anyway and hacks the man to death with a cleaver.
Later, he sees Detective Batista taking Farrow's assistant into custody and charging him with
the murder of the women.
Unbeknownst to Dexter, uncovered surveillance footage actually incriminated Farrow's assistant.
Thus, Dexter was burdened with the harsh reality that he killed an innocent man.
While Dexter often lacks remorse, he demonstrates guilt over the idea that he betrayed Harry.
Season 4 of Dexter is often considered the best in the entire series, and for good reason.
John Lithgow plays one of the most captivating antagonists of the series in the form of the
deadly Trinity Killer.
The murderer, Arthur Mitchell, is a tortured soul who went through a traumatic experience
equally as traumatic as Dexter's in his youth.
As a young boy, where he witnessed the death of his sister and the suicide of his mother.
He also grappled with his compulsory need to kill his abusive father at the age of 10.
This moment ultimately completes the trinity killing template that Arthur uses annually
with three innocent victims.
"This is where it all started."
The Trinity Killer's identity as Arthur Mitchell surprises Dexter.
He learns that Arthur is a family man who contributes service regularly to his local
church.
Arthur also leads a charitable organization known as "Four Walls One Heart," which he
uses to construct homes for the less fortunate.
Ultimately, Dexter quizzically wonders how Arthur can maintain the balance of leading
two totally separate lives.
Instead of killing Trinity, Dexter decides to don the fake alias of Kyle Butler and infiltrate
Arthur's congregation in an effort to educate himself on how to better lead a normal life
outside of his killing rituals.
Quickly, however, Dexter learns that Arthur is a rather abusive father who behaves erratically.
Maintaining a healthy balance isn't possible, and Dexter plots to kill him.
Of course, the Miami PD is closing in on the killer, putting Dexter against the clock.
Tragically, if Dexter had killed the Trinity Killer when he first learned of his crimes,
the deaths and despair that followed wouldn't have occurred.
In the debut episode of Season 5, Dexter prepares for Rita's funeral.
After coming to grips with his own grief and regret, he enters a convenience store and
crosses paths with a charming individual who is pounding the bell at the counter for a
restroom key and threatening to defecate on the floor.
After reaching behind the counter and finding the bathroom key himself, he brushes past
Dexter, locking eyes with him and making an untoward comment.
Regrettably for this hot-headed fool, he spouted off at the wrong place and time.
Dexter's sense of self-control is at an all-time low as he struggles to pick up the pieces
of his shattered life.
The killer follows the man to the bathroom and explains to him that the week hasn't been
kind, thanks to the death of his wife.
The man makes another unsavory remark about Dexter's deceased wife and then quickly receives
several blows to the head with the blunt end of a boat anchor.
While the foul-mouthed vagrant was possibly deserving of many things, insults and ravings
aren't exactly worthy of a death sentence.
It's definitely not Dexter's finest moment, and it marks the first time ever that he kills
an unvetted person solely on impulse and emotion.
In Season 7 of the show, the walls are closing in on Dexter Morgan.
Captain LaGuerta is leading the charge in a persistent effort to exonerate her late
partner, Sergeant Doakes, of the Bay Harbor Butcher name.
Laguerta makes it frighteningly clear that she intends to "nail Dexter to the wall,"
after her first attempt at arresting him goes belly up, thanks to some careful planning
on Dexter's part.
"I have proof he's the Bay Harbor Butcher."
Seeing that she simply won't quit, Dexter plans the unthinkable, a premeditated murder
that defies the code entirely.
Dexter has violated the code in the past, but the plot to kill Laguerta feels especially
dirty given the lengthy professional and sometimes personal relationship the two shared over
the years.
Dexter lures Laguerta to an empty shipping container at the docks.
He prepares to stage a scene that makes it look like Hector Estrada and Laguerta killed
each other.
Deb arrives, and as Laguerta attempts to convince Deb to kill Dexter, Deb kills Laguerta instead.
In an effort to protect himself and his sister, Dexter ultimately breaks his father's code
with the plot to kill an innocent police captain while simultaneously ruining Debra's life.
In Season 7, the most significant volatile variable to enter Dexter's life is Hannah
McKay.
"You obviously want something, you keep making excuses to see me."
Quickly, the two share a connection.
Her past is of particular interest to Dexter, as she joined a controlling boyfriend on a
killing spree.
If he were to believe Hannah's story, she was forced into complicity.
However, Dexter suspects that Hannah was just as involved and thrilled about the killing
spree as her murderous partner.
After carefully investigating, Dexter renders Hannah unconscious, and binds her to his kill
table.
However, after Dexter tells her that murders are the very thing that fuels his existence,
she simply tells him to do what he has to do.
Finding a kinship in her, Dexter cuts Hannah free.
The two then proceed to have sex on the kill table.
Despite her magnetism attracting Dexter and her unwavering commitment to Harrison, Hannah
proved to be pretty unlikeable with fans.
Plus, seeing Dexter succumb to Hannah's apparent charms while she was on his table isn't exactly
what audiences expected.
And for a person whose soul is rather empty, he should at least keep the kill table sacred.
Ultimately, Rita was an unfortunate casualty in the deadly game of cat and mouse that Dexter
played with the Trinity Killer.
The ugly truth of the matter is that Rita's death is on Dexter's hands for tampering with
forces he couldn't comprehend.
Even he didn't know what Trinity was capable of until he was fully immersed in his fake
persona as Kyle Butler, where he witnessed Trinity's social and familial interactions
firsthand.
In order to protect Rita, the most obvious choice would've been for Dexter to simply
never get himself involved with the Trinity Killer in the first place.
But of course, that would've made for an ultra-boring show, and we all know that Dexter's compulsive
killing habits mean that he can't simply leave things well enough alone.
The next best option would've been to never give in to his infatuation with the Trinity
Killer and his methods for leading a double life.
If Dexter didn't treat Arthur like some sort of twisted mentor, maybe he could've killed
Arthur a bit earlier, before the two even got entangled.
Regardless, Dexter's drive to kill and his admiration for Trinity were ultimately the
causes of Rita's death at Trinity's hands.
It was a difficult lesson that Dexter had a hard time learning, but old habits die hard.
Check out one of our newest videos right here!
Plus, even more Looper videos about your favorite shows are coming soon.
Subscribe to our YouTube channel and hit the bell so you don't miss a single one.