Shokhin, Or How to Overthink it in Style

We’ve been watching lots of Dexter at home.  We try physically to restrain ourselves to 3 episodes a day (“Dexter breaks”) it is that good, but let’s just say that rationing is not in our DNA.

Like most folks I love a good murder yarn, but also may or may not admit to reading lots and lots about serial killers – it’s an unhealthy past-time, I know – and yes, I also know I should get help, whatever.  So when I heard about Dexter, a show that ostensibly forces a sympathy for its serial killer protagonist, I was more than a little curious, but when I started watching it, I was blown away.

Unlike that well over-extended police procedural show CSI—with it’s sultry hues set against expensive yachts and big-time drug barons, I love that Dexter is about the working class in Miami—the hotel receptionists, Cuban immigrants making a life for themselves, small-time coke dealers, prostitutes and petty thieves.  The only actual rock stars are the Miami Metro homicide, and they’re not the cleverest either.  We also really don’t miss Horatio Caine’s breathy loaded one-liners and incessant fidgeting with his sunglasses.

Dexter’s characters are also incredibly human—department head Maria LaGuerta—a deserving, fiercely loyal and capable hispanic woman is not beyond sleeping with the fiancé of the woman who replaces her, just to get her old job back.  Angel-faced Rita, victim of abuse and single-mother of two strategically seeks the financial and emotional security of either Dexter or her own mother—uses her kids as bait, and can pretty much charm anyone into babysitting.  Characters grow, learn from their mistakes—actually even reference them seasons down the line.

But no one really comes close to Sergeant James Doakes.  Giules and I  vehemently agree that Doakes’ clipped, baritone whip cracks are the best lines in the show.  So funny in fact, that he has a Facebook page (with a pitiful 330 fans) that I just joined, dozens of youtube compilations of his best badass moments and bit of a cult following.

Doakes is a sharp counterpoint to Dexter, and just like viewers, leaves him agape and wondering how he can be more of a badass.  The result is: I’ve been begging Giules hourly (who does a damned good Doakes voice, go ahead and ask him), to keep repeating “You’re supposed to preserve the crimescene, asshole”, or “You’re connected to this. I don’t know how, but I’m going to find out, and some of what I find is going to stick to your ass.”