My Series Rewatch has left more excited for season 7 than I think any other time I have rewatched the series. There are things I noticed that I hadn't, a lot of which were woven in season six as this eerie bridge to inevitable breakdowns...
Clearly there are obvious parallels tying us back to season 1 with both Deb and Brian (Ice Truck Killer), and season 4's Arthur Mitchell (Trinity Killer), but there were subtle things too, along with some connections from all the other 5 seasons.
1.Blood in Jars. Travis Marshall like that of Brian Moser, had kept some of his victims blood in jars to be used in certain way for a certain event.
2.Refrigerator/Freezer. Brian gets his serial killer anagram: “The Ice Truck Killer”, because he uses cold places, such as an ice truck, and a built in freezer unit at his house to store his victims to drain the blood a certain way. The irony is that Travis Marshall is unknowingly being lead by a dark passenger, whom he doesn't remember he has murdered, and who's physical body had been left in the freezer on a lower level of the church. Brian then also takes the form of Dexter's dark passenger, as both the murder of Brother Sam, and the murder of Professor Geller are both (in a juxtaposition fashion) break downs for both Dexter and Travis, since in Dexter's breakdown, Brian takes the place of Harry as his dark passenger, which leads to havoc...
3.Louis Greene: This character ties back in a lot of ways. First there's Louis' apartment. Like Dexter's there is a clean, exceptionally organized contemporary-art deco aspect to it, but unlike Dexter's, who embraces moody sea-related earth tones, has massive touches of red and pop art astetic to it, including a painting of a women with dark hair. Louis is someone who is seeking Dexter's attention, much like Brian did in season one, but besides that he mentions to Dexter that he included the Bay Harbor Butcher in his notorious serial killer video game, he also took it upon himself to buy the Ice Truck Killer's prosthetic hand, that a previous intern had stolen from Miami PD's evidence department, and sends it to Dexter at the end of the season. The hand itself is rather symbolic, as it ties back to one of Brian's methods and disguise, but also one of his murder victims, a prostitute with an actual prosthetic hand, in which Brian had influenced to paint her nails in pop-art colors, which inevitably ties back to Brian and Dexter's mom, Laura Moser. Additionally season one ends with Dexter choosing Deb over Brian, despite the tempting fantasy of having a partner in crime, a blood brother. This whole situation bleeds itself over into the second season, as Dexter tries to let go of Brian, but also then embraces the former drug addict and artist, Lila West. Lila's art itself is like pop-art, but with a gritty morbid-flexible twist. At the end of the season she even paints a gritty pop art mural of Dexter on her wall. The women in the pop art painting in Louis' apartment looks very similar to Lila, but may represent a lot of women in the series.
4.Ryan Chambers. Ryan Chambers herself kind of has a bubble-gum pop appearance to her. Strangely she steals the Ice Truck Killer's hand just to sell it on ebay, but in some way it's hard to believe that she isn't directly involved with Louis Greene in some way, seeing as how they are both were interns during the same season. -Notably there was also a character in season 1 named Matthew Chambers. He was a known alcoholic who would kill people and ruin their lives in car accidents. He kept getting “off” and moving state to state, because he would cry in front of the jury. Dexter takes it into his own hands to keep Matt Chambers off the streets.
5.One of Travis Marshall's count down Doomsday events doesn't go as planned so he decides to punish Miami Metro for it. In season one Dexter mentions that a bio chemical attack is the last thing he thought could ever happen at his department. This is how Travis Marshell punishes the department (with the 7th event) with poisonious wormwood! (which also relates to "hallucination", as it is found in relation to absenth).
6.Part of the series seems to greatly explore drug dealing/drug users, and is really something left untouched and rather reflective of the real truth behind Dexter's birth to blood, as he calls it. Dexter's actual father is even more to blame than Harry is for Dexter's losses and traumatic experience, by being a Cocaine dealer and possible addict, as he sends "3" of his men to kill Laura Moser for being a snitch to the cops. Season 1 gives way to the drug dealer/addict aspect manifesting with Paul, season 2 with Lila, and season 3 starting out with the drug dealer, “Freebo” (Fred Bowman). In season 3 they're trying to track down Freebo and Debra makes this random semi-jokingly comment about not being able to catch him before he flees Miami, she says, to “Nebraska”. Ironically after the reveal that Arthur Mitchell is the trinity killer, his remaining family members go into witness protection and are relocated to Nebraska. Dexter finds out that “trinity” may be back, since Jonah Mitchel's mother and sister are killed. Dexter breaking down from the death of brother Sam (again some one Dexter cared for killed by drug cult), suddenly allows for the persona of Brian to take the place of his dark passenger, as Dexter sets out to find the real killer of the female Mitchel's, as Dexter knows Arthur is dead, because he killed him.
7.The Build up to Debra's awareness. It's hard to say how Debra is going to handle learning the truth about Dexter and how Dexter in turn is going to react to her, but it was an interesting twist that she goes for psychological evaluation after the death of Lundy (a father figure), the separation of Quinn (which sometimes reminds me of the darker aspects of whom Harry might have been when he was young), and the act that Brian has come back to haunt Dexter, even taunting "The one who got away"...(all may forshadow season 7/8. -In season 3 Dex imagines his son playing with Cody and Aster and suddenly he kills Aster, his step sister. Travis Marshall kills his own sister)
8. Dissecting parents and children (and sibling pecking order) into the mentoring teachers and students – Travis Mitchell' = Professor Geller, as Dexter = Harry, as Jordan Chase = his cult. Additionally Travis' sister was an elementary school teacher...
9. At the beginning of season 3 starts off with Dexter in the dentist chair getting a filling...when he goes to attack the drug addict and possible killer "Freebo" he looses his filling, almost exposing evidence that would connect him to the murder of the younger Prado Brother, who was associated with Freebo. In season 6 Dex goes after a minor serial killer known as "The Tooth Fairy", who literally collected the teeth from his victims as his trophies. Additionally Walter Kenney has a dental implant that is loose. (The Tooth Fairy is also a reference to the Hannibal Lector Series "Red Dragon" - Walter shares the same alias as Francis Dolarhyde, the main antagonist of "Red Dragon". All of season six plays on the physiological aspect to humanity)
10. "Early Cuts" featuring a back story when Dexter finally decides to purchase his boat, features the killing of a man named “Gene Marshall”. The obvious name repeating here is Marshall, but in this case there is clearly no blood relation to Travis and his family. As a very early kill, Dexter has a hard time disposing of his former victims, and he slices Gene in a dark alley way, places the parts in a trash can, and uses a pipe/tube to syphin the gas from his car's gas tank to the trash can...to be grossly comedic, body parts fly in the explosion Dexter creates, including Gene's hand. Gene too is a reoccurring name. Gene Figg is the husband to Camilla Figg, both whom were dying from cancer, and both who seemingly were long time friends with the Morgen family.
The rewatch also brought other things to my attention. Things that keep repeating. The Trinity Killer (3") may be for ever more iconic compared to others Dexter has had to kill, but I think the reason why that is, besides John Lithgow's fantastic performance, is because of everything that has happened before, specifically his origins in blood, as Dexter calls it, and how that continues to come back and haunt Dexter in various ways through these other people that Dexter chooses to identify with or ignore, as he struggles to find his place in the world.
Family is then another aspect that has truly been dissected and re contextualized through out the series, as both Cody and Aster have dynamics realatable to Deb and Dexter, from Rita and Frank both playing the mother and father figures that Dexter and Deb felt they never had, to the reveal that there may always be other siblings that can come from a second family...Dexter gets adopted by the Morgans, Cody and Aster move in with Paul's parents, Arthur Mitchell had another love interest that led to another daughter, ect, ect
One thing that is also iconic about Arthur Mitchell is his vintage open convertible. -The one flashback Dexter has of his biological father was a very young Dexter sitting along side his father driving in an open convertible. It is also an open convertible Rita drives during part of season one, which had belonged to a former criminal. The Trinity Killer also shares another tie back to Brian and Dexter's father and that's listening to old records, as Dexter took one of his father's album's when going through his father's belongings in season 1, and Rudy leaves a message behind for Dexter through a song on a record, “Born Free”. Additionally It's curious that Brian kills their father, as later in season 3, Dexter being agitated towards Harry, doesn't attend a mini celebration Deb and Dexter have done every year to honor Harry on his birthday. The next day, Deb says something to the effect of getting over the whole “killing your father thing”. - When you think about the show and all the people Dexter comes to blame, the one that seems to go unscathed, or untouched is Joe Drischoll. I can't help to think there is something to this, especially considering Arthur Mitchell plays the role of his own father when dealing with the father counter-part of his adult male victims and in his own way, Jonah does too. (Season 6 Jonah kills his mother for his sister's suicide).
Another repeating thing, also iconisized by Trinity, is the use of hammers (which seemingly comes from his father Henry). Even before Mitchell, in season 3 there was a criminal locked behind bars for a lesser crime, than the murder Dexter and M. Prado knew to be true, named Clemson Galt, who allegedly murdered a young girl with a hammer after learning she was pregnant. At the beginning of season 6 Dexter goes to his high school reunion to attempt to kill Joe Walker, who killed his wife and fellow class mate to both Dexter and Joe. Eventually when Dexter catches up to him to kill him, Dexter violently kills him with a sledge hammer and uses the phrase, "Hammer Time". (Note: Joe is the name of Dex's father...the last name "Walker" may allude to both Star Wars "Skywalker" - Having to deal with the shadow of, and the killing of your father to come into your own, and walker may imply 'one getting away with crime', aka: "he walked'. I also like to note that Luke Skywalker was adopted and that Joe Drischoll had no photos in his house and we never see him in the face as young man, like Darth Vader in the originally Star Wars Trilogy, Joe is "masked" to us.) And lastly, a character named Matt Davis is introduced for Dexter's interactive game. He killed "3" people in Chicago and "3" people in Miami using hammers (and Dexter learns that Matt may have killed his father).
Note: "Freebo" may also be a play on the song Born FREE.
More and more I also see references to sci-fi, fantasy, and or child hood fables that deal with super natural phenomena, that tends to reflect the broken human psyche. Some of these repeating themes and ideas in Dexter are SO phenomenal, almost ridiculous in their probability to repeat, that I can only assume heavy "fate" in the Dexter universe, or that literally, just like Dexter doesn't quite seem to know himself and perhaps neither do we, that Dexter may be darkly dreaming...
Author: DarthLocke from SpoilerTV Forum
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