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There's a tendency to fetishize serial killers, vigilantes in particular, in popular culture, and Dexter's second season can be read as a commentary on this tendency--and as a meta-commentary on itself. When the Bay Harbor Butcher investigation reveals that Dexter's victims were all killers themselves, the Miami population, and a portion of the investigative team, rallies behind him. A local comics creator invents a Batman-esque character called the Dark Defender, based on the Butcher's exploits. A copycat killer emerges. Dexter's response is a mixture of bemusement ("Miami's too hot for all that leather," he thinks when he sees the Dark Defender's portrait, though later he dreams of himself in that costume, suggesting that the lure of uncomplicated, four-color heroism is too powerful to completely resist) and outright rejection--when he confronts his imitator and discovers that he's killed before for reasons more selfish than meting out justice, Dexter classes him with the kind of killer he's allowed to dispose of. Dexter frequently indulges in the kind of moral forced perspective that often characterizes stories with immoral protagonists--by any objective standard, Dexter is far worse than Rita's abusive husband, Paul, but we hate Paul with a fiery passion, and root for Dexter, because we care about Rita and don't know the people who love Dexter's victims, and because Paul is a bully. Which is why it's important that the investigation of Dexter's crimes confronts us with the visceral reality of, well, viscera, as well as blood, guts, and bones. The sight of Dexter's chopped-and-bagged victims spread out along the sea floor is sickening, and lest we take too much comfort in the sentimental fantasy of Dexter as the white-hatted protector, the writers have Deb baldly state the simple truth that no one does the things Dexter has done without taking pleasure in them.The second season has only four episodes left in it, and as of the most recent episode, Lundy and Doakes have tightened the noose around Dexter's throat. Clearly the show is not going to send Dexter to prison, and speculation is rampant among fans that either Lila or Doakes will end up taking the fall for the Bay Harbor Butcher's crimes. I'm more interested, however, in where the season takes Dexter emotionally, and though I'm utterly baffled by the question of how the writers can advance the show's plot in the third season, what interests me more is the question I asked when Tony Soprano first walked into Jennifer Melfi's office. Do we want Dexter to be cured? And what would that even mean? Can Dexter live openly with the people he cares about, or would that be straining disbelief too far? Thus far, what Dexter's writers have produced is an ode to moral complexity, to actual shades of grey and not the dressed up black that usually passes for them. They've created a show that depicts the compromises we all make with the principles we were raised with, and hold out the possibility and the necessity of living a moral life in spite of these compromises.