Should Dexter go to Therapy again in Resurrection?
I’d like an actual psychological investigation, either in prison or because Dexter tries therapy (or self-help groups/coaching, rather in season 2 and 5) again as he did in seasons 1, 2, 5 and 8.
And what this journey should reveal is:
Dexter was never a psychopath, he was misdiagnosed in-universe, but has a personality disorder worth treating (schizoid PD, to be exact).
Did he ever truly have a dark passenger, or was he pushed into a lifestyle where all human connection with honesty was tied to murder, and what he really sought was a solution for his loneliness, not his anger? Was he weirdly comfortable with it because real human closeness is easily too much for him on the other hand? When he says he feels empty, is that because he keeps the world at bay to speak with his imaginary friends instead, because his internal fantasy is where all of his feelings play out?
Was he never a psychopath but rather a lone fighter, because his early childhood experiences told him he can’t rely on others, and that he is a danger to his loved ones (at least in the reasoning of an infant) so he withdraws into maximum traumatic introversion?
To me, Dexter as a show is primarily amazing because it took a questionable interpretation of psychopathy to come up with the best TV depiction of schizoid personality disorder that we have. There’s some irony in that somewhere, but it’s true.
And that would be a fascinating story to pursue.
That would be quite a genre shift, if done by like a prison psychologist, or could be weaved into the current genre, just like his therapy with Dr. Emmett Meridian or Dr Evelyn Vogel, or his self-help journey with Narcotics Anonymous.
When they actually get the psychology right and nuanced and in depth, that would be a fascinating continuation, yet also just a continuation, because the “in-universe misdiagnosis” interpretation of the show is already heavily supported by the text.
Posted Jul 13, 2026, 10:32 AM UTC