And tonight, we’ve got the teenage serial killer.

Okay…sort of. Here’s the thing, if you listen to ‘Tear You Apart’ by She Wants Revenge, you’ll notice two things about it:

1. It’s talking about a teenage crush
2. Some of the lyrics, once again, are a bit disturbing

Now, keep in mind that when I say disturbing, I’m not just talking about weird sex, which might be going on for purposes of the song – I don’t know – I’m talking about some of the lyrics going to the “hey, I think I’m in love with you, so can I tie you up in my basement and do some dirty crazy stuff to you until I decide to kill you in an equally dirty crazy way? It’ll be fun. I’ve got candy and puppies” kind of way.

Side note: I’m totally creeped out right now by the picture suggestions that are coming up in my contextual picture menu. Apparently, weird sex, serial killer and basement are NOT keywords you want in the same post because it makes Zemanta think I’d be interested in sadistic fetish porn.

Seriously, is there anything not allowed under the category public domain? Sheesh!

Sorry. Anyway.

On an episode of Criminal Minds I saw a while back they stated that teens displayed the same behavior as sociopaths. While not every sociopath is a serial killer (or vice versa), most serial killers ARE sociopaths in that they have no ability to feel emotions or empathy for other people. Granted, I wouldn’t go so far as to say that teenagers don’t have the ability to care about other people, just that they often choose not to.

Y’all…it’s totally getting hard to type this while Zemanta is trying to get me to use the picture of a bizarre torture device that I don’t want to know exists…

What I am struck by in the song is how similar teenage love is to serial killer “love.” Go with me on this. For teenagers, everything is of dire importance. Every crush is the end all be all of their existence. Don’t misunderstand…I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with this. I mean, I think we’re all hard-wired to be melodramatic during the years that our brains finish developing. (Then again, I know some people who never actually grew out of the drama phase…)

But what about serial killers? I’m so glad you asked.

A serial killer runs into someone either by chance or their own design and becomes fixated on them, obsessed. Normal human interactions with this person aren’t enough for the serial killer because love is a confusing and foreign concept for them. Instead, they want to possess the object of their fixation. (Dahmer, for instance, kept body parts in his house and eventually ate pieces of his victims in order to keep his “love” with him forever.)

I could continue with this line of thought and cite more examples, but I’d rather hear from you. (And the torture device appears to actually be staring at me now…)

Oh, yeah…Went through some vids of this song on YouTube and found very few choices unless you want to see a mash-up of Harry Potter and Romeo & Juliet which was a major FAIL in my book. In the end, it was between the scene from ‘The Number 23′ featuring this song and the band’s music video. I went with the band’s vid because, the movie clip didn’t use the whole song and, well, I didn’t want to inflict my peeps with a poor quality Jim Carrey sex scene, even for 1:30…Then again, this music video is…erm…odd.

So, check out the song and then weigh in on it. Do you see the ways teens are like serial killers or how teenage love and serial killer obsession coincide?

Enjoy!

Jen

“Let your dark passenger come out to play…Be your own nemesis!”

Seriously…what the hell is she?????

I have to say, I might be a touch disturbed by it. Not because the lyrics are so much worse than anything else out there, but because the lyrics echoed the sentiments of a serial killer.

At least, that’s how it sounds to me.

The song in question is “Somewhere a Clock is Ticking” by Snow Patrol. Here are some of the lines that have me thinking serial killer, even when I didn’t have Dexter and Criminal Minds on the brain:

• “I could do most anything to you…”
• “Don’t you breath”
• “You can’t leave”
• “Doors slam shut”

Okay, I’ll be the first to admit that those lines in and of themselves aren’t exactly the same thing as singing about outright murdering people, but when you consider there are very few lyrics in the song at all, well…you tell me.

Below you’ll find a fan video someone posted on YouTube for Somewhere a Clock is Ticking. This is one is about Sylar from Heroes, but I found tons more, including a disturbing unrequited love fan vid about Morgan and Reid on Criminal Minds. I selected this one because, well, the subject matter fits with my discussion and I was too distracted by the homoerotic subtext in the Criminal Minds video. (And the ones without anything to look at on the screen were boring to me)

So feel free to check out the other creations, but please do let me know your thoughts on the underlying meaning of the song before you go.

Grrr…Okay, so the Sylar fan vid doesn’t allow embedding so you have to go to YouTube to watch it there. So, instead, I actually bring you the Criminal Minds fan vid of this song below. Sorry. Try not to be distracted like I was!

Jen

“Let your dark passenger come out to play…Be your own nemesis!”

Essentially, serial killers are defined by their methods, motivations and marks.

What is a Serial Killer?

A variety of definitions exist for the term serial killer and clinical experts may disagree with one another on any given part of the defining characteristics. In general, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) defines a serial killer as:

• Someone who commits three or more murders, often with a period of inactivity between kills, sometimes called the “cooling off” period
• Someone who picks victims seemingly at random, as they are not usually associated with the killer. Understanding the commonality between these random victims can lead investigators to apprehend the killer
• Someone who does not gain financially from the murders. Usually, serial killers have deep-seated psychological motivations for their actions
• Someone who murders individuals in a ritualistic fashion; however, the ritual of a disorganized serial killer may not share the same level of definition as does the ritual of an organized serial killer.

Furthermore, serial killers usually lack the ability to form strong emotional relationships with others. While a serial killer is capable of maintaining relationships on a superficial level, they lack the capacity for emotions like empathy, compassion, guilt and remorse. To the serial killer, taking a human life is of no more concern than swatting a pesky fly.

Methods of Serial Killers

While most people might define the uncontrollable need to kill as crazy, strictly speaking, not all serial killers are clinically insane. Some do suffer from an antisocial personality disorder and display psychopathic tendencies. It’s important to note, however, that not all people with antisocial personality disorder are serial killers.

Two classifications exist for the methods of serial killers:

• Organized Serial Killer – Often has a high IQ, perhaps achieving genius level status. Uses charm and wit to stalk and lure victims. Despite the ritualistic nature of the murders, can evade capture by law enforcement through crime scene manipulation.
• Disorganized Serial Killer – Displays an IQ below average. Crimes may be random in nature as this killer focuses on killing as soon as the opportunity presents itself, not on maintaining the murder rituals. Law enforcement may have difficulty catching this kind of killer because of the randomness in victims and attacks.

Motivation of Serial Killers

The exact reasons remain unique to each serial killer, but it is possible to place most into one of four categories:

• Visionary Serial Killer – Seeks to rid the world of a specific group of people they view as unworthy or problematic, such as homosexuals, prostitutes, people holding certain religious faiths or those of a certain national origin. When captured, this killer may not understand why they are being punished for performing a service to the world through their actions.
• Mission-Oriented Serial Killers – Kills individuals based on outside instructions. This killer may believe God or Satan ordered the murders.
• Hedonistic Serial Killers – Kills for the enjoyment derived from killing or torturing others. Crimes may be sexual in nature, but are not limited to lust killings. Instead, obtaining the thrill of or the comfort from the kill may be the primary motivation.
• Domination Serial Killers – Seeks to exact the ultimate control over another through taking their life. May be a victim of abuse trying to regain the sense of control lost during childhood.

Marks (Victims) of Serial Killers

Statistically, more women fall prey to serial killers than men. Male serial killers often select victims they do not know. To carry out the kill, it may be necessary for them to stalk a victim for a lengthy period in order to understand their habits.

On the other hand, female serial killers usually target people with whom they already have a close relationship. Friends and family, particularly husbands and children, are the preferred victim.

Information taken from:

What Makes Serial Killers Tick?

Serial Killer

Welcome back, dark passengers. If you’re like me then you’re still reeling from the events of tonight’s episode of Dexter on Showtime. We’ll discuss that in more detail another time, but first, I’d like to catch everyone up now that Dexter Season 4 is a third of the way through.

Please note: The following contains spoilers up to and include episode 4 “Dex Takes a Holiday.”

The fourth season of this innovative television show continues to throw new curve balls while giving us more of the same humorous dark wit we’ve come to love over the past three seasons. Fans may not have been convinced Dexter as a daddy could survive to kill another day, yet being a husband and father living in hell – I mean the suburbs – brings his character to new emotional levels. If the the previews for next week’s episode can be trusted, we’re all in for a rollercoaster ride as the season unfolds.

Here’s what we know:

• Retired FBI manhunter Jack Lundy (aka Special Agent Grandpa) returns in search of catching the one killer who always escaped him, Trinity. He pulls Dexter and Debra into his obsession and together they try to figure out when and where he’ll make his next move. His return is beyond confusing to Debra, now in a live-in relationship with Season 3’s Anton. She promises him he has nothing to worry about where Lundy is concerned, but sleeps with Lundy at the end of episode 4.
• Dexter has his hands full balancing his new family responsibilities, his job and his dark passenger. Things go from bad to worse when he falls asleep at the wheel after a late night kill and crashes in spectacular fashion, totaling the car and messing with his memory. Not only does he have to fight to remember what he did with the rest of Benny’s body, he has a worried wifey who insists on driving him around after a call to Dexter’s doctor. His hunt for the vandal causing trouble on his street ends with Dexter destroying his neighbor’s security floodlights while Rita watches. Uh-oh, Dex…
• Lieutenant LaGuerta and Sergeant Bautista try to balance their workload and their new secret affair while a rash of robberies and killings in Miami cost the city a fortune in lost tourist revenue. They find a solid suspect, only to lose him after a shoot out.
• Trinity completes the first two of his murders: a young woman in the bathtub and coaxing a mother to jump to her death. At the scene of the second crime, he appears to leave a few ashes from an urn he keeps, but no one noticed them so his plea to be stopped goes unanswered. He stalks potential victims at a bar, preparing to make the final kill in his murderous cycle. While scoping his final body dump location, Trinity comes face to face with Special Agent Grandpa Lundy. The retired agent is close and Trinity knows it.

As if that weren’t enough to fuel the suspense, new trouble stalks Dexter & Co by the thirdway point.

• Quinn’s not only stealing money from crime scenes, he’s got loose lips in the sack (not the way you think). His pre-coital musings tipped off the media to Lundy’s involvement with Miami Metro about Trinity at a time when the Vacation Murders are supposed to be top priority.
• The dark passenger strikes close to home when one of Dexter’s victims turns the tables and attacks him at home. Dexter always gets his bad guy, or lady, but he can’t get the house cleaned up before Rita and family return from their time away.
• Debra and Lundy do the deed and pay the price. While discussing how they’ll break the news to Anton together, first Debra, then Lundy are shot.  Deb takes one bullet while Lundy takes at least two. The killer steals his watch, but takes nothing from Debra. Do they live? Do they die? We don’t know because it’s one helluva cliffhanger.

Here’s the question I have, dark passengers: Did Trinity take them out because Gramps knew too much and use the copycat method to divert suspicion? Or did the Vacations Killers strike with a convenient case of wrong place, wrong time? Trinity’s smart enough to pull it off…but did he?

Episode Title:  “Let’s Give the Boy a Hand”

Opening Line: “I find people around me are all making some kind of connection – like friendship or romance.  But human bonds always lead to messy complications.  Commitment, sharing, driving people to the airport…Besides, if I let someone get that close they’d see who I really am and I can’t let that happen.  So, time to put on my mask.”

Episode Summary: Guerrero’s men (and no, I can’t spell that name) are at the beach to watch Doakes during the investigation.  LaGuerta gets to make a trip to her “suspect’s” mother to make amends for calling him a killer on television.  She promises to bring him home, dead or alive.

LaGueta continues to make Debra’s life miserable by making her go through boxes of surveillance tapes.  Kara’s sister continues to taunt Doakes about how he’s going to get himself killed.  Doakes lets him know that Ricky wouldn’t come out of cover to give Kara a divorce and that he’s the reason she was killed.

Dexter breaks a test tube and Angel tells him not to let this killer get to him.  Apparently, he’s the best blood expert in the state.  Then, he asks for Dexter’s advice on a gift to give his wife for their anniversary.  Actually, he spends the whole episode asking Dexter for gift advice.  Turns out he’s been separated from his wife for three months for “something he did.”  He ends up giving he “key to my heart” necklace to his little girl.

Doakes is kidnapped as soon as he gets home by Guerrero’s men.  Ironically, they take him to the same abandoned hospital where Dexter is going to find the Ice Truck Killer.  As Doakes is about to be killed, the cops rush in to arrest them all.  Using his as bait was the plan all along.

Victims: N/A

Main Plot Development: A severed hand is left on the beach with it’s blood draining out onto a beach towel.  Is this the work of the Ice Truck Killer?  And it’s a male hand so that’s different for sure.

Turns out, this beach is one Dexter came with the family one summer and he gets a lecture from Harry about how important it is to fake emotions to make other people happy.  A quick trip back to the house to look in a photo album reveals that the Ice Truck Killer broke into his apartment to get to know him, not just leave the Barbie parts.

Oh…and the hand belongs to LaGuerta’s prime suspect.

Another body part…another photo.  Dexter cannot ignore things being staged from his past.  Dexter lets Doakes know the killer is sending a message that’s more important than the ritual, but he can’t tell Doakes who or why – for obvious reasons.

After analyzing the second body part, Dexter discovers that the victim is still alive and having his parts hacked off by the Ice Truck Killer.  Um…Ew!  LaGuerta makes a call to let his mom know her son may still be alive…they just have to find him.

On a hunch, Dexter goes to where he thinks the next crime will be, but he only finds his one of Miami’s homeless.  Then, he gets a call about a new body part being found at the pumpkin patch they went to as a kid.

Dexter later finds the victim, set up for the final kill at the same hospital where Harry’s father worked for 30 years.  He asks for death, but Dexter can’t kill him, even if he is missing a few body parts.  He calls in an anonymous tip to Debra so she can be the one to find him.

Closing Line: “My new friend thought I wouldn’t be able to resist the kill he left for me.  But I did.  I’m not the monster he wants me to be.  So I’m neither man or beast.  I’m something new entirely.  My own set of rules.  I’m Dexter.”

Romantic Plot Development: Dexter stabs…a pumpkin.  It’s Halloween so it’s time to carve up pumpkins with the girlfriend and her kids.  Dexter offers to talk to the new neighbor when he learns her dog is barking at all hours, keeping the kids from sleeping.  Big surprise, but the new neighbor’s bitch who doesn’t care because the dog belongs to her ex.

Then it’s time for a trip to the costume shop.  Rita lets him know she’s going to be Snow White again…it’s tradition.  The next morning, Rita visits her neighbor and asks her to do something about the dog.  The neighbor makes fun of her and tells her there’s nothing she can do.  Poor dog, looks so sad out there alone…

Rita gets her revenge by stealing the dog and take him for a ride in the car to a coworker whose family will love and appreciate the dog, unlike the evil neighbor lady I hate.  When she’s done, she makes a special trip over to Dexter’s apartment, dressed in a trench coat.  Odd for Miami, even in October…Oh, well this makes sense.  She’s dressed up as a hooker.  No, wait…it’s Tomb Raider.

Dexter doesn’t actually understand what she’s doing or why she’s dressed that way.  She tells him what an incredible feeling rescuing the dog was.  Since he’s been distracted by a case, she thinks she can help since she’s a dognapper and tomb raider.  She unzips his pants and he freaks out. “What are you doing?”  Yeah, Dexter…sort of obvious dude.

She curls up with him for a little while and then decides she has to get back to the kids.  Instead of trying to return the “favor”, he lets her leave and goes back to obsessing over the photos…where he makes a breakthrough…a smiley face on the back of the picture where he needs to go.

How many times he wears the ritual clothes: 0

My Thoughts: There was SO much going on in this episode that it was a bit like trying to recap a drag race with a million competitors.  Overall, I thought it was great.  I was just a bit disappointed that he never donned his ritual killing attire and there was no other case for him besides the Ice Truck Killer.  Don’t get me wrong, ITK is the main plot for the season – I get that – but I really enjoy watching Dexter trying to unravel bits of that while he’s on the hunt for another killer.

I like that some of the other characters are beginning to take shape outside of their cop lives in the department.  I felt bad for Angel during the scene with his wife and child, but I suppose he must have done something pretty bad to be kicked to the curb like that.  My guess? He banged some skank and his wife found out about it.  I can’t think of anything else that would make his wife so bitterly angry with him.

I also enjoyed getting a little bit of headway in his relationship with Rita.  They’re cute together.  She’s damaged and he’s dense so any move she ever makes on him is bound to cause either a comical thought or look on his face.  Good stuff there.  Of course, Dexter’s already said that physical relationship cause too many problems for him.  Wonder if that will continue to be the case as the season progresses?

Vote for the best line!

1.    “Interesting hand job.”
2.    Harry: “When someone takes your picture, you smile.  It doesn’t matter if you’re happy or not.”
3.    Bitchy neighbor: “Maybe that’s because they think their crackhead father is going to come back and beat there asses again.”
4.    “People think it’s fun to pretend you’re a monster.  Me, I spend my time pretending I’m not.”
5.    “I prefer to think of myself as a master of surprise.”
6.    “He wants me to play the game his way.”
7.    Doakes: “I kind of like it here with you.  You’re the only person I know people hate more than me.”
8.    “My favorite spot? Of course.”
9.    “I found it soothing…but it wasn’t condos back then.”
10.    “That’s good because you wouldn’t want it to look like someone was playing tic-tac-toe on her head.”
11.    “That was…unexpected…I have no problem with unexpected.”
12.    “Everyone hides who they are at least some of the time.  Sometimes you bury that part of yourself so deep you have to be reminded it’s there at all.  And sometimes you just want to forget who you are altogether.  And what about me?  Maybe I’ll never be the human Harry wanted me to be.”

So, what did you think of the episode?  Have you seen it yet?

Jen

“Dark. Deadly. Delightful.”

Image by ephramjames via Flickr

Was that as confusing to everyone else as it just was to me when I reread it?  Sorry about that, dark passengers, but the time has come to get back to our dark roots (not picking on any bottle blondes out there…)  Tonight, Dark Passenger announces a new series that will be ongoing now through the end of the year…roughly.

Before I get into just what the heck I’m talking about, let me back up explain how this will effect the rest of our discussions.  It won’t.  There have been some reasons – that I won’t get into – for why the dream series has been delayed.  It’s still comin’!  Soon.   Promise.

As many of you may know, Dark Passenger got its name from the Showtime series, Dexter.  For the rest of you, the concept of a dark passenger living inside, driving us to do things, is brought up by our favorite serial killer with a soul, if you will.  You see, Dexter is a serial killer who lives by a code that forbids him from killing innocents.  Instead of letting his dark passenger drive him to evil, he channels his blood lust into good by killing only other killers.

Basically, Dexter is billed as the ideal anti-hero, but we love him anyway.

Or do we love him because of it?

Regardless, fans of the show – like me! – have been tuning in for three seasons to watch the combination of drama, crime and dark humor unfold before our eyes.

Have you not yet seen Dexter?  Maybe you’ve heard good things about the show yet you don’t watch because the idea of coming in after three seasons of plot development is unappealing?  Well, it’s your lucky day, dark passengers, because Showtime begins re-airing the series from the very first episode tonight with a three-episode marathon.  (Didn’t remember to set the recorder?  Don’t worry.  This is Showtime we’re talking about so I’m sure we’ll see it rerun at least a dozen times during the week.)

So check your local listings and clear out enough space in the old DVR unit to record all 36 episodes (3 seasons) that will air every Sunday now through the beginning of the Season 4 premiere in the fall.

…and then join me here to discuss the Dexter episodes, one by one, until we’re all humming with anticipation for our favorite serial killer to return to the screen.  Come on, let your dark passenger come out to play with this one.  You know you want to…

Jen

“Dark.  Deadly.  Delightful.”

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