Top TV Memes: The Best Formats From 'Dexter'

Dexter is one of those shows everybody talks about. You don’t know why this became so intertwined with your daily life, but your friends and random online strangers are talking about it, so you assume you should watch it too. And should you? Maybe. It gets darker and darker as the seasons progress, so you need to be in that same state of mind akin to regular viewers of Requiem for a Dream. But it’s become a huge part of internet culture, and with the reboot now released, we can expect it to grow even more in popularity.

Michael C. Hall plays Dexter, a homicide investigator in Miami who moonlights as a serial killer. Dexter seems to think he’s a great guy, which makes the series really strange, and everything from the constant voiceovers to the shots of Dexter hurling bodies into the ocean to the line "Surprise, motherf****r" have become memes. These are some of the episodes where popular memes originated.

Most Popular Memes: Season 8, Episode 12: "Remember the Monsters?"

The ending of Dexter is often compared to that of Game of Thrones, and when anything is remotely that bad, it obviously has gained internet fame. This episode is no exception. Viewers didn't know what to expect from this Dexter finale, but it definitely was not this. Even when the reboot series has somewhat distracted from the events of this episode, the internet won't let the show live this down, and memes about it still appear online every time someone finishes watching the show.

To put it simply, it's not good. It's not just the fact but there's no happy ending, but rather that nothing happening in this episode makes sense. As such, we have a lot of memes about the ending, particularly in the format of an advice animal of Dexter staring blankly into the camera with a beard. There are a lot of memes about the fact that Dexter in this scene has fully committed to the lumberjack lifestyle, as well as many others on topics both related to the show and completely irrelevant.

Most Meme Potential: Season 4, Episode 9: "Hungry Man"

This episode is weird all around, and also fits great with our current holiday season. In it, Dexter attends a Thanksgiving dinner with another serial killer and his family. Just like all other Thanksgiving dinners, things became awkward quickly. But unlike your Aunt Lisa’s tendency ask a lot of probing questions and your desire to retreat into your room and play video games alone for the rest of the night, this Thanksgiving evolves into a horrible fight that shows how terrified the family is of the Trinity Killer, played by John Lithgow.

I'm not sure this scene was supposed to be funny in any way, but the more you watch it, the better it gets. Here, the Trinity Killer seems to have no concept of how to interact with other human beings aside from hurling cuss words in their direction when they try to compliment him, even though he works at a church. There are quite a few memes floating around about this scene, with some focusing on some one liners too vulgar for me to mention here, as well as the behavior of Dexter and the Trinity Killer, but unfortunately the potential of this episode is often forgotten amongst the debates over the ending.

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