Opening Sequence Analysis

Context
Dexter is an American television drama series that has been running since 2006. The series is about Dexter Morgan (Michael C. Hall), a blood spatter pattern analyst for the fictional Miami Metro Police Department who moonlights as a serial killer. The opening sequence shows Dexters normal morning routine shaving, preparing breakfast but does so in a way that creates a sense of menace, suggesting his hidden dark side. It works because we already know he is a serial killer.

The Music
Spooky and unnerving: piano, bassoon, viola, violin and cello. Latin and gothic sounds. (Hints at setting Miami and genre.) Non-diegetic music is juxtaposed with very well recorded diegetic sound effects: shaving, slicing, sizzling meat. This forces you to identify with the person carrying out the actions (the sound makes you feel as if you are the one doing them). It also adds to the sense of menace each action creates as it is shown.

Extreme Close Ups

Mosquito = blood-sucker. Dexter swats it and we focus down his forearm (past the spot of blood created by the death of the mosquito) and see him smile. Another death, another day!

Reading: killing is normal for him. He is a predator, like the mosquito, and a dominant one.
It also sets the scene for the opening: morning routine. Dexter is waking up for the day.

Close up of shaving results in a cut neck and blood in the sink, then soaking into a piece of tissue paper. In close up, these become menacing. A small spot of blood is magnified. Inter-textual link to blood/drain (think Psycho). The tissue seems almost like the taking of a trophy (much like Dexter collects his blood slides).

Close up of a knife blade slicing through more tissue -- packaging and flesh. The extreme close up makes it seem as if the meat is flesh. The eggs are broken and fried. Sizzling. A splash of Tabasco shoots across the screen like a spurt of blood. The cutting is jerky -jumps and stutters. An animalistic mouth devours the meat. Appetite. The close ups allow for more than one reading of the images and build a sense of menace.

Visual Double Entendres

A morning routine becomes sinister.

The series title looks like its bleeding.

The breakfast meat looks like flesh. Dexter seems like a cannibal.

The dental floss seems like garrotte wire. Dexters exposed neck is shown before he uses it for his teeth.

The shoelaces seem as if they are being threaded through skin. They are shown pulled tight as if they are being used to strangle someone.

Coffee grinder: its like the grains are being executed. Binary opposites of normal every day items and their dark uses. Cafetiere: bubbles remind us of drowning. Dexter pushes a little too hard! (Blood) orange: serrated knife seems as if it is cutting through flesh. Juice sprays like blood.

Horror iconography.

Dexters t-shirt is pulled tight, like a bag over a suffocation victims head. The face behind the t-shirt reminds us of a criminals face behind a stocking.

We see Dexters face for the first time. He looks us in the eye for just a little too long. It unsettles us, but doesnt seem to bother him. He is in control, comfortable with the routine and presenting a normal face to the world.

Close-up of door lock he is locking all the hidden parts of him away, and putting on a normal face to the world.

Final shot: Dexter is pulled together no longer in closeup and is leaving his apartment with its secrets to head into the real world. He catches our eye and smiles: audience identification; shared knowledge; equilibrium.