Hi! Gotta Dex question/comment for you.
Do you think it was inevitable for Dex to kill or get Julie killed?
I feel like if someone to FBI!Dex that an ex-special forces guy was obsessively stalking a woman his law enforcement training would immediately connect the dots to that being a situation where the woman was likely to be harmed but he would not be able to connect it to his own situation?
hello. i think it was inevitable that julie was going to get hurt in some way the second dex attached himself to her life, but i donât necessarily think it was inevitable that he himself would physically kill her. those are two different things. because when people hear âstalking,â they immediately think of the very common real-world pattern of somebody stalking a person because they want power over them romantically or sexually or violently. and while dex absolutely was stalking julie, i think what makes the situation more tragic and complicated is that in his own mind, he genuinely did not interpret what he was doing through that framework at all.
in the cafe where dex says she could perceive that what he was doing was stalking her, he immediately denies it, and i donât think he was lying in the manipulative way most stalkers lie. i think he genuinely did not emotionally categorize his behavior as stalking because his motivation behind it was so warped and specific to the way his mind works. dex did not latch onto julie because he wanted to dominate her or own her or even necessarily be with her in the traditional sense. he latched onto her because he saw her as âgood.â stable. kind. normal. human in a way he felt he fundamentally was not. and because he thinks in such an analytical, rigid, almost equation-like way, he started treating her like the answer to a problem he could solve. if he watched her enough, learned her routines enough, observed her reactions enough, maybe he could somehow understand how to become what she was. like goodness was a code he could crack through observation.
thatâs why i think he convinced himself what he was doing was harmless. because in his mind, his intentions were not malicious. he was not following her around fantasizing about hurting her. if anything, he probably thought he was protecting her while also learning from her. and because dex is so used to being profoundly competent at everything he does, i think he believed he could fully control the situation. thatâs a huge part of his character in general. he constantly thinks precision and control can overpower reality itself. itâs the exact same mindset he had as a child when he believed that pitching a perfect game would somehow bring his parents back and make them love him again. logically, that makes no sense. emotionally, to dex, it did make sense because his brain works in this very transactional cause-and-effect way where if he performs perfectly enough, maybe reality itself will finally reward him. and we still see that mentality years later in born again, where he seems to think that if he commits enough âgoodâ acts, he can somehow balance out or neutralize the terrible things he has done. he keeps trying to mathematically level morality out, like morality is a scale instead of something emotional and human and messy.
snippet of wilson bethel on the âthirst aidâ podcast in 2018
transcript: To me, and maybe there's no way for some people to differentiate this, but for me, there was nothing like sexual. A, there's nothing sexual about it. There's no like sexual power dynamic there. It's not like he wants to, you know, I mean, forgive my language here, but he's not, he's not, there's no, he's not trying to fuck her. Yeah. He's not trying to violate her in some way. So that's part of it. And I actually don't even think it's really on a more basic level, like a power dynamic thing. It's more, I mean, if anything, there's just, it's more about this kind of purity element of it. Which maybe is its own kind of gender dynamic thing. But at least it takes away, I think, some of the kind of the icky creep thing where it's the sex is out of it. And then it's just like he sees in this person, like a model of how to be a good person. Less than it's about him wanting to be with her or being in love with her even. Because I don't really think that's it. I don't think he wants, I don't think he wants to have a relationship with Julie. I think he wants to spend as much time around her as he can because he thinks, in the same way as his therapist, right? The whole deal was that, like, Julie is the kind of like the segue from his therapist. He lost his therapist who was that, who was the person who gave him grounding in the world, who gave him, you know, better insights on how to be. And then when he found Julie, he found a replacement for that. And again, and in the same way that there was no sexual relationship with the therapist, there's nothing, I don't think any of that plays in with Julie. Those terrible instincts tamed within them, you know, this kind of like beauty in the beast. I think the bigger thing is like just, you know, looking for, you know, as they say in the show, like that North Star, right? The person to give him a real sense of like who he wants to be. And I almost feel like the fact that it's a woman is somewhat incidental in both the case of the therapist and Julie. I mean, I feel like, well, because ultimately his North Star becomes Fisk
that disconnect is really important to his character. he is hyper-observant outwardly but almost emotionally blind inwardly. he can read body language, predict reactions, anticipate behavior, notice patterns, understand weak spots, calculate outcomes, but when it comes to his own feelings and impulses, he rationalizes them instead of understanding them. so because he personally did not feel malicious, he convinced himself the situation itself was not malicious. itâs like brain justifyed it by saying he doesnât want to hurt her, therefore it isnât dangerous. but intent does not erase impact, and thatâs the thing dex fundamentally struggles to understand throughout the show.
and honestly, julie was probably in danger long before fisk even weaponized the situation. dex really was not hiding what he was doing particularly well. his very recognizable green jeep truck was constantly near places she frequented. he knew deeply personal details about her life that she had never told him directly. he knew she used to do ballet. he knew she tore her acl. he knew her routines. he knew where she lived. he knew she didnât own a dog, which means he either spent enough time watching her apartment to know nobody ever took one out or he had gotten close enough to gather that information another way. and because he was FBI, he also had access to databases and resources that could help him learn more about her. so from an outside perspective, especially from somebody like fisk who weaponizes vulnerabilities, julie immediately becomes an obvious target.
and thatâs another thing i think is tragic: even if dex himself never physically hurt julie, his attachment to her made her vulnerable anyway. not because he intended it, but because attaching yourself obsessively to another person always creates risk. especially when you are somebody like dex, whose entire life revolves around violence, federal investigations, dangerous people, instability, and emotional volatility. fiskâs people only needed a very short amount of time tailing dex before they probably realized julie mattered to him. because dex is skilled, but emotionally he is not subtle at all. when he fixates on somebody, his entire world starts orbiting around them.
i also think his fear of abandonment played a huge role in why he stayed distant from her for so long. because what he wanted from julie was not actually a normal relationship. he did not want intimacy in the healthy human sense. he wanted guidance. structure. a ânorth star,â exactly like dr. mercer taught him. and i think he interpreted her teachings in an incredibly rigid literal way because thatâs how his brain processes things. dr. mercer never intended for him to obsessively attach himself to one random woman and study her life like a behavioral manual, but dex took her advice and filtered it through his own black-and-white analytical thinking. so julie became less of a person and more of a symbol to him, proof that goodness existed and maybe something he could imitate.
and because of that, i do not think he would have intentionally murdered her himself. hurting julie would psychologically destroy the role she served in his mind. she represented the possibility that he could become better. if he directly destroyed her, then he would be forced to fully confront what he believes deep down about himself: that he contaminates everything he touches. that there really is something fundamentally wrong with him that cannot be controlled. and you can actually see that terror in episode 5 when he unconsciously throws the knife at the picture frame at her face in the photo after she rejects him. i donât think he consciously decided to do it. his body reacted before his mind emotionally processed it. and the horror on his face afterwards matters so much because he realizes, for a split second, that the violent impulse underneath him is still there no matter how desperately he tries to structure himself around rules and routines and âgoodness.â
that moment is terrifying to him because it proves something he has been afraid of the entire season: that violence is not just something he does, it is something instinctive inside him. and i think thatâs why he spirals so hard afterwards. because throughout season 3, dex is not a character happily embracing violence. he is a character terrified of himself. terrified of what he enjoys, terrified of what comes naturally to him, terrified that all his attempts at control and routine and morality are ultimately artificial. julie dying at fiskâs hands basically confirms his worst fear in the cruelest possible way: that even when he tries to hold onto goodness, people around him still get destroyed.
and if you asked dex during the fbi era objectively, detached from himself entirely, whether the woman in that scenario would eventually be harmed somehow, i genuinely think he would immediately say yes. because law enforcement training aside, dex is a person who understands patterns extremely well. his entire life revolves around identifying patterns and anticipating outcomes before they happen. he can look at behavior and usually predict where it leads. if somebody described to him a man obsessively tracking a womanâs routines, memorizing details of her life, following her movements, learning where she lives and where she goes, he would probably instantly understand that the woman is being put into danger. not necessarily because the stalker is planning to physically attack her, but because the act itself is already crossing boundaries and taking away her sense of safety and autonomy. he would know that on a factual level even if he cannot connect with it emotionally.
but dex has always had a disconnect between factual understanding and emotional understanding when it comes to himself specifically. because deep down, even if he convinced himself that his intentions were good, i think part of him probably still knew on some level that what he was doing was wrong. maybe not consciously in a âi am stalking this woman and hurting herâ way, but in that quieter way where somebody avoids looking directly at what theyâre doing because if they stop and fully acknowledge it, then they have to acknowledge what that says about them too. because if he admits that what he is doing is dangerous, then he has to admit that he is dangerous. and throughout season 3 he spends almost the entire story trying to prove to himself that he isnât.
because stalking somebody always hurts them eventually. even if physical violence never enters the picture, there is still emotional damage, psychological damage, fear, violation, loss of safety. once julie found out, there was never really a version where she would walk away from that without being affected by it. because suddenly ordinary things become terrifying. wondering how long someone has been watching you, wondering what they know, wondering where they have been, wondering if they were closer than you realized. and i think logically dex would know all of that because he is not unintelligent. he understands cause and effect extremely well. but he also spent his whole life believing that if he controlled something enough, if he performed well enough, if he was careful enough, somehow consequences could be avoided. and that is probably the most tragic thing about him honestly. because dex keeps trying to negotiate with reality itself, and reality keeps refusing.
andulkaphoto
discoholicmusic
stormborns
jacobvanloon
annaxmalina
jbbartram-illu
