Purposeful color choices in the show, Dexter, often reflect the mood of the scene, setting the tone for the audience to interpret and enhancing the subject at hand. These color choices often reflect the turmoil of the show’s protagonist, Dexter, relating to his life, his past, and his thoughts. The creators utilize lights to often convey these important themes but also use the characters surrounding Dexter to point out recurring motifs and parallel Dexter. One of the most important examples of this is Dexter’s son, Harrison. Using Harrison as a mode of conveying color in the show allows the creators to parallel Dexter’s past and illuminate the issues that Dexter faces in his attempts to become a father. Harrison’s presence contributes an essential piece to the importance of noting color in the series because Dexter’s son is the prime candidate to reflect how Dexter struggles with maintaining his family and his need to kill without overlap, and ultimately his failure to do so.

Harrison’s presence in season four is the catalyst for Dexter’s struggle to balance his life as a father and his life as a serial killer. While having already taken the role and acted as a father figure to Cody and Astor, having his own biological son produces a new concern for innocence in Dexter. In episode one of season four, “Living the Dream,” Dexter struggles with balancing fatherhood, getting sleep, and chasing his next victim. He seems to overcompensate as a father, constantly insisting to Rita that he can take care of Harrison in the night, even when it leads to his over-exhaustion. In one of the scenes where Dexter takes care of Harrison in the middle of the night, his lines introduce the theme of innocence that becomes tied into Harrison’s character. “I’ve already lost my innocence. I’m not going to sacrifice yours too” (s. 4, ep. 1, 41:10). Dexter is committed to protecting all his children, but there is a closeness with Harrison that isn’t depicted in his relationships with Astor and Cody. These lines are a promise to Harrison directly as he cradles his son in the night and there is an intimacy between the two of them as Dexter finishes confessing the truth about himself to his infant son. The implication of Dexter’s words in a literal sense refers to when he was “born in blood” and lost his innocence. However, the message extends beyond this dark meaning and Dexter uses it to justify his killing to protect his son. Season four follows the imbalance between Dexter’s commitment to his family and his desire to continue pursuing the Trinity Killer. This imbalance ultimately leads to Dexter breaking his promise to Harrison and introduces the first scene where color choices regarding Harrison reflect on and parallel Dexter.

In the final moments of season four, Dexter’s wife Rita is killed at home with Harrison. Her death is thematic in that it involves gruesome amounts of blood all over the bathroom and leads to Harrison’s “second birth.” When Dexter returns home, he discovers the Trinity Killer found his family and killed his wife, leaving behind Harrison in the scene depicted below. Dexter’s son is covered in his mother’s blood, crying and alone. It is important to note that he is also dressed in lighter, pastel colors ruined by the darkness and stain of his mother’s blood. This scene strongly parallels Dexter’s own birth in blood, as he sits crying in blood until his father comes in to grab him and take him away from the scene. Blood is crucial in many aspects of Dexter’s life, from his profession to his darker choice in pastimes, but he attempts to compartmentalize these aspects of his life and keep them away from his family, especially his son, Harrison. However, in this scene, the choice to parallel how Dexter was “born in blood” and covering the pastel wearing child in the deep red of blood reflects Dexter’s failure to be a good father and protect his son and his family. This is the loss of innocence that then catapults Dexter to feel concerned for Harrison’s future behavior in season five.

Season five reflects the timid approach to fatherhood that Dexter takes as a single father after Rita’s death and his growing concern for Harrison’s behavior. He worries over the innocence of his son, seeking to find him an appropriate nanny while also being concerned over his behavior and overanalyzing typically childish behaviors. His concern over the season is primarily focused on the darkness inside of himself and potentially inside of Lumen Pierce and Harrison. However, the screenshot below from episode three shows that while Dexter worries over his son’s darkness and his ability to take care of him, Harrison is still an innocent child, capable of being the light in Dexter’s life. In a scene where most of the room is just average, mostly white or light-colored, Harrison’s yellow shirt is the focus of the scene, making the color emphasis more poignant. Yellow is a warm, bright color that inspires and is associated with sunlight, optimism, and happiness. The decision to put Harrison in this color intentionally sets him as the light and brightest spot in Dexter’s life at this moment after losing his wife and his other two children, who choose to live with their grandparents. However, it does not stop Dexter from worrying that this “brightness” in his son hides a dark passenger. He acknowledges his concern in episode five after Harrison scratches another baby. “Is there darkness in Harrison or is it just my own fear being reflected back?” (s. 5, ep. 5, 48:48). The juxtaposition of Harrison in yellow, defined as the brightest aspect of Dexter’s life, and the underlying concern that he is developing a dark passenger once again reflects how Dexter worries that his son may be on the same path as him. This is another moment where the color choice reflects the parallels between Harrison and Dexter while also illuminating his struggle to cope with fatherhood.

Season six marks Dexter’s newest attempt to do what is best for Harrison, despite not agreeing with some aspects. He enrolls his son in a Catholic preschool, despite his own status as an atheist. Religion becomes a component in this season and Harrison is dressed as a lion in the scene. The lion is the top of the food chain and the scene is ironic because Travis Marshall is sacrificing a “lamb” to his god. In this scene, in particular, it is important to notice not the colors in particular but the costuming, similar to specific color choice. Harrison and Dexter both wear masks in this scene, paralleling the motif of masks that has been evident and recurring since the first season. Once again this mirrors a similarity between Harrison and Dexter. It should also be noted that Harrison is the only child wearing his mask. The others have hoods, or the cow is lifting his mask, but instead, Harrison is once again mirroring his father and keeping his mask on in front of others. This intentional costume allows for the creators to foreshadow that even as Dexter seeks to protect Harrison from the darker world, it will likely be that his innocence will be taken, and he will develop a mask. Later in the episode, Harrison is abducted and nearly sacrificed by Travis Marshall, but without his mask the viewers can see that he is still a young boy crying and that this scene will likely be scarring on his subconscious.

In season eight, the thematic choices of yellow, red, and white come together to reflect Dexter’s inner turmoil and his struggle to be a father and killer and keep his son’s innocence intact, the recurring idea in each season that Dexter interacts with his son. In the opening moments of season eight, Dexter’s monologue conveys how well he and Harrison are doing after LaGuerta’s death, demonstrating at the same time scenes that convey that the two have been bonding in the six months. The uniform for Harrison’s team is yellow and Dexter wears the same color, shown in the screenshot here from episode one. Dexter begins the season overtly positive, reflecting on his time with his son with affection and this scene reflects that. This is the return of the color yellow, which once again is intentional. However, this time it is Dexter and his son that are both wearing the color, suggesting that Dexter is hopeful and in a good place at this point of season eight. In the monologue, Dexter explains that he has been involved with numerous activities from being a loving father to having an active love life and also pursuing his dark pastime. Thus, the color choice here reflects that Dexter seems to be hopeful and optimistic about his future, just as Harrison seems to be an optimistic and happy child in this scene, paralleling his father’s attitude. However, this positive outlook is not one that lasts for the rest of the season, as Harrison is covered in blood and near the color red in multiple scenes, each reflecting a new but similar view.

Season eight begins hopeful for Dexter and Harrison, but as it progresses, it seems that Dexter becomes reckless and it is reflected in how Harrison is portrayed in relation to colors and blood. Dexter, infatuated with Hannah McKay’s return, becomes reckless and makes decisions that endanger Harrison or threatens his innocence once again. In episode six, Dexter finds that Harrison keeps an incriminating piece of evidence: his white Puppy with blood on it. The white puppy is symbolic of Harrison’s innocence, the one thing that Dexter has attempted to protect since his birth in season four. It has been a struggle for Dexter to maintain and protect Harrison, but at this point, Harrison appears a normal boy. However, now Dexter has taken Harrison to a crime scene and corrupted his son’s favorite toy, and thus his son because, at this age, Harrison’s cognitive skills and memory are better developed than when Rita died. The stuffed animal is stained red with the blood of a man, marking the turning point in the relationship with Dexter and Harrison. This is the first mistake that Dexter makes that seems to have consequences on Harrison. Despite that his son doesn’t understand it is blood, Dexter has messily involved his son in his darker activities because he reacted recklessly. The colors in this scene symbolize that Harrison’s innocence is now threatened by Dexter’s life. His role as a father is now far more complicated because Harrison is at an age where every detail could potentially imprint itself in his subconscious. This moment foreshadows how Dexter ultimately hurts the innocence of Harrison in the series finale.

There are numerous other scenes that reflect this same idea of Harrison being tainted and ruined by the color red. In episode ten, Harrison injures himself on the treadmill at Debra’s house and Hannah takes him to the hospital and his shirt and towel are soaked in blood. However, this scene pales in comparison to how the creators dressed Harrison in the final moments of the series. Dexter abandons his son with Hannah McKay, leaving his son to grow up without either of his birth parents and under the impression that his father is dead. Hannah McKay is dressed in all black, appropriate for mourning the assumed death of Dexter Morgan. However, in this scene, Harrison’s red shirt is visible under his jacket. At first, it appears as a normal choice in wardrobe, but everyone else in the scene is dressed in all black or white, making Harrison the most colorful. Considering how Harrison’s most important scenes show him in bright, lighter colors, this decision to dress him in red where everyone else is in black or white makes him stand out. It also reflects in the final moments how his innocence has been corrupted. He is no longer just an average boy with a father, but instead has fled to a new country with a fugitive and been abandoned by his father, although he will grow up to believe his father has died in the hurricane. This final scene reflects the ultimate result of Dexter’s efforts to balance being a father and a serial killer.

Harrison’s importance in the show lies in how the color is used around his character to reflect his father’s past and present attempts to be a father figured. At times, the colors were foreshadowing of the end of the show, and other times it seemed to suggest that perhaps Dexter and Harrison could live happily in peace. However, ultimately, the color choices in the show reflect that Dexter fails at compartmentalizing his paternal duties and his dark urges, resulting in the innocence he sought to keep in his son being ruined. The creators of Dexter invested time to develop this importance of color choice and using it to enhance the experience and struggle of Dexter as he interacts with his son.