Dexter's controversial season finale Sunday night was a stunner. (Warning: Spoilers lie ahead.) And the night's biggest jaw-dropper didn't come when, after six seasons, vigilante serial killer Dexter Morgan's murderous double life was finally discovered by his sister, Deb. Instead, it was Deb's squirm-inducing revelation that she harbors romantic feelings for Dexter, her adopted brother. That makes Dexter the fourth cable series to unveil a divisive incest storyline this year, following HBO's trio of Bored to Death, Game of Thrones, and, most recently, Boardwalk Empire. It's a "troubling trend" that's been building for years on shows like Nip/Tuck, Lost, and the aptly named Brothers and Sisters, says Jace Lacob at The Daily Beast, but is just now reaching critical mass. For better or worse, does that mean the taboo is broken?
Of course it's a taboo. That's why it's intriguing: Incest is still very much a taboo subject, says Tracy Clark-Flory at Salon. And it's also still horrifying. Shows like Dexter and Game of Thrones aren't breaking the taboo by depicting incest, they are reinforcing it "by playing on our supreme squeamishness toward the idea." It's telling, too, that these shows are still quite popular in spite of their portrayals of incest. "We are at once drawn to it and repulsed by it."
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