Debra Morgan

Debra Morgan
Dexter character
First appearance	Book Series: Darkly Dreaming Dexter TV Series: "Dexter"
Created by	Jeff Lindsay
Portrayed by	Jennifer Carpenter Haley King (teenage Debra) Laura Marano (young Debra)
Information
Gender	Female
Occupation	Miami Metro Homicide Lieutenant
Family	Harry Morgan (father; deceased) Doris Morgan (mother; deceased) Dexter Morgan (adoptive brother) Harrison Morgan (adoptive nephew)

Debra Morgan is a fictional character created by Jeff Lindsay for his Dexter book series. She also appears in the television series, based on Lindsay's books, portrayed by Jennifer Carpenter. In Lindsay's novels, she first appeared in Darkly Dreaming Dexter, and has featured in every novel since.

Debra is introduced in the first episode as the adoptive sister of Dexter Morgan. In the first episode it is revealed that Dexter was adopted by Debra's father Harry Morgan when she was very young. Debra has been involved in many different relationships and has been through a lot of character development. In season one, Debra falls for a man calling himself Rudy Cooper; it is eventually revealed that he is in fact Brian Moser, "The Ice Truck Killer", and Dexter's biological brother. She is kidnapped by Brian, and rescued by Dexter. In season two, Debra is still struggling with the fallout of the events in season one. She works alongside Special Agent Frank Lundy. They eventually begin a relationship while working on a relatively large investigation. Lundy is murdered in the fourth season episode "Dex Takes a Holiday". After her sister in law Rita Bennett is murdered by Arthur Mitchell, Debra helps Dexter take care of his child, Harrison Morgan.

Character history

Early life

Debra was born to Doris Morgan and Harry Morgan and later became foster sister to Dexter Morgan. A tough, foul-mouthed tomboy, she craved her father's attention, and envied Dexter for all the time that Harry spent with him — unaware that Harry was teaching him how to get away with murder.

When she was 16, her mother died of cancer. From then on, she wanted to become a detective like her father, and started learning to shoot a gun by taking her father's. Dexter found out and told Harry, who punished her. Hurt, Debra told Dexter that she wished that Harry had never brought him home; she was immediately remorseful for saying it, however, and apologized.

She was distraught at her father's death and, inspired by his legendary police career, she followed in his footsteps and joined the police and yearned desperately to become a Homicide Detective. She spent three years in patrol and then another two years in vice before being promoted by Captain Tom Matthews (a friend of her father), becoming a Homicide officer at the start of the first season.

Season one

Debra is characterized as smart and capable, yet unsure of herself, and so she relies upon Dexter's seemingly limitless expertise on murderers to solve difficult cases. Initially assigned to Vice, she is desperate to be transferred to Homicide. After Matthews promotes her, she starts to grow self-confident, relying less on Dexter's abilities and more on her own.

Debra starts dating, and eventually falls in love with, Rudy Cooper; unbeknownst to her, he is actually the Ice Truck Killer, and is only dating her in order to get close to Dexter. At the end of the season, Rudy proposes to her and she accepts. Rudy — who is actually Brian Moser, Dexter's biological brother — then kidnaps her to reveal himself to Dexter. She is bound to a table in the same manner that Dexter kills his victims, while Dexter and Brian discuss her fate. Dexter ultimately saves her life, and reluctantly kills Brian to keep her safe.

Season two

Debra is frail at the start of season two, still recovering from her ordeal with the Ice Truck Killer. She feels that she is not a good detective because she didn't spot that her fiancé was a serial killer, but FBI agent Frank Lundy reassures her otherwise and they, mid-season, develop a romantic relationship, which ends when he is called away from Miami. She stays in Dexter's house while she deals with the trauma.

Debra is appalled when she finds out that Dexter is cheating on his girlfriend, Rita Bennett, with his Narcotics Anonymous sponsor, Lila Tournay, of whom she is immediately suspicious; Debra eventually threatens to have her deported upon finding out her true identity. In the season finale, she helps Dexter rescue Rita's two children from a fire that Lila had started.

By the end of the season, she has regained her confidence, and she is more determined than ever to improve her career and get a detective shield.

Season three

As Season three begins, Debra has had her hair cut to shoulder length, has "sworn off men, liquor and smokes". She is working with a new partner, Detective Joey Quinn, but has been approached by an Internal Affairs officer who tells her that her partner is being investigated for corruption. She refuses to assist in the investigation, however. She is originally part of the team investigating the murder of Miguel Prado's brother Oscar, but because of her lack of tact and people skills she is removed from the case by the newly-promoted Angel Batista. The case she has been assigned to (the murder of a young woman) is eventually found to have been connected to the ongoing case of a serial killer called "The Skinner", which she solves with the help of Anton Briggs, a confidential informant with whom she starts a relationship with after saving his life. Because of her success on the Skinner case, she receives her detective shield at the end of the season.

Season four

At the beginning of the season, Dexter tells Debra that their father slept with one of his confidential informants. She investigates the files on Harry's informants and interviews them, hoping to find the one Harry slept with. One of the files is shown to be Laura Moser. Her relationship with Anton begins to suffer at this point, especially when Lundy returns to Miami to hunt the Trinity Killer. They sleep together and renew their relationship, but the very same night they are both shot — Lundy fatally — by an unknown assailant. She eventually figures out the Trinity Killer is the shooter, and opens an investigation.

After consulting with Vince Masuka, however, Debra deduces that Trinity could not have been the shooter. During a Thanksgiving dinner with Dexter's family, Debra remembers a conversation she had with reporter Christine Hill, and realizes Hill has knowledge of the shooting that no one outside the police department knew about, and concludes that she was the shooter. (This is proven true in a later episode revealing that Hill is Trinity's daughter.) Hill later confesses to Debra that she killed Lundy, moments before she commits suicide. Debra then renews her search for Harry's mistress, and finds out about Laura Moser, and the fact that Dexter and the Ice Truck Killer are brothers. She tells Dexter the news (which he already knew), and then tells him that he is "the one consistently good thing" in her life.

Season five

Debra begins an intimate relationship with her partner, Joey Quinn. She and Quinn are assigned to the "Barrel Girls" case, the main case of season five. Debra is deeply affected by the case, in which 13 women were raped, tortured and murdered by a group of men, and left in barrels in a swamp. The police find DVDs the killers recorded of the crimes, and Debra is assigned to study them. She figures out that Jordan Chase, a prominent public speaker, is involved with the group of men killing the girls, but cannot prove her suspicion because he never appears on the DVDs. However, she is able to track him down by the end of the season, and finds his body, moments after Dexter and Lumen Pierce have killed him. She sees them at the crime scene through a wall of plastic sheeting, and tells them that she needs to call in the crime scene, but gives them an hour head start, because she sympathizes with Lumen, the surviving victim. She doesn't find out that it was Dexter and Lumen who were responsible for the deaths of the Barrel Girl killers.

In the middle of the season, Debra finds out that Quinn, who believes that Dexter was involved in Rita's murder, has been investigating Dexter behind her back. Debra is very upset at Quinn and confronts him. Quinn decides that his relationship with Debra is more important than his (supposedly) unfounded suspicions about Dexter, and stops his investigation. At the end of the season, they have reconciled, and attend Dexter's son Harrison's birthday party together.

Season six

At the start of the season, Debra is living with Quinn. She and Quinn go out for dinner and Quinn plans on proposing, but is interrupted when a shooter opens fire in the establishment. Debra subdues the shooter. Later, she is informed by Deputy Chief Matthews, that she will be receiving the promotion to Lieutenant that LaGuerta had attempted to blackmail Matthews into giving to Angel. She tells Angel over coffee, and he is happy for her and gives the job his blessing. In a further act of punishment, LaGuerta is forced to publicly promote Debra.

Romantic relationships

Debra is known to have very bad relationships with men. Her first boyfriend was a mechanic called Sean who turned out to be married. Then she had a relationship with Rudy Cooper, who ended up kidnapping her and trying to kill her twice, once via Dexter and once at Dexter's apartment.

In Season two, she starts going out with a man named Gabriel whom she met at the gym, and whom she suspects (incorrectly) of trying to use her notoriety following the Ice Truck Killer case to jumpstart his writing career. After that ends, she goes out with Frank Lundy, a man 20 years her senior who has to leave Miami at the end of season two, although she resumes her relationship with him in season four. She then starts a relationship much later with her Confidential Informant Anton Briggs. In the season five premiere she sleeps with her partner, Joey Quinn, who since then has been trying to have the relationship develop into something more than purely sexual.

Differences from the novels

In the books, the character's name is spelled "Deborah", and she is described as "voluptuous," in contrast to her slim appearance on the TV show. In the novel Darkly Dreaming Dexter and the follow-up novels, Deborah finds out that Dexter is a serial killer, and appears to accept it, although she is sometimes torn between her love for her brother and her duty as a cop; in the TV series, Debra remains unaware of Dexter's "hobby", and it is suggested that she would not be able to handle this knowledge.

At the conclusion of Dexter is Delicious, Deborah is pregnant by her boyfriend, Kyle Chutsky.

Reception

Jennifer Carpenter's portrayal of the title character's sister has impressed some critics, with Australian journalist Jack Marx describing her "cool and clumsy" performance as "so perfect that many viewers appear to have mistaken the character's flaws for the actor's."

For her portrayal of the character, she has been nominated for three Saturn Awards for "Best Supporting Actress in Television", in 2007, 2008 and 2010 and she won the Saturn Award in 2009 for her performance in Season three. She has also been twice nominated as part of the ensemble cast for Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series in 2009 and 2010.

External links

• Debra Morgan at the Internet Movie Database