25 of the most toxic relationships on TV

Dexter Promotional Photo via Showtime

Debra and Dexter

Audiences happily accepted Dexter as the serial killer with the heart of gold. Michael C. Hall was wildly applauded for reinventing the “antihero” archetype with a new and complex new layer. We excused his murderous nature at every turn, and even explained it away as a “necessary evil.” But stuff got weird the moment Dexter and his sister started having romantic feelings.  Note to selves: Murder = okay, incest = not so much. (But don’t tell Game of Thrones fans that.)

Even though they weren’t actual blood relatives, there’s still a real ick factor to the whole Deb/Dexter storyline. Deb’s romantic feelings for Dexter bubbled under the surface for most of the series, but they didn’t come to the surface and until the end of season six. And there were some major feelings about the whole matter.

Although Deb may not have realized her feelings for Dexter, they were a very important part of her character, and she may have been the only one who didn’t realize in what direction they were headed. Maybe it was these feelings that kept Deb, an accomplished and successful homicide detective, from figuring out that her brother-lover was a rampant serial killer. Love can blind us, you know.