A few weeks ago, a friend unwittingly dragged me to an indie movie about a woman being beaten and raped in the woods. This was the film's entire plot. For almost half an hour, we watched a woman scream and flail, begging for her life. It was so absurdly gratuitous that finally a man sitting in front of me leapt to his feet and shrieked "THIS IS GARBAGE!"

I wish this man watched Showtime. Every Sunday night, I get sucked into "Dexter" by the clever opening credits and the first few shots of Michael C. Hall, an actor I loved in "Six Feet Under." And just when I'm about to get up and make some popcorn, something happens to make me reconsider. Usually that something is the grinding, spattering sound of Dexter, the show's hero, slicing into a naked saran-wrapped victim with a bone saw.

A drama about a mild-mannered serial killer was a TV trope waiting to happen. From cop shows to sitcoms, serial killers are TV's bread and butter, and ever since Hannibal the Cannibal, we're obsessed about what goes on in the mind of sociopaths. In "Dexter," we have a serial killer who takes great pleasure in savage killings but is also a loving brother, boyfriend and son. Early in his life, Dexter's adopted father, a police officer, decides to harness his creepy son's murderous urges for good, and draws up a code of honor for him: kill only "bad" people. The show also follows Dexter's police-officer sister, his ambitious boss and his fragile single-mother girlfriend, but all subplots take a backseat to one overwhelming theme: gore.

"Dexter" eliminates all pretense of subtlety. On "CSI," viewers might glimpse a bloodstained carpet and a carefully draped corpse. On "Dexter," we get a fountain of blood pumping through a severed artery and a sobbing, still-living victim. Blood — gushing from necks, spraying up walls, draining into containers for later use — pours from the screen. Recently Dexter slogged around in a puddle of blood so deep that the crime scene cops later put down two-by-fours to keep their feet dry.

"Dexter" out does itself. Each show is packed with both moments of gratuitous cruelty and stomach-turning violence. So far, the show's featured realistic dismemberings, sobbing, blood-covered children and dozens of bloated dead bodies. The show's cops clutch handkerchiefs to their mouths to keep themselves from vomiting. The slaughter is not only repulsive, it's actually nauseating.

If "Dexter" was aiming to shock me, it worked. I'm shocked. But I'm also appalled. It's not "edgy" to show a sociopath taking creepy pleasure while carving up his pleading, hysterical victims with power tools.

Before you start labeling me a prude, let me say that I concede that a show about a serial killer needs a few body parts and some blood to work. But relentless, explicit violence doesn't seem to serve any purpose. And on an artistic level, it's treating the audience like idiots. When the sound of a chain saw is enough to make most people wince, you don't need to show one hacking into a woman's neck. "Dexter's" graphic slayings exist solely to gross people out, turning a show that could have been provocative and thoughtful into, well, garbage.

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Emily Zeugner works for the AP in New York.

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