Bullseye

"Julie and I wish you the absolute best..."

BENJAMIN DEX POINDEXTER

The Perfect Game

From an early age, Benjamin Leonard “Dex” Poindexter was never taught right from wrong by his parents. This caused him to feel not love, but anger from them. After the death of his parents due to unknown circumstances, Dex was sent to Lyndhurst Home for Boys as an orphan, where he joined the baseball team due to his outstanding accuracy. As he excelled in his role as the team’s star pitcher, the team’s coach, Bradley, told Dex he would bench him, claiming that he wanted to give Dex’s arm a break and to let the other kids play.

Desperate to prove himself and under the false belief that pitching perfect games would his parents back, Dex was enraged. Believing Bradley had betrayed him by taking away his chance to play, Dex grabs a baseball and throws it with considerable force at a steel pole, causing it to ricochet and strike Bradley hard on the head, killing him instantly. Bradley’s death was considered an accident.

Going to Therapy

After the death of Bradley, Dex was sent to Riviera Psychiatric Institute, where he was assigned Eileen Mercer as his therapist. Mercer asked Dex about Bradley and how he died, questioning how Dex felt. She asked him to be honest with her as she questioned the truth behind Bradley’s death. Dex confessed that it hadn’t been an accident and asked Mercer if he would be in trouble now. Mercer promised him he wouldn’t, commenting that it wasn’t his fault since his parents failed to teach him basic life lessons.

“Your internal compass isn’t broken, Dex. It just works better when you have the North Star to guide you.” -Dr. Mercer

With the help of Dr. Mercer, Dex learned to establish and rely on routines to help him control his rage and to teach him empathy. As years passed, Dex had become attached to her - appointing her as his North Star. However, when Mercer is diagnosed with cancer and her health begins to sharply decline, the two meet for their final session together. Dex begs her not to leave him, scared of what would happen if he were to be left alone again. Mercer assured him that he would be fine and present him with a gift: a box containing the recordings of all their therapy sessions. She told him to listen to them when he felt lost to remember the progress they made. With the threat of losing the stability he worked hard for, Dex threatens to kill Mercer, to punish her for dying. Mercer explains that death will always win eventually and that it could be a beautiful event when it came naturally.

Finding Structure

Following the death of Dr. Mercer, Dex joins the U.S. Army, where he was able to hone his accuracy with multiple firearms, as well as learn combat training. After leaving the military, Dex worked at the Brooklyn Suicide Prevention Center for a year. During his time there, he had developed an obsession with one of his co-workers, Julie Barnes, replacing Mercer as his new North Star.

Dex left the suicide prevention center shortly after Julie left to pursue ballet, where he was then recruited into the FBI after graduating from Quantico. Stationed at the FBI New York Crime Division as a field sniper, Dex eventually built a rigid and structured life for himself. He maintained a healthy, somewhat normal lifestyle while continuing to indulge in his obsession with Julie from a distance.

still under construction!!

MY NORTH STAR

Disclaimer + TW! This shrine is only for MCU Bullseye, not comic Bullseye! I wouldn't touch that guy with a 10ft pole. TW: suicide attempt (bullseye is his own warning)

I'm a pretty big Marvel/MCU fan, but I never had any interest in starting the Daredevil series. That was until Daredevil: Born Again Season 2 dropped and the most thirstiest, digusting, down-bad edits flooded my fyp one day. I knew I had to have him.

I knew I couldn't just start watching from DD:BA S2 - I wanted to really understand Dex's (and DD's in general) story. After sitting through 2 seasons of Matt Murdock trying to keep his witnesses alive (and failing), season 3 was FINALLY here, where Dex would make his first appearance. However, I REALLY wasn't expecting to connect with Dex's character the way I did.

Assuming you've read his biography page, Benjamin "Dex" Poindexter struggles with mental illness - something I do too. In the show, he's diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder with psychopathic tendencies and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Although our diagnoses aren't exactly the same, I heavily relate to his obsession with control. The way Wilson Bethel, Dex's actor, portrays Dex's downward spiral in S3 is what especially resonates with me. The sound of buzzing noises playing whenever Dex freaks out to signify how he's losing more and more control over his life, Dex's breathlessness during his spirals, his desperation to not be left alone (without a North Star) + how that fear drives him to act out in innapropriate ways, and those wild, dilated eyes are just. so good. my brother just another me fr.

Watching Fisk throw Dex under the bus as the FBI's scapegoat, weaponizing Dex's mental illness + vulnerability to better manipulate him, and making Dex believe that Julie hated him before Fisk killed her. All of the stability Dex had worked so hard to build up for himself was just gone in a matter of days. He's at his lowest in S3E6, where he attempts to take his own life. This scene only made me fall more in love with his character. The way Dex stares at the group picture on his wall, now shattered with a knife sticking out of Julie's face, how it was implied by the bag he was holding that he was collecting all of his medications to throw them away, his headphones and therapy tapes sitting neatly on the table next to him, how he didn't bother to change out of work uniform before deciding to go through with it, and - my favorite detail - how he keeps nodding to himself as he shakily aims the gun under his chin, as if to assure himself: "yes, this is what you want. this is what needs to happen. the world cannot handle you."

A lot of my love for Dex's character comes from his portrayal in DD: Season 3. I feel like in DD: Born Again, the writing dropped its focus from Dex's mental state to focus more on his "tougher, cooler" scenes (ex: diner fight), even though Dex's mental stability was crucial to the story. I'm not complaining though, his dialogue especially in DD:BA is sooo good.