Before I utter (type?) any words, there are going to be SPOILERS in this post. Reader, you’ve been warned!
As you can see from the promotional poster (which is available to the public so this is really no secret), Dexter is officially a dad! Season three ends cheerfully, giving Dexter season 4 a fresh, therefore unpredictable beginning. Shortly after the typical opener for the show, however, the viewer quickly realizes that Dexter’s clean streak only lasts so long. Once again he is plummeted onto a slippery slope of secrecy and attempting to manage what he calls his ‘Dark Passenger’. Read on for a more detailed synopsis and my POV.
It’s difficult to remember to mention all of the details of season four because Dexter was constantly hit with one event immediately after another. The season begins showing Dexter, a now suburb-dwelling father of three. He’s got a beautiful wife, friendly do-anything-for-you neighbors, a steady job he excels at and a caring sister that is always by his side the moment he needs her.
This perfect lifestyle is obviously a facade if you know anything about Dexter Morgan. Still faced with his dark desire to kill, this season is a bit more focused on him fine tuning this need. In four there are moments where his cravings are so strong he makes sometimes irreversible mistakes that take quite a toll on Dexter, emotionally, mentally and even physically, like how for the first time he accidentally kills an innocent man or flips his car from a lack of sleep/playing too many roles. But throughout and especially toward the end of the season Dexter’s character arc reaches a climax as he realizes he wants to be that family man, the one who “is good for his family”.
Following the trend so far, season four also features an additional serial killer, and was played by the usually happy-go-lucky John Lithgow. Joshua and I were both very pumped and curious about this choice, and now that I’ve watched all twelve episodes I can say I see Mr. Lithgow in a totally new light. Who knew he could be so menacing? The Trinity Killer starts off as a mystery and a challenge for Dexter, even someone he can see himself modeling after. But about halfway through the season he manages to see through the Arthur Mitchell’s (the Trinity Killer) perfect front, which like I mentioned earlier, helps him reach his epiphany about desiring to be a family man rather than be consumed by the Dark Passenger. And just when you think he has everything figured out, the writers slap you across the face with a shocker unlike any other moment in the show’s history at the very end of the last episode, leaving the viewer to wonder for the next nine to ten months where on Earth the show could possibly evolve.
It seems the resounding theme for season four would be that matters, but more precisely people, are not always as they seem, a lesson that comes at a hard price for Dexter. I have clung dearly to season one, claiming it to be the best season of Dexter yet and not once did I think they could do better than that. Season four of course blew all of my expectations out the window, and I can say without any doubt that it most definitely leaves season one in the dust. Throughout the entirety of Dexter Dexter Morgan’s character has undergone a tremendous amount of tweaking, but season four was like the frosting on the cake in that he finally seemed to find the cure to his who-am-I? crisis. Season five is going to be more of a roller coaster ride than any other season, and perhaps maybe even more introspective than the others. If you thought season three and four brought Dexter Morgan a lot of change, we can only imagine what havoc season five will wreck on his life.
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