The climax of the fourth season of "Dexter" saw a dramatic change to the dynamic of the show, with the departure of Rita and with-it Dexter's dream of cosy family life. To reflect the change, we have a season with a much darker and grimmer subject matter than this show, about a serial killer no less, has gone before.
Now a single father, Dexter (Michael C Hall) tries to juggle his grief for Rita (Julie Benz) with looking after his son, maintaining his job and finding time for his dark passenger. His investigations into a local murderer, Boyd Fowler (Shawn Hatosy) result in his rescuing Lumen Pierce (Julia Stiles) who has been chained, raped and tortured by Fowler. Together the pair uncover that he is part of a group of friends who have done this before, numerous times. As they conspire to finish them off, Dexter shows parts of his life to Lumen that nobody, since his late brother, have seen.
As I said, even for a show where the hero is a murderer the plot about the fate of the women, and the video tapes that we see and hear small sections of felt particularly grim. I'm not sure "Dexter" really suits that level of bleakness as, most of the time, it's more like black comedy - even a farce at times.
A couple of the other plot strands are really starting to stretch the bounds of credibility, particularly the ex-cop, played by Peter Weller, that Quinn uses to track Dexter. He then tries to use that information to bring Dexter in, but that evidence is illegally obtained, so the case is never going to make trial. Quinn must at least suspect going forward that Dexter murdered Quinn, but instead the reach some sort of accord, which again, doesn't really make sense if he thinks that his girlfriends' brother is a killer, he wouldn't let it lie. I wish we could settle a little more on what LaGuerta's actual personality is, I'm all for a complex character but she just seems to turn on a dime every season.
Though I probably enjoyed this season the least, so far, I'm still not at the point of thinking that the show has turned bad.