On Sunday, September 27^th, Showtime returns with its hit show Dexter. This will be the fourth season of the critically acclaimed, often controversial show about a serial killer who must kill while still trying to maintain a normal life.

If you have not watch the show before, I would suggest going and getting the first three seasons and watch the evolution of this show which gets better and deeper with each year.

Dexter is based from the book Darkly Dreaming Dexter by Jeff Lindsay, but most of the series goes in a different direction than the original book and its sequels. (In the books, the sister knows he is a serial killer)

For those completely unaware, the Showtime hit is about Dexter Morgan, played brilliantly by Michael C. Hall, a forensic blood-spatter expert who works for the Miami Police Department. This is not a cop show like CSI, or any other those kind, as Dexter is a lab jockey, but at times it can be compared to a crime procedural. But what puts this show far off the map than any other crime shows is that Dexter is the one who causes most of the crimes. Dexter Morgan is a serial killer, period. Some might say he borders on being a vigilante, but only in the fact that he kills criminals. Dexter is driven to kill, must kill, and does so by an extreme set of rules put in place by his dead foster father.

Where some think this might have made  a great movie and not a series, the producers have managed to keep it alive each season by taking a fresh, but elevated look at Dexter’s life. Each season, they raise the stakes and raise the level of involvement with Dexter and those around him.

In Season One, we learn about Dexter and his relationship to those around him. We learn about his work-driven sister, Deb, and his abused girlfriend, Rita. We also dig deeper into Dexter’s psyche and see the relationship between his dead step-father and the secrets that were kept from him. Season One cumulates with the discovery that the Ice Truck Killer is Dexter’s brother and the face-off they have over the fate of Dexter’s half-sister.

Season Two added a new perspective to the story as Dexter’s body stash is discovered and he must keep the Miami police from discovering that he is the Bay Harbor Butcher. The FBI is called in and is led by Frank Lundy (Keith Carradine) who gets closer to Dexter’s trail while getting closer to Dex’s sister, Deb. Also, Dexter’s relationship with Rita becomes estranged as she suspects he is a drug user and he seeks comfort and solace in another addict, Lila West, whose addiction becomes Dexter. Dexter still needs to kill, but finds it hard with the FBI and Sgt. Doakes’s on his tail. In the end, Dexter manages to salvage his relationship with Rita while eliminating Doakes and Lila from his life.

In Season Three, Dexter comes to terms with his relationship with Rita and realizes that he must either leave her or marry her. Meanwhile, Dexter’s need to kill forces him to murder the brother of the Assistant DA Miguel Prado (Jimmy Smits). Miguel and Dexter’s life become entangled as Dexter invites Miguel into the dark side of his life as a brother in murder. But in the end, Dexter realizes that he is just another tool in Miguel’s rise to power and this leads to a final struggle between the two in the house of Lt. Maria La Guardia, Dexter’s boss. The murder is blamed on a killer called the Skinner who captures Dexter on the night before his wedding. In the end, all is well and Dexter marries Rita.

Season Four poses the most interesting question.

How does Dexter, now a married man with three kids, Rita’s previous two and the baby, find time to kill people?

And not just kill people but hunt down new victims, plan their murders and not get caught, all while trying to maintain and even more difficult pretense at a normal life.

In this season, we see the return of Frank Lundy who is on the trail of the Trinity Killer, a veteran murderer who kills in threes and has evaded law enforcement for thirty years. Dexter is indeed immediately intrigued by this killer who is played by the great John Lithgow.

With the return of Keith Carradine and the addition of John Lithgow, this might turn out to be the best season of Dexter yet.

If you are fan of the Dexter series, then you should be asking the same question.

How is this all going to end?

Dexter borders in a strange place for a television series. We all seem to find sympathy for the character of Dexter Morgan, but in the end, he is a serial killer, compelled to kill by dark forces in his past.

Do we expect him to just stop one day and say he had enough?

Or do we secretly wait around for the inevitable which is the capture and death of Dexter Morgan?

This series has a fair question to ask itself. How do you end a show that is in it very essence about a murderer?

Will they take a cheap route like the Sopranos, or will they show us a true ending which can only be dark and bittersweet?

Okay, that is more than one question. But the producers have to realize that Dexter is like a car crash, we stop and look but in the end we understand this tragedy cannot survive it own nature.