Most serial killers are loners, and as Dexter Morgan struggles to adjust to life as a husband and father of three, he's seeing the wisdom of that strategy. It's hard to sneak out at all hours of the day to murder folks when your wife needs you to run to the store, or the kids need help with their homework.
As stifled and trapped as he frequently feels, however, Dexter doesn't want to lose his family. So when he discovers the identity of "the Trinity Killer", a serial murderer with crimes dating back 30 years, and then also learns that the man has an apparently happy home life with a wife and two teenagers, he postpones his plans to execute the man in favour of trying to learn his secrets for being a sociopath with a functional family.
Season 4 is widely considered the last "good" season of Dexter, and I certainly don't remember a lot noteworthy about season 5 or 6, off-hand (while I quite liked 7, and the less said of 8, the better). And it's a fun ride.
But (because this is me, so of course there is a "but"), with the benefit of hindsight it is easier to see the developing cracks in the show's quality. Performances remain good, but the writing certainly relies on some pretty hefty contrivances, and the very climax of the season - while a powerful moment of TV, and probably something they had to do, for off-screen reasons - opened a gap in the show's fabric that I think hurt it over the longer term and certainly put a premature end to some interesting hints they'd been developing over the course of the last couple of years.
At the end of the day, though, if the 'serial killer with a code' concept of Dexter is one that appeals to you, you should have a good time with season 4.
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