From Season One, Episode One, we’ve known that Rita’s presence in Dexter’s life has been about keeping up the appearance of being a normal guy, which is a necessary cover for a serial killer to have. Much time has passed between then and now, but even tonight, he talks (via narration, of course) about the practical reasons for playing that role: “Family man, husband, and father—sounds so upstanding, harmless. Much better than lives alone, keeps to himself.” Now that Rita is pregnant, it’s only logical that Dexter goes that next step, “the role of a lifetime,” by marrying her and becoming a father to her Cody, Astor, and baby-to-be-named-later. And in the hyper-rational part of Dexter’s brain, that line of reasoning makes perfect sense.
But the heart is not a rational organ (except when it’s pumping blood and keeping us alive, thank Jeebus), and someone as authentically human and needful as Rita isn’t going to accept a proposal based on joint assets, insurance coverage, or even the promise of having Dexter around to help with the family. That’s why Dexter’s extremely awkward first proposal around the kids is such a catastrophe, because it’s so the opposite of the bent-knee, earnest speechifying that women expect and deserve. In order to convince her to marry him—and he knows he needs to, if he wants to keep his cover going—Dexter has to give a more convincing performance.
Key word being “performance” here. Though “All In The Family” had some of the weakest material in any of the four episodes so far, Dexter’s fresh understanding that he’s an actor in a play was captivating to behold. And that he learns that lesson from a psychotic woman who bashed her would-be lover’s head in and lied about it… well, that’s the kind of sick stuff that makes the show great. Dexter has been training to be an actor since his adoptive father took him under his wing and taught him how to obscure and channel his decidedly anti-social impulses. So it only follows that he would be called upon finally to take the ultimate part. The question remains: Is it all just performance? Will there ever be a point when Dexter realizes that he’s not really acting normal but has become normal?
One big plus to this episode: It was good to see Dexter back at work again. He’s spent so much of his time the last two seasons covering up his own messes that you forget why Miami Metro even has him in their employ. Tonight, he actually worked a case through legitimate blood spatter analysis and dramatically demonstrated that the killer in a gruesome breaking-and-entering scheme gone wrong was not a 6-foot-plus male but the grieving fiancée he left behind. If anything, Dexter is more surprised at the revelation than the detectives, and perversely enough, he’s inspired by her, too, since she played the grieving widow part to perfection. How did she do it so well? Because she committed to the role and appeared to believe fully in what she was saying. Why? Because some of those feelings may be authentic. The writers have done a first-rate job wedding the A-plot with the B-plot here.