John Lithgow Joins Dexter Season 4 Cast

I will always like John Lithgow for one thing above all — The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai. So my first thought upon hearing that he was joining the cast of Dexter for the fourth season wasn’t “oh great, the guest star thing is formula now,” it was, in fact, “laugh-a while you can, monkey boy!” But that thing about formula crept in after the glow wore off on all the goofy, nostalgic quotes from BB that filled my head at the mere mention of Lithgow.

But the folks behind Dexter have earned my trust, and I think Lithgow is a great piece of casting for what should prove an interesting character — a suburbanite and family man who is a serial killer. That’s exactly what Dexter is becoming, and apparently he will look to Lithgow’s character for some advice on that front.

So are we getting another ‘friend’ character that Dexter finds himself cooperating with for a time before they inevitably clash? Probably, as Lithgow’s character is already described as an antagonist by the executive producer. Is this like the Sopranos formula, where someone was let out of jail at the beginning of the season only to become a pain in Tony’s ass over the course of it and eventually end up in a Jersey landfill?

Well, denouncing formula is a bit like bitching over seeing the strings at a puppet show — I mean, you knew it was a puppet show, right? Ultimately it’s how the whole thing is handled and, as I said in my Dexter Season 3 recap, I think the writers have been smart in steering a course for this show so far, avoiding some of the more obvious shoals of sensationalism and formula that they very well could have run aground on, as well as showing an ability to misdirect the audience with skill and intelligence.

I’m really looking forward to the Sept 27th premier of the new season, that’s for sure.

And apparantely Keith Carradine will be reprising his roll as Deb’s FBI love-daddy as well, and my first thought there, of course, was “listen to the thunder.”