While Hannah seems to be his perfect match, she also has no code besides self-preservation – she killed Sal, she killed the guidance counselor, I imagine she’d kill Deb if she could, and she would try to kill Dexter if he ever made her feel uncomfortable. So she is not exactly a positive influence on Dexter, who has shown himself to be open and susceptible to other people’s ideas.

Dexter now accepts responsibility for giving in to his urge to kill, which he used to call his Dark Passenger, because he felt that it was something outside his control that was possessing him (semantics!). But Hannah is right – the choices he’s made have always been in his control, he’s just never owned the responsibility. However, the code is still relevant – the purpose of the code was to help him make smart/good choices about when and who to kill. He can’t just start killing anytime he feels like it.

This reminds me so much of Plato’s theory of the soul – Reason must control the Emotions (anger, etc.) and the Appetites (food, sex, or in Dexter’s case, killing). Metaphorically, Plato described Reason as a human, Emotions as a lion, and Appetites as a multi-headed beast. So ideally the human part must tame the lion and, with the lion as an ally, keep the hungry beast under control. This is how I’ve always understood Dexter’s internal struggle. His urge to kill is the beast part of himself. The logical, reasoning part of himself is the human part. And his emotions are the lion that can either help or hinder the human part (they can help – for example, when his feelings for family and friends help him make good choices; they can hinder – for example, when his anger drives him to make foolish choices). The code helps his human part to maintain control over the lion and the beast, but if he throws the code away and loses that control, the lion and the beast will take over.

My prediction: LaGuerta and Quinn are gone by next season (her by Dex, him by Koshkas). Matthews has his revenge. Deb won’t be able to prosecute Hannah, so she’ll take matters in to her own hands. Season 7 wraps up the inverse of Season 6 (Dex catches Deb having just killed Hannah), and sets the stage for Season 8, Dex vs. Deb.