Dexter star's TV Guide interview

The TV Guide site has a Q&A with Michael C. Hall, he of the smoldering brows and awkwardly repressed emotions. Here are a few excerpts:

How would you characterize this season as compared to last?
I think the question that Dexter is posing to himself over the course of the first season is, “What happened to me?” And now it seems to be more “Who am I? Or what am I?” In a way, the story of the second season is that while he can’t quite consciously make the connection, he’s literally in recovery in terms of his NA [Narcotics Anonymous] cloak, but he’s figuratively recovering from a gaping emotional wound that went along with doing in his brother [the Ice Truck Killer, at the end of Season 1], a person he never thought could exist. And I think that makes him susceptible to this Lila character. [Last season], there was sort of a streamline trajectory, and this year it just feels like it’s chaos. I mean, the bodies surface, and Rita finds the shoe, and that relationship is crumbling, and he’s going to NA and pretending to be a drug addict. And Doakes is more rabid than ever, and it’s just spinning plates.

Whenever things start going his way, something else comes up to throw a wrench in his happiness. Is it possible for Dexter to really be happy?
And do we really want him to be rehabilitated? In a way, Dexter is alienating and hurting people in a way he never has before, and it’s in the midst of him entertaining the possibility of his rehabilitation. You watch him and you’re almost like, “I wish he’d just start killing people again!” Because that’s who he really is; that’s who we’ve experienced him to be. It’s a tricky thing that the show creates in the audience a sense where they actually root for him to get back to that. And, you know… when and if he does, I think as an audience, you’re kind of left with the fact that you wished for it.

He must be such a complicated, fascinating character to play.
If you’re going to play a part for a long time, it’s kind of ideal, in a way, because there are so many layers. So you’re not doing the same thing week in, week out.

Lately there have been some pretty steamy scenes between Dexter and his NA sponsor, Lila (played by Jaime Murray).
Hall: He’s really come a long way in terms of his sexual evolution.

In her own way, she’s just as dark and obsessive as he is.
Yeah, she’s messed up.

Has he met his match?
We’ll see. [Laughs] It’s only a matter of time before the extent of her darkness and how it might threaten Dexter will reveal itself. And how he deals with that, we’ll see.