How do you top John Lithgow’s soon-to-be-Emmy winning performance as the Trinity Killer? Well, if you’re DEXTER executive producers Chip Johannessen, John Goldwyn and Sara Colleton you don’t.
“In the wake of John Lithgow we wanted to shake up the single big bad [format],” said Johanessen, during today’s DEXTER panel at the semi-annual Television Critics Association Press Tour. “There will be different characters who will come in and interact Dexter. Different people help him along the way in different capacities.”
That’s the good news.
The bad news, particularly for those of us who have been clamouring for actual intel following last season’s shocking (and very blood-soaked) finale was that the triumvirate of executive producers who were on hand to talk about the new season weren’t exactly forthcoming with regards to the “different characters” Dexter will encounter this season and if said interactions would involve a giant knife of some sort!
Suffice to say, details on guest stars Julia Stiles and Jonny Lee Miller’s characters remain sketchy at best. While Johannessen would only go as far as to say that RoboCop’s Peter Weller will appear in eight episodes “as an ex-cop, cocaine-era cowboy kind of guy who gets into some trouble with corruption and ends up posing a problem for Dexter.”
As for Rita, actress Julie Benz will be back, and not in the ghost-like form that has traditionally been reserved for Dexter’s father Harry. Teased Johannessen, “You’ll be seeing her more than dead in a bathtub for sure!” 
DEXTER returns this September 26 on Showtime (TMN in Canada)