I could wait till my next newspam to link to this...but I couldn't wait that long.
DEXTER SEASON TWO OVERVIEW Many, many spoilers.
"Bay Harbor Butcher"? Our Dexter? *guffaws*
Season 2 obviously diverges even further from the books, but one thing that has remained constant (from the beginning of "Darkly Dreaming Dexter") is that Doakes has stepped up on his surveilance on Dexter, and Dexter is going a bit stir-crazy because he hasn't been able to kill anybody in over a month.
If Rita is the perfect woman, Lila just might be the perfect woman for Dexter. As the two of them bond over their inner demons, Dexter's tortured history comes back to haunt him. Details of Harry Morgan's (James Remar) life comes more into focus for Dexter and he realizes his iconic image of his foster father and "Harry's Code" are more complex than he once thought.
I sense that Lila might be a sort of stand-in for "Rudy" this season. The person that Dexter relates to. Someone who has also been damaged or traumatised somehow in childhood, and who's grown up and developed a compulsion or addiction that is unhealthy.