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No, I mean, he clearly broke his pattern for the sole purpose of hitting Dex where it hurts.
This contains spoilers. If you're saving the last episode--first of all, ARE YOU NUTS??, and second, it's been weeks and weeks, and we've got to stop spoiler-tagging at some point, and I'm saying that point has come.
The whole season was pointed toward Dex's trying to resolve his imbalance between his dark and light lives. You had Harry being the voice of the passenger, pointing out the impossibility of keeping his family safe, given who he is. You had Rita seeing and loving the family-man Dex and being puzzled and disturbed by hints of his darkness. And you had Arthur who swung from the beacon of hope that the two could balance, to the symbol of utter hopelessness that it ever can.
In the end, Arthur (and Harry) are right. Nobody around Dexter will ever be safe from the danger his dark passenger puts them in. Not Harrison or the other kids, and especially not Rita. We've seen that play out in Debra's life from Season 1. She's been through complete hell because of who her brother is--and now she knows it (sort of), and she still stands beside him. That scene where she confronted him with his origins was tough, but extra interesting because Dex wasn't even aware of the tough part of it. He was worried she'd caught him. He totally missed the undertones Deb was communicating. "I love you", she says. "I'm so thankful," he replies.
That was another thing I LOVED about this season. They really played with Dex's sociopathy in some subtle and interesting ways. Several times he operated on a plainly surface level with people, while around him, profound emotional stuff was going on. Taking down Lundy's name from the open case board because Deb couldn't do it, for instance. It was REALLY nice writing.
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