Has anyone else noticed this about Dexter?

[j.t.]

I'm talking about Dexter on showtime season 5 (so far) and I've noticed lately that Dexter has not been following the "code" as religiously in this recent season. Anyone remember back when Dexter had to make a choice of what to do about "James Dokes" when he found out that Dexter was a serial killer's serial killer? He was just distraught and confused about what he should do with the locked up dokes (remember the black bald cop who Dexter gave the willys) when he was an innocent bystander just doing his job and certainly not a killer. Harry taught him to only kill people who deserved to die, that was his code (along with how to go along with doing it), to be sure the person was a murderer and to kill only murderers. At the beginning of this season five Dexter killed that hillbilly who told him and his wife to quote "suck his d**k" without a second thought, and he didn't even feel guilty about it or anything. And just in this recent weeks episode Dexter killed the ex-cop that was spying on him (although he was a pain in the behind, he didn't deserve to die) as well. So what do you guys think? Is Dexter getting more careless/cruel about who's lives he takes and following Harry's code? Or am I just looking too much into things? If you've noticed this as well, Do you think the writers have started this new pattern just to create/build up to another internal conflict in a future season? Tell me your thoughts.