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tv_talk2014-02-23 02:12 pm
eevilalice) wrote in tv_talk2014-02-23 02:12 pm
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Bates Motel: Primer and Homebase
Welcome to the homebase for the A&E series, Bates Motel. Each week you'll find a thread for the newest episode, so we can discuss its twists and horrors together.
First, a primer.
Bates Motel is a modern day prequel to Hitchcock's Psycho, centering on Norman and his mother, Norma, as they move to the titular motel in a coastal Oregon town. Norma is hoping for a new start for herself and Norman after her husband's death, and buying and running the run-down motel is her plan. Of course, there are plenty of unforeseen complications, especially since the town has a touch of Twin Peaks strangeness and corruption to it.
I know what you're thinking. A Psycho prequel? Really? Two things should convince you to give the show a shot: its pedigree and its cast. Among others, the series is (executive) produced by Carlton Cuse (Lost) and Kerry Ehrin (Friday Night Lights). It both builds intrigue and mysteries while creating complex characters. And then it scares the crap out of you.
Cast/Characters (As of Season 2)
Vera Farmiga plays Norma Bates.
She's high-strung, cloying, yet honestly put-upon and sincerely caring. She's smart but vulnerable at times. You may not be able to stand her at all, and you may deeply sympathize with her, all within one episode.
Freddie Highmore plays Norman Bates.
Like Norma, you might feel sorry for Norman or be terrified or horribly creeped out by him in the space of a breath. Often he's simply a normal teenage boy by all appearances, crushing on girls, wanting his own space, sneaking out late at night. Buuut then there's the blackouts and weird stuff he keeps under his bed...
Max Thieriot plays Dylan Massett.
Dylan is Norma's other, older son, and Norman's half-brother. He's more of an outsider, and drifts into town and into their lives against Norma's wishes. He clashes with the family, especially when he urges Norman to live his own life, but he proves indispensable, too.
Olivia Cooke plays Emma Decody.
Emma is a smart, inquisitive girl in Norman's class who quickly develops an interest in him. She has cystic fibrosis and sees Norman's own strange health issues and outsider-y status as something akin to hers.
Nestor Carbonell plays Sheriff Alex Romero.
As sheriff, Romero and Norma butt heads as she struggles to accomplish what she wants with the motel and deals with, er, other complications. Given the town's penchant for ongoing shady activities, Romero is someone who is tough to read.
You can stream Season 1 episodes on Netflix, Amazon, and at the A&E site.
The second season begins Monday, March 3rd! Episodes air at
General Discussion
2.01 Gone But Not Forgotten
Re: 2.01 Gone But Not Forgotten
What I appreciate in this show is that the mixture of the everyday and the awful are so well done. So, you have Norma teaching Norman how to drive a car and it goes about as well as parent-children driving lessons go (seriously, you don't have to be a member of the Bates clan for this to be a bad idea), and Norman passive-aggressively returning the favour, which is about as normal as it gets, while on the other hand you have that continuing ticking time bomb that consists of Norma's awareness he's killed before and of Norman's rage black outs and unability to remember, and Miss Watson's death in the s1 finale. Now, the show left it open last season whether or not Norman killed Miss Watson, though every sign was certainly pointing towards his doing it (except for the phone call he overheard); the s2 opener with Bradley attempting suicide in the teaser (when she definitely wasn't in a suicidal state in the s1 finale where we left her) still points this way (Norman has Blair Watson's pearls), but also suggests, via Bradley's reaction, the alternate possibility Bradley might have killed her. (Also, there's the parallel of the s1 opener where you're made to assume Norma killed her husband when it actually was Norman.) (I would add Gil to the list of suspects, but I doubt they'd have killed him off in this episode if he'd done it, and also, Bradley's attempted suicide would then be coming out of nowhere.) So my current guess is that Norman might not have killed Miss Watson after all but WILL kill Bradley before this season is over. Bradley killing Gil who she assumes killed her father and asking Norman for help in the cliffhanger also supports that theory for me.
Mystery man standing over Blair Watson's grave: probably has nothing to do with her death but has something to do with the local weed industry, which is one reason why Sheriff Romero smoothly changes the subject on Norman, correctly deducing Norman feels guilty himself. Romero continues to be a man of ambiguous mystery, and I enjoyed both his scene with Norman and his conversation with Norma afterwards.
Just one scene with Dylan and Norma, but it brings on the brittleness and push-pull of that other mother-son relationship; his attempting to pay rent and not just implicitly but explicitly admitting he wants to stay and her reaction were great. Incidentally, considering the by pass is about to happen, I assume Norma will be forced to accept the weed money soon. I do wonder whether she'll tell Dylan - aka the only other person currently aware of Norman's rage blackouts - what she's just found out re: Norman and Miss Watson. On the one hand, Norma is such a determined "we'll pretend this never happened and continue with our lives" denialist, otoh, she also has moments where she desperately needs to talk, and she hardly can tell Sheriff Romero.
Re: 2.01 Gone But Not Forgotten
I assumed Bradley had killed Miss Watson after the opening, too, but by the end that appeared to me to be a red herring. She genuinely seemed not to have known that "B" was Miss Watson when she was told. It is still confusing how/why she came to be so distraught after the dance and jump off the bridge. However, I think you're right in that Norman could kill her by the end of the season; it doesn't matter if she in fact didn't kill Miss Watson, only that Norman thinks she did, and there will be plenty pointing that way (I'm thinking there could be conversations with Dylan, for instance). Also, I do think it could be Gil (or a lackey or phone guy from last season; have we met an "Eric" yet?) and all these narrative complications could still work.
Ah, Dylan. Most decent guy on the show despite working in the drug business?
I like that Emma is a bit more prickly with Norman (in her one scene) but still working at the motel. I loved her and Norma together last season.
Aaaand Norman gets more and more into taxidermy. I laughed a little at both Norma and Romero saying he needs to get out and be a normal teenager. Norma seems to have loosened the leash in that regard a little.
Re: 2.01 Gone But Not Forgotten
Re: 2.01 Gone But Not Forgotten
2.02 Shadow of a Doubt
My first thought is that the episode title is the name of a Hitchcock movie, like Psycho. Coincidence?!
Re: 2.02 Shadow of a Doubt
Other thoughts: Last week I was wondering what Dylan would do once his drug bosses start asking him to kill people. This week we get part of an answer, as Bradley shooting Gil is mistaken for a gang murder resulting in White Pine getting its very own drug war, and Dylan finds himself holding the guy one of his bosses shoots in retaliation. Since you don't peacefully quit the drug business, if I were Dylan, I'd leave town immediately after that one and start anew far, far away, but of course he won't because his loved-hated family is here.
Meanwhile, Norman helps Bradley first hide and then leave town. (Sidenote: which means that for now, Bradley's survival odds have suddenly become far, far better, but I have the suspicion she will return for the season finale, or something. If not, I wish her well. She wasn't my favourite, but I like her well enough, and do wish she survives.) This is Norman at his best, since it is genuinely selfless; as far as he knows, he won't see Bradley again, so he doesn't do it in the hope she'll finally return his crush, and when things come to a crisis, he even swallows his pride and asks Dylan for help despite his jealousy caused by the Dylan/Bradley flirting. At the same time, the show never lets us forget there is this other side to Norman, as Norma finds Miss Watson's pearls (as she once found the belt of the man who raped her and whom she and Norman killed) under Norman's bed, which screams trophy.
The episode had some terrific Norma and Norman scenes, showcasing their relationship in both its deep dysfunctionality and its charm. The scene where Norma cajoles Norman into singing "Mr. Sandman" with her is on one level two people having fun (and Norma's very Norma-esque idea of combatting her son's potential serial killer tendencies via shared singing actually paying off), and on another Norma manipulating Norman into something he didn't want to do (which of course heightens his sense if being trapped). Both are true. Ditto for the community musical auditioning, quite aside of Norman being under pressure because it means he can't personally help Bradley and needs Dylan to fill in. Norma is both utterly sincere in her "I'm so scared" outburst - the possibility that her son might develop into a monster scares the hell out of her - and she's using a real emotion for manipulation at the same time (getting Norman to stay). Similarly, Norman is being utterly sincere in his outburst about how much of their lives are intertwined already and how they don't need any MORE shared time, how he resents Norma making him go along with her ideas all the time, and he's using this as an excuse because he's still trying to get home to help Bradley at that point. And when he's giving in and remaining for the rest of the audition, it's to placate Norma (and distract her from her fears re: his potentially having murdered Miss Watson), but once he does hear Norma sing that song from Cabaret, the amazement and adoration for her are palpable and he really wants to be there.
Incidentally, Maybe this time is of course the perfect song for Norma and so very her. Also, part of the Bates tragedy is that with all her desperation to help Norman, the one thing that would probably help (and thus eventually save her own life), a good psychiatrist and lots of therapy, is the one thing she is shying away from, because Norma with her own broken background of a physically abusive father, a sexually abusive brother and at least one physically abusive husband distrusts any authority figures far, far too deeply to consider it.
Sheriff Alex "Still Morally Ambiguous as hell" Romero might be an exception to that, given he came through in the Abernathy situation, but he's not a therapist. In this episode, he eventually decides to pin Blair Watson's murder on a scum-of-the-earth type who may or may not be involved but did have sex with the late Miss Watson, on the rationale that a) the guy may not have killed Miss Watson, but he did kill a previous girlfriend and should have been locked up a long time ago, and b) Romero really needs a culprit for the Watson murder, what with an impending drug war at his hand. (There's another irony: if Romero would have investigated further, he might have discovered that Norman at the very least was on the crime scene and thus saved Norman's future victims.) Nestor Carbonnel has a lot more to do this season and obviously enjoys the part, and I enjoy him playing it.
And in the cliffhanger tag scene, we have a new arrival in town who is none other than Norma's brother. Aka the one who raped her from the time she was 13 years old onwards. Him showing up this season was the only thing I was spoiled for, but even if I had managed to avoid this particular spoiler it wouldn't have completely surprised me because the revelation in the s1 finale demanded some follow up. Now, it would surprise me if he were to survive the season, but I hope whatever will happen won't include another rape before that. (Enough of those last season.) I also wonder whether he'll turn out to be Dylan's biological father, as opposed to Norma's first husband, because that would make sense in terms of the different type of dysfunctionality the Norma and Dylan relationship has. But if he is, I'm 100% sure Dylan has no idea, considering the only one whom Norma ever told the truth about her family was Norman on the day where she expected to die. However, this particular skeleton in the family cupboard looks like it's going to explode in the open soon.
Lastly: I do hope Emma gets more screentime next episode!
Re: 2.02 Shadow of a Doubt
Re: 2.02 Shadow of a Doubt
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2.03 Caleb
Norma's brother comes to town...
Re: 2.03 Caleb
It says something about this show that when we meet new characters who are nice to Norma and Norman respectively, we immediately have to wonder what their sinister secret and agenda will be. Mind you, my current guess is that redheaded stagehand with gay pal who was nice to Norman might just be a normal teenager, whereas Christine the redheaded former casting director of the community theatre clearly is living really well with her husband, which in this town translates as: is involved with the drug business. So I'm assuming the other shoe will drop soon, though poor Norma, she was so delighted to be befriended by her. Jury is still out on
VaughnVartan's character, if only because the last few men hitting on Norma were villains, so surely the show wouldn't do this to her again?Never mind the people who were nice to two third of the leading family, though, because the big sinister guest star wasn't any of them. They cast Norma's brother Caleb really well, because not only was there physical similarity to Dylan but the actor was very good at the hail-fellow-well-met bluff harmlessness projection that guaranteed Dylan would believe him and want him as a family member. He also, like the best liars, used a truth - their father used to beat Norma and Caleb - to make Dylan swallow the lie (that this was the reason why Norma reacted to Caleb's arrival with such horror). I had expected Caleb to draw Dylan in but I hadn't expected the literal con at the same time (i.e. that money for "a hotel in Puerto Rico"), which explains why he shows up at all. (And the timing couldn't be worse. However this ends up, Dylan is now newly out of cash and the prospects he'll be able to quit his job in the rapidly escalating drug war are now less than zero.) By the way, I had speculated about the final revelation before, but when Norma the first time Dylan asked her about her brother didn't tell him anything (which btw was a heartrendering scene, both for the way he was practically pleading to be trusted with what was going on inside her and for the knowledge why she couldn't), I was sure. It didn't make the scene when the truth did come out less devastating. Starting with the fact Dylan doesn't believe Norma and accuses her of lying to him in order to hurt him. Not that Norma isn't a liar on occasion, but her lies are usually designed to cover up horrors, to pretend things are better than they actually are. Her biggest lies, as Dylan has reason to know, are also to protect people. It occurs to me that her previous silence about her brother, the rapes and who really fathered Dylan even when relations between her and Dylan were at their worst and he called her a whore in the past are a parallel to her silence about Norman having killed his father even when both Norman and Dylan basically accused her of doing it.
Norman coming in the middle of the Dylan-Norma argument makes everything worse, of course, though then again: the Norman/Dylan fight escalated things to the point where Norma in order to separate them screams out the rest of the secret, and at this point I don't think anyone will be in denial any more. I also felt tremendously sorry for the three of them in their dysfunctional love for each other and brokenness.
Minor other plot points:
- if Nick Ford is Miss Watson's father, was Blair Watson her married name then? or was she illegitimate?
- was there even a Mr. Masset or did Norma just pretend there had been pre-marrying Sam Bates?
- poor Emma. Also, Emma is such a real character, and the teenagers on this show, other than looking far better (and older) than actual teenagers, are pretty realistic too. Feeling guilty about Bradley's supposed suicide precisely because they weren't friends and Emma was jealous, and trying to organize a memorial get together which inevitably becomes a beach party is just what would happen.
- how DOES one stop an escalating drug war where each side is convinced the other started it and both have killed too many to even care if they find out otherwise?
- Michael Vartan was pretty one note for the most part of Alias, but he does pull off the charming stranger bit here.
Re: 2.03 Caleb
Re: 2.03 Caleb
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2.04 Check-Out
Re: 2.04 Check-Out
I'm starting to lose sympathy for Dylan, my friends. Yes, it's a terrible shock to find out you're the product of a) incest and b) rape. But one would think even shocked person is aware that being the victim of a) incest and b) rape is even worse. Instead, Dylan sees himself as the only victim here, continues to treat Norma as the bad guy and to blame her for the entire thing, and gives her brother the benefit of the doubt. Note that even when confronting Caleb, Dylan is avoiding the word "rape" and instead says "you had sex with my mother"; later he tells Norma outright that she didn't get raped and blames her for the incest and for not aborting him, for "using me" to get out of her house and "trapping" a high school boyfriend into marriage instead. This is really revolting victim blaming and rape culture at its worst, and reeling from shock & having had a troubled relationship with your mother before that only excuses so much.
It's also a marked contrast to Norma's own behavior. To be fair, I'm sure there were times in the past where Norma looked at Dylan and saw her brother instead of the child whose fault it was not, but in the present, Norma isn't doing that; instead, she's being as gentle with him as we've ever seen her, and in their last confrontation sums it up when saying that neither of them was to blame for what Caleb did. Dylan having issues with Norma in general is understandable, but that he's so willing to blame her instead of feeling at least for the girl she was if he can't for the woman she is, instead blaming her, that I find hard to forgive.
Norman of course carries it to the other extreme. Not only does he side with Norma but he internalizes her. The show had Norman hallucinate Norma before when going into one of his blackouts, but this is the very first time we've seen her literally becoming her (or his version of her), and it's in a tragic irony that he does so in order to do what the real Norma could not, confront her brother and accuse him point blank. It was an incredibly creepy and effective scene when Norman started to speak in the first person as Norma, even before he pulled the Psycho-iconic knife. Of course, he's still a boy while Caleb is a man, so Caleb easily disarms him. (Adding a kick while Norman is down. Last week when I checked the media reviews I was stunned to discover several were uncertain whether or not Norma was telling the truth, because that Caleb was just such a nice rational guy, I suppose, as opposed to "hysterical", mean Norma. I do hope the way Caleb responded in this scene settled that, but then again: rape culture.)
It was also fascinating that earlier, Norman while still himself couldn't go through with attacking Caleb by rebar as Cody had suggested, and I do wonder whether this is because he's semi aware/afraid by now that he might be more than capable of such violence in his blackout states. After all, Dylan gave him a heavy hint early in the episode. In terms of where Norman is headed, him becoming Mother for the first time in order to punish someone who had hurt her so badly is one of those twists that completely work and which you still didn't see coming.
Meanwhile: Emma's plotline with her weed-consuming admirer becomes downright endearing as he turns out to be a decent guy who doesn't want to have sex with passed out girls and doesn't expect her to reward him for being a nice guy, either. Also, he really seems to appreciate her. I find myself warming up to this pairing.
The escalating drug war just turned up yet another notch as despite Alex Romero's warning Dylan's idiotic new boss decides to move on to torching houses. However, Romero tends to follow up on his warnings, so I am confident the idiot won't be around for much longer.
Re: 2.04 Check-Out
Re: 2.04 Check-Out
2.05 The Escape Artist
Re: 2.05 The Escape Artist
During the last week, it had occured to me that considering his house got just burned down, Sheriff Romero might move into the Bates Motel for a while, and lo and behold, he did, which was great to see and offered the chance for more scenes between him and Norma, each of which was golden. They were last season, too, but the emotional power has somewhat shifted, due to Norma not being desperately afraid anymore (well, not of Romero, anyway) and Alec Romero being somewhat rattled due to having an escalating drug war in town. Which makes for more equality and I must admit that somewhere around the time she bossed him into letting her disinfect his cuts, I realized I ship them a little. Not least because he hasn't made any attempt to blackmail her into anything so far and he's so openly morally ambiguous, unlike Vartan's character where you're waiting for the other shoe to drop. Also, there's definitely chemistry, and she's relaxed enough around him now to tease him into a smile. Mind you, given the looming Psycho future I should not wish for anything, because it would mean Romero would end up dead (and that relationship could even become the ultimate trigger for Norman), but still. They're just great fun to watch together.
Meanwhile, we find out what Nick Ford, aka one of the two big drug lords in town, wants from Norma, which is a facade for a move gainst the bypass. (What Ford has against the bypass, I don't know, considering that the drug trade would presumably benefit, too, but I guess we'll find out.) While what he asks Norma to do - file an injunction based on an environmental assessment he's had prepared - is a seemingly harmless and even smart move from her pov, it is of course just the first step and makes her beholden to him. Not to mention that before the episode is over, she finds out via Romero the city councilman who was the leader of Team Bypass just got killed, which is a drastic illustration (in case one is needed after Romero's warning) just what her new ally is capable of. (Something Norma is not yet aware of is that in addition to being a drug lord, Nick Ford is also the father of the late Blair Watson. I wonder whether Norman still has those pearls in the house? Because Nick Ford is bound to recognize them.)
Norma meets Cody, and it's mutual dislike on first sight, which was to be expected. (Though to be fair, even less neurotic parents than Norma would have objected to Cody's behaviour.) What was more interesting that Norma's slight detour in her conversation about Cody with Norman late in the episode - that line about girls trapped in unbearable circumstances being doomed and taking others with them - is an obvious self reference/projection. Now the audience knows, though Norma does not, that Cody does, in fact, live in an at least emotionally abusive domestic situation, due to the scene with her father. Which makes Norma's and Cody's mutual objections to another among other things a case of "takes one to know one", which in a different way is also true for Norman's and Cody's being drawn to another (which otherwise would happen a little to fast for me to believe it). I do wonder when the other shoe is going to drop with the Cody situation, though not for Norma's reasons but because if Norman had a functional sexual relationship, he would presumably get through his hangups before they become murderous (if they haven't already), and he wouldn't have his Psycho ending. Which means Norman telling Cody that he had previous blackouts will probably come back to haunt him instead of being therapeutic.
Given what an idiot Dylan's immediate superior was, it should have been obvious the reason why he had his position was that he was related to someone higher ranking. Dylan saving his life not in a small part to being in a suicidal mood results in Dylan finally meeting the head of the drug organisation he works for, who turns out to be the idiot's sister as well as the Overlady of that particular cartel. Which, as I said, was a refreshing twist; we already had enough evil powerful men in town. Of course, this will involve Dylan even deeper in the ongoing escalating drug war, while Norma has just gotten involved with Nick Ford (whom I don't see taking an "okay, that was that, bye, Nick" for an answer). Sheriff Romero undoubtedly will follow through with his threat that this was just the beginning to the idiot after having beaten up same, which considering the idiot is the Overlady's brother will put him on the hitlist of Dylan's organisation. And there's the ongoing ticking time bomb of the Norman-and-Miss-Bates open question. In short: the plot thickens, indeed.
In other news: the scene between Emma and Norma was lovely. Emma does bring out the best in Norma, possibly because a) they're not related, and b) Emma also doesn't remind Norma of herself, but it still made me wonder what kind of mother Norma would have been to a daughter.
Re: 2.05 The Escape Artist
Re: 2.05 The Escape Artist
Re: 2.05 The Escape Artist
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2.06 Plunge
Re: 2.06 Plunge
Apart from everything else going on, it was nice to get an illustration that while Norman isn't romantically interested in Emma, he does care about her as a friend. (And also might find Cody's teenage bravado entrancing when directed at himself, but draws the line at her endangering Emma.)
I think I know now why Christine and her brother befriended Norma: for the same reason Nick Ford did, and I wouldn't be surprised if the death of the Councilman was their work, not directly this (though he obviously knew and benefited). In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if Christine at least wasn't high up there in Ford's organisation. Christine spotted someone she saw as a good frontwoman for them at the council, someone who because she had no other friends would be entirely beholden to her and so grateful that she wouldn't question. And while Norma in the aftermath of the "accident" immediately calls it quits with Nick Ford because she doesn't believe it was a coincidence, it doesn't occur to her that Christine having the councilwoman idea ready is just as much of a coincidence. In a way, it's similar to the Keith Summers and Deputy Shelby thing last season - Summers is the obvious menace, to be identified immediately, whereas Shelby seems like a nice guy, but because of said nice facade and providing Norma with help, admiration and affection, she doesn't want to see the danger until confronted with it.
There are two possible parallels with the other members of the family in this episode: Dylan is taken home by Nick Ford's opposite number in the drug war - btw, did we get a first name for her yet? If so, I missed it - who provides medical care, attention and sex, and tells him she needs him to basically become a backseat driver for her brother, Zane the idiot. Which sounds plausible enough, though I doubt that's all she'll want from him in the longer term. It also doesn't escape me she's a bossy blonde.
And then there's Cody. Whom I can't completely read. On the one hand, going out of her way to make Norman drink alcohol after Norma explicitly asked her not to "for medical reasons" , which Cody, who has experienced a Norman blackout, has to know isn't something Norma just made up , strikes me as a bit more sinister than just teenage bravado and a kneejerk reaction to defy a parent figure. On the other hand, telling Emma about the blackouts does look like genuine concern, which would argue against one of my speculations (which the liquor scene fueled fo rme), that Cody had a vague plan to have Norman deal with her father. I can't make up my mind on this; her father ending up on the bottom of the stairs at the end of this episode came to be accidentally rather than pre planned, i.e. there was no way to predict how that tussle with Norman would go. Then again, Cody did know Norman had a temper and that abusive men triggered it (see him telling her about his uncle), so - I just don't know. Can't make up my mind on this.
During the first scene at Cody's house, when Norman and Cody are hiding from her father, Norman flashes back to both his early childhood (which is the earliest flashback we had on the show so far), and Norma hiding with thim in an closet from a rampaging Sam Bates (I assume, though we didn't see the man they were hiding from), and to What Happened Last Summer, aka the events immediately preceding the death of his father, Sam hitting Norma. It's as explicit as the show's gotten an explanation for the origin of Norman's blackouts - that sense of fear and helplessness shared with his mother. Cody saying that her father wasn't always "like this" but that he could be nice is a parallel to Norman saying "he had his moments" when Shelby tries to sound him out about Sam Bates during the s1 fishing trip. What's interesting is that this is a blackout where we know Norman didn't do anything violent, nor did he try to, whereas all the previous blackouts the audience has seen contained Norman taking action, usually violent one.
(So far: the blackout around Sam Bates' death; the short blackout during his fight with Dylan when he comes at Dylan for the second time, this time with a meat cleaver, and later can't remember that part; the blackout around Miss Watson's death, which has of course a question mark (did he? didn't he?), and the blackout around confronting Caleb with a knife. Whereas this one in Cody's house happens without Norman going into any kind of action until he comes by at her sofa again.)
Meanwhile, the times Norman gets angry in the episode are times he's definitely NOT blacking out - after Emma's plunge, and after Norma prevented him getting his driver's licence after her phonecall from Emma. He's also still himself when storming into Cody's house to confront her about revealing the blackouts. Whether or not he's at the very end, after his struggle with Cody's father, though, we don't know yet. Though I can't help but notice that in the trailer for next week, it's Norman and only Norman who apparantly got arrested. Oh, and something else just occured to me: by telling Emma about the blackouts, Cody has just ensured someone else knows Norman has them, someone not Norman's mother, that is, who can't be relied upon to tell the cops about them.
Trivia: The Man Who Killed Liberty Valance: of course the key twist of that movie is that the noble lawyer whose entire career is built on the story about how he defied and killed evil Liberty Valance WASN'T the man who did it at all, how that was a lie; 'twasn't Jimmy Stewart the lawyer but morally ambiguous John Wayne, who didn't shoot Liberty Valance in a duel but from behind. (This is the movie with the most famous line being about how if it's truth versus legend, "print the legend".) I'm seeing certarin parallels here to George versus Alex Romero, Norma.
Re: 2.06 Plunge
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2.07 Presumed Innocent
Re: 2.07 Presumed Innocent
Emma, you are so my heroine. I mean, trying to mediate in this particular family is probably one of the all time fruitless jobs, but still, as Zane the idiot says: A for effort. Also for not, as fanfic would have it, hugging Dylan and being immediately on his side. (Seriously, during the last weeks when I checked the more recent fanfic there were not one but three stories in which Dylan tells his woes to Emma and she comforts him. Which struck me as unlikely on two counts: firstly, Dylan is more likely to tell Remo, if anyone, just what his current problems with his mother and brother are, and even with Remo I doubt he'd go beyond the general way he puts it in this episode ("some shit with my mother"). Secondly, Emma knows Dylan least of the family, and while her old crush on Norman may have transformed into friendship, it's still strong friendship, and she has not a little hero worship and mother figure yearning when it comes to Norma.) Yes, Emma doesn't have many, if any, of the facts about both the current and the long time Norma-Dylan troubles, but I still loved her parting shot at Dylan. Especially since he reveals in his conversation with Emma Norma did call him and left a message on his voicemail. Dylan, you can't have it both ways: either you're always shut out and Norma and Norman only care about each other, or you ignore it when they contact you. (I also noticed that when Romero told Norma there was something bad had happened, she asked whether it was Norman or Dylan, not just about Norman.)
Meanwhile, I wronged Cody by suspecting her of long term plans. She handled a bad situation rather well here, and wisely took the chance to get the hell out of White Pine Bay to her aunt (cat pee smell not withstanding, this definitely raises her life expectancy). In the end, Cody was there in the story as a trigger of revelation for several people; she let Norma know (via Emma) that Norman had additional blackouts, let Norman know that Norma knew about previous blackouts and was scared as hell about their significance, and the accidental death of her father, in a fitting irony for a long term murder story, is what brings Norman's DNA into the police system which triggers the discovery that it was his semen inside the late and definitely murdered Blair Watson. (More about that in a moment.) You could even say she acted as a trigger of discovery for Emma, too, because Emma both found out about the blackouts via Cody, and could see Norman does care for her (even if its not romantically). And having fulfilled the revelation function, she departs, which makes her the second girl this season to live where audience expectations were for her death.
Norman is in the Oedipus position in more than one sense here, as in the original Sophocles drama Oedipus presses and presses to find out more when the discovery waiting for him, about his own deeds, committed unknowingly, will destroy him. He realises that something is off about Norma's fears re: the death of Cody's father and that there has to be a reason for that, then Cody tells him Norma knew about the blackouts and adds the new information about Norma being scared by the way he changes during them, and in their last confrontation in this episode - both Norma and Norman dressed in identical coloured outfits - he gets Norma to confirm that what Cody said was the truth. But Norma still refuses to tell him more. At this point, it's doubtful whether "you killed your father" could be worse news than her refusal to tell him just what he did, and the audience because this is Norman Bates knows Norma is doing exactly the wrong thing (thus ensuring her own death), but then again: Norma hasn't seen Psycho, but she does have a vivid memory of how the last time telling a son the truth about himself ended.
Bates Motel, show that manages black comedy in the midst of drama, always: having rewatched s1, I remembered the office worker at the Sheriff's station who has it in for Norma and was amused she still does. Also, all around awkward moment when Norma hugs George for being there when she's angsting about her son at the exact point where Norman and Alex Romero exit the Sheriff's office. Hard to say who of the two was less pleased by the sight (though if in doubt, always Norman.) Romero clearly has developed at least a soft spot for Norma - compared with this s1 cold demeanour towards her, he's positively gentle here - which makes the cliffhanger ending all the worse for him. I knew the DNA probing would lead to something. I didn't know it would also lead to something that's new for the audience.
Now: as far as I recall from 3.01, they didn't find signs of rape or necrophilia on Miss Watson - just that she had sex with two different men within the last 24 hours of her life - which would mean Norman had sex with her before her death, not after, and probably not forced sex. (BTW, if I misrenember and they diagnosed rape, please tell me!) Which fills in one part of the missing time betwen Norman watching Blair Watson undressing in her bedroom and his running through the night after his blackout. But did he kill her afterwards? The only serious reason I have to doubt that is the assumption Norma will be the first woman he kills based on the movie. That, and the Doylist assumption that since the show got just renewed they can't end it with a situation where Norman already is a known (to people outside his family) killer. Now Romero already sent another man to prison for this particular murder, but it doesn't depend on Romero, or even his assistant, not with Norman's DNA now in the computer system. Which leads me to speculate that there will be a finale reveal of Blair Watson's killer as someone else (the late Gil? Bradley?), which clears Norman (having had sex with Blair Watson wasn't a crime on his part, though on hers, since he was her student and a minor), to be followed by a cliffhanger ending where he does kill someone (George?) again and this time the audience sees it.
Whoever directed the episode has an eye for extraordinary shots; the one of Norma at the police station in profile with Norman (and Romero) in the background was a standout, as was the whole sequence starting with Norman on top of the stairs and Norma rushing in with the good news that the death of Cody's father was ruled an accident, where you notice their identical colour scheme and they're shot like doppelgangers as they descend the stairs until Norman reveals what Cody told him.
And lastly: we have a name for the Overlady, Jodi, though she didn't show up this week. How Dylan is supposed to keep an eye on her brother and restrain same when she didn't tell any of the other thugs Dylan has more authority is a mystery, though, and unsurprisingly Zane the idiot makes things worse by staging a raid on Nick Ford's warehouse. Let's see, Nick Ford: very likely to hear soon that the investigation into his daughter's death will be reopened, with Norma's younger son as the new main suspect. Also about to find Norma's older son on the scene of his raided warehouse. (Unless by dragging himself those few meters Dylan successfully managed to stay hidden once Zane the idiot & thugs depart.) There is an avalanche of badness in development right there.
Re: 2.07 Presumed Innocent
Re: 2.07 Presumed Innocent
Re: 2.07 Presumed Innocent
Re: 2.07 Presumed Innocent
2.08 Meltdown
Re: 2.08 Meltdown
VaughnMichael Vartan, but there it is.)Incidentally, setting aside Norma's messed up relationship with Norman, the earlier scene between Norma and George was interesting to me from a character pov both because it confirmed some things I had concluded from earlier eps about Norma's background beyond the family abuse stuff - i.e. that she never went to college, "barely finished high school" (given she got pregnant at 17 with Dylan and got married to Masset the yet unseen first husband and high school boyfriend, that would be the case) and is completely self educated otherwise. (I have some vague ideas for a story and I need to know these things, so this was useful.) Her outburst towards George had some raw truth beyond this and was, I think, not solely motivated by her Norman issues: what I mean is that parties like Christine's and dinner with George are attractive to Norma the same way the old movies she and Norman like so much are. They're daydreams. As Norman says to Emma in an early s1 episode, everyone looks great and seems to be better in the old movies, "even in the crappy ones" . Norma likes this as a daydream, a completely different world to hers, but not as a reality, not just because her primary emotional commitment will always be to her son but because in her heart she feels unworthy and not belonging in it. (See also her deep discomfort at Christine's dinner for four outing.) So even if there would not have been a Norman crisis right then, I think she'd have turned George down (though less abruptly). (Otoh without a Norman crisis she would not have slept with him. It's interesting that the show never played a moment of UST between Norma and George, on her end, anyway - even when she hugged him, it always came across as spontanous gratitude rather than anything else for her - whereas with Romero there is such tension.)
Meanwhile, Nick Ford does become an involuntary family uniter when demanding that Norma should arrange a meeting between him and Dylan. I appreciate that the show for all that Nick Ford being scary and ruthless is played up doesn't present him as Abernathy, Next Model; he's menacing Norma and making implicit threats, yes, but I also had the impression he meant it when he said he regretted being estranged from his daughter when she died, and that one should make up with one's child while that's still possible. (I.e. I think he was both making a threat and expressing an honest opinion.) In tandem with the Norma and Norman relationship getting worse, the Norma and Dylan one takes at last a turn for the better when Norma, upon still being unable to get Dylan on the phone, enlists Emma as her guide and visits Dylan at work. Resulting in an utter gem of a scene, in which Norma manages to express her deep worry for her son and to get sidetracked into giving health advice about cannabis because that's the way Norma's mind works. (I love her.) And Dylan, while still unable to talk about what happened between them, has stopped with the blaming-Norma-for-everything and instead is not only able to be matter of factly about the current drug war but stares after her downright longingly when she leaves, and gets protective on her behalf when finally meeting Nick Ford. (He does have a "nobody gets to hurt Norma but me" thing going, doesn't he?)
Considering Nick Ford point blank demands Dylan should kill Zane the Idiot and Jodi Morgan implicitly tells him to, I do wonder whether it will occur to Dylan that there is a non-lethal way to get rid of Zane; like, say, getting him arrested for the dozens of people he just co-killed in the warehouse? Because getting into prison for multiple murders would do the trick. This would necessitate a team-up with Alex Romero, of course, and I wonder whether that's why we got the short scene of Romero reminding Dylan of his existence this episode? Other than that, Romero is currently busy with Norma's other son, obviously hoping Norman is in denial about the whole having-had-sex-with-Miss-Watson thing for normal angsty teenager reasons (i.e. being seduced by your teacher who soon dies mysteriously after would be something most teens might be inclined to lie about to the authorities) rather than sinister having-killed-her-reasons, but not excluding the later. For Norman, coming as it does so shortly after finding out his mother is hiding something disturbing about his behavior when blacking out, this news is shattering. And that's before he's getting kidnapped, presumably by Nick Ford's men (Nick Ford having concluded that with Norman as leverage he can make Dylan and Norma do whatever he wants).
Speculation: whatever Dylan intended/intends to do re: Zane the Idiot, this has just ensured Nick Ford a place on my list of people not likely to survive the season. Whether or not Dylan will be the one to actually kill him. Other possibilities now include Norma or Alex Romero. Or Norman himself, because in this episode Norman found out Nick Ford is Blair Watson's father, remember, and Norman has just learned via Romero that he had sex with Miss Watson in the night of her death and is seriously freaked out about being her possible murderer. It may be Norman (while still himself) either deliberately or involuntary ends up revealing to Nick Ford, who wouldn't react peacably, leverage or no leverage, at which point "Mother" in Norman may take over because seriously threatening situations tend to bring out the blackouts.
Outstanding scene of the week: the "you changed the rules" scene between Norman and Norma, both for the emotional powerplay with Norman having the upper hand and for being the one with the most overt oedipal (sub? main?) text between Norman and Norma yet, which is saying something.
Trivia: Remo's reaction to seeing Norma reminded he hasn't met her before (that I recall) and probably formed a different (visual) picture from Dylan's occasional remarks about her.
Re: 2.08 Meltdown
Re: 2.08 Meltdown
Re: 2.08 Meltdown
Re: 2.08 Meltdown
2.09 The Box
Re: 2.09 The Box
Now, on to what actually happens in the episode: huh. I would not have expected the show to kill off Nick Ford before the finale! I mean, it makes total sense why it happened on a Watsonian level - Zane the Idiot suddenly having developed survival brains and having armed henchmen around him all the time, Dylan had no way of assasinating him, Ford had threatened to kill Norman within a day if Zane's dead body wasn't delivered, so killing Ford (who as opposed to Zane did leave his henchmen outside for his conversation with Dylan) was the next step. But on a Doylist level it is very surprising, given that the episode itself made the episode bring the two plot threads of Miss Watson's death and Nick Ford together and let Nick Ford find out (via the pearls, as I thought) that Norman had something to do with his dead daughter. And now Nick Ford never gets to react? Huh. (Unless he's set things in motion between his henchman - Eric? - bringing him the pearls and Dylan arriving which we'll only find out later, but that seems unlikely, given that Norman was in his power at the time, and Ford had no reason not to act on Norman himself if he wanted to.) Well, I suppose one reason for this choice may be so the finale could focus not so much on an external threat (i.e. Nick Ford) but on an internal (Norman having now remembered about Miss Watson, courtesy of being locked up in a coffin like box for 24 hours at least). (There's still Zane and Ford's people as far as external threats to Dylan, if not the rest of the family, go, but persumably that's where Romero will come in.)
Poor Emma. Poor, poor Emma. I mean, her timing was horrible - chances are Norma wouldn't have told her about the more usual type of Bates family quarrel, either, but there was no way she'd confide in Emma under these particular circumstances, with Nick Ford having threatened to kill Norman if she told anyone - but you could see how much it hurt her when Norma just accepted her quitting instead of protesting, trying to dissuade her and/or confide in her. Emma has made Norma into her replacement mother, and it was never more visible than when she decided to stay anyway instead of driving off when George showed up, instead returning to Norma and hugging her.
Speaking of George: I assume that's it. (Unless he's revealed as taking over Nick Ford's organisation at the end of the finale.) Can't say I'm sorry, and Norma's outburst about him not being real pretty much goes with my headcanon on how she sees him.
Norma was pretty much condemmed to reacting through the episode, and I hope in the finale she'll get to do something active again. My guess is Norman will be liberated early on in the finale rather than the show doing a "will they find Norman in time?" plot, which would be silly - we know Norman can't die, even if the characters don't, he's the sole character whose survival is ironclad guaranteed. So one question will be how Norma, once Norman's life isn't under immediate threat anymore, will respond to the latest confirmation/revelation from Romero re: Norman in the night of Blair Watson's death. Because this is different from Norman's other outbursts of violence when blacking out. (BTW, that scene where Norma after closing the door behind her breaks down in that mixture of taking breaths, sobs and hiccups was fantastic acting on Vera Farmiga's part again.) This had nothing to do with him wanting to protect someone. I suppose Norma might still try to tell herself Norman having had sex with Miss Watson doesn't mean he also killed her, because Norma is the queen of denial, but that's not what this scene looked like to me.
Which brings me to: Norman at last having the flashbacks (complete with his hallucinated inner Mother) to the night of Blar Watson's death. So he did kill her her after all. I have the very strong suspicion, that since Norman canonically can't tell apart his hallucinations of Norma from the real thing (we could see that in season 1 when he insisted that she'd told him to get the belt from Shelby, which the audience knew she hadn't; his hallucination had), that his way of coping with the horror of that realization is going to be that he'll insist Norma told him to do it. And won't believe her if she says she didn't, not least because she didn't tell him about his blackouts. Which fits with the show's theme of Norma's efforts to help her son contributing to his doom, and thus also hers.
Re: 2.09 The Box
Re: 2.09 The Box
2.10 The Immutable Truth
Re: 2.10 The Immutable Truth
The two most notable visual allusions being Norma in the rocking chair, and Norman in the final shot which is a direct restaging of the final shot from Psycho, whereas Mother-in-Norman tells us she couldn't hurt a fly and smiles. I have the suspicion that wanting to restage the Psycho image was one of the two reasons why they introduced the polygraph plot point to begin with. The other reason is that Norman, having now passed a polygraph test - because he didn't kill Miss Watson, Mother did - has a future alibi in the eyes of the law the next time somebody dies. Given the polygraph as a method to finding out the truth hasn't becoming more reliable since last week when I was complaining about this plot point, this is pretty flimsy, but you know what, I don't care, because the character stuff in this episode for Norma and her sons was so good.
Before we get to said heart of the show: the drug war plot gets wrapped up via the deaths of Zane the Idiot and Jody. If you ask me, Romero was deliberately waiting until Jody was killed before intervening because he wanted to get rid of both Morgan siblings. I doubt whether his idea of installing Dylan as new kingpin will work out, because I know this show, but from a Watsonian level I can see his logic. Dylan doesn't start drug wars and he owes Romero (double and triple at this point). Incidentally, my s1 rewatch has reminded me that mid s1 when Romero said "here's what the story will be" the last time, Dylan was mightily insulted at the prospect of Romero getting the "credit" for killing Shelby. This time, he's grateful. Says something about Dylan growing up in the meantime, doesn't it? Anyway, the Morgan siblings were among the least interesting characters on the show and won't be missed.
Speaking of siblings: I suppose this is it for Christine and George, too, unless one of my crazier speculations turns out to be true next season and seemingly harmless George takes over Nick Ford's organization. (Like I said, I think SOMEONE other than Dylan will, because the show likes external threats in addition to the internal ones, and if Dylan actually gets to be head drug honcho in town, there wouldn't be any.) If he doesn't, I don't think we'll see Christine or George again, in which case: Christine's angry words to Norma (which reveal George must have told her Norma's entire outburst) underline that she basically had cast herself and Norma in one particular narrative, where Christine was the gracious upper class fairy godmother and Norma the grateful lower class Cinderella who would after some token protest of course fall into the arms of Prince George, and was outraged when Norma turned out to not follow the story. Mind you, not that what Christine says isn't true as well - i.e. Norma is a trainwreck - but not for the reason Christine says it. (I.e. Sending George on his way was among the least train-wrecky things Norma Bates does.)
Only temporarily resolved: Emma's sense of alienation and being on the outside. Norman telling her (part of) the truth and asking her to stay, with a callback to one of their first scenes together - the Blake poem, Tyger Tyger (which addresses God creating both the murderous tiger and the lamb, obvious symbolism in that scene is obvious) - gives Emma one of the key family secrets. It's both a opposite to the s1 finale when Norman constantly overlooked and never truly communicated with Emma and a counterpoint to Norma telling him the same secret (well, except for the Dylan part) in the s1 finale. Becaus when Norma told him, she believed she was likely to die that night. When Norman tells Emma, he's determined to commit suicide. Also, note he adds that his mother does love her and asks Emma to stay; telling Emma this particular secret - and none of the others, like, say, his recent kidnapping by Nick Ford, or his memories of Miss Watson - is also designed to make Emma stay with Norma in a Norman-less future.
Which brings me to: let's hear it for Freddie Highmore, whose performance as Norman went above and beyond this season. Both with the dark side and with the bright side - Norman determined to kill himself rather than become/continue as a killer was absolutely heartbreaking, as was Norman hugging Dylan upon being rescued and his gentleness with Emma and Norma in what he thought would be his final meetings with them. Whereas Norman-as-Mother - both in the Caleb scene and in the final shot of the finale - was chilling. Feeling both sorry for and horrified by Norman (who now believes Mother to be the killer, meaning he's that much deeper into his developing psychosis) is what made the character in his Hitchcock/Anthony Perkins incarnation, and Freddie Highmore here truly is a worthy successor. (Technical side note: I appreciate that the wardrobe department takes care to dress Vera Farmiga in different outfits when she's playing Mother-in-Norman's-hallucination and also real Norma nearby to make it clear to even a casual audience that Norman isn't talking to the genuine article when he's hallucinating.)
Aristotle defined the perfect tragedy as one the hero of said tragedy experiences both due to external circumstances but more importantly due to his own flaws and decisions. The combination is important, as is the hero of a Greek tragedy bearing responsibility for what happens to him. In that sense, Bates Motel isn't so much Norman's tragedy as it is Norma's. Because Norman is mentally ill. His violence during his blackouts isn't a "flaw" over which he has control. Norma, on the other hand, has emotional problems (does she ever) and is messed up, but she's sane. There are some external circumstances - the childhood from hell, the bypass, being trapped in White Pine Bay, all the skeevy drug business and last season the sex trade business therein - contributing to her tragedy, but mostly it is driven by her own flaws and fatal decisions. If her love for her son were less co-dependent, she'd be able to face that getting treatment, even in prison, would be what's truly best for Norman, but Norma can't bear to part from him, and this means not just stopping him from suicide (good) but driving him back into denial about what he did (bad). At the same time where Norma's relationship with her younger son becomes ever more fatally (for both of them) dysfunctional, the one with her older son gets an upswing. Now there's one bit about the big Norma and Dylan reconciliation scene - which I loved - which I preferred to be added, because honestly, I thought Dylan should have apologized as well, not just Norma. (Am still not over Dylan siding with Caleb and believing him over Norma back then.) But he did say "it wasn't your fault, you were just a kid", which I take as an acknowledgment, and I can live with that. Especially since it really was a fabulous scene. It's telling that Dylan takes Norma's earlier "I love you" in the hospital as solely referring to the fact he helped saving Norman, but in this scene he finally believes that she does because she asks him to come with her almost at the start of it. At the root of the Dylan and Norma alienation, long before he found out about Caleb, was his conviction that she did not want him based on her remoteness with him as opposed to her clinginess with Norman, and then his retaliation by honing in on her considerable weaknesses verbally. It figures that what brings them back together (after the immediate need to save Norman is over) is a combination of Norma showing she does want him (and not just in an emergency) and considers him worth all the horror that led to his birth, and Norma being honest in a way she can't be with anyone else about Norman, including Norman himself (Dylan is the only person Norma actually talks with about Norman's blackouts and killings instead of going into strict denial mode).
...and while going into an emotional puddle, a part of me was also aware that Dylan, in a milder form, shares Norma's tragedy-inducing flaw of need for the beloved person above the capability of doing what actually would be best for said person if that means giving him/her up. The actual best thing Norma could do right now for Norman would be to let him admit his guilt, followed by oodles of therapy even if it's in an institution, but she won't because that would mean living without him. The actual best thing Dylan could do for both Norma and Norman would be the same thing, especially given that Dylan is actually the sole other person in possession of all the facts and with some emotional leverage with Norma and Norman. But that would mean/risk losing one or both of them, and so he won't. And thus the tragedy in development continues. With black humor, even in this super intense season finale. Norma's recapitulation of her relationship with George - "I even went out with her brother and tried to sleep with him" - was priceless. As was her looking up air plane tickets for Norman, Dylan and herself as a way to solve the son-under-suspicion-of-murder problem. Oh, Norma. I'm going to miss you so very much once this show reaches its inevitable conclusion, and yet I'm absolutely thrilled we got another season at least.
Re: 2.10 The Immutable Truth
Re: 2.10 The Immutable Truth
3.01 A Death in the Family
Critical thought first: if Norman has killed Annika, I don't know how the show will justify Watsonian-wise that he doesn't get caught long before Marion Crane comes to down. Sure, he's just passed a lie detector test, but Sheriff Romero knows this isn't the ultimate truth telling device, and if there's another murder of a woman who's been near Norman Bates this soon, well... Also, Emma saw Norman leave with Annika, so if Annika's car is back but no Annika, Emma would figure it out, too, and while that would lead to heartbreaking character scenes, I don't see how Emma could stay around, either. So: short of revealing that Annika for some reason told Norman to take the car back (maybe she spotted a client whom she knew would take her home coming to the party?), I am a loss how to predict developments from here.
Everything else: I've missed you, you neurotic bunch of characters! And none more than Norma, who gets the news that her mother (and now we have a name, Francine Calhoun, thanks, show) has died and reacts in typical Norma fashion: pretending she's fine and dandy about it and everything's lovely, then breaking down later. The different conversations she has with her two sons about her mother are telling of the different relationships (and how those have changed and not changed since the start of the show): with Norman, after the first brittle "I'm fine" conversation, the second is an emotional breakdown and illustration of their co-dependent relationship with her using Norman as an emotional band-aid. With Dylan, she's actually communicating and telling him something about the dead woman in question, and the type of relationship she had with her. It's a far cry from the Norma and Dylan arguments in early season 1, btw. Which is true for his remark re: Norman's sleeping arrangement earlier, too; in early s1, Norma would have taken that, probably correctly, as an attack and responded in kind, not with "I hear what you're saying" and a (short lived) attempt to actually listen to said advice.
Of course, Dylan already knows Francine is dead, since Caleb is back in town. This is bad news for the continued emotional welfare of just about everyone but good news for the viewer. Not least in terms of more backstory. So far, Norma and Caleb describe their parents practically identical - father horribly violent, mother clinically insane and doped to the gills; it's the point of Caleb saying the only refuge they had was each other versus Norma remembering being raped from 13 years old onwards that's the difference. (Though it would be entirely in character for many a family rapist to not remember it as rape.) I note that Caleb, who is pretty convincing when claiming he wants just a relatonship with Dylan, is not mentioning anything about Norman turning up in his motel room the last time he was in town, with a knife and with Imaginary Norma speaking through him. Which could be because Caleb doesn't wand to jeapordize his chance at having a relationship with Dylan, but you'd think something like this would come up sooner rather than later, if only in terms of warning. (For all that Caleb knows, Norman does that king of thing all the time.)
Dylan, after the last two seasons, not wanting another shot at drug lord life and wanting to go legit is understandable, but I'm with Alex Romero in finding this pretty naive, given the type of town White Pine Bay is. Also, I'm genre savy. Where there are no more drug lords, there is a power vaccuum. Speaking of Sheriff Romero, it doesn't look like he's still staying at the motel anymore, which on the one hand makes sense - it was only temporary after his house burned down - but otoh is a shame, because how will they arrange for him and Norma to have more awesome scenes together?
3.02. The Arcanum Club
Show, if Dylan is saddled with his own subplot apart from the rest of the gang, solely interacting with drug folk, for the third year in a row, that's a waste. Haven't we established that his best scenes are inevitably with his mother and/or brother? So I shall choose to believe that the current time apart is so he can build up a bond with Caleb in order to justify an upcoming loyality clash better than Dylan instinctively taking Caleb's side last season was. But I want my Masset & Bates interaction, show, and I want it soon.
(Also I note that Caleb still hasn't seen it fit to mention the Norman-as-Norma-with-a-knife incident from last season to Caleb.)
Poor Emma. It couldn't be more glaringly obvious Norman is not sexually attracted to her at all, though he likes her a lot, of course. (And no, I don't think it's just Norman's Oedipus complex coupled with the developing sex followed by violence psychosis that makes him avoid anything sexual with Emma. He had sex with both Bradley and Cody without killing or hurting either of them.) Asking Emma to date him really was in response to Emma's medical condition worsening, and that will probably hurt her even worse than the romantic disinterest would have done in the end. (Leaving aside the question whether Emma will live long enough to find out the truth about Norman.) I loved the Peter Pan conversation, btw, because it works with the dark aspects of Barrie's work, not Disney. Including Peter making Wendy into a mother figure while bypassing the pesky romantic stage altogether, Wendy in the end growing up but not Peter. It hadn't occured to me to read Norman Bates as one version of Peter's refusal to grow up, but it works.
Which does beg the question wheter Norman is going to cast Alex Romero as Captain Hook. (Who is on stage always played by the same actor as Mr. Darling, the father, which was Barrie's idea.) Confirming my assumption from last week, Sheriff Romero is moving out of the motel and into his restored house which doesn't make Norma (or him?) any happier than it does me. That goodbye scene with neither of them knowing whether to shake hands or hug, until it resolves in an awkward hug, and then Norma running after his car to make that simple "you make me feel safe" statement was adorable. Well, for this show. Of course, I was mentally yelling at Norma to tell him about Annika's disappearance, assuming this would be the last Romero scene for the episode or at least their last interaction in said episode, but no, more goodness was to come, more about this in a moment. First, about that "You make me feel safe". Norma's never felt safe. She's neurotic, damaged and damaging, and often unhinged, yes, but look at her life, starting out in a household with a brutally abusive father, a crazy mother and a brother who turned from an ally into a rapist. Her married life included more abuse, and now she's living in a town where she got raped on her first day and things went downhill from there, including such highlights as rotting corpses in her bed and being almost certain her son is a budding killer. Paranoia is her default modus, and it's for a reason. So telling Alex Romero something like this is more meaningful than practically anything else.
Don't get me wrong: Norma is doomed by prequel and will end up as a corpse courtesy of her son if she does develop stronger feelings for a man she's not related to again. But that will happen either way, so I'm rooting for more Norma and Alex in between. And the show is kind to me this way! Because next Norma, faced with the alternative that either Norman has killed another girl or he's telling the truth and the girl still disappeared, only courtesy to a shady rich men's club straight out of Twin Peaks, decides to go undercover to investigate. Which Audrey Horne could have told her never goes well. Otoh she does meet Sheriff Romero again this way and this time she does tell him the truth, amazingly, the whole truth, including that Norman was the last person seen with the disappeared Annika. Romero's expression was priceless. (Nestor Carbonell, I like you much more in this role than in the later stages of Lost once Richard ended up getting a Telenovela backstory) I can't wait to find out where that one will lead.
Mind you, it made me cautiously optimistic it will turn out that against likelihood, Norman actually is innocent of this latest death (for it is a death, as the episode concludes with the body being found), because I don't see how Romero would let that one slide. He's okay with drug dealers as long as they stick to the town rules, but not with serial killers, after all.
Lastly: Norma versus the bypass sign was hilarious. And utterly understandable. Norma, I know how you feel.
3.03. Persusion
Whereas from Norman's pov, the mother for whose sake he decided to live last season instead of killing himself keeps demonstrating she doesn't trust him, when he's innocent, tells the Sheriff who already suspected him of murder once that he, Norman, is the last person to see the likely murdered Annika alive and seems to have mysterious meetings with said Sheriff anyway. And because Norman by all indications can't tell the difference between real Norma and Mother (i.e. the Norma he hallucinates, who is really a part of his own psyche), his mother also tells him to simulate his most terrible experience so he can find out he's guilty after all, in a downright gaslighting manner.
It's a rapidly escalating tragedy with incredibly compelling acting (Freddie Highmore takes it up another level in this episode, and Vera Farmiga is sublime as always, from the funny - her disbelieving expression at the morgue when she realises the girl isn't Annika after all - to the heartrendering, starting to cry once she's outside the house culminating in falling on her knees in the motel office because at this point it looks like she can't avoid the truth, that her son is turning into a monster, anymore, just before fate gives her another gruesome break by delivering a living yet dying by gunshot and hence not Norman Annika. Oh, and she's awesome as Mother, because she plays her differently from regular Norma (not so much that the two are unrelated, of course, but Mother is calmer, more commanding, and despite her more conservative dressing and hairstyle - not Mother wears her hair in the old fashioned knot Norma's corpse will have in Psycho, which real Norma doesn't - cooly seductive, which Norma is not). For the audience, there's never a question who is who, which is important.
Meanwhile, Emma puts on the sexy and finally does get a reaction out of Norman, which is worrying because Norman. Even more worryingly for Emma, she finds out Dylan is currently hanging out with Caleb the rapist uncle/father. Emma promises not to tell, but let's face it, secret keeping isn't Emma's strong suit. Especially from Norma, whom she's told someting she promised not to tell twice already. For me as an audience member, the day she tells Norma or Norman can't come soon enough because I want Dylan to interact with either of them again, damm it! Enough with the Caleb bonding in preparation for conflict already.
Oh, and our favourite morally ambigous Sheriff, in addition to two dead girls to investigate and the Bates family to worry about, also seems to be facing election problems this year. I'm already more invested in Sheriff Romero's reelection than I ever was in Alicia Florrick's campaign over at The Good Wife, not least because with Romero I know why he wants to stay Sheriff and that he does want it, strongly. (Not just to have continued UST with Norma.)
Lastly: making Annika NOT Norman's next victim was a smart choice, I think, because if Norman's killing rate would accelerate this quickly with him as a suspect it really would defy belief he remains undiscovered until he's in his mid 20s. As to what's on the USB stick: since the only problem Norma and Norman both have that he told Annika about is the by pass, I assume this must be someting related to said by pass?