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 Vaughn Vartan'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
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.