Norma: still my favourite. That outburst in front of the city council was an instant classic. It's one of those cases where on the one hand, you know the other party is right - the by pass is far more useful to the town - but on the other, there's Norma and her happiness when the motel FINALLY started to get in some guests, not to mention the horrid Psycho ordained fate hanging over her neck, and you just root for her.
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
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.