He still seems salvageable, despite his interest in the manga sketches he finds that depict women bound and under duress (or did he create some of them himself?) He's a weird kid, but he's handsome and likable, and is easily swooped up by a gaggle of attractive girls at his high school. "Norman, I'm sorry that dirtbag raped me" she says in a deadpan tone as they push the body off the side of the boat.įor his part, Norman doesn't seem comfortable with hiding bodies, and he vomits at school the next day over the thought of it. The moment was shocking and odd, as was her reaction to it later, after taking care of his body. That scene was very strange, and broke the trance-like pace of the rest of the episode with a very violent sexual assault on Norma by the creep whose family lost the motel and house to the Bates. We find out later on in "First You Dream, Then You Die" that Norma is very resourceful when it comes to death, particularly when it comes to hiding a corpse. or was it? Norma's calm and unhurried demeanor and slight smile seemed to indicate she was happy about how things played out, and possibly had a hand in them (saying "I'm sorry" to Norman in comfort - was it a confession?) She's not completely unhinged, but there is something not right about her, from the first moments we see Norman waking to find his father bleeding to death from an accident. Still, the pilot episode (like most pilot episodes) was clunky and occasionally campy, with Vera Farmiga playing a unsettling version of Norma. And while Bates Motel teases this out by confirming a lot of our suspicions, it also attempts to do more than just be one long "How I Killed My Mother." As far as Bates Motel goes, we know how things are going to end up for Norma and Norman, and we can guess a lot of the rest.
One of the issues I've noted in a piece like The Americans is that because the show stays within the bounds of history, we already know the outcome on a macro level, and it's only when the show began focusing on more micro dramas that it began to really start to gain emotional traction.
Hit the jump for why "we belong to each other." Things have started off slowly and strangely in the first hour, with the show seeming to not quite find its tone, but there are also some legitimately promising elements. The show is seeking to straddle that difficult line of basing itself off of very familiar material (which guarantees an audience, if just from the curiosity) - though which also burdens it with the fact that things have to end up at a certain place at a certain point - and doing something new with the story.
The series is billed as a "contemporary" prequel to Hitchcock's 1960 classic, and while the show does take place in that familiar setting with a few winking call-backs to the original film, it's clear that it wants to be its own thing. A&E has gathered together some formidable talent to creates its Psycho prequel series Bates Motel, with Carlton Cuse ( Lost) and Kerry Ehrin ( Friday Night Lights) producing, and Vera Farmiga ( Up in the Air) and Freddie Highmore ( Finding Neverland) as Norma and Norman Bates.