Bates Motel returned to A&E on Monday, March 9th, and what a season opener it was!
So, summer is finished in White Pines Bay, and Norman is starting his senior year at high school. But things aren’t as smooth as you’d expect. First, he has to deal with the shame of being questioned for killing his teacher, Miss Blair Watson. As a result, Norman doesn’t want to go and stubbornly sits in his mother’s car in front of the school, which leads Norma to forcibly and embarrassingly remove him from the car.
Second, during lunch, as Norman sits alone in the cafeteria, he has a vivid hallucination of Miss Watson, which leads him to run home to mom. Being the supportive mother, who really just wants to keep her son as close to home as possible, she suggests that Norman does homeschooling. Later on, Emma joins Norman in finishing up high school through homeschooling, and they’re going to study together, as boyfriend and girlfriend to boot. Yes, folks, Norman popped the question, the very age-appropriate question, “Will you go out with me?”
Emma might be happy with Norman right now, but I’m sure that as the season continues she’s going to realize Norman’s issues. I predict that she’s going to try to help him out as much as possible, but Norman might actually end up killing her during one of his blackouts.
But let’s get back to the overprotective Norma for a moment. The episode opened with Norman spooning his mother in bed. Brother Dylan saw this and as Norma jumps into her good mother role to make him a quick breakfast, he tells her that it’s not appropriate for an 18 year old to be sleeping with his mother. Norma reluctantly accepts this and attempts to explain these new boundaries to Norman, and he doesn’t really get it and storms off to his room.
Later on, Norma uses the recent death of her mother, something she’s truly indifferent about, to lure Norman back into her bed. After consoling Norma, Norman says, “Move over, you crazy woman” as he crawls into bed with his grieving mother.
In addition to allowing Norman to be homeschooled, Norma also ensures her son’s close proximity by making him hotel manager. However, does she want him close for her own needs or is she trying to protect him from himself? I think that’s where this season will go; Norman will sink deeper and deeper into his psychotic behavior as his mother struggles to keep him from harming himself and others.
It should also be said that the death of Norma’s mother was the device used to bring back Caleb, Norma’s rapist brother and Dylan’s father. Caleb returns to White Pine Bay under the pretense that he’d like to give some of his inheritance to Dylan, but in actuality he wants to establish a seemingly impossible relationship with his son. During the course of this season, Dylan will probably discover that he needs Caleb more than he’d like to admit.
In other White Pines Bay news, the drug trade has been shut down and Sheriff Romero is taking heat for it. But he stands his ground in bar-fight fashion. Romero also told Dylan that if he pursues his medicinal growing dream that he won’t be able to protect him and the Bates family.
White Pines Bay is also short one visitor. Early in the episode an escort checked into the Bates Motel and she captured Norman’s attention, to say the least. Later on, Norman literally abandons his new girlfriend, Emma, to take the escort to where she needs to be. Now, assuming that since Norman returned to the motel alone with her car, he must have had a blackout and killed her. True or not, that’s what we’ve been led to believe. It’s also fitting because she was a whore, and in Norman’s that deserves death.
Where do you think this season is going to go? Leave your thoughts in the comments section below.
Rock Hard \m/
