They stall for time (here’s your favorite drug subplot rearing its head!) and for character growth (Norman blacks out, Norma is overprotective) and nothing ever feels like a direct result or consequence from the somewhat scandalous events of last season. It’s still got two noteworthy central performances and enough atmosphere to sustain a dying planet, but for the first time in its twenty-one episodes, Bates Motel has begun to feel redundant.
A summer has passed since season 2, and no one appears willing to discuss anything that happened back then. Perhaps Norman’s new habit of sleeping in Norma’s bed is an indication on how that forest kiss is affecting their relationship, but not much has changed here. They hug and profess their love and scream and slam doors, still admittedly captivating in their creepy self-awareness of the central mother-son relationship but continuing to grow closer anyway.
The most discussed event from last season may actually be Dylan’s drug subplot, with Sheriff Romero dealing with the fallout of the DEA assisting the local cops in burning down the entire illegal narcotics industry in White Pine Bay one field at a time. As it happens, Dylan’s father-uncle pops up again and they mostly, well, brood. There’s a hint in the middle of the episode that not everyone’s happy with the DEA’s crackdown on the fields, and it’s understandable that a show with such a narrow kernel of a central idea would need some B plot padding, but the retread into drug-related drama in the premiere doesn’t help alleviate the air of sameness skulking over the show.
A new face does show up, however, in Revolution‘s Tracy Spiridakos. She plays Annika Johnson, renting a room at the Motel for a few nights while she’s in town for a “party” with a few older gentlemen. Norman picks up on her particular career choice soon enough, and she is the nucleus for a scene that feels like the biggest homage to Psycho that the show’s done so far, but she’s also wasted. Spiridakos is too good of an actress to play such a minor role, and too uninteresting of a character to merit any fear or anxiety for her livelihood. There could be more of her in the rest of the season, but the show doesn’t give up any details in the premiere.
Elsewhere in the episode, Norman breaks down in school after seeing Miss Watson sitting next to him at lunch, bleeding from the throat. Norma promptly decides to home-school him, Emma joins in, and Norman is promoted to Motel Manager. Some strides are made towards big changes coming in season three, but they take two steps back for every step forward. Norman asks Emma to be his girlfriend, for example, and the show is at its emotionally wringing best when the dramatic irony of his inevitable turnout clashes with the sweetness we see on screen. But then he trips over himself in assisting Annika with changing a light bulb and navigating her new surroundings in town, causing a near identical Bradley/Emma/Norman (not to mention Cody/Emma/Norman) conflict which we saw for nearly two seasons. Vera Farmiga and Freddie Highmore still play the living daylight out of Norma and Norman, despite a few cringe-worthy lines of dialogue that feel out of place on the show, but even they can’t elevate the premiere out of its stagnation. In an episode whose main dramatic conflict boils down to sleeping arrangements, the show feels unable, or unwilling, to yet deal with the immediate fallout from last season and appears to even be scratching its head in confusion on where to head next.
Towards the end of the hour, Norma attests that the two need to be more proactive about the bypass shutting down their business (yet another storyline that sees spinning wheels), and that they “can’t just sit by” and lose their business. Bates Motel is still an admirably made and slickly shot hour of television, and no doubt fans of the show will lap up what little new developments happen in the season three premiere, but hopefully the show takes Norma’s own advice over the next nine weeks.
1) Episode 1 - A Death In The Family - Last season ended with Norman just managing to escape justice by beating the polygraph when questioned about the murder of teacher Blair Watson. He's now free to be a perfectly normal 18-year-old, perv, serial-killer again, and in the opening episode of season 3, he embraces his new status. Unlike the first episode of season 2, this doesn't waste any time in showing Norman being super-weird with "mother," or the new sexy motel guest, Anika Johnson (Tracy Spiridakos), who comes rolling in late at night. Norman's tongue is literally on the floor as he gives her his special "I'm Norman Bates and you're about to be killed" look. A Death in the Family, refers to Norma's mother dying. Norma learns of the death after a lawyer calls her up to explain that she's about to inherit her mother's estate, such as it was. "I'm not interested, thank you for calling," is all Norma tells the lawyer before hanging up the phone on him. Obviously, Norma has mixed feelings and emotions about the death, and for most of the episode manages to keep up a brave facade. However, it does eventually crumble. After Norma physically drags Norman out of the car at school, Norman has a hallucination that freaks him out so much, that he runs all the way back to the motel. Norma decides that it's time to promote Norman to manager, and that he should also be home-schooled. She's clearly being overprotective by doing this but she also understands her volatile son more than she lets on. The family death brings Dylan's father/uncle Caleb back into the picture, which Dylan is not happy about in the slightest. Caleb at first claims he's there to give Dylan money that he'd just inherited. After Caleb pretends to have trouble with his truck, he eventually confesses to Dylan that he knows he's his father and that he wants to be part of his life, if only for a few days. Norma doesn't know Caleb has returned, and the last time he was on the scene it caused her a lot of grief. Who knows what will happen when and if she does find out?!
The DEA have burned all the marijuana crops, which was the town's main source of revenue and Dylan never really wanted to be running the business in the first place. After he tells Sheriff Romero that he's no longer working for him, and that he plans on running a legal weed farm, Romero hints that things won't go smoothly for Dylan, as he's no longer protected. Romero also faces a couple of angry weed farmers who feel that he'd failed to adequately protect them. Romero knocks one of them unconscious, convincing the other grower that their aggressive attempt at diplomacy wasn't really working on the sheriff. So, Norman was acting weird all through the episode, and sleeping in bed with his mom was only one example. Dylan sees Norman cuddling into Norma and asks her if she doesn't think it's a bit strange for a boy of 18 to be sleeping with his mom. After giving it some thought, Norma puts a stop to their bedtime cuddles. But it doesn't last long. Norman "tells" Emma that they should be dating, and it feels like he needs her for camouflage, to look like a normal kid. Emma finds out her lung-capacity has diminished (right along with Norman's sanity!) but dating Norman cheers her up. However, one minute the couple are talking about going on a date and what they should do, then after Anika comes into the office for directions, Norman -- who'd been spying on her taking a shower earlier on -- offers to go with her as he suddenly needs to buy supplies at night?! When they leave, Anika is driving with Norman directing her to the bar she's trying to find to meet her "client." However, later that night when Anika's car returns to the motel, it's Norman who's behind the wheel ... alone. Where has the call-girl vanished to? I think we already know the answer.
2) Episode 2 - The Arcanum Club - When we last left the world of White Pine Bay, the Season 3 premiere had just set up numerous storylines one presumes will drive the rest of this season. Among those plot threads: Norma attempted to put some distance between herself and Norman after Dylan pointed out that their uncomfortably close relationship occasionally borders on the inappropriate; Dylan’s father/uncle Caleb came back to town to try to have some sort of relationship with his son; Norman discovered that Emma’s health is deteriorating and made the decision to begin dating her; and a beautiful young customer named Annika arrived at the Bates Motel, taking a liking to Norman and stirring up the complicated emotions within the young man that will one day turn him into a monster. This episode picks up the morning following the events of the premiere. Annika has gone missing, with Norman apparently being the last person to have seen her alive. When Norma discovers this, she begins have doubts about her son’s sanity – eventually catching him up in a lie about his contact with the missing woman and pointing out that, much like with Norman’s murdered teacher Miss Watson, Norman has a knack for attracting “unhinged woman” to him. Seeming to fear the worst, Norma takes it upon herself to investigate Annika’s disappearance, leading her to snoop around in the young woman’s cabin. When she finds an invitation to the “Arcanum Club” tucked in with her belongings, she attempts to gain entrance and question those inside – only to discover that it’s the sort of club that might have housed one of the creepy sex parties featured in Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut and that it’s populated by some of the town’s wealthiest and most powerful men.
Meanwhile, an uneasy friendship continues to build between Dylan and Caleb. While Dylan cannot forget the man’s trespasses against his mother, he nonetheless seems to crave the company of the father he spent most of his life without. When a new character pokes around Dylan’s makeshift home (a creepy forest-dweller named “Chick,” brought to life by a terrifically strange and unnerving performance from “Sons of Anarchy” star Ryan Hurst), Caleb essentially comes to the rescue, having a subtle alpha-off with the creep in order to chase him from Dylan’s property. Of course, the character reappears later on, running tensions high between himself and the father/son duo. While all of this is happening, Norman and Emma finally manage to have their first date. It starts off as awkward and sweet enough, but their conversation eventually veers into a surprisingly frank discussion concerning their thoughts on sex – with Emma gently prodding Norman about his potentially warped views on the subject, given his mother’s attempts at seemingly keeping him a child. This was a great scene, full of a strange mix of tension and charm. Sheriff Romero makes a couple of brief appearances as well, the first being a brief scene where he finally leaves the Bates Motel (he’d been forced to stay there since the previous season when his home was burned down). The farewell between him and Norma is at turns sweet, awkward, humorous, and loaded with sexual tension. It’s a fantastic sequence, letting the two marvelous actors spark off one another. Romero appears later on when Norma is staking out the Arcanum Club as a member, no less. He insists that he isn’t a part of the club “for that” and attempts to chase Norma away, but not before she can tell him about Annika’s disappearance.
The episode’s penultimate sequence might also be its best. Norma, distraught after her failure to obtain any info at the Arcanum, drives back home and runs across a massive sign heralding the coming of the major highway bypass that will mean the end of her business and livelihood. This poor woman, at her wit’s end for numerous reasons, leaps from her car and attempts to wreck the sign with anything she can find at hand. Farmiga is amazing in this brief bit – eliciting both laughs and sympathy from the audience, before striking upon an ill-advised (if completely successful) way to destroy the sign.
And what of Annika’s disappearance? We’re not given any definitive answers, but the episode’s final image is utterly chilling, a nude young woman, floating face down in a lake.
Overall, this week was a significant improvement over last week’s solid if unspectacular offering. The writing, direction, and performances were all top-notch, and the story feels as though it’s really beginning to move, offering the hope that the show will only improve by leaps and bounds with every subsequent episode.
3) Episode 3 - Persuasion - WOW. What a heavy hitting Bates Motel episode we got this week! “Persuasion” was easily the strongest entry in Season 3 so far. I was hooked the whole way through and was randomly pummeled like Mr. T at the end of Rocky III. The whole Norman doubting himself (did he kill Annika or did he not) angle was riveting and heartbreaking at the same time. Norman is not solely a person trying to deal with a mental illness, he’s a TEENAGER trying to do deal with hormones, self esteem and yes, said mental illness. I really felt that this week – this is teenage Norman we're dealing with and as we all know – everything is more f*cked up when we hit that echelon of life. Norman opening up to Emma, his riveting tete a tete with Romero (great Ping-Pong match between two strong actors) or when he put on his big boy pants and stepped up to his mom = all very strong scenes made all the more engaging by Freddie Highmore’s intense showcase. That line he had to his mom "I stayed in this world for you!" tugged at my heartstrings. Them poor basterds, they mean well and love each other - but it's like the blind leading the blind. Norma didn’t have it easy this week either and actress Vera Farminga also had lots to tackle performance wise. Norma is trying to have a normal life, but alas has to deal with her son potentially being a murderer while wanting to protect him, even if he is guilty. At a certain point in the episode, Norma crumbles to the ground, looks up and talks to the big man. She tells him that she doesn’t know what to do anymore. And I truly felt for her at that moment, the utter confusion and despair.
Poor woman, doing the best she can with the twisted world she lives in and with the limited toolbox she has. Thankfully this well-rounded episode managed to break the tension and make me laugh amidst all of its potent drama. The sight of Emma (Olivia Cooke) driving a truck filled with marijuana plants was cute and Norma’s banter with a psychology professor played by Blair Witch Project’s Joshua Jackson (a newcomer to the show) had me in stiches. I smell a new love interest for Norma there – one that won’t live past Season 3. I said it! Tag to all that a compelling subplot having to do with Sheriff Romero (Nestor Carbone) losing his job (to Marcus Young, whom I think is the first black guy to ever come to White Pines Bay), the Dylan and Caleb relationship playing the same “still compelling” dance (Caleb wanting to get closer to Dylan and Dylan pushing him away) and one hell of a sucker punch ending (Annika is alive for 5 seconds leaving us with a new plotline) and you get a full Bates chow down! Any complaints? Nope! Nothing worth mentioning! Consider this Bates Motel fan fulfilled! Bring on next week's show NOW!
RANDOM THOUGHTS: For half a second during the show I thought "What if Caleb is doing the killing of women?" I didn't think that once the episode was over but maybe the dude has more to do with the happenings in White Pines Bay then the show is letting on for now. Thoughts?
Man that Bob Paris character came off as a major dickwad. If this episode had a weakness, it was that dude's dialogue. It grated me a tad, you?