We begin with Norman browsing his flipbook-o-torture porn
that he found like it’s his own little animated snuff film. Downstairs, Dylan,
the older brother, has arrived at the front door and Mother is none too pleased
about it. He’s here because he’s without a job and a little miffed that Mother
up and moved state without telling him, but Mother is more interested in
sending him on his way as soon as possible. At the bus stop in front of the
motel, the super model coeds wait for Norman. Been in school less than a week
and he already has groupies. Super model #1 is crushing on him bad and wants to
know if he’ll help her study. But for realz, not in a metaphor-y kind of way.
Just then, the super model’s dad’s car speeds past them, crashing into the
ditch. Norman reaches the car first to find the driver is a man badly burned.
Just a flesh wound.
Later, the Sheriff and his Deputy tell Mother that
someone intentionally set fire to the man’s warehouse and he must have been
caught in it. Unfortunately, in investigating the crash, the police find Keith
Summers’ truck on the Bates’ property. Ruh roh! Someone forgot to ditch the
truck with the body, apparently. Inconvenient murder aside, Norman attempts to
bring a flower to Super Model #1, who I’m just going to start calling Becky
because she has no other personality to speak of, at the hospital as she waits
for news about her burned father. Norman is stopped, however, by Richard, the
other student who served no purpose. Richard says he’ll give the flower to
Becky and Norman can just run along home now, Richard will be doing all the
comforting and misery sexing of the super models here, thank you. Sent to
school, Norman finds himself partnered on a poetry assignment to Emma, the girl
with cystic fibrosis.
Dylan, malcontent that he is, visits a strip club and
finds a man crying there. Can’t be good for the dancers’ self-esteem. The man
confesses that his boss is the burned man and that he’s probably not going to
make it. Dylan’s all “yeah life sucks” until he notices the fat wad of cash the
crying man pays with and asks how he came into that kind of coin. Coming home
that night, Dylan and Mother get into it. Turns out that Mother left Dylan’s
father to be with Norman’s father (given how Norman’s father ended up, might be
a blessing in disguise) and Dylan’s never forgiven Mother and Norman’s
closeness (see above, re: blessing.)
He baits her, asking where she got the money for a new motel and new house,
anyway? “Insurance,” Mother sniffs, unconvincingly.
Mother and Norman obsessively clean the kitchen in anticipation
of greater police presence near the house when Emma arrives for the study date.
Dylan handles this about as well as an older brother who hates his family
would. Mother isn’t pleased until she learns that the sickly girl is just here
to study. Whew, crisis averted! Yes, dear, you can totally study with my son in
a way that won’t present you as a threat to his attentions for me. How is that
life-threatening illness of yours, anyway, and about how much longer do you
have left to live? (She literally asks that last part, by the way.) Emma and
Norman go over their assignment and consider using William Blake’s The
Tyger as a metaphor for serial killers and God allowing bad things to
happen. In the process, Emma finds the sketch book. Rather than be creeped out,
she’s intrigued. “I’ve read a lot of
manga,” she explains and asks to borrow it. Tentacle porn FTW!
That night, Mother has a visitor – the Sheriff is back (I
should really learn his name) and he’s brought Deputy Shelby with him. They’re
sniffing for clues on Mother’s story about never seeing Summers when a neighbor
heard them fight earlier in the day. The next day, Mother finds Shelby in town
and begins to flirt with him about the grilling they gave her. Shelby tells her
that Summers and the Sheriff grew up together, which is why he’s so eager. He
then sorta kinda asks her to go to a town event that night and she “demurely”
accepts, seeing an opportunity. Back home, Mother giddily dresses for her date,
asking Norman how she looks. When Norman disapproves of her outfit, she takes
it off in front of him in favor of another. “I’m your mother,” she says when he
grown visibly uncomfortable. “It’s not like it’s weird or anything.”
Beg to
differ, Madam.
Meanwhile, Dylan is getting comfy with the local criminal
underworld via the sobbing man from the strip club. When he comes home, the two
boys try to have something approaching a family dinner, but it very quickly
devolves into a physical fight when Norman notices that Dylan has Mother listed
in his phone as “The Whore”. Honestly,
Dylan kinda sounds like the reasonable one in this fight, pointing out that Norman
and Mother’s relationship is creepy and Dylan wouldn’t be there if he literally
didn’t have any other option. Dylan may be a punk, but it’s hard to argue with
his position here.
Mother’s date with Shelby is to a community log sawing
event. Ah, the Pacific Northwest. Shelby confides to Mother after a drink or
two that Summers was kind of a train wreck and was involved in something
illegal which is totes why they probably can’t find him right now. Mother says
she just wants a normal town for Norman. Shelby darkly points out that nothing
in this town is what it seems; how else do you explain how so many people make
their living selling artisanal cheeses and organic vegetables but somehow live
in million dollar homes? He says the town deals with things in its own way and
the burn victim at the start of the show “will be dealt with.” Yup. This town
sounds about right for this family.
Arriving home, Mother freaks at seeing Norman’s bruises
and decides to kick Dylan out. Norman gets a text from Emma asking him to meet
her at her father’s shop. Norman lies to Emma about how he got his bruises but
she sees right through it. Fun sidebar, her father is an amateur taxidermist and professional foreshadower. Anyway, Emma’s been translating the Chinese in the torture
porn sketch book and has figured out that it tells about Chinese girls lured to
America as maids only to be sold into prostitution. The book also illustrates a
local mountain range where bodies of these girls are buried. Emma wants to
investigate and after a sudden and sweet kiss, Norman agrees. Back home, Mother
attempts to throw Dylan out, sparking another argument. Dylan confesses that he
found them through Mother’s insurance people who were very kind about how
tragic it was that Mother’s husband died, the poor dear. Dylan says it’s funny
that no one seems to know how Mother and her husband got along, implying the
relationship was not a happy one. He wonders what the police would make of that.
You can tell he's the ne'er-do-well by his jacket and unshaven face.
In the woods the next day, Norman and Emma hike to where
she thinks the mountain range is. They are on the right track when they stumble
onto a field of marijuana and are chased off by men with guns. Running not
being easy with Emma’s cystic fibrosis, this is not the best thing for her. Fear
not, they make it back to the car and speed off before the marijuana
hillbillies can get them. Back in town, Mother is driving through the town
square when she notices a commotion – someone has hung a man’s still-burning
body from the town flagpole. Shelby is directing traffic and waives her on,
suggesting, as he said earlier, that things have been “dealt with.”
I’m intrigued as to where this is going. The inclusion of
the strange town around the Bates Motel plotline seems very Twin Peaks to me, which as a fan of that
show I’m totally fine with. That may also help keep the plots moving forward
since not everything is going to have to be about waiting for Norman to put on
Mother’s dress.
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