Netflix I Watched on Paternity Leave: The Transporter, The Series (designed and written for teenage boys, apparently)

Another thing that I've been spending my time on as a small person is being fed from a bottle or being held while I bounce on a pilates ball making soothing noises is Transporter: the Series.

Did you see the Luc Besson action film The Transporter with Jason Statham? (Note that I am not asking if you saw the two sequels; they were pretty crap.) It was an insubstantial but well-constructed action film where Jason Statham is a getaway driver par excellence in a tricked-out BMW doing jobs for criminals in the south of France, but he gets tasked with delivering a package that turns out to be an attractive Chinese woman in a duffel bag, and he ends up breaking his traditional non-intervention code of conduct and instead just beats on a bunch of people who really deserve it (also two cops who then get blown up by a car bomb, but Statham totally didn't know his car was going to get blown up when he stuffed the knocked-out cops in his trunk, so let's give him a pass on that).

One of the best scenes in the film Transporter is this balletically choreographed fight where Jason Statham stands on bicycle pedals in the middle of a giant oil slick and everyone else is playing slip-n-slide on the floor.

The movie had two great attributes: amazing driving sequences and some of Luc Besson's best fight sequences.

The TV show is capitalizing on the popularity of the movies, but also needs to make its money from somewhere (Canadian, French, and German TV subsidies only go so far), so it uses the Audi sports cars from the later movies as promotional consideration, as well as Fords whenever the show is shot in Canada (more on Canada later). Also for TV, intensely bald and working class-looking Jason Statham is swapped for Chris Vance, who looks like how teenage Sherlock slash-fic writers probably imagine Martin Freeman in sex scenes.

No, ladies, he is not shirtless enough. You get to see some fat, hairy British dude's not-as-tan-as-the-rest-of-him butt for like two straight minutes in one episode, but Chris Vance is rarely shirtless.

Chris Vance is good at following creative fight choreography, and he has appropriate looks of grim determination while pretending to upshift, which is really all you can ask for in a show like this.

This show was shot with a ton of Toronto film subsidy money, so if you know how to spot Canadian soundstages portraying everywhere else in the world, you will see them here. However, there are legitimately scenes shot in France and Berlin, possibly to get local content requirements high enough to be considered "local shows" in some European markets and avoid foreign (read: American) TV rebroadcasting limits, so unlike some "pretends to be NYC but shot in Vancouver" shows, there are some real locations.

So, what's the show, well, about? Basically, imagine watching someone remake the first movie in a 45 minute version. Over and over and over again. I liked this, you may not.

Frank Martin, "the Transporter," has a secret package he has to deliver. There is a problem with delivering the package. Car chases and fistfights and maybe some gunplay ensue. The package is either delivered to the good guys or not delivered to the bad guys, or maybe the package is delivered to the bad guys and Frank Martin then comes back to beat the everloving tar out of them. One of those three.

Also, there's usually a woman involved. Either she is immediately enraptured by Frank Martin's animal magnetism (he's got the Irish mythological figure Diarmuid's love spot or something, seriously) and will have sex with him on or off camera if she doesn't die during the episode, or she is someone else's girlfriend/wife who will have sex with that character on or off camera. Odds are 50/50 you will see her topless, except for Vikings' Katheryn Winnick, who managed to keep all of her clothes on and wear normal clothes (as opposed to the usual form-fitting slinky clothes) for her guest starring episode, and even managed to fight a bit. Lost Girl's Rachel Skarsten apparently did not have as good an agent, and is for her episode both gratuitously naked a bunch and basically a useless Macguffin object of a character.

This is Frank Martin's fixer/computer hacker partner. This particular bikini scene is less gratuitous than the scene where she spills red wine on her blouse and you watch her take the blouse off along with her bra to immediately spot-clean as she talks to Frank on the phone, or the episode where she's naked for a couple scenes because the guy she's having sex with turns out to be tangential to the plot of the episode; the latter being an episode which is otherwise entirely about people with their clothes on driving from Paris to Marseilles.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that this show does not feature women as actual human beings, but as occasionally topless plot points and eye candy. If this is a deal-breaker for you, then you have been forewarned.

"So what," you say, "what about the driving and the fighting, which is what The Transporter is about?"

Let's start with the driving, which is weaker. The driving is awesome on closed courses, such as off-road and in parking garages; the stunt drivers do some pretty amazing things. The show is also willing to crash some real cars in some impressive ways.

However, the show can't afford to shut down the streets of any of the cities (Nice, Marseilles, Berlin, and Toronto) it's set in, so the on-street driving scenes are mostly scenes of cars weaving back and forth jump-cut to stock footage of clutch pedals being depressed and sticks being shifted. It is lame.

Just look at this, then look at a picture of a road, then look back at this, and you'll get the idea of what the city street driving sequences are like.

On the plus side, Chris Vance's Frank Martin doesn't always drive an Audi, but will drive other cars (including a Smart car and an ATV) when necessary.

The fighting? It's pretty great. Lots of clever work with improvised items; for example there's a great fight in a lingerie store where mannequins, clothing racks, and some fabric items are put to great use. Any fight in a kitchen is going to be amazing; my favorite ended with a knockout via cutting board.

To recap what the show is about, Transporter: The Series has Chris Vance in a suit and tie either delivering or not delivering a package via an Audi. Car chase and fisticuff complications ensue, as well as occasional female nudity. If you were ever a 13-year-old boy, this will hit a little fun zone in your brain even if you find it problematic from an "is this good for culture" standpoint. That's why I keep watching.

You Lost Me at "Kitsune"

SORRY about the horrible delay in getting the Lost Girl finale recap posted. I know you've all moved on to Orphan Black by now (and if you haven't, you should do so posthaste). But, OMG but you guys! You guys!! You. Guys. Lost Girl has been picked up by Syfy for another season, and it will return in 2014!!!

So, let's get down to it.  Lost Girl has baffled me for most of this season. Bo nearly devolved into Under Fae and then she went through The Dawning, which on the whole, was rather underwhelming. Dyson volunteered to go in as her second and then he died but then Bo sucked out some chi from the Scooby Gang and gave it to Dyson and then he was no longer dead. Then Bo and Kenzi defeated a group of suburban moms who decided to be witches in addition to their weekly book club and yoga meetings (I just assumed witchcraft is common among suburbanite ladies). Before that, the Scooby Gang ran into a sorority full of Japanese fox demons. It turned out that that nasty rash Kenzi picked up at The Norn's digs allowed her kitsune twin to kidnap her and turn her into a rabid, snarling bitch. Then she got Bo locked in a cage. Then she tried to rape Dyson.

I'm Naruto??

Kenzi hasn't been around much most of this season and in the final two episodes, some totally racist Death Eater level Faes make it uber clear to Kenz that she's not wanted in the Fae world because she's human. It's like the writers all decided that Kenzi was more interesting and less whiny than Bo's girlfriend Lauren and so they pushed her to the side. For that matter, most of the interesting supporting characters are MIA this season. Kenzi hasn't been around that much; Vex, who is hilarious, has shown up about twice (and he went completely batshit and not in a fun way) and even The Morrigan has only been in two or three episodes. Dyson's former police partner Hale, who was elected Acting Ash,  has also been relegated to a minor role. Who did we get instead? The snoozefest that is Lauren. She left Fae-town a few episodes ago but you knew she would be back because she left in company with Isaac, who seemed interesting at first, then vaguely evil, then creepy and then you Solemnly Swore He was Up to No Good. 

And whatever. I'm sure we'd all rather see Bo with Dyson anyway. I get that there's probably a contingent of Lost Girl fans who like seeing a legit LGBT relationship taken seriously on teevee, but OMG Lauren is so awful. Like. She's just so, so awful. I feel like they tried this season to make her more likable and interesting, but now she's done gone gotten herself mixed up with this craycray Isaac, who's trying to do away with all the the Fae. 

Dude. What?

The Morrigan's peeps kidnapped Trick and threw him in the trunk of a car. I guess that was meant to be ominous, but since Trick is so short, it was actually pretty comical. The Morrigan tried to take over The Ash seat from Hale and denounced him as a human-lover. Which to be fair, is a legit concern. Hale is way in love with Kenzi (Fae on human? kinky) and I hope the relationship grows into next season and we actually get to see them do sex.  

Sadly, if the season finale is any indication, it looks like our girl Tamsin is on her way out. Tamsin is one of the most interesting characters on the show, and Rachel Skarsten is one of the better actors, so I was hoping they would keep her around and nix Lauren, but nay. Tamsin has been secretly working for a shady individual, The Wanderer, whom most Lost Girl-ites guessed about five episodes ago was Bo's father.  Tamsin's instructions are to weaken Bo and deliver her to The Wanderer, which she is super conflicted about since she is into Bo. So, since Tamsin was trying some Uber Bad Ass Dark Fae BS on the Light Fae PrincessHero, she might as well just kiss her sweet lil ass goodbye. Also, she's a super old Valkyrie and has some kind of Valkyrie-itis and so she's dying. Thanks.

I think my part's mostly filler.

I'm sure there's no way supergenius Fae healer Lauren could find a way to set aside her uselessness and passive aggressive bitchiness and find a way to help Tamsin out of her Valkyrie-itis, but we'll see what the writers have up their sleeves for Season 4.

Anyway, back to the plot. We learned that Isaac is an evil not-even-genius in the episode previous to the finale. Dr. Girlfriend Lauren dumped Bo and then took off with Isaac, bowing to his pressuring her to take a job with his company. She thought she would be safe leaving the Fae world (or so she thinks), even though she was warned that if she leaves Light Fae protection, the Dark Fae will try to kill her. That doesn't make a whole lotta sense to me. Obviously, Lauren knows more about Fae physiology than anyone else in the Fae world, and you'd think that the Dark Fae would want to keep her around. But whatever, So, Lauren leaves, but she discovers that Isaac has been experimenting on the Fae. He won't let her leave and it's not like she can call Bo because Lauren left all of her crap, INCLUDING HER EFFING PHONE, at her apartment when she went off with Isaac. 

Isaac, of course, has an Evil Secret Semi-Underground Lab that looks very much like an observatory. I'd love to be the location scout for this show. Like I'm pretty sure every filming site is on the main Toronto subway lines. He's keeping all of the Fae -- including Bo's succumom Aife -- and giant refrigerators, which are standard-issue to evil-doers everywhere. He's got Lauren working on a technique to splice human DNA with Fae DNA to create a Fae/human hybrid. 

This might sting a bit.

Isaac's girlhood dream was to be Fae. Apparently, the Fae attacked his brother and killed him and whiny bitch that he is, Isaac decided to spend the rest of his life plotting revenge upon the Fae. Cry me a river. Hence stalking Lauren. He's been kidnapping the Fae, keeping them in refrigerated isolation booths and then making him fight each other until he found the strongest among them. The strongest among them turns out to be Dyson (natch), and Isaac has some creepy ho-yay/Single White Werewolf thing for Dyson and wants Lauren to remove stem cells from Dyson and implant them into Isaac, which will of course kill Dyson to death. I'm not sure about the scientific accuracy here, but I'm pretty sure a stem cell transplant doesn't involve the unavoidable death of a the donor. Since, you know, most stem cells live in petri dishes or vats of culture medium. Anyway, I'm watching a show that claims fairies and water sprites are real, so if I'm concerned about the scientific validity of Lauren's Evil Secret Lab experiments, I guess maybe I should take up a hobby. 

You've escaped ho-yay on this show for far too long, Dyson. Far too long.

So, Bo figures out where Lauren is and she and Tamsin make their way to the Evil Secret Lab. They get caught by the guards and Tamsin gets her ass shot. Bo and Tamsin are put in a fridge and Bo works out A Plan. 

Bo supergirls her way out of her refrigerator and then frees all the other confined Fae. Aife jumps in front of a bullet to save Bo and that's all really noble and whatnot, but let's not forget that she is FUCKING DARK FAE and all she has to do to heal is suck out someone's chi. So, what does Bo do but SHE LEAVES HER ALONE WITH SOMEONE WHOSE CHI SHE CAN STEAL. Like, did it occur to ANYONE that that's NOT A GOOD IDEA?? Like. What the fuck?

Lauren goes ahead with the procedure, but not before she can tell Bo that she's all jealous of Dyson. Instead of using Dyson's stem cells, she splices Isaac's DNA with some other Fae DNA that makes him behave as though he has Bell's palsy. Dyson chases him into the woods, turns into a wolf and Isaac shits his britches. And that's the last we see of Isaac. So, that whole climax more than a little underwhelming, especially considering the hundreds of Fae that Isaac killed over the course of his little experiments.

Lauren could have done all manner of things to this tool. She could have mixed his human genes with any number of craycray Fae. Since she knew how to slow down The Dawning in Bo's case, you'd think she could use that knowledge to turn him Fae and turn on a gene to make his Dawning happen super fast. Then he would have been Under Fae and they could have kept him in a cage and fed him catnip and Whisker Lickins. See, that would have been an arc.

Lauren sort of disappears while the Scooby Gang rescues everyone, so her position in the Fae community and her standing with Bo are left up in the air. Tamsin disappears during this episode, too, so I'm unsure what happened to her as a result of all this world savin'. 

But let's not forget that Isaac was not the main villain of this season. Nope, that's The Wanderer, who wants Bo in his clutches, since Daddy misses his Little Girl. After the dust settles, Bo heads back to Trick's bar and "The Wanderer" plays on the jukebox. The Tarot card makes its appearance again, and Bo picks it up. She wonders aloud who he is and what he wants, and then she gets turned into a cloud of black smoke and disappears, leaving behind The Tarot card in her place. Cliffhanger!! What will happen to Bo? Will Mary be on her right? Will Bo accept her new stepmom, Runaround Sue? 

Lost Girl has been green-lighted for another season by the Canadian company that produces it. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE bring Tamsin back for another season! 

Episodes from this season of Lost Girl are available On Demand. Previous seasons are on Netflix. 

Nothing Happens For Real Until It Happens on Facebook

The morning after – Norman leaves a sleeping Bradley like he’s some kind of pimp boss and James Deans his way back down the highway to the motel. Dylan is all “Congrats on the sex! Mom’s totally in jail” when Norman comes in. They find her in the clink and offer to use the motel as collateral for her bail. Mother snarks them a bit, saying she doesn’t need any help and yells at them to get out. Puppy Dog Norman doesn’t understand why Mother is being mean and not looking at him. It’s because of the sex you didn’t have with her, genius.

If this were American Horror Story, we'd be knee deep in a haunted women's prison plot line by now. 

Emma finds Norman frantically going through boxes in the motel for the deed. She invites Norman to stay with them. Smooth, Emma. She takes him to a bail bondsman and while they wait, Norman tells Emma about finding the Chinese girl in the basement. Emma wants to go to the police, apparently sailing right past the part where a member of the police is a part of the problem. Norman says he wants to do something, but not until Mother is taken care of first. Which is going to be a lifelong theme for poor Norman.

The bail bond comes through and Norman goes to fetch Norma with a bouquet of flowers. Mother, however, breezes past him. “I have nothing to say to you,” she brushes him off, preferring to walk home than drive with him. Later, they meet with their naturally attractive female lawyer, who Mother is also not pleased with, likely imagining her as yet another succubus who’s going to swoop down on Norman at any minute. The lawyer lays out a case that would defend Mother, but Mother insists no story is needed since she didn’t kill Keith and jeez, why is everyone so enamored of physical “evidence” anyway?

On the ride home, Norman tries to talk sense into her, but Mother insists that Norman doesn’t care about her. “You went out and you got laid while I was crying alone in my room worried sick about all this,” she tells him. She blames Dylan for his advise that Norman go and make with the sexy time and she wants to know why Norman did this to her? Norman tells her that she scares him sometimes. Mother, clearly missing the message, yells at him to get out of her car and walk the ten miles back home. When he doesn’t, she physically drags him out and speed off without him. Thus giving us one of the first real scenes in this series where we start to see Mother’s psychological abuse and hold over Norman. It actually makes a lot of sense if you consider the movie.  Norman is eventually rescued when Dylan comes upon him on his motorcycle and drives him home.  As they speed down the road, Norman actually looks happy for the first time with a member of his family. It’s actually really touching.

If it's possible to have a bro-mance between brothers, this is getting close. 

Back home, Dylan accurately points out how Mother lives for drama and behaves the way she does to get Norman’s attention. He tells Norman that the only thing you can do sometimes with those people is walk away. He tells Norman the he’s getting his own place and he wants Norman to move in with him.

The next day, Dylan gets an infusion of cash from his coworker Ethan for the place he wants. Ethan says the bosses don’t give this out, but he’s loaning it to Dylan from his share because he knows Dylan is good for it. Just then, another man comes up to the two of them, pulls a gun and shoots Ethan in the throat. Have to say this, things never go over small in this town. Dylan rushes him to the hospital.

That night, Mother meets with Shelby in his cruiser down by the lake. Shelby apologizes for having brought Mother down to the jail and tells her that it’s not safe for them to be seen together for a while. Mother begins to storm off but Shelby stops her by telling her that he loves her and that he went through hell knowing that she was in trouble and he couldn’t even show his concern. This is apparently what Mother needed to hear because she softens and begs him not to do anything stupid. Back at the station, Shelby clandestinely breaks into the evidence room and steals the carpet fibers found on Keith’s body.

Dylan cruises the mean streets of Whereverthehellthisis, looking for Ethan’s shooter. He finds him down by the docks, natch, and chases him in Ethan’s truck, running him down. Like, with the truck. Damn.

Mother is putting the finishing touches on the motel’s website (which, fun fact, is a real website) when she gets the news from her lawyer that the carpet samples are lost and the police have no case. Meanwhile, Norman tries to call Bradley after texting her two, three hundred times, but gets no answer. I will kind of love this show if it turns out that Bradley totally just used Norman for some distraction sex. That would not only be a cool reversal of the stereotype, but it would explain adult Norman’s eventual distrust and disgust with sexualized women.

Regardless, Mother is all giddy, hugging Norman and telling him that everything’s taken care of and they’re going to be fine, thanks to Shelby. “What’s he going to make you do for this favor?” Norman asks. Looks like it’s his turn to be bitchy. He leaves the house and finds Emma arriving, who has a theory on where the Chinese girl has been hidden. “Just take me away from here,” Norman says.

Emma takes him down to the water and tells him her theory – after googling “Keith Summers murder evidence” to see if he had any other properties in his name, she’s guessing that Shelby may have hidden the girl on Keith Summers’ boat and hey Norman, are you listening to me? Norman tells her the harsh truth – he’s with Bradley now because they made passionate, tender love even though she hasn’t called him back. Emma uses unassailable teenage logic to defy Norman’s insistence that he’s off the market – “Did she change her relationship status?” She asks. “Then it’s just a hook-up.” Truer words, my friends…

La la la, denial denial denial... I'm not listening to you talk about the other girl you slept with, not on FB, after all...

The two teenage sleuths head to Keith’s fishing boat. They break in, finding the girl basically feral and hiding in a closet. They drive her back to the motel, which has got the be the LAST place this girl wants to be given that she was likely held hostage there for a while. Thankfully, she’s passed out for some reason, so she goes more or less quietly.

Mother is finishing up work in the office meanwhile and sees Emma’s car, prompting her to investigate what this girl hussy would be doing to her son. She finds Emma and Norman caring for the frightened Chinese girl in one of the rooms. Norman tells Mother that this is girl from Shelby’s basement. The Chinese girl is all “lady, you’re crazy for not trusting your son here because I was totally that cop’s sex slave.” (Not her exact words, given that the character speaks very little English, but that was certainly the subtext.) Mother still refuses to believe her, getting a picture of Shelby and asking the girl again. “He is the one,” she says, pointing to Shelby.  

Tonight, on Bates Motel – Sex All Around!

Brief flashback to the final events of last episode – Norman hallucinates, believes mother tells him that he needs to get the belt from Shelby’s home. Norman wanders off to find the good police officer’s torture porn dungeon. Although, we didn’t see before that Dylan observed Norman sleep breaking and entering and followed to the scene, seeing Shelby as he enters the house that Norman is in. Norman is alerted to Shelby’s arrival when he calls for his dog, locked in the upstairs bedroom. Before Shelby can figure out why the dog is there, Dylan rings his front door with a story about his bike being out of gas. Norman uses the opportunity to try to break the Chinese girl out of the porn basement, too bad she’s literally chained to the room. She cries and begs for Norman to save her. He promises he’ll be back.

                                                                                

Arriving home, Dylan confronts Norman about why he went to Shelby’s. Norman denies being in any trouble. The next morning, Norman goes to Emma’s dad’s antique shop. Her father tells Norman she’s come down with the flu, so they’re keeping her home with her condition. He also tells Norman what we all know – Emma has a crush on him. He asks Norman to please be decent with Emma. “I am decent,” Norman replies. Mother meanwhile meets Shelby in one of the motel rooms for a little “Just Keeping My Boy Safe” sex. During the afterglow, Mother gushes about how pretty Shelby is. As they leave the room, they are caught by Dylan who’s waiting outside the room. Shelby and Dylan both have some priceless looks on their faces as they see the other.

"We were just checking the pipes. All of them. Whatever. We're bad at metaphors, but good at sex."

Later, Norman is washing windows when he spots Super Model Whatshername laying a wreath at the spot on the road where her father crashed his car after being burned. She sobs into his shoulder. In the kitchen, Mother and Dylan spar about Shelby. Dylan doesn’t trust him and actually shows some concern about Mother’s wellbeing, even through his anger with her. The fact that Dylan is now the only person who knows that Mother is up to something, Shelby is likely dirty and Norman is seriously disturbed really goes a long way to suggesting Dylan’s life span may not be as long as he would like.

There’s a reason I’m not in the movie, isn’t there?

That night, Norman spots Shelby pulling over a driver on Main Street. Shelby follows him and surprises him, shining his flashlight in Norman’s face. He intimidates Norman a bit before telling Norman how much he likes Mother, so what say we get to know each other a little better? He “asks” if Norman wants to go fishing with him at his “own secret spot, no one knows about it.” Sounds above bar. Norman rushes home to tell Mother about his suspicions about Shelby and the prostitution ring. He confesses that he broke into the house to find the belt, like Mother told him to. Mother gently tells him that sometimes he sees and hears things that aren’t there, he’s done it since he was a little kid and she’s sure there’s no way that the creepy blond ken doll she’s sleeping with is a secret torture porn monger. Nevertheless, that night at his house, Mother sneaks away while Shelby sleeps to search the basement. She finds the spare room, but there’s nothing in it. And that’s when Shelby TOTALLY comes up behind her and wants to know what she’s doing. Mother gets out it by saying she’s just looking around the house.

Goddammit you’re creepy, Shelby.

Norman asks Mother where she was last night and she defers, calling Norman jealous. Norman reacts by saying she’s not his girlfriend, he’s not jealous, and he really doesn’t want to go fishing with the psychopath. To prove that he wasn’t hallucinating, he shows Mother some bruises that he has developed around his ankle where the Chinese girl was grabbing him, but Mother insists the fishing trip is still on. At the River Running Through Awkward Conversations, Shelby wants to know how Norman’s relationship with his dad was, abusive? Norman tries to shut the conversation down, but Shelby tells Norman to get used to him being around because he’s the only thing keeping Mother safe right now from the law and he needs to know that he can trust Norman. Norman swallows his tongue and agrees to trust him. Shelby cuts the trip short after getting a call to come to the docks – the Sheriff has found Keith Summers’ severed hand in the water.

Super Model Bradley and Norman meet for ice cream and Bruno Mars songs so she can talk about feeling bad since her father died. They bond again, what with all the missing father grief. Then Bradley, weirdly changing the subject, brings up the hand the cops just found. Aaaaaaaand, mood killed, Norman rushes home with the news. Sidebar, the music in this scene is AWESOMELY reminiscent of the actual movie. Just then, Shelby arrives in his official capacity to take Mother downtown to ask a few questions. He’s got backup, so this isn’t a kinky sex thing.

In the Sheriff’s office, the Sheriff tries to get the story from Mother. They found carpet fibers with the hand and they know it’s going to match the missing carpet they saw Mother and Norman pulled up from the motel. The Sheriff knows Keith wasn’t happy about losing the home and figures he threatened the Bateses. The Sheriff will find the carpet in one of the town’s dumps, so why not just tell me now? Mother insists she knows nothing.

"I like my last series where I got to know everything and be mysterious. None of this 'investigating' bullshit."

She and Norman make a mad dash to find the carpet in the dumpster they put it in. Too late, it’s been taken, but Mother calls the number for the company that owns the dumpster to find out which dump it’s been taken to. Mother begins to panic when they can’t get into the dump because the gates are locked, screaming that she killed Keith because her whole life she’s had to “put up with things” and it was the last straw for her. Back home, Norman finds Dylan on the Motel porch. They share a drink and Norman tells Dylan about Keith and the rape and murder and about the missing belt and Shelby’s basement porn studio. Dylan, again showing the only real compassion and level-headedness in the show, agrees to help. Just then, Bradley texts Norman. Dylan urges Norman to go to her, telling him to “be a 17-year-old for five minutes and go and have some fun.” It’s equal parts manipulative and honestly really kind.

Norman Romeo Bates arrives at Bradley’s ridiculously over-sized McMansion. No one else is home, so she lets him in and brings him up to her room. Norman is awkward, but Bradley tells him to sit down with her on the bed. She hold his hand, saying she’s “tired of being sad” and wants to feel something else for a while. We get a soft-focus, tender, making-love-under-the-sheets-style montage that's very circa early 90s. And while this whole subplot has been way too unearned (we have literally no idea what attracted Bradley to Norman and "I'm grieving for my dad and hey, yours died too!" doesn't work this much), I do really like that Bradley, while clearly a Queen Bee in the high school, isn't portrayed as a jerk. Well done, characterization. 

Back home, Mother notices Norman isn’t home yet, despite the late hour. When she asks Dylan where he is, Dylan tells her “out with a girl and I hope to God he’s getting laid.” Mother is SET OFF and the arguing begins. Dylan tells Mother he knows plenty about the relationship between her and Norman, enough to get Norman removed. “No one is taking Norman away from me,” Mother yells. “Well, that girl is right now,” Dylan counters. Then Mother starts with the hitting, showing the exact lack of restraint that she’s doing to need improving on if she ever has to make this same argument in front of a court of law. Dylan holds her off, pushing her against the wall and almost burying his face into her neck and I swear to God, I was convinced it was going to turn into a sex scene. Jesus, that would have made this show go utterly nuts if that had happened. Thankfully, the doorbell rings and Mother runs to it, hoping for Norman. Instead, she finds the Sherrif and Shelby, who are there to arrest her for Keith's murder. 

For realz.