Reviews
[TV Review] “Bates Motel” Episode 3.02: ‘The Arcanum Club’
“Bates Motel” returned tonight with a much faster paced episode after last weeks slog of a premiere. As is typical with Bates, there were still some issues with plotlines that no one cares about, but it was definitely an improvement. Before I get into my critique, let’s go over everything that happened.
Recap
Norma goes to check on Annika to not-so-secretly check to make sure her bathroom window shade is working after she caught Norman spying on her last week. After going to ask Emma about her to no avail, she walks in to see Norman taxidermy-ing (I’m fully aware that this is not a real word) a small goat. Norman claims to not know anything about about her whereabouts. Meanwhile, Hunter, Caleb and Dylan are having sort of a male bonding session over by the pot farm.
Norma just can’t seem to let the Annika thing go, so she asks Emma (again) about her. After Emma tells her that Norman went on a ride with her, a light bulb clicks in her head. She knows Norman had something to do with Annika’s disappearance. After scolding Norman, she gets a kind of half-excue out of him and the (understandably) doesn’t buy it, so she makes him show her exactly what happened that night. Then, of course, Norman slips up and uses the word “was” to describe Annika. Norma catches the slip-up (yay Norma!) and Norman starts acting all creepy. Norman informs Norma that he has started dating Emma, and she seems giddy at the thought. Later, while talking with Emma, she starts to get a little handsy with him and he freaks out a bit before abruptly leaving.
Back at Dylan’s, a seemingly rabid dog attacks Hunter’s dog and Caleb shoots it. Okay.The next day, a bearded homeless looking man named Chick comes up to Dylan looking for his pet dog, and seems unusually interested in the tomatoes (tow-mah-toes) he is planting. This storyline is getting so exciting! Later, Emma suggests that her and Norma go through Annika’s room and they find an invitation for the club that gives the episode it’s title: The Arcanum Club, which Emma explains is a very exclusive hunting club. While leaving the room, Sheriff Eyeliner Romero checks out of the motel and gives Norma what I assume is a check written for an enormous sum of money. and skips town.
On Emma and Norman’s date, the TV-MA icon shows up to remind us that something crazy is about to happen, and it turns out to just be two teenagers discussing sex (because Americans are prudes). Emma is laying the sexual innuendos on thick, and the two delve into their sexual histories (probably not a good conversation to have with Norman Bates). Then she calls Norma out for trying to keep Norman a child, which may be responsible for his guilty sexual feelings (yay Emma!).
Norma drives to the Arcanum Club meeting and is asked for the password, which she doesn’t know (really, Norma?). So she drives around the side and climbs over the fence (in her evening gown, no less) and pulls a Norman and spies on the party through a window. Inside, the gay neighbor from Desperate Housewives (Kevin Rahm) is overlooking two people have sex (there’s the TV-MA material). Romero busts her and she explains to him why she’s there. She also tells him that Norman was the last person to see Annika.
Over in the forest, Dylan and Caleb go spy on Chick, only to dins a woman nursing a baby. Chick comes out and admits that he doesn’t own a dog. He takes them into his gun warehouse and has a weird conversation with him about rules. Then he asks him about the weed he’s growing (ughhhh) and Caleb has to take it one step so far and insult Chick to his face, which means this storyline will probably drag on for the rest of the season.
On her way home, Norma sees a sign for Lee Berman’s bypass (remember that thrilling storyline from last season?) and proceeds to kick the shit out of it, only to run it over once she gets back in her car. Emma and Norman arrive home and begin making out. Norman cuts the session short, to Emma’s disappointment. After Emma leaves, Norma comes home and breaks down in Norman’s arms, while he consoles her and tells her everything is going to be alright. Cut to the lake, where a woman’s body has just floated to the surface.
Review
Like I said, this was a much faster-paced episode than last week. People actually communicated! Emma told Norma about Norman riding into town with Annika and Norma told Romero by the end of the episode! We also had Norma be smart and not just ignore Norman’s creepy behavior and excuses about his drive with Annika. She took initiative, which isn’t something we see quite often when it comes to Norman’s murderous tendencies. The show is always better when it focuses on Norma and this episode was no exception.
Special mention should also be made of Freddie Highmore, who is making Norman’s transition into full on psycho very well. He gives Norman so many looks and little moments that really show you how crazy he is becoming and his scenes with Olivia Cooke were appropriately disturbing. Their date was incredibly awkward and hard to watch, but I’m glad it finally gave Cooke some of the attention she was missing last season.
Last, and certainly least, we have Dylan’s subplot, which is growing even more ridiculous than I ever could have imagined. I didn’t actually think this was possible, but the writers seem determined to make it as “out there” as possible (that tomatoes thing was just plain weird). Chick was a creepy character and he was mildly entertaining in his final scene, so I’m withholding judgment on this until it gets developed a bit more. My expectations are very low, though.
Bates Motel is still setting things up for the rest of the season, but I found myself significantly more interested this week. Most of the plotlines that are being set up have the potential for an amazing payoff, and I hope the show follows through with them. Revelations and reveals were made much more quickly than the series is typically known for. Here’s hoping this trend continues next week!
Random Notes
- “She doesn’t strike me as a hiker.” That is Norma’s polite was of saying Annika was a hooker. Classic Norma.
- I loved how the camera lingered on Farmiga’s face when Emma told her Norman rode into town with Annika. You could just see the light bulb go off in her head and her facial expression was perfect.
- “Because you can’t keep getting into cars with unquestionable women. SLUTTY.” Nice to see that Norma echoed my thoughts from last week about unhinged/older women being attracted to him.
- Emma is apparently a connoisseur of Ramen. Good to know.
- Really starting to worry about Emma’s safety now. Surely they won’t kill her off this season, right? RIGHT???
- The visual of Norma running to the Arcanum Club party in her evening gown was amazing. I love it when the give Norma some physical comedy.
- On that note, Norma yelling “I hate you, you stupid piece of shit sign!” was also quite hilarious.
- Oh yeah, Annika is dead. In case you cared.
- Sorry again for the lengthy recap/review! I’ve come to accept the fact that so much shit happens on this show that it’s just going to be long. But I’ll actually label the recap and review so if you watched the episode you can just jump to the review.
Reviews
“AHS: Delicate” Review – “Little Gold Man” Mixes Oscar Fever & Baby Fever into the Perfect Product
‘AHS: Delicate’ enters early labor with a fun, frenzied episode that finds the perfect tone and goes for broke as its water breaks.
“I’ll figure it out. Women always do.”
American Horror Story is no stranger to remixing real-life history with ludicrous, heightened Murphy-isms, whether it’s AHS: 1984’s incorporation of Richard Ramirez, AHS: Cult’s use of Valerie Solanas, or AHS: Coven’s prominent role for the Axeman of New Orleans. Accordingly, it’s very much par for the course for AHS: Delicate to riff on other pop culture touchstones and infinitely warp them to its wicked whims. That being said, it takes real guts to do a postmodern feminist version of Rosemary’s Baby and then actually put Mia Farrow – while she’s filming Rosemary’s Baby, no less – into the narrative. This is the type of gonzo bullshit that I want out of American Horror Story! Sharon Tate even shows up for a minute because why the hell not? Make no mistake, this is completely absurd, but the right kind of campy absurdity that’s consistently been in American Horror Story’s wheelhouse since its inception. It’s a wild introduction that sets up an Oscar-centric AHS: Delicate episode for success. “Little Gold Man” is a chaotic episode that’s worth its weight in gold and starts to bring this contentious season home.
It’d be one thing if “Little Gold Man” just featured a brief detour to 1967 so that this season of pregnancy horror could cross off Rosemary’s Baby from its checklist. AHS: Delicate gets more ambitious with its revisionist history and goes so far as to say that Mia Farrow and Anna Victoria Alcott are similarly plagued. “Little Gold Man” intentionally gives Frank Sinatra dialogue that’s basically verbatim from Dex Harding Sr., which indicates that this demonic curse has been ruffling Hollywood’s feathers for the better part of a century. Anna Victoria Alcott’s Oscar-nominated feature film, The Auteur, is evidently no different than Rosemary’s Baby. It’s merely Satanic forces’ latest attempt to cultivate the “perfect product.” “Little Gold Man” even implies that the only reason that Mia Farrow didn’t go on to make waves at the 1969 Academy Awards and ends up with her twisted lot in life is because she couldn’t properly commit to Siobhan’s scheme, unlike Anna.
This is easily one of American Horror Story’s more ridiculous cold opens, but there’s a lot of love for the horror genre and Hollywood that pumps through its veins. If Hollywood needs to be a part of AHS: Delicate’s story then this is actually the perfect connective tissue. On that note, Claire DeJean plays Sharon Tate in “Little Gold Man” and does fine work with the brief scene. However, it would have been a nice, subtle nod of continuity if AHS: Delicate brought back Rachel Roberts who previously portrayed Tate in AHS: Cult. “Little Gold Man” still makes its point and to echo a famous line from Jennifer Lynch’s father’s television masterpiece: “It is happening again.”
“Little Gold Man” is rich in sequences where Anna just rides the waves of success and enjoys her blossoming fame. She feels empowered and begins to finally take control of her life, rather than let it push her around and get under her skin like a gestating fetus. Anna’s success coincides with a colossal exposition dump from Tavi Gevinson’s Cora, a character who’s been absent for so long that we were all seemingly meant to forget that she was ever someone who was supposed to be significant. Cora has apparently been the one pulling many of Anna’s strings all along as she goes Single White Female, rather than Anna having a case of Repulsion. It’s an explanation that oddly works and feeds into the episode’s more general message of dreams becoming nightmares. Cora continuing to stay aligned with Dr. Hill because she has student loans is also somehow, tragically the perfect explanation for her abhorrent behavior. It’s not the most outlandish series of events in an episode that also briefly gives Anna alligator legs and makes Emma Roberts and Kim Kardashian kiss.
“Little Gold Man” often feels like it hits the fast-forward button as it delivers more answers, much in the same vein as last week’s “Ava Hestia.” These episodes are two sides of the same coin and it’s surely no coincidence that they’re both directed by Jennifer Lynch. This season has benefitted from being entirely written by Halley Feiffer – a first for the series – but it’s unfortunate that Lynch couldn’t direct every episode of AHS: Delicate instead of just four out of nine entries. That’s not to say that a version of this season that was unilaterally directed by Lynch would have been without its issues. However, it’s likely that there’d be a better sense of synergy across the season with fewer redundancies. She’s responsible for the best episodes of AHS: Delicate and it’s a disappointment that she won’t be the one who closes the season out in next week’s finale.
To this point, “Little Gold Man” utilizes immaculate pacing that helps this episode breeze by. Anna’s Oscar nomination and the awards ceremony are in the same episode, whereas it feels like “Part 1” of the season would have spaced these events out over four or five episodes. This frenzied tempo works in “Little Gold Man’s” favor as AHS: Delicate speed-runs to its finish instead of getting lost in laborious plotting and unnecessary storytelling. This is how the entire season should have been. Although it’s also worth pointing out that this is by far the shortest episode of American Horror Story to date at only 34 minutes. It’s a shame that the season’s strongest entries have also been the ones with the least amount of content. There could have been a whole other act to “Little Gold Man,” or at the least, a substantially longer cold open that got more out of its Mia Farrow mayhem.
“Little Gold Man” is an American Horror Story episode that does everything right, but is still forced to contend with three-quarters of a subpar season. “Part 2” of AHS: Delicate actually helps the season’s first five episodes shine brighter in retrospect and this will definitely be a season that benefits from one long binge that doesn’t have a six-month break in the middle. Unfortunately, anyone who’s already watched it once will likely not feel compelled to experience these labor pains a second time over. With one episode to go and Anna’s potential demon offspring ready to greet the world, AHS: Delicate is poised to deliver one hell of a finale.
Although, to paraphrase Frank Sinatra, “How do you expect to be a good conclusion if this is what you’re chasing?”
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