Last night’s episode of Bates Motel slowly moved the plot along, as Norman began to realize that he may not be as sane as he thinks. There isn’t really much more to say on the episode since not much else happened, so let’s just head straight into the review.
I feel like the writers of Bates Motel think that the audience find many of the plot lines in the series as interesting as they clearly do. At the beginning of the season, I was willing to jump on to the Arcanum Club bandwagon because I was just so thrilled that we didn’t have to deal with the drug trade subplot anymore. After all, kinky sex-murder club sounds a helluva lot more interesting than threatening pot dealers. I still don’t understand why pot was their drug of choice, but I digress.
Pacing has also been a problem this season. The reason I don’t care about The Arcanum Club is that I don’t know anything about it, thus making its threat nonexistent. We at least learned the (boring) contents of the flash drive Annika handed off to Norma: financial documents detailing a $15 million payoff from the pot business going to various high-profile members of the club. Since Norma essentially extorted Bob Paris in regard to the bypass (which is apparently still a thing), I’m assuming that the rest of the season will be about them going after Norma, because I don’t believe for once second that Norma “got” Bob.
After making Caleb’s story somewhat interesting last week, Bates Motel took one step back this week by bringing Chick back into the mix. The two had a whiskey date and Chick told Caleb he had a potentially dangerous job for him. That’s about all we get on this front so all I can really say is that it’s still boring.
One area where the show has never had a problem with storytelling is with Norman. His progression this episode was the sole bright spot (well, that and Norma saying very Norma-y things) of the episode.I’m a little bummed we didn’t actually get to see Norman’s conversation with fake Norma, but I guess that was the show’s way of trying to keep it a little mysterious (for 10 minutes). Emma’s brief scenes tonight were worthwhile, since she called Norman out for being a snitch, but I am genuinely happy that once Norman realized he didn’t actually talk to Norma that morning, he sided with Dylan and decided to talk to Norma with him about his relationship with Caleb.
This turned out to be a huge mistake, as Norma freaked out, packed her things and drove away. My issue with this as the episode’s cliffhanger ending is that it’s not really a cliffhanger. Last week I commented on how Dylan’s cliffhanger was an effective way to end the episode, and this is because I believe it’s possible that Dylan’s relationship with Norma could be destroyed. With the ending of this week, I don’t believe for one second that Norma is gone for good and that she will never speak to Norman again. There just aren’t any stakes involved and at the halfway point of the season, that’s not a good thing.
Random Notes
- The password for the Wi-Fi at the motel is “MOTHER” in all caps. Because of course it is.
- Romero is still having a little rivalry with Marcus Young, his opponent for sheriff. It’s about as interesting as it sounds.
- After realizing he didn’t actually talk to Norma that morning, Norman goes to Norma’s closet and confiscates one of her dresses after (very) creepily holding it and sniffing it.
- Gunner finding that flash drive was a little deus ex machina for me. Also, he was able to hack into it because he downloads movies illegally. I’m not sure being able to Torrent means you can hack through technological security. Lazy writing at its finest.
- Romero’s facial expression in his meeting with Norma and Bob is priceless.
- Dear Bates Motel writers: stop trying to make the bypass happen. It’s not going to happen.
- Norma’s idea of a non-fancy pool is a 20’x40′ pool with a Jacuzzi and a fence to keep it safe.
