In the ‘Bates Motel’ recap, Norman spends time with Marion Crane before his darker half finally comes out to play….
By Damon Martin — Editor/Lead Writer
The creators behind ‘Bates Motel’ have long promised that the prequel series would have similarities to the original ‘Psycho’ but there would also be plenty of twists and turns to separate the show from the film.
Obviously over the course of the past four and a half seasons, ‘Bates Motel’ has taken a much deeper dive into the history of Norman Bates and the relationship he shares with his mother Norma, but as the series hurdles towards the end in just a few episodes, the comparisons to the classic Alfred Hitchcock movie got stronger and stronger.
In the latest episode titled ‘Marion’, it appeared that the infamous shower scene was about to unfold when Norman pulls back a curtain while dressed as his mother and plunged his butcher knife into an unsuspecting woman, who was just looking for a port in the storm and ended up running into a psychopathic hotel owner. In ‘Psycho’, Norman’s lust turned deadly but this time around he was fueled only by rage.
And the twist that unfolded during ‘Bates Motel’ on Monday night was not only brilliant but it’s likely no one saw that coming, especially under those particular set of circumstances. Freddie Highmore deserves at least an award nomination for this episode alone as he looked down at his victim with a blood splattered face and uttered a famous phrase from ‘Psycho’ that was re-imagined for the TV series.
“Mother, what have I done?”
The execution — no pun intended — was utterly flawless and certainly gave a whole new spin as ‘Bates Motel’ nears the final few episodes of the series.
With that said, let’s recap the latest episode of ‘Bates Motel’ titled ‘Marion’…
Checking In
Marion Crane arrives at a seemingly deserted Bates Motel before Norman arrives from the house to check her in. She signs the ledger under a fake name while texting her boyfriend Sam Looming, wondering why he’s not there to meet her.
Norman can’t help but stare at Marion because she’s exceptionally beautiful and he even gives her a special room right next door to the office just in case she needs anything. Of course, Norman’s own libido is playing a big part in that housing decision but nonetheless he helps her into her room and even carries her bags inside.
Marion asks if there’s somewhere she could get some food this late at night, but Norman informs her that White Pine Bay is rather small but he’d be happy to make her a sandwich if that would satisfy her hunger. Marion agrees so Norman shuffles back to the house to make her some food.
Back at the house, Norman is berated by his ‘Mother’ about the new visitor arriving at the Bates Motel as she finally shows back up after disappearing on him a week ago. After visiting the White Horse Bar a week ago and realizing he had sex with a man while dressed as Norma, Norman has convinced himself that ‘Mother’ isn’t really there yet he can’t help himself but to have a conversation with her.
‘Mother’ acts like nothing has changed, but Norman does his best to fight against the idea that she’s standing right next to him. Norman ignores ‘Mother’ as best he can before returning to the hotel with food for Marion.
He sits in the office while Marion munches through the sandwich while exploring the retro look of the hotel including the many stuffed animals as Norman explains his love of taxidermy. The conversation eventually turns into Norman’s own explanation for loneliness and how it’s so hard to hold onto control when you actually care about somebody else because inevitably you just get hurt. While Norman’s words ring true for Marion after she stole $400,000 so she could be with the man she loved, he’s also speaking about his own damaged relationship with ‘Mother’.
The conversation gets cut short when Marion finally gets a call back from Sam.
She rushes back to her room as Sam tries to tell her how he’s stuck with a client and can’t make it over to see her tonight. In reality, Sam is locked in his own bathroom with the water running with his wife only a few feet away while he spews even more lies to the women he claims to love.
Finally as Madeleine starts beating on the door when she realizes that Sam is actually on the phone with the other woman while in their house, he hangs up on Marion, who is left to wonder what exactly is happening.
But after a long drive and an exhausting night, Marion just wants the chance to relax so she takes off all of her clothes and climbs into a nice hot shower to relax. What she doesn’t know is that Norman has been peering in at her the entire time through the peephole he has installed into that first room.
Marion’s shower has induced Norman to touch himself while trying to fight back the guilt that he’s been forced to feel by his mother any time he has any kind of lust for a woman. While it seems like this will be the set up where Marion Crane meets her fate, she instead gets frustrated by the call she shared with Sam and storms out of the shower still very much alive.
A moment later, she runs into the office as Norman zips up and replaces the picture on the wall before greeting her at the desk. Marion explains that she’s visited this hotel before but she was with her boyfriend, Sam Loomis. She’s hoping Norman could allow her to look at the ledger to find his address so she could pay him a visit.
At this point, Norman decides to finally divulge the truth that Sam is a cheating bastard who lives with his wife. Of course, Marion refuses to believe him but he gives her the address so she can see for herself the kind of man Sam Loomis really is.
The Awful Truth
Back in Seattle, Emma is still trying to wrap her head around the information that she just learned that Norma committed suicide nearly two years ago and Dylan has no idea that his mother is dead.
When he arrives back home, Emma has to break the news to Dylan about what happened to his mother but he can’t believe that she would actually take her own life. Staring back at the computer screen with a story about Norma’s suicide does nothing to quell the hurt inside, much less the anger that his brother didn’t even bother to tell him this happened.
Dylan calls Norman and immediately erupts that he found out about Norma’s death two years after it happened. Norman explains that when Dylan left he made it clear he wanted nothing to do with them anymore so he was just abiding by his wishes.
Of course, Dylan feels like a little thing such as the death of their mother supersedes anything he may have said before, and he still can’t believe that she would actually take her own life. Norman just continues to perpetuate his own lie that she killed herself and tried to take him with her but now she’s dead and he can’t stand talking about it anymore.
Norman hangs up the phone with tears in his eyes while Dylan will now undoubtedly head back to White Pine Bay to find some answers for himself.
Fatal Attraction
Marion pulls up to the Loomis house but before she can even knock on the door she sees Sam arguing with a woman through the window before embracing her in his arms. At that moment, Marion knows that Norman was right and Sam has been lying to her this entire time.
So Marion grabs a tire iron from her trunk and goes Walter Sobchak on Sam’s car parked outside the house. She swings and swings and swings some more until Sam’s car is pummeled and when he finally comes outside, he only sees Marion driving away. When Sam turns to return to the house, Madeleine throws a drink in his face and then locks him outside.
Marion rushes back at the Bates Motel where she begins packing up all her belongings, including the $400,000 she stole in an attempt to start a new life with Sam.
Meanwhile up at the house, Norman is still reeling after the conversation with his brother but ‘Mother’ soon comes calling to alert him that dinner is ready. Instead of sitting down to a pretend dinner with his dead mother, Norman defiantly start to make a sandwich instead.
‘Mother’ goes from upset to nuclear when Norman continues to ignore her until she tears apart the kitchen yelling at him to admit that she’s really there. Norman finally breaks down and embraces his ‘Mother’ while proclaiming that she’s real. A moment later as the camera pans back, we see Norman in a kitchen that looks like a tornado just tore through it and he’s really standing there all alone.
Later that night, Norman goes back down to the hotel where he finds Marion packing up all her belongings in an attempt to get away from White Pine Bay as quickly as possible. When he goes inside, Marion admits that he was right about Sam and now she wants nothing more than to leave him behind, but she did something terrible in an attempt to be with him and there’s no coming back from that.
Norman does his best to console her as the two of them sit on the bed together. Marion leans into Norman for comfort but with each passing moment, his heart starts pumping faster and he knows ‘Mother’ will soon make her presense felt which means the body count in White Pine Bay might go up again.
Rather than allowing his own impulses to kick in, Norman jumps up and demands that Marion leave the hotel right now so she can getaway from this place in one piece. Of course, Marion believes Norman is just looking out for her own well being, but in reality he’s making sure she really escapes this hotel room with a pulse.
Marion grabs the bag of money, gives Norman one final hug before getting into her car and driving down the road. She tosses her cell phone out the window as Marion Crane successfully escapes the Bates Motel.
Mother What Have I Done?
Following Marion’s exit from the hotel, Sam Loomis shows up trying to find her but she’s already gone. He runs into the room and finds her suitcase full of clothes, which she decided to leave behind, but Sam believes this is a sign that she’s sure to return. He calls her phone and leaves a message saying that he’ll wait there all night until she finally comes back to him.
Little does he know that Marion’s phone is already in dirt somewhere outside White Pine Bay.
Inside the office, Norman is confronted by his ‘Mother’ once again after he nearly fell into bed with Marion during that emotional exchange in her room. ‘Mother’ knows that he wanted to sleep with her, but Norman continues to rebel against her at every turn.
When Norman spots Sam going into the room, his lust suddenly turns to rage. He hates Sam Loomis with every fiber of his being and that’s when ‘Mother’ finally tells him the truth about her place in his life.
It seems, ‘Mother’ first appeared when he was a little boy and he was stuck watching his abusive father beat Norma and he couldn’t do anything about it. The pain was just too much to take so he created ‘Mother’ in an attempt to not only protect him from the pain he couldn’t handle but to also lash out at those who would hurt him.
‘Mother’ finally admits that she’s not real, that’s she’s nothing more than a figment of Norman’s fractured imagination, but she’s also been necessary because that’s the only way he’s been able to deal with the pain throughout his entire life. ‘Mother’ then explains that sometimes that pain can be useful and you have to let it in.
When Norman killed his own father, it was ‘Mother’ who took over and absorbed the pain for him but the rage he felt was very real. Now he’s got that same emotion stirring inside as Sam Loomis — the lying, cheating, womanizing bastard — showers in the room next door.
Norman knows exactly what he needs to do and he finally realizes this is something he needs to handle himself without ‘Mother’ being in control.
Norman grabs a butcher knife from the drawer and heads over to Sam’s room before pulling back the curtain to stab him over and over and over again all while Roy Orbison’s “Crying” plays in the background. With every thrust of the knife, Norman’s rage seeps out and each splash of blood only satiates his thirst for vengeance. This was a bad man who did bad things to women and he needed to pay.
When Sam finally slumps over dead in the shower, his eyes wide open with fear and there is Norman Bates standing over him. This wasn’t ‘Mother’ taking over for him. This was Norman making a conscious decision to snuff out a life.
“Oh Mother, what have I done?”
‘Bates Motel’ returns with a brand new episode next Monday night at 10pm ET on A&E.
