In the ‘Bates Motel’ recap, Norman makes a confession until ‘Mother’ intervenes and Romero finally returns home to White Pine Bay…
By Damon Martin — Editor/Lead Writer
Time is quickly ticking away before ‘Bates Motel’ comes to an end with only two more episodes to go after the latest offering on Monday night.
While it’s impossible to tell at this point where the show will end, credit must be paid for a truly excellent final season to this point as ‘Bates Motel’ has not only managed to pay homage to the original classic ‘Psycho’ but also introduced all new twists and turns that made this show unique and completely separate from the source material.
Norman Bates’ descent into madness has gone on for five long seasons but it appeared at the end of last week’s episode that he was finally regaining control over his own faculties when he stopped ‘Mother’ from killing his brother Dylan before confessing to Sam Loomis’ murder to the police.
This was Norman’s best attempt to stop himself from any further wrong doing, but if there’s one thing that’s been abundantly clear since the start of ‘Bates Motel’, it’s that his mother has an overpowering influence on every aspect of his psyche — and maybe even more so now that she’s only alive in his head.
With that said, let’s recap the latest episode of ‘Bates Motel’ titled ‘The Body’…
The Confessional
When the police arrive at the Bates residence, Norman is almost catatonic when speaking to Sheriff Jane Greene, but not because he regrets making the call to offer his confession for murdering Sam Loomis but instead he can’t stay in that house without the devilish images of his ‘Mother’ haunting him whenever he opens his eyes. Finally, the sheriff agrees to carry on this conversation at the police station while also promising to administer Norman’s medication once they arrive.
Despite nearly being filleted by his own brother a few hours before, Dylan is still protecting Norman even as he’s being hauled off to jail. Dylan tells Norman repeatedly not to say a word until he finds him a lawyer.
At the police station, Norman does his best to offer up the confession for Sam’s murder but his details are hazy at best. He can’t seem to remember the location of the well where Sam’s body was dumped and with each sentence, Norman is talking himself out of his own confession. It gets to the point where Sheriff Greene begins to believe that perhaps Norman’s isolation and loneliness finally drove him to this because he’s just lonely and needs attention.
Still given the gravity of the situation, Sheriff Greene agrees to keep Norman in custody overnight while also handing over his medication so he can get some peace and quiet in his own head.
Unfortunately before the medicine takes hold, ‘Mother’ comes to visit but she’s not there for conversation. She immediately attacks Norman for his foolish move to confess to Sam’s murder and now she only has one choice. ‘Mother’ is taking control for the foreseeable future until she can get Norman out of this mess he’s made. She forces him to throw up the medicine he just swallowed before smashing his head into the toilet to effectively knock out while ‘Mother’ takes over.
When the sheriff returns to talk to Norman again this time, she encounters a much different adversary. ‘Mother’ is calculating when telling the sheriff that she only confessed due to a lack of her medication and this entire situation is just unfounded. Freddie Highmore’s transformation from Norman to ‘Mother’ is just amazing because in those moments he has nothing more than his body language and voice to truly display the subtle differences between two characters living in the same body but he does it effortlessly.
As much as ‘Mother’ wants to get out of jail, Sheriff Greene calls her bluff and arrests Norman for the murder of Sam Loomis.
Lawyer Up
Dylan has never wanted anything for his brother other than getting the help he needs and it was Norma’s unwillingness to address Norman’s psychosis that led to her oldest son splitting town for good. Now with Norma dead and Norman teetering on the brink of insanity, Dylan wants to be there to help him.
He hires a legal shark named Julia Ramos to represent Norman in his case so he can hopefully get the help he needs rather than being tossed in prison for the next lifetime. When Julia arrives, she goes to see Norman but instead gets an audience with ‘Mother’.
The conversation is a revealing insight into just how cunning ‘Mother’ can be because during the course of her talk with the attorney, she goes from taking back a false confession before evolving into pointing the finger at somebody else for the death of Sam Loomis.
That person ends up as Madeleine Loomis, who ‘Mother’ says confessed to him the crime of murdering her husband after finding out that he had been cheating on her. ‘Mother’ claims (as Norman) that he took the blame as some kind of misguided affection for Madeleine in an attempt to protect her but now he knows that turning in the real killer is the right thing to do.
Of course, Sheriff Greene questions Madeleine about her relationship with Norman and she claims they barely knew each other outside of a few conversations at her store. Something tells me, Madeleine failing to disclose that she nearly had sex with Norman in the kitchen of the house she shared with her husband might come back to bite her before this is all said and done.
Still, Sheriff Greene seems to believe Madeleine’s story more than she can buy what Norman has been selling to her thus far.
The evidence against Norman gets even greater after the police pull a second body out of the lake and it’s identified as Audrey Ellis — Emma’s real mother who made the ill fated decision to stay at the Bates Motel when she came looking to reconnect with her daughter. Sheriff Greene tells Dylan the news so he can share it with his wife before anybody else tells her but he sees right through her rouse.
Dylan knows the sheriff was looking for a reaction — one that he was already aware that Audrey was dead — which would only further implicate his brother in the murders. Instead, Dylan calls her bluff and decides to deal with this information all on his own.
More Surprise Than the Brain Would Allow You To Imagine
Chick Hogan reappears this week when he arrives at the Bates Motel with a fresh raccoon corpse for Norman to transform into art but instead of finding his friend, he discovers the cops have canvassed the hotel and house with caution tape. Chick is immediately concerned that Norman is dead but he’s relieved to find out that his friend is still alive and well at the police station.
Chick’s despair then turns to curiosity because if Norman is in jail then the cops must be investigating a murder and he knows all about that after staying in the house as a guest not that long ago.
Meanwhile, former sheriff Alex Romero finally gets his gun back before making his return to White Pine Bay and the Bates Motel.
Romero gets to the house with revenge on his mind — the kind of vengeance that is only satiated by killing Norman. Of course it’s also clear that Romero has no intention of ever leaving this town alive again. He’s on a suicide mission but so long as Norman is dead, he can wander into the afterlife with hopes of seeing his blushing bride again.
Romero goes into the house and he’s immediately taken back by visions of his wife walking through the house with a smile on her face during much happier times when it was just the two of them living there together. Romero’s journey through the house eventually takes him to Norma’s bedroom where he imagines her sitting by the vanity, turning and smiling at him and for that briefest of moment, he actually felt joy again.
Romero ends up falling asleep on Norma’s bed, but he’s soon awakened by the sound of his stepson’s voice and the pitter patter of typewriter keys slapping against a sheet of paper. When Romero makes it to the basement, he finds Chick transcribing tapes that he made of Norman talking about his ‘mother’ and the splintered psychosis that allowed her to still exist long after she was already dead.
With a gun pointed to his head, Chick admits that he’s writing a book about everything he’s witnessed as a personal friend to Norman Bates because these are the kinds of stories that deserve to be told. Chick also tells Romero about the real tragedy that Norman suffered because he not only killed his mother but he loved her with every fiber of his being. ‘Mother’ has existed inside of Norman since he was a child but she truly manifested into a permanent being after he killed Norma in a murder-suicide attempt two years ago. Chick then reveals that Norman dug up his own mother’s body, mummified her and then built a shrine to her in the basement, which is the exact same place he’s sitting right now.
It all sounds rather insane but as Chick notes — real life is way more interesting than anything you could ever make up.
Chick continues to taunt Romero about his desire to write this book and tell the world what happened between Norma and Norman Bates that ultimately led to murder and madness. The brazen attitude from Chick as he goes back to typing his book finally forces Romero to react and he fires a single bullet that strikes him square in the head.
Chick falls over dead on his typewriter thanks to Romero’s undying thirst for revenge.
What seems most likely is Romero decided to kill Chick because by writing the book and knowing all the secrets, he effectively enabled Norman to commit even more crimes in the name of his madness. Romero can’t live with that and now neither can Chick.
The Well
The police continue to search for signs of Sam Loomis’ body when they finally hit pay dirt at the old well in the middle of the woods.
Before long, Sam Loomis’ decaying body is pulled from the bottom and now Sheriff Greene knows fore a fact that somebody killed him.
Sheriff Greene returns to the police station for another meeting with Norman, who is still being controlled by ‘Mother’. Without batting an eye, she tells Norman that he’s no longer on the hook for one murder.
Instead, Sheriff Greene charges Norman for three murders — Jim Blackwell, Audrey Ellis and Sam Loomis. She’s determined to make Norman pay for what he’s done, but ‘Mother’ isn’t going down without a fight.
‘Bates Motel’ returns with the penultimate episode in the series next Monday night at 10pm ET on A&E
