Bates Motel Recap ‘The Deal’: The Truth Will Set You Free

In the latest Bates Motel recap, Normal strikes a deal with the devil and Caleb teams up with Norman to share a secret with their mother…

By Damon Martin — Editor/Lead Writer

Secrets the spoon that stir any good drama.

From soap operas to courtroom battles to family affairs, secrets and lies are the real catalyst to so many stories being told throughout the history of television. ‘Bates Motel’ is no different because this is a show that started out telling lies from the first day Norma and Norman Bates arrived in White Pine Bay to begin a new life. Of course Norma left out the part where her son murdered her husband and she covered it up. Norman didn’t know for the longest time either because of his blackouts and his mother never bothering to tell him about it.

See how these secrets work?

Well, the couple of secrets looming overhead in the latest episode of ‘Bates Motel’ titled ‘The Deal’ include Norma’s estranged brother, who has been hiding out at Dylan’s farm for weeks as well as a mysterious hard drive that has every rich person in town sweating bullets if it ever finds the light of day.

Whose secrets are revealed?

Let’s recap the latest episode of ‘Bates Motel’ and find out.

Brother to Mother

Norma finds out in a hurry this week that the people who want that hard drive she was handed over from the dead hooker mean business. One of Bob Paris’ associates runs her off the road and when she threatens to call the police, he suggests she call his boss instead.

While Norma is knee deep in cow shit, Dylan is waking up from a drunken stupor where he slept in his car just waiting for his little brother to reveal that his father/uncle has been living with him for weeks right under the nose of their mother, who he admittedly raped when they were teenagers. Meanwhile, Norman is waking up from a deep sleep where he finds Emma babysitting him in Norma’s absence. Norman wastes no time in telling her what he saw the night before although Emma feigns ignorance because she definitely knew that Caleb was staying with Dylan already.

When Dylan arrives, Norman immediately begins to apologize for telling their mother everything. He was just jealous about how close they were becoming and he was feeling shut out and now he’s feeling really bad about letting the cat out of the bag. Before Dylan has a chance to really react, a nurse calls and requests his presence at the hospital because his mother was just in a car accident.

Dylan goes to the hospital and when Norma is all a flutter about this hard drive and how she needs to use it to her advantage, her oldest son quickly realizes that Norman didn’t tell her a thing. He also realizes that his mother is about to get into some serious shit with the power players in town if she tries to play this hand against them with the stolen hard drive. Norma explains that without some help, the motel is going to go under and she will be left with nothing, which means Norman will be left with even less than that.

Norma leaves Dylan and goes back to school before having another lunch time encounter with Professor Finnigan. He admits he finds Norma attractive, but still wants to treat her as a patient. She finally concedes although the flirtations are definitely crossing a few boundaries between doctor/patient privilege.

When she arrives home, Norman is already in a bad state because Dylan just informed him that he never told her about Caleb being in town. Norman is realizing that he lost time again due to a black out and things are only made worse when he’s convinced that he saw Norma in a different dress earlier that morning. When she denies ever wearing the dress that day, Norman runs upstairs to her closet and finds the piece of clothing in question. Instead of wondering where his own sanity has run off to, Norman instead decides to sniff the dress for everything it’s worth and yet again he crosses a whole new line of creepy.

He hides the dress under his bed (because no one will ever find it there just like the last shit he put under his mattress) and heads off to dinner.

Let’s Make a Deal

Romero is still investigating the two dead girls who he knows were involved with Bob Paris, but he still has to be careful because White Pine Bay’s most powerful millionaire has a replacement waiting in the wings to get elected if he doesn’t start playing ball again. Romero finds out about a man who was hanging out in the marsh the same day the dead girl turned up, but when he goes to investigate, the poor guy is found murdered in his car as well.

Romero meets with Bob, but gets nowhere except a thinly veiled threat about getting the hard drive back from his close friend, Norma Bates, before something bad happens to the both of them.

Back at the cabin, Gunner accidentally discovers the hard drive and because his video games just weren’t keeping him interested, he decides to hack into it and see what’s hiding in there. He calls Dylan and reveals that the hard drive possesses financial information about a $15 million investment with bank records showing transactions to some of White Pine Bay’s most powerful people. Dylan knows this has to do with the illegal drug trade and immediately he figures out why Bob wants this so badly. He tells Norma about it, but she’s not going to the cops.

She’s going to use this to her advantage.

Norma seeks out Romero and after a very heated discussion that nearly ends in a kiss, he caves and decides to take her to have an audience with Bob where she will threaten him with leverage to get what she wants.

When they arrive, Norma is a jittery mess but she finally gets out her demand — she wants a new exit put in from the bypass that leads directly to her hotel with billboards running in each direction to advertise her business. Oh and a pool. In exchange, she’ll keep the hard drive with the promise that the information will never go any further but if he doesn’t comply and she ends up dead or missing, the files will go directly to the FBI and everybody in White Pine Bay will pay.

Bob loves that she’s trying to get something for herself out of this and playing the game a little bit. He agrees to her demands although there’s no way he’s actually going to follow through. Either that or there’s more on that hard drive that she just hasn’t discovered yet and he believes he’s getting off easy.

Boar Jerky

Up in the woods, Caleb is going through a little self-hate session while pounding away at a tree with an axe when his old pal Chick shows up with some advice and some boar jerky. Actually, his advice is to eat the boar jerky and all the other problems will melt away.

Eventually the one time adversaries end up sitting on a rock in a pseudo ‘Sons of Anarchy’ reunion between Opie and Kozik while sharing some fine sipping whisky and Oregon’s finest green. Chick ends his side of the conversation with a job offer to Caleb — he needs a new driver and it pays $25,000 a trip but that doesn’t come without some inherit danger. Caleb politely turns him down because he’s trying to turn over a new leaf for his son.

Something tells me Caleb will be driving those shipments within say three episodes?

The Truth Will Set You Free

Dylan decides now that Emma and Norman know about Caleb it’s only a matter of time before Norma finds out and he’s really getting into this whole family thing so he’s going to come clean and tell her what’s going on. When he gets back to the house, Norman even decides to help in explaining to her what’s been happening and how Dylan just wants to build a relationship with his own father.

Norma gets home and the explanation seems to be going well enough. Dylan tells her how Caleb came to town and how they’ve been getting to know each other and even Norman chimes with some helpful words. In the end, Dylan explains that Caleb just wants the chance to apologize to her and put this entire ordeal to rest.

Without a word, Norma rips up from her chair, storms upstairs, packs a bag — including her gun — and tears out of the house and tells Dylan to look after Norman because she’s getting the fuck out of here (or the PG-13 version of that). She pulls off into the night while Dylan watches Norman run after her like a dog chasing a car.

Norma’s had enough for one day and she’s checking out.

Tune into ‘Bates Motel’ next week for a brand new episode at 9pm ET on A&E