Bates Motel Season Finale Recap ‘Unconscious’: Mother, Look What You Did

In the Bates Motel season finale recap, Norman finds himself covered in blood again, Romero makes an important decision while Dylan and Emma finally draw nearer….

By Damon Martin — Editor/Lead Writer

For the largest part of the third season of ‘Bates Motel’, Norman Bates has been an onlooker to all those people around him that are moving on with life while barely noticing that he’s still standing there. As the same time Norman is quietly spending most of this season as a ghost, his slip from reality and sanity has been like a slow burn into madness.

All the signs have been there but his mother Norma has been living in denial. His brother Dylan tried to warn his mother about Norman’s psychosis but he’s had a lot of other things on his mind like saving Emma’s life. Norma’s brother saw Norman drift into lunacy more than a year ago, but never bothered to tell anyone.

Now it’s all culminated in the death of someone else and tonight’s season three finale was the clearest picture of the Norman Bates who will one day run a motel while just waiting for a stranded passer-by to have no other choice but the stay in one of his rooms for a night.

Paging Marion Crane. Your room is almost ready.

With that, let’s recap the Bates Motel season 3 finale:

The Cost of Sanity

Following Dylan’s story about Norman parading around their house in a night gown and her own brother explaining how Norman came to his hotel room convinced that he was his mother, Norma finally realizes that it’s time to get her son some much needed help.

She visits a local mental health facility to seek potential admission for Norman but the problem is she doesn’t have insurance and the stay can run somewhere around $30,000 a month for a patient. I’m guessing they don’t have pay-as-you-go plans either.

While Norma goes to see about potential help for Norman, he’s busy at the hotel bringing food to their one (non-paying) guest, Bradley, who has been camped out there for the past few days after showing up in town unannounced. But when he gets there she’s gone. The bed is made and the room looks spotless and for a moment, I began to wonder was Bradley ever there in the first place?

Well it seems she was because Bradley shows up at her parents house and waits for her mother to leave once again, except this time when she goes inside she gathers all of her father’s old jewelry and the loose cash she can gather while spending the rest of her time smashing the house to smithereens. I guess on some level she’s assuming no one will be looking at her for the crime considering by all accounts, she’s already dead.

If there’s one piece of good news to happen on Bates Motel this week it’s the call that Emma’s father receives from the hospital in Portland. It appears the money Dylan gave them to move Emma up on the transplant list has worked and she’s next in line for a new set of lungs. Her father is over the moon with excitement although Emma isn’t exactly thrilled and she ends up leaving the house out of fear of what’s about to happen to her.

Her fear is joined by Dylan’s frustration after he discovers the guitar that Caleb left for him before bolting from town. Dylan calls and leaves his father/uncle a rather nasty voice message that more or less writes him off once and for all. Dylan’s brief time spent with his father/uncle was fleeting and now he’s come full circle because he’s determined to never need him again.

Back at the motel, Bradley returns and Norman finds her there counting through the jewelry and cash she just stole. This will be the perfect nest egg to get her and Norman out of town. She wants to get away from the family who already forgot her and he needs to get away from a controlling and domineering mother. Norman resists at first when she suggests leaving, but Bradley insists that his relationship with Norma isn’t just overbearing — it’s down right unhealthy (you’re telling me!).

Norman seems like he’s still waffling on the decision until his mother returns home and she sits him down for ‘the talk’. No, the birds and the bees are nowhere near this conversation.

Instead, Norma tells her son how much she’s worried for him and after all this time neglecting the problems he’s having, it’s time to face them head on. She wants him to get help whether that’s medically or psychologically to finally face the fact that he blacks out, doesn’t remember a thing and horribly bad things happen whenever he does.

Norman’s cold demeanor sends a chill through the air, but when he speaks he just tells Norma that this was what he’s been waiting for — she finally gave up on him. He casually strolls out of the room and up the stairs to his room before his mother changes the locks and his walls are soon padded. If Norman was close to the edge before, he’s certainly teetering over now.

We’ll Never Have Paris Again

Back at the police station, Romero is watching as the DEA prepares to take down Bob Paris once and for all as the leader of the drug ring that’s ruled White Pine Bay for what seems like the last 20 years. Romero sees the plan shift into motion and the cops who will bring the head of the organization he benefitted from for years come crashing down.

Before Paris falls, Romero pays a visit to Norma where he explains that he’ll never apologize for what he did by turning over the evidence to the police, thus getting the DEA to go after Bob. What he does regret, however, is not protecting Norma better in the first place. Norma understands but she also knows the kind of leverage that Bob holds over her head now. He could take Norman away from her despite the fact that when he killed his own father he was only trying to protect his mother.

He may be a few bulbs short of a Christmas tree now, but back then the initial split in his psyche happened because he tried to stop a violent man from hurting his mother. His instincts were right, his actions were not.

A long stare commences and these two have been hovering somewhere between a smoldering love affair and a casual flirtation all season long, but once again they fail to act on it.

Instead, Romero acts on his initial instinct to protect Norman from Bob Paris.

Before the DEA can arrive at the house, Romero gives Bob a warning that the cops are closing in and he should grab a bag, whatever cash is handy and make a run for it right now. Bob heeds the warning and when the cops get there, he’s nowhere to be found.

Bob ends up at the only place he believes is safe — an old fishing boat he purchased years ago as a last second escape plan for situations just like this. Unfortunately the man he bought it from gets loose lips after a few too many drinks and he let it slip that Bob purchased the boat from him during one of his conversations with Romero at the bar.

Romero tucked this information away for a rainy day and by all accounts, it’s pouring down in White Pine Bay right now. Paris promises that once he’s gone, he’s staying gone forever and neither Romero or Norma have to worry about him coming back again, much less that he’ll use the evidence he has against both of them.

Romero wants more than a promise. He needs a guarantee. The type of guarantee only three bullets fired at Bob Paris, which kills him dead on the spot, can ensure. Bob is dead, Norma’s secret is safe and Romero protected her just like he always promised himself he would do.

The Kiss

If there was disappointment from Norma and Romero never sharing a kiss this season, the other couple on ‘Bates Motel’ destined to get together finally did in the season 3 finale as Dylan and Emma finally locked lips after months of hinting at the subject. Of course Emma spent the first half of the season making out with Dylan’s brother, but this is ‘Bates Motel’ and they like to keep it all in the family!

After Emma disappears while her father patiently waits to take her to Portland for her transplant, Dylan finds her on the farm just staring into the water. She’s concerned that if the transplant fails, she dies. There are no guarantees that a lung transplant will take and if her body rejects it today, tomorrow or maybe a year down the road, she’s gone. At least right now she’s still living and maybe it’s better to do that for as long as possible while she still can.

Dylan explains how this is not only a good thing, it’s the best of things. It gives her a real chance to live. A chance to ditch the oxygen tank and just be a normal 18-year old girl. It also gives him the chance to finally kiss her after basically saving her life by paying for the transplant, although she still doesn’t know that.

They kiss and at least someone gets a happy ending on ‘Bates Motel’ this year.

Gone Girl

Following a chilling encounter earlier where Norma told Norman that she was thinking about having him committed, he now knows that if he stays bad things are going to happen to him but if he leaves with Bradley, he’ll get to live a normal life again (or so he thinks). He packs a bag and when Norma tries to stop him, he tells her that this relationship that they share just isn’t healthy for either of them. They think they are depending on each other, but really it’s just starting to tear both of them down.

He’ll always love his mother, but he needs to get the hell away from her. He’s leaving with Bradley, who is still alive by the way, and there’s nothing she can do to stop him.

Norma has other plans and knocks him out cold before dragging him to the basement where she ties his hands and feet. She quickly calls Dylan for help because Norman’s delusions are getting worse. He believes Bradley Martin is not only alive, but she’s asked Norman to come away with her. Remember, Norman’s vision of his mother is the one who saw Bradley, not the real Norma so she believes this is another sign of his lunacy.

When Dylan gets to the house, Norman has gotten out of his restraints and he’s escaped. He has to break the news to his mother that Bradley never died and Norman might really be leaving with her although it still doesn’t change the fact that his little brother is still seeing shit that isn’t there! (best part of the episode, in case you were curious).

While Norma and Dylan hunt for Norman, he’s off in a car with Bradley ready to make their big escape.

But did anyone really think she was going to make it out of White Pine Bay alive?

As soon as they cross the city limits, Norman sees his mother sitting in the back seat of the car asking to speak to Bradley. When ‘she’ finally takes over, he pulls Bradley out of the car by her hair and drags her to a nearby rock where ‘Norma’ bashes her brains in for the mere thought of taking her son away from his home and from his mother.

Seconds later with blood covering his hands, Norman snaps out of it and looks down at poor Bradley dead on the ground. ‘What have you done, mother?’ Norman asks because there’s no way he could be responsible for this.

And then in a homage to the original ‘Psycho’ — something the writers have done several times this season and more than in any season before it — Norman puts Bradley’s body in the trunk of her car before rolling it into the sea. He says goodbye to Bradley for the last time with his mother hanging off his arm and once again telling him how it will always be the two of them together, no matter what.

A fitting end for the third season of ‘Bates Motel’ although I do have one lingering question I really would like answered?

What the hell was going on with the gigantic hole at the motel? It’s not a pool, Bob’s dead so it’s clearly not going to get finished and no one even got buried in there!

Small detail but worth mentioning.

‘Bates Motel’ will hopefully return to A&E in early 2016 for season four.