A few years ago, one of Alfred Hitchcock’s most famous films was turned into a television series that aired on A&E . . . Bates Motel. A series that made audiences realize just how creepy Norman Bates really is.
Obvious Expectations
The series chronicles the young adulthood of the Psycho antagonist when he and his mother, Norma Bates first move into the Bates Motel. It shows us a timeline of when Norman first started to fall into psychosis and his strange relationship with women who are unavailable to him and his even stranger relationship to his mother. Specifically becoming more and more obsessive over the women in his life ( girlfriends, friends, and Norma aka mother).
Surprise Twists AKA SPOILER CITY
I did my due diligence when finding this stuff out after I had watched the series. And I was happily surprised to find out that Norma has another son who is a little older than Norman and is very normal (compared to Norman)!. However, the way he was brought into the world was not as lovely as the character is portrayed. Norma’s brother sexually assaulted her when they were young and it resulted in her pregnancy with her first born, Dylan. Soon after finding out, Norma ran off with her boyfriend at the time and told him it was his baby which led to her first marriage. Because we don’t get to see that much of Norma, other than Norman’s interpretation of her in the movie, we see a more maternal side to her character. Sure she can be quite hostile and aggressive at times, but if she did murder anyway it was usually in self-defense. Norma is a much more empathetic character after the first couple of seasons. There were times where I was yelling at her to stop coddling Norman because we all know what that may contribute to what he would become in the near future. I understood why she was colder toward Dylan because he wasn’t brought into the world in the way a parent wants their child to be brought into the world. Compared to the movie, the show did a great job at making this motherly figure as complex and three-dimensional as possible which is what you want from this type of series.
I watch a lot of procedural cop-dramas: Criminal Minds, 9-1-1, Bones, Will Trent; I could go on and on. All of these shows are different and have different concepts to them however they all have one thing in common (other than the genre) all the people that do kill on those shows have a semi-valid motive. I say ‘semi-valid’ because just don’t kill a person or anything like that. The thing about Norman is when he kills on the show his motive is always the same weird answer - he did it for mother. In most cases (like the movie) he always remembers the murders as ‘mother’ committing them when in reality it was him. And I know he’s sick, he has a mental condition that is pretty much undiagnosed in the show but imagining himself as ‘mother’ wasn’t the only outburst he was having. Throughout the show there are other signs of him falling into disarray. Much like Norma he has large sudden outbursts especially when Norma is trying to break away and develop less of a codependent relationship with Norman. He would scream that she is being selfish or ridiculous when she would suggest that he was guilty of a crime or when she wanted to go on some dates.I’m not trying to say that I didn’t like this show, in fact I’m saying the exact opposite. I love how it takes you into the mind of an infamous fictional serial killer who will do whatever it takes to keep ‘mother’ in his life forever.
My Heart Really Needed This
The heart and soul of this show is Dylan (who was mentioned earlier) and Norman’s best friend/ex-girlfriend (although I try not to think of when she could’ve been Norman’s first victim), Emma. At first it was a tough pill for Norman to swallow but he got over it rather quickly. Thank God! Emma has CF (cystic fibrosis) at the beginning of the series and because of this awful disease it strangely brings Dylan and Emma closer together. One day while Emma is at the Bates’ house with Norman and Dylan, Emma has a coughing fit and she asks Dylan if he could pound her chest to get the mucus out (it’s more romantic than it sounds!), this interaction started it all. After this they would call each other just to talk and would eventually fall-in-love with each other. YAY!
The couple would have their difficult moments, but watching their relationship unfold from mutual acquaintances to friends to boyfriend and girlfriend which would eventually end with husband and wife was beautiful. As this type of thriller-y television series genre would suggest there are a lot of darker, intense, and scary plotlines and subject matters that the show delves into. So it was all the more refreshing to see what a healthy relationship could look like on such a show and how it could effectively put into those heavy plot lines that Alfred Hitchcock is famous for.
All in all, I think if he had been alive to see it Hitchcock would’ve been proud of this masterpiece. It paid homage to his cinematic skills, while also adding to different elements to the story and its pre-existing characters.
Unfortunately, the show isn't available on any subscription streaming services. If you want to watch it is available for purchase on YouTube, Apple TV, and Amazon Prime Video. Enjoy!
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