Bates Motel 5.03
In which the show arrives at an expected result in an unexpected way, and the luck of Men Who Love Norma And Whom Norma Loved continues to be rotten.
To start with the minor issue, I had forgotten to comment on the earlier sceen last ep indicating Chick is working on a book about Norman. In this episode, we see a lot more of said work, which suddenly makes me wonder whether Chick won't survive the season after all and publish the thing under the nome de plume Robert Bloch. Then again, I think he's heavily underestimating just how dangerous Norman and Mother are. After all, he has no idea about all the earlier deaths, and Norman doesn't kill Caleb, so it's entirely possible Chick still considers Norman crazy, but essentially harmless. Depending whether or not he believed Caleb when Caleb told him Norman had killed Norma. The suicide explanation wasn't bought by either Alex or Caleb for a second, but Chick, as he admits, didn't really know Norma. He had a few memorable encounters with her, but that was it. So maybe he at least considers it possible.
Anyway, if Chick does survive, I bet that instead of the awful psychiatrist exposition scene which mars the ending of Psycho, we'll get a summing up by Least Likely Author.
Meanwhile, Alex Romero pulls off his cunning escape plan until he's cruelly foiled by first a flat tire (this is typical for this show's sense of humor) and then a kid with a gun. My guess is that the Doylist reason for this is the obvious one: Alex can't be allowed to come anywhere near Norman until the show finale (or the episode before that), but the series also wanted him out of prison so it won't have to show the jailbreak in the finale episodes. So Alex will spend a few episodes recuperating. In theory, if the show wants to give him an unlikely escape and happy ending, that kid has a beautiful mother whom Romero falls in love with and abandons his revenge plans, but you know.... I doubt it.
On to the main feast, which is to say, Three Men and Mother: the scenes at the house were fantastic throughout, veering between tragedy (Caleb) and pitch black comedy (Chick playing along and pretending he can see Mother when Norman is not being her - btw, this also answers a minor question I had, which was: does Norman act out both sides of the dialogue when he imagines himself talking to Norma? Answer, no, he doesn't, he solely speakis his own lines and hallucinates her saying hers, only talking as her when he's being Mother, and then there's no Norman to interact with). In a way, it's also a story about grief, as Caleb goes through all the stages here until he's accepted not just Norma's but his own death. That Caleb, while being clear on Norman being crazy and Norman havng killed Norma, doesn't just humor the madmen when interacting with Mother but starts to buy into the emotional reality of Norman-as-Norma as well as a way to channel his devastation about his sister is entirely fitting for the character. Norman and Caleb share more than their incestous love for Norma: both of of them prefer illusion to acknowledging the reality of what they've done to this woman they love, as headwriter Kerry Ehrin notes here. ( However, Caleb in s3 finally was ready to express responsibility for what he did, while Norman clings more firmly to his fantasy world than ever.) I continue to admire the way the show never negated what Caleb did and yet gave him full humanity, and, as Kerry Ehrin also notes, Kenny Johnson was superb in the part, never more so than in this episode. "She was somewhere" (Caleb to Chick about Norma in the many years apart) choked me up in its raw grief. And the new bit about their childhood, being locked up for days... brrr. (Mind you, it's both touching and telling that whenever Caleb flashes back to their years together, he goes to the childhood where they were both pre pubescent - the part he can remember without guilt.)
I'm also glad the show didn't go the route of letting Chick (or, for that matter, Norman) torture Caleb: it would have felt like gratitious gore in the middle of a tragedy. And btw, yet another round of applause for Freddie Highmore; in the scene where he goes down into the basement as himself and switches to Mother, you can see the moment this happens, just by expression and posture. (Not that he doesn't carry the wig and dress welll, but I find him most harrowing and effective as Mother when there's no wardrobe change and it's all done by acting.) That Mother can't brng herself to kill Caleb and Norman ultimately can't either did surprise me a bit, but it fits with where Norman is now. When he attacked Caleb way back when in s2, he was pumped up and angry. Now, there's at least a part of him (Mother, who spells it out) aware that he has a lot in common with Caleb, and the sad, pathetic thing about Norman Bates (which keeps the audience connected to him) is that he actually means it when he says he doesn't want to kill. The frightening thing is that he means it every time and does it anyway, of course, though not on this occasion; Caleb dies due to Chick texting while driving (that's why you're not supposed to do that, kids), in a random accident, not even intentional on the part of the man who once upon a time did want him dead. No member of that family ever has much luck, after all. RIP Caleb; you were an unexpectedly moving character, and yet this was the right time for you to go.
Future developments: I already mentioned my guess re: Alex Romero. Considering Caleb told Mother about the grandkid, and considering there's still the ticking time bomb of Dylan knowing what happened to Emma's mother, I think Dylan and Emma will find their way back to White Pine Bay soon, though first we'll probably see Norman falling some more for Madeleine Loomis (who steps up on the Norma resmemblance even more this week), and we'll meet Marion Crane.
This entry was originally posted at http://selenak.dreamwidth.org/1220053.html. Comment there or here, as you wish.
To start with the minor issue, I had forgotten to comment on the earlier sceen last ep indicating Chick is working on a book about Norman. In this episode, we see a lot more of said work, which suddenly makes me wonder whether Chick won't survive the season after all and publish the thing under the nome de plume Robert Bloch. Then again, I think he's heavily underestimating just how dangerous Norman and Mother are. After all, he has no idea about all the earlier deaths, and Norman doesn't kill Caleb, so it's entirely possible Chick still considers Norman crazy, but essentially harmless. Depending whether or not he believed Caleb when Caleb told him Norman had killed Norma. The suicide explanation wasn't bought by either Alex or Caleb for a second, but Chick, as he admits, didn't really know Norma. He had a few memorable encounters with her, but that was it. So maybe he at least considers it possible.
Anyway, if Chick does survive, I bet that instead of the awful psychiatrist exposition scene which mars the ending of Psycho, we'll get a summing up by Least Likely Author.
Meanwhile, Alex Romero pulls off his cunning escape plan until he's cruelly foiled by first a flat tire (this is typical for this show's sense of humor) and then a kid with a gun. My guess is that the Doylist reason for this is the obvious one: Alex can't be allowed to come anywhere near Norman until the show finale (or the episode before that), but the series also wanted him out of prison so it won't have to show the jailbreak in the finale episodes. So Alex will spend a few episodes recuperating. In theory, if the show wants to give him an unlikely escape and happy ending, that kid has a beautiful mother whom Romero falls in love with and abandons his revenge plans, but you know.... I doubt it.
On to the main feast, which is to say, Three Men and Mother: the scenes at the house were fantastic throughout, veering between tragedy (Caleb) and pitch black comedy (Chick playing along and pretending he can see Mother when Norman is not being her - btw, this also answers a minor question I had, which was: does Norman act out both sides of the dialogue when he imagines himself talking to Norma? Answer, no, he doesn't, he solely speakis his own lines and hallucinates her saying hers, only talking as her when he's being Mother, and then there's no Norman to interact with). In a way, it's also a story about grief, as Caleb goes through all the stages here until he's accepted not just Norma's but his own death. That Caleb, while being clear on Norman being crazy and Norman havng killed Norma, doesn't just humor the madmen when interacting with Mother but starts to buy into the emotional reality of Norman-as-Norma as well as a way to channel his devastation about his sister is entirely fitting for the character. Norman and Caleb share more than their incestous love for Norma: both of of them prefer illusion to acknowledging the reality of what they've done to this woman they love, as headwriter Kerry Ehrin notes here. ( However, Caleb in s3 finally was ready to express responsibility for what he did, while Norman clings more firmly to his fantasy world than ever.) I continue to admire the way the show never negated what Caleb did and yet gave him full humanity, and, as Kerry Ehrin also notes, Kenny Johnson was superb in the part, never more so than in this episode. "She was somewhere" (Caleb to Chick about Norma in the many years apart) choked me up in its raw grief. And the new bit about their childhood, being locked up for days... brrr. (Mind you, it's both touching and telling that whenever Caleb flashes back to their years together, he goes to the childhood where they were both pre pubescent - the part he can remember without guilt.)
I'm also glad the show didn't go the route of letting Chick (or, for that matter, Norman) torture Caleb: it would have felt like gratitious gore in the middle of a tragedy. And btw, yet another round of applause for Freddie Highmore; in the scene where he goes down into the basement as himself and switches to Mother, you can see the moment this happens, just by expression and posture. (Not that he doesn't carry the wig and dress welll, but I find him most harrowing and effective as Mother when there's no wardrobe change and it's all done by acting.) That Mother can't brng herself to kill Caleb and Norman ultimately can't either did surprise me a bit, but it fits with where Norman is now. When he attacked Caleb way back when in s2, he was pumped up and angry. Now, there's at least a part of him (Mother, who spells it out) aware that he has a lot in common with Caleb, and the sad, pathetic thing about Norman Bates (which keeps the audience connected to him) is that he actually means it when he says he doesn't want to kill. The frightening thing is that he means it every time and does it anyway, of course, though not on this occasion; Caleb dies due to Chick texting while driving (that's why you're not supposed to do that, kids), in a random accident, not even intentional on the part of the man who once upon a time did want him dead. No member of that family ever has much luck, after all. RIP Caleb; you were an unexpectedly moving character, and yet this was the right time for you to go.
Future developments: I already mentioned my guess re: Alex Romero. Considering Caleb told Mother about the grandkid, and considering there's still the ticking time bomb of Dylan knowing what happened to Emma's mother, I think Dylan and Emma will find their way back to White Pine Bay soon, though first we'll probably see Norman falling some more for Madeleine Loomis (who steps up on the Norma resmemblance even more this week), and we'll meet Marion Crane.
This entry was originally posted at http://selenak.dreamwidth.org/1220053.html. Comment there or here, as you wish.