Bates Motel – Kicking and Screaming to the Season Finale

Published May 4, 2014 | By RottenOne

So here we are on the eve of the final episode of Bates Motel and it’s been a long and dangerous road. The season started off with a bang when Bradley, after suspecting Gil was behind her father’s murder, blows his head clean off. A murder that no one seems to want to investigate by the way. Desperate and in need of help, Bradley turns to Norman, who turns to Dylan who fakes Bradley’s death and sends her out of town. He’s such a helpful juvenile delinquent.

With Gil dead, Dylan and his rag tag band of weed whackers get a new boss in the form of Zane. A hot tempered chap who feels that disputes like this should be settled at the end of a gun. As you may expect, this leads to a few problems and some shootouts at the I’m Not OK Corral.

Meanwhile, after being coerced into trying out for a musical with his mom (creepy) Norman meets the hot and naughty Cody, a girl with a troubled home life that ultimately finds Norman intriguing. She leads him down a decadent road that oddly leads to her secret treehouse where she takes advantage of the young Norman. They make an interesting couple, by my goodness they have some turbulent times.

Sadly, Norma is rejected from the musical and her trouble compounds when her brother Caleb comes rolling into town. A brother she accuses of doing some very unsavory things to her; the result being Dylan. This of course sends Dylan into a bit of tail spin and he moves out of the house. In order to defend his mom’s honor, Norman goes to confront Caleb, wherein Norman channels the feelings and emotions of his mother getting abused – a scene that will surely leave you feeling woefully uncomfortable. Utterly confused, Caleb knocks Norman out of the way and adds a few kicks in for good measure. When we next see Norman he is catatonic in a diner with Cody coming to get him. It was of course Cody’s plan for Norman to confront Caleb to send him packing. So far, we haven’t seen Caleb again.

Norma meets some rich and strange new friends and gets introduced to Nick Ford. After making a deal with the devil she’s elected to the city council and is magically handed an environmental report that stops construction of the bypass. Norma seems to be in the middle of Stepford Wives and has a new love interest. A love interest that will run panty-dropping hot, then frostbite cold. Norma doesn’t do well in relationships.

On the drug cartel front, things escalate out of control and Zane goes in guns blazing. Dylan repeatedly tries to talk him out of it, since he obviously knows the truth about Gil’s death, but it falls on deaf ears. Zane barely escapes with his life, but not before killing multiple men from Nick Ford’s side of the house. This will not go unpunished and heads on a pike will be demanded.

Sheriff Romero, or rather his new Deputy is hot on the trail for the murderer of Emma Watson and finds a match to the DNA they took off Norman when they investigated him for the murder of Cody’s father. Norman put a damper on their relationship when dad got hostile with his lady friend and thusly Norman sent dad tumbling down the stairs to the sound of crunching bones. But this proves that Norman did indeed sleep with his teacher the night she was killed.

Nick Ford feels the best way to settle the dispute between the rival drug families is to meet with Dylan. He goes through Norma to set up the meeting and demonstrates his power and influence over her. Nick wants Zane out of the way and wants Dylan to handle it. Dylan isn’t quite on board so Nick uses a power play of kidnapping Norman to sweeten the deal. Norman spends a night in the box and when the henchman come to feed and water him they discover the newspaper clipping of Emma Watson’s death and the string of pearls.

With the new motivation, Dylan does what he can to get rid of Zane, but Zane is too heavily armed and Dylan can’t get the job done. He explains the situation to Nick who no longer feels Dylan has any use to him. With gun drawn, Nick looks to dispatch Dylan who feels he has to defend himself and uses the power of the fireplace poker as his weapon of choice. Dylan ends up dealing a fatal blow to the head and quickly realizing the sack full of shite he’s found himself in, makes a very hasty retreat out the side door.

Finally, we have Norman, locked in a box in parts unknown coming to terms with his situation. The night of Miss Watson’s murder begins to play out in his mind and at least according to Norman’s interpretation of events, we see her seduce him. She wears quite a fetching outfit and in a slow, seductive style she lures him to bed. The moment is intermixed with Norma telling Norman to stop and that it’s wrong and Miss Watson is a bad person for doing this. It ultimately ends with Norman, a knife and Miss Watson’s throat. And this right after he’s finished himself off inside her leaving a dastardly trail of evidence. What a mess on multiple levels!

Norman leaves the bloody scene, but not before taking a strand of pearls from Miss Watson’s nightstand. Souvenir of the night? Either way, we fade out as Norman is left to rot in the box, in the rain, without his family knowing where he is. Dylan didn’t quite get that written down before cracking Nick in the skull.

So we have Dylan on the run because he just killed he head of the rival drug cartel, Norman locked in a box, in the woods without anyone knowing where he is and perhaps coming to the realization he killed his teach, Norma in a fit of hysterics because she doesn’t know where Norman is, Emma is on the outs because no one will put their trust in her, and let’s not forget that Sheriff Romero wants Norman for questioning in the murder of Emma Watson. He’s pretty sure he just sent an innocent man to prison.

Things are unravelling quite badly for the Bates family. Seems the whole family has gotten themselves in quite a bind. Where oh where do we go from here?

Bates Motel – Kicking and Screaming to the Season Finale

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