First You Dream, Then You Die
or
How I Killed My Mother
We’ve been covering the premiere of Carlton Cuse and Anthony Cipriano‘s, ‘Bates Motel’ since we first heard about it. Needless to say, I had high expectations of the modern day prequel to Alfred Hitchcock’s, Psycho. At first glance, the show would appear that it was intended to take place in the 50’s. We see a young Norman Bates, played by Freddie Highmore, asleep in his bedroom. In the background, Cary Grant‘s ‘His Girl Friday‘ plays on an old TV. Norman awakens and heads downstairs to his empty kitchen, feeling eerie that something is out of place. As he makes his way to the garage, his suspicions are correct as he sees his father lying in a pool of blood. Norman gets his mother Norma, played by Vera Farmiga, from the shower and takes her to her deceased husband. What strikes me in the scene isn’t the death, but just how calm Norma is; as in she knew that her husband is dead, and possibly was the one who killed him.
I don’t wanna go into a play-by-play of the episode. If you want to, read someone else’s recap. Or better yet, watch the episode, which you can HERE.
I wanna talk about certain things that I observed.
-First, Norman and Norma are completely creepy together. The part where Norman compares their love to that scene in Jane Eyre had my spider-sense tingling. My thought is that by the end of the season, they come very close to having sex. Sorry, it’s gross, but they set it up that way.
– Norman has a brother played by Max Thieriot who we’ll be meeting in the next episode. The kid sounded like a complete loser, hitting his mom up for money. I have a feeling he doesn’t make it the entire series if we don’t see him in Pyscho at all. Also, where is Norma getting all this money, and why did she want to open up a Motel in the first place? I just kinda let those facts slide though, because I thought the show was good.
– I was really shocked they did a rape scene. I’m glad the guy got stabbed, but I thought it would have been more implied. Nope, they went there.
– I have a feeling that Norman will be getting a little TOO close to his Language Arts teacher played by Keegan Conner Tracy. I also have a feeling that the girl with cystic fibrosis, Emma DeCody (Olivia Cooke), will begin dating Norman and possibly solving the mysteries surrounding the town and Motel.
– As much as I enjoy Nestor Carbondell‘s sheriff and guy-liner, I thought it was a little too much that he instantly didn’t trust Mrs. Bates and wanted to go snooping around the Motel. His deputy played by Mike Vogel, would have been just as fine to go snooping around Norma’s underthings.
– Norman coming across that “Illustrated Guide to Torturing Women” was a little too convenient.
– Jeff Wadlow, director of Kick-Ass 2, is a writer and producer on the show!
Overall, I was a fan of the show. I was on edge through a lot of it and am excited to see where they take the show next. Its obvious that the town has a lot more going on behind the scenes and they’ve set the tone to explore it.
Rating: A
Here’s a preview of the next episode:
Bates Motel airs Mondays at 10pm on A&E.
~Chaz
