Episode Title: “Check-Out”
Writer: Liz Tigelaar
Director: John David Coles
Previously on “Bates Motel”:
One of the themes of this week’s “Bates Motel” is power. Who thinks they have power, and who actually has it.
Norma Bates (Vera Farmiga) aspires to having power in her life. But more often than not, she’s helpless to affect anything around her. There’s a freeway bypass coming that will destroy her business and there’s nothing that she can do about it. And when her scumbag rapist brother, Caleb (Kenny Johnson) invades her life, Norma is determined to finally tell him off.
And yet she can’t go through with it. Caleb’s presence alone is enough to make Norma an emotional wreck. Norma just doesn’t have the inner strength to banish this person with all of the harsh words that she can think of at the moment.
But “Mother” has the power, if not the physical strength to pull it off. Norman Bates (Freddie Highmore) is slipping even further into Psycho territory, as his “Mother” persona takes over and he actually seems to feel all of the pain and rage that Norma has directed towards her brother. Although to be fair to Norma, I think that “Mother” is improvising with the murderous rage.
The whole incest angle is very disturbing, but it’s creating some great drama. The final scene between Dylan (Max Thieriot) and Norma was amazingly well played by Thieriot and Farmiga. Dylan finally figures out why his mother would keep her brother’s baby: to escape an even more terrifying situation. To make matters worse, Dylan believes that Norman was in on the secret the whole time and secretly laughing about it with Norma.
Dylan is right about two things: his place on the outskirts of the family makes a lot more sense now that he knows the truth. And Dylan can’t simply move past this revelation. His parents are siblings and he’s a child of incest and rape. Neither of which is easy to live with. Dylan has prided himself on being the sane person in his family. But the cracks are showing now.
There are full spoilers ahead for “Check-Out,” so skip this review if you’re not up to date with “Bates Motel” or else Norman will space out again.
The one thing that surprised me about Caleb is that he turned over Dylan’s money without being asked. Note how Dylan was defensive towards Norma in that scene. For that moment, she was his mom again and Dylan looked particularly offended when he asked if Caleb was calling his mom a liar. Caleb doesn’t even deny having sex with Norma, but he claims that “it wasn’t like that” and that Dylan isn’t his son.
“It wasn’t like that.” Total bulls***. In Caleb’s mind, he may have had Norma’s consent. They both lived in an abusive family and this was Caleb’s escape. But it was Norma’s hell and she was far below the age of consent. Norman has such a hard time processing it that he actually starts to relive it in his head, leading to “Mother’s” emergence later in the episode.
Norman’s newest potential girlfriend, Cody Brennan (Paloma Kwiatowski) gets a close look at Norman’s inner monster. Or did you miss the scene when he menacingly raised a crowbar at Cody when he demanded that they leave Caleb’s hotel? Because Cody sure seems to have missed it. In that moment, Cody looked alarmed and she quickly gave in to Norman. But rather than taking the cue to stay far away from this nutcase, Cody answers the call when Norman has basically checked out of his own body and not even “Mother” is in the driver’s seat.
“Mother’s” confrontation with Caleb was also intense, as Norman’s alterego prepared to kill his uncle. It made sense that Caleb easily overpowered Norman. And he may be the first person to have fully seen just how crazy Norman is. It’s hard to see how Caleb can stick around after witnessing that display. Will this be one of the few shows in which Kenny Johnson isn’t murdered by a sudden explosion?
In the midst of this turmoil, Norma is courted by George Heldens (Michael Vartan). But the real fire for Norma is coming from George’s sister, Christine (Rebecca Creskoff). There’s more chemistry between Norma and Christine than there is between Norma and George. Christine seems almost too interested in Norma, as in obsessively so. Rather than accept a brush off from Norma, Christine literally shows up at Norma’s home and insists that she accompany her brother, her husband and herself for dinner.
There’s only so much casual conversation that Norma can fake, and we see her struggle to stay composed after Christine’s husband keeps bringing up the bypass. Norma’s problem… well, one of her problems, is that she leans too heavily on Norman for emotional support. More creepiness between them this week includes Norman walking in on Norma while she is changing before lying in bed together while he comforts her.
In the subplot, Dylan’s new crazy drug boss, Zane Carpenter (Michael Eklund) once again proves that he’s not long for this world when he misinterprets a relatively friendly warning from Sheriff Alex Romero (Nestor Carbonell) as a challenge. Zane apparently accepts the challenge by burning down Romero’s home.
Not. Smart.
Of course, Zane doesn’t know that Romero is more than capable of murder to protect himself and his town. Just ask the late Jake Abernathy.
The other subplot of the week dealt with Emma Decody (Olivia Cooke) making more bad life choices with the guy who once gave her a pot cupcake. Cooke is a very endearing actress and Emma’s walk of shame in the episode is pretty amusing. As was Emma’s relief when she learned that she didn’t actually sleep with the guy. Only Norma notices that Emma is at the hotel way too early, but she’s too preoccupied with Dylan to even think about why Emma was there.
I’m not as sold on Emma’s potential boyfriend, as he’s pretty 1.5 dimensional at the moment. He gets a .5 just for not taking advantage of Emma, but that doesn’t mean that he should become a recurring character. I find him kind of annoying.
Regardless, this was start to finish, the best episode of the season so far. The conflict between Norma and Caleb and Norma and Dylan has produced some fantastically dark emotional beats and a few very powerful scenes. Right now, “Bates Motel” could work just as a family drama alone.
But it will never just be a family drama as long as Norman’s running around with knife and slipping into his ultimate role.
