Bates Motel - Trust Me

Goood Eeeevening , Addicts. Welcome to a new chapter of Creepsville, USA, also known as Bates Motel. Our lovely little show just got picked up for a second season! So we’ll be treated to more disturbing things that make us feel the need to shower. Previously we saw that Norman’s keepsake of Keith’s rape-belt was found by Officer Shelby when the cops raided the house. Mother then takes an active role in protecting herself by seducing Shelby and sleeping with him. He says how much he wants to protect her and yada yada yada. He’s a little too in love already for only having been on one date. Dylan is trying to reach out to Norman and save him from Mother. Mother then sends Norman to go find the belt to protect them. When he gets there he goes to the basement and finds the Asian girl with needle marks all over her arms, chained to the floor.

We start in a bit of a rewind. Norman is once again told by Mother that he knows what he has to do. But this time when Norman sits up, Mother’s not there. Hmm…Norman does his slow zombie walk down the street to get to Shelby’s place, and we see the biker pass him on the road, but this time they zoom in on the biker and its Dylan. He turns the bike around and follows Norman to Shelby’s house. We get flashes of what we’ve already seen of Norman finding in the house. Dylan sees Shelby pull up to the house. Now we get to find out how Norman is supposed to get out of that house. Shelby goes in, gets the dog to stop it barking and notices the light on in the bedroom. He’s suspicious. Norman tries to help the girl, but there’s no time. She jumps after him and is trying to escape. Dylan rings the door bell and tries to occupy Shelby’s attention and time by saying his bike ran out of gas and he’s looking for a gas station.  Shelby can hear a bit of commotion down in the basement, so he brushes off Dylan and this gives Norman just enough time to get out. He never sees that Dylan helped him though. I have a feeling that Dylan won’t survive for long.

Norman runs up the stairs to the house and Dylan stops him and wants to know why he was in the house. Norman tries to play it off that he was just out for a run, in his regular clothes, in the middle of the night. Come on, dude. Dylan tells him he knocked on the door and saved Norman’s ass. Norman says he’s not in any kind of trouble.

The next day Norman walks to Emma’s house so they can walk to school together. Aww, he’s cute. The door opens and it’s Emma’s dad, the Brit. Dad immediately knows who he is, but says that Emma has the flu and with her condition she’ll be home from school for at least a week. He says the word “bug” in the most amazingly British way, and I love it. Norman asks if he can see her, but Dad says no. As Norman is walking away, Dad comes out and tells him that even though he probably shouldn’t say, his daughter has quite a crush on him.  Come on, Dad! Don’t do that to your daughter! That sucks! He then tells Norman that she’s not strong, she’s young and fairly regular. “Please, be decent.” Norman assures him that he is.

Mother and Shelby meet up in the woods to knock some boots. They decide to go back to the motel and do it though, which is weird. Why didn’t you just go to the motel directly? They even take Shelby’s car! It’s not like they were trying to prevent people from seeing that his car was there. Weird. So they have the sex and can hardly get enough of each other. Post-coital Mother looks down on Shelby and says, “You’re awfully pretty. I don’t mean pretty like you’re handsome, I mean pretty like when you look at an old woman and you might find her really beautiful.” That’s one of the weirdest things you could say to someone.

Mother walks out the door and sees Dylan sitting on the bench. He gives her some shit about the linens. Then Shelby walks out and there’s an “oh shit!” moment between the two of them. Neither want to admit that they’ve met before. They say nothing. They leave to go get her car. It’s tense between the two of them.

Norman is washing the window of one of the motel rooms when he sees Bradley walking down the street putting up a white cross where her Dad’s car crashed. So Daddy Bradley is no more.

Those are ridiculous sunglasses for her face. I hate Ray-bands to begin with, but those look stupidly big on her face. They’re too hipster for her trendy expensive clothed style. She cries and Norman comforts her, because like he said, he’s decent.

Mother comes into the kitchen and Dylan is putting away groceries he bought for the house. He says since he’s living there for a while, he should contribute. When Mother gives him no response but eye rolls, he says, “You’re a real piece of work, Norma!” Dylan then advises her that she shouldn’t see too much of Shelby because he doesn’t trust him. See, Dylan is the good guy. Even when he hates Mother as much as he does, he’s trying to look out for his family.

Norman went and rented some videos (another hint at the vintage, since people don’t really do that much anymore. Do they?)  and as he’s walking back he sees Shelby has someone pulled over. He pulls his hood up over his head, but Shelby calls after him. Norman ignores it and keeps walking, down some seedy alley. Shelby catches up to him and surprises him. Norman explains what he’s doing and Shelby says that he’s a sensitive kid who’s been through a lot. He says how much he cares for Mother and that it would behoove them to spend some time together. He offers to take him fishing at his “secret spot” and refuses to take no for an answer. Norman agrees but it’s clear he doesn’t want to.

Mother is looking on the internet and we see that White Pines Bay is in Oregon! Mystery solved! Norman comes in and tells Mother about the woman in Shelby’s basement. He tells her that he was part of some sex slave ring with Keith Sommers and about the journal he found in the room. Mother wants to know why Norman would go into Shelby’s house. Norman says that she told him to, that she sat on his bed and told him that he knew what he needed to do. Mother tells him that he hears and sees things that aren’t there, and that he’s been this way for a while.  Is she right? Was it all in his head? And if so, WTF is in his head?!

Mother is sleeping over at Shelby’s and when he’s asleep she goes to venture down into the basement. When she finds the room the girl was in, there’s nothing but boxes and some wood that’s being cut up. Hmm…Then Shelby scares the hell out of me and slinks his way in. He wants to know why she’s in the basement in the middle of the night. She said she was snooping.

Norman is putting on socks when he sees bruise marks all over his ankle like he’s been bound by something. At least that’s the only assumption I can make, because I don’t remember him ever doing substation injury to his leg. Maybe when he fell out of the window at Shelby’s? He then goes to talk to Mother and wants to know where she was last night. Norman is offended when she says she made an extra turkey pot pie and took it to Shelby, since that’s his favorite dish. He shames her for staying out so late. Mother tells him that he’s jealous that she’s spending time with someone else. She says that because of his father he doesn’t actually think men can be nice people. Norman brings up the girl in the basement again and Mother tells him that she saw nothing when she went down there.  He pulls down his sock to show the bruise and says it came from the girl grabbing his ankle. Holy shit, that emaciated, drugged up has really strong hands if that’s the case! I don’t really see the bruise but it could just be my angle. Mother doesn’t say anything, she just rolls her eyes. She tells him he is going fishing, end of story.

It is a pretty location. Norman seems very uncomfortable. They talk about his relationship with his Dad and how it was abusive. Norman denies that his father hurt him. Shelby tries to explain that they’ll be a part of each other’s live whether he likes it or not because he protects his mother every day. He gets real close and says that it has to start with trust, and he asks if Norman can trust him. Norman agrees. “That’s good; that makes me happy.” Shelby’s phone rings and the fishing trip is over early.

Shelby goes down to the docks and meets Romero. “It’s Keith. It’s his watch, his ugly watch.”

Looks like Mother is in for it now.

Norman and Bradley go out for ice-cream and she’s still wearing those ugly ass Ray-Bands, even inside. She’s grateful for Norman and his lack of trying to force her to cheer up. I can appreciate that. Sometimes you just want to let it all be for just a while. Sometimes your body and soul just need to curl up under the covers and recover for a little bit. That’s perfectly fine. They talk about how much it sucks that her Dad is dead and how weird it is that someone you’ve known your whole life is just suddenly gone. Bradley tells him she likes being with him. She then wonders out loud who’s hand they found in the lake. Norman can barely swallow. Bradley doesn’t know anymore than it’s a man’s hand.

Norman rushes home and is already screaming out for Mother before he gets in the house. He tells her about the hand. “It’s just a hand; it could be a million different hands.” What? How many human hands do you think they find on a daily basis? The doorbell rings and its Shelby and another officer. They’re here to take her downtown to meet with Romero.  

Romero questions her about what happened that night, she says she already told him. Romero says they found carpet fibers in the band of the watch that they’ll match to the carpet they were pulling up the night of the murder. Mother takes a deep breath and says, “Well enjoy doing that.” She does not help herself at all. Romero says he knows people and he can tell she did it. He knows that Keith was involved in a lot of things that could’ve killed him, but the house was a thorn in his side and he was the sort of person that would try and do something in retaliation. Why were you friends with this guy, Romero? You just said you know he would a likely candidate to be murdered, you knew he would do something like what he did and yet you’re hell bent on getting justice for him? He asks her where she dumped the carpet. Mother assumed he had the carpet, and she doesn’t remember where she dumped it. Again, not helping yourself. Why not tell them the wrong one, since there are only 3 dump locations?  

Norman gives Mother some attitude about how he knows the carpet won’t be where they left it. He gives her a “whatever” statement and she gets mad. She asks if Dylan has gotten to him and changed his attitude. So is that really the town dump? Because, that’s a dumpster, not a dump. She opens the top and it’s empty. She sees the number on the side of the container and calls and gives a fake story about losing a wedding ring and wants to know where the trash from that dumpster would get taken.

They arrive and it’s locked. Of course it’s locked. Why would it not be? It’s late at night.

Mother climbs the fence and starts shaking it. “It’s locked in there and I can’t get it! What am I gonna do!?” Norman scolds her and says she should’ve listened to him and called the police like he told her to that night. Norman says she had every right to defend herself. “But I didn’t defend myself, I killed the crap outta that guy!” Ok, that was a bad line of dialogue. Mother explains that her whole life she’s had to put up with things, and she didn’t want to anymore.

She’s back in her room sobbing. There’s an open vent between Norman’s room and hers and he can hear how hard she’s crying, which makes him cry. So he goes outside to cool off and runs into Dylan. He starts to walk away but Dylan tells him to come back. He offers him some Jack Daniels and Norman takes a swig and sputters. Dylan apologizes for leaving Norman all alone with Mother so long ago. Norman then sits down and confesses about the rape and the murder. Norman admits to being scared and that he has been since the day they moved in. He then confesses about the belt that he kept and that Shelby has it now. Dylan understands that’s why he broke into the house. Norman just keeps on going with the truth-train and talks about the Asian girl that’s trapped. Dylan says he’s going to help him. Bradley texts him and Dylan tells him to text her back and say he’s coming over. It takes some convincing but he does. A few seconds later she responds with “Cool, everyone’s asleep, at my house, come over.”  Dylan tells him to be a 17-year-old for 5 minutes. He sort of pushes him into it, but Norman does go.

Bradley opens the door for him and they go upstairs. “Where’s your mom?” That’s not what you ask! He walks in and he’s uncomfortable. She invites him onto the bed and she thanks him for all his help. She says she’s tired of being sad and she wants to feel something else for a little while. And then she thanks him for his help, if you get what I mean.

They give a ridiculous artsy montage of sexy sex in case you didn’t. These are supposed to be high school kids, remember. It seems sort of wrong on productions behalf.

Mother wakes up from her cried-to-sleep stupor and goes to check for Norman. When she can’t find him, she sees Dylan in the hallway. Dylan tells her he’s with a girl. Mother demands more information. Dylan tells her exactly what’s up and that Norman deserves to get laid for having to put up with her crazy ass. Dylan says he talked to Norman and he knows all about her crazy ass. “Norman would never say anything bad about me!” That’s what Dylan says that Norman said enough for him to be taken away from her. All the fight goes out of Mother and she says declares that no one will take Norman away from her. “That girl is, right now!” And they start fighting. Dylan pins her to the wall and the doorbell rings.

Mother runs down the stairs thinking its Norman. Why would your son ring the doorbell?

Nope! It’s Romero, and she’s being put under arrest for the murder of Keith Sommers. She gives a dirty look to Shelby. Fade to black. Oh man!

Next week Shelby tells Mother they can’t see each other for a while because it’s not safe. Mother is dealing with being charged for murder. Mother is pissed at Norman for siding with Dylan. Oh my. The suspense is far higher here than it is on The Following, then again we’re only 4 episodes in. I’m still hooked though! Any others?