Bates Motel: Underwater, Review
Another lovely tour through the one motel that you'd absolutely never want to stay at. Unless you like shower scenes...
Wow, Norma, you just can’t catch a break.
First you buy a sex slave ring motel. Then you get raped. Then you get involved with the other runner of the sex slave ring, who has to be killed by your son. Then there’s your ex-lover’s decomposing body in your bed. Now Creepnathy is just stalking you with flowers and drive bys and you just want to move. But your adolescent cum serial killer son doesn’t want to move and is being all emo with his creepy taxidermed dog Juno. Ugh.
Man, it really is hard to be a single mother, huh.
The episode opens with Norma talking to the Sheriff about the body in her bed. She tells him about Jake Abernathy. He stands there and asks short questions. Best line of the night: “Why do crazy people keep gravitating towards me?”
Awkward silence as everyone in their head goes, “….well, crazy lady…”
As Norman and Dylan haul Norma’s mattress out, she follows them then discovers Dylan’s trimmers/aka the guests who are staying in her motel are smoking pot on the motel porch. She reads them the riot act and then has a huge mental breakdown and tells them to stop smoking pot already.
They all take a mental collective step back from her and stop smoking. Good move, guys. Good move.
She then interrogates Dylan about what those workers actually do. He replies, all brilliance, “stuff.” She then says she hates this town and declares they’re moving!
Yeah! Go Norma!
Meanwhile, Norman has a dream he drowns Bradley in the bathtub. When he wakes up, he doesn’t particularly look disturbed by it.
Yeaaaahhh there’s definitely something wrong with Norman.
Norma wakes in the morning, strides down to the motel office and finds Emma there early, sorting stuff. She tells her to stop organizing, but to make sure the guests don’t smoke pot in or around the motel. Emma’s eyes get huge. “Be authoritative,” Norma instructs her. Yep, cuz the shy, terminally ill girl can totally “bust it up.” Norma then receives flowers from—who else—Creepnathy. Except he doesn’t sign his name, and when she calls the Sheriff’s office to report it, she sounds crazy because they are just flowers. With a card that says, “see you soon”.Oh, Norma, Norma, Norma.
Dylan runs into Bradley in town. They have subtextual sex vibes. She asks him to take her to her dad’s office, as a “my dad died, I’m a poor, sad pretty girl”. He, the sucker, says yes.
BTW, Bradley’s dad, if you remember, died in the warehouse fire, and Gil, Dylan/Bradley’s dad’s boss, is not too keen on Bradley’s dad or anyone related to him. Dylan figures this out, but gets access to the office anyways.
In another part of town, Norma confronts the realtor (Matt) about the sucky Motel he sold her. She demands they get put on the market again and an open house on Sunday. He, faced with the storm that is Norma, quickly agrees.
At school, Norman sees a large sign heralding the winter formal. He runs into his language arts teacher and they bond. She tells him a short story he wrote is super good and she wants to submit it for publication. Also, she says, good work with the straight A’s! He smiles. She wants to work on the story with him after school. He says yes, of course. She goes on and on and on about how well he’s doing now.
Jeez, last week he pushed you, you called in the principal and the both of you told Norma how socially maladjusted Norman is. Why the sudden 360? You got the hots for your student, Mary K?
Norma, cleaning the motel, spots the Creepnathy Cadillac. Yep. He’s officially stalking her now. She goes to her computer and searches for the safest cities in America. One in Hawaii comes up.
Norman gets home, toting his now stuffed dog Juno under his arm. Norma goes out to tell him how crazy the town is, and is stopped short by the dead dog under his arm. She tries to be positive. It’s an effort. He makes a stab at hinting how he doesn’t want to move—he really likes the school, he’s getting good grades… She brushes it off.
Sorry, Norman.
In his room, Norman searches for the meaning of drowning people in dreams. Dylan walks by, sees the stuffed dog on Norman’s bed, and tells him it’s outright weird. Dylan then sees what Norman is searching. He asks who Norman drowned in his dream. Norman, after much hemming and hawing, says it was Bradley. Dylan says, “you wouldn’t really hurt anyone, would you?” Norman replies of course not. He never wants to hurt anyone. Except, you know, Dylan sometimes, hahahaha. Dylan laughs weakly at the joke, looks warily at his crazy brother and backs out. Slowly.
Emma catches one of the workers smoking pot. She gets him to put it out and makes a good impression. Looks like pot workers are suckers for cute, brunette, terminally-ill high school students.
Later, Norman and his teacher continue to bond over his short story after school. She asks about where he got the idea of a man burning from the inside. Like, literally, burning—there’s a line about choking on smoke. He doesn’t know. She stares deeply into his eyes, and…tells him she’s a sucker for good writing.
Bet that’s not all you’re a sucker for, sweetheart, heh, heh, heh.
She also says he should tell his mother to get permission for him to publish the story. Cuz he’s a minor and all.
What? Since when was that a rule?
Bradley and Dylan break into the warehouse. They get shot at and caught by Dylan’s partner. After grumbling, he lets them go into the office. Bradley makes mopey weeps, then finds some letters to her father from some woman named “B” who he had an affair with. She runs out. Dylan runs after her. He comforts her with what is clearly less than a platonic hug.
That night, the sheriff checks in on Norma about her call. They spar a bit. There seems to be some attraction there. He tells her without any solid lead, he can’t do anything. She gets mad and frustrated. Again.
Emma comes to the motel to find a cupcake from pot boy waiting for her with a note. She gobbles it down.
Up at the house, Norman and his mother have a fight. She wants them to move to Hawaii. He doesn’t. He calls her crazy. Then, Emma comes up, high as a kite with an enormous walking stick. Oh, Emma. Doing pot is the first step… to doing more pot.
After taking care of Emma, Norma comes to Norman’s bedroom. She asks if she can sleep there, because her bedroom still creeps her out. He says ok, he’ll sleep on the floor. She says noooo, they can both fit. In the bed. He pauses, then says ok.
Ewwwwwww.
She jumps into bed and then snuggle right up together.
Ewwwwwww.
They make up. All is well. They go to sleep.
Eww. Eww. Ewwwwwwwwww.
The next day, Norman tells his teacher the story doesn’t matter. She gets all upset, telling him he’s deep, and he’s been through stuff, and she knows what that’s like.
Wow, Norman. Way to attract the older ladies.
Later, Norma goes to the realtor’s office, who for no reason at all, suddenly tells her the motel is un-sellable. She’s stuck here. She freaks out and hits him a bunch of times, then gets into her car where Creepnathy pops up from the backseat and puts a gun to her head. Apparently, the deputy she was banging owed him $150k that has gone missing. He thinks Norma has it. He tells her to bring it to him by tomorrow night. She, with a gun to her head, agrees. He leaves.
Oh, Norma. Seriously. You really just can’t catch a break.
Den Of Geek Score: 4 out of 5 stars
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Lisa likes to think of herself as an Expert in Words and Geekery. In a grossly optimistic mood, she even put that on business cards she…