The Bates Motel - First You Dream, Then You Die

 The Bates Motel

 I just wanted to throw some quick thoughts up here since the show’s pilot was on my mind since I have advertised it on my blog, considering I’m such a fan of Hitchcock’s Psycho and the subsequent films thereafter.

I really, really love the casting of Vera Farmiga as Norma Bates. I will loyally follow this series as long as she’s in the picture; I thought she was damn good. I didn’t think the scene with the rape from the former owner of the land, house, and motel was necessary. It was, for cable television not premium, pretty potently awful, but her reaction to it all, Farmiga excels. She is obviously shaken, but because she’s such a fierce character, so forward-thinking, the rape scene at least shows how Norma can respond to a crisis of severe magnitude.

First You Dream, Then You Die opens with Norman finding his father’s dead body. Not overly explained, but it seems as if he might have committed suicide. That, or Norma killed him. This is up for debate. She doesn’t seem that bothered at all that he’s dead and is more comforting to Norman instead of shocked into her own traumatic weeping over such a devastating event. It propels them into purchasing the motel, house on the hill, and land surrounding it. This first episode sets up the show and gives us a first indication as to how much overall control Norma has over her son. He is devoted to her but when he attempts to stray from the henhouse, Mama Chicken pitches a fit. He wants to “go study” with some teen girls from his school. She immediately responds by denying the girls (who are, for whatever reason, interested in Norman, coming to his house, wondering if he can “go study” with them) her son’s company. Norman does so behind her back, going with the girls to a party (he literally does believe they want him to study with them), and hangs out at the place where alarmingly so many teens are gathered in bunches, some dancing to the techno and neon, with plenty of the beer surfacing about. Bradley (Nicola Peltz) is the cute girl who really seems to dig Norman; she always interested in him, conversing with him. There’s another girl, dependent on an oxygen tank, who he later meets in school after vomiting in a school garbage can. She also has googly-eyes for Norman. I wasn’t expecting such female interest in a rather awkward misfit with Mommy issues. I have to say, I find it refreshing. He hasn’t even been a victim of bullying yet. That’s coming, I imagine.

Farmiga has that “hot milf” factor going for her, to use what many might consider a crude description. She is a very attractive woman and so I imagine we might see some romantic/lustful encounters with men passing through her life; if just for the tense dramatics that will result in terms of Norman’s inability to handle another man vying for his mama’s affections. I figure the deputy we see in this first episode will perhaps be her first suitor. Just going by the young man making out with her passionately in one of the previews for the show detailing various clips already happening or yet to come, it appears to be him. Young hunks are attracted to women of an older age if just because of their sexual experience. And Farmiga is certainly the kind of woman that would appeal to younger men.

I think, easily, that the best sequence of events is the murder and “clean-up” of evil, sadistic, raging hick, Summers (W Earl Brown), interrupted by the sheriff and his deputy (Nestor Carbonell & Mike Vogel), passing by because they see the lights on at the Bates Motel. A dead body in a certain bathroom (yes, that room) bathtub hidden by a shower curtain as the sheriff takes a leak (when Norma tells him the bathroom “is broke”, the sheriff tells her you just have the rattle the handle a little after you flush it) with Norma and Norman internally freaking out and trying to keep their cool with the deputy inside. The sound of urinating with Norma and Norman eyeing each other in acknowledgment that this situation is increasingly worrisome sets the sequence off.  

Interesting how distrusting the sheriff is, how he seems to be interrogating Norma at her own place of residence and business for no real reason, and there’s a tension there that I think adds a lot to the whole sequence. I don’t think anyone even considered she’d be caught, but it was more about seeing how Norma would get herself out of the fix. She does so impressively.

 

You’re like a beautiful, deep still lake in the middle of an ugly world.

The cynic in me believes there’s a prank in place and these girls (and probably their popular beaus) are setting Norman up for a humiliating incident that will scar him against females in general for his life (besides his mother). I would like to think Bradley is sincere, but it’s an experience that girls as pretty as her (and her friends) typically lead guys like Norman (not the usual handsome jock or preppy dude, shallow and so into themselves and their status in high school) along only to leave them in a heap of humiliation, having to rise from the ashes of such treatment once adulthood hits and life outside school possibly (or maybe not) opens doors shut on certain “outside” teenagers. Freddie Highmore plays Norman, I thought, gullible and trusting, allowing the girls (I guess, I understand why he would; these girls showing an interest in him without Norman doing any work to gain their attention, a teenage young man would be hard-pressed not to enjoy it, even if he does so in a quiet ease) to influence him to have a ride in their car to school, and then later joining them on a trip to the aforementioned party. Bradley does seem into him; I still have a suspicion it is to embarrass him later.

Like I said, Farmiga is, to me, absolutely captivating anytime she’s on screen. We are treated to the domineering, me first, everybody else is not important Norma when Norman is inspired by a teacher (who seems a little touchy feely interested in Norman) to join the track team, brought after she had prepared a nice meal at supper for them. Norma gets so upset she loses her appetite, storming off, believing he should be more invested in helping her get the motel off the ground instead of worrying about school extracurricular activities. It is early into the process where she settles Norman into totally devoting mind, body, and soul to her. It is a process of destruction, though. We know the outcome, but with carte blanche (I’m guessing, to a certain degree…) given to those behind this show, I’m anxious to see where the writers take the characters. I guess we’ll see.

 

We see at the conclusion of this episode, someone attending to a chained girl with a hypodermic of drug, plenty of holes showing the proof that she has been held captive for some time. It is just a little seed planted to leave us curious as to what the hell this means. That hook; I'm such the fish, because the bait certainly left me intrigued.