Shower power
We take a look through Norman’s peep hole to see what’s up in the creepy new season of Bates Motel.
Right from the start, Bates Motel (2013- current) fans have been waiting for the plot to follow Psycho, the 1960 film on which it’s based. Norman (Freddie Highmore) kills his mother Norma (Vera Farmiga) and preserves her corpse, then driven by his alternative personality of the sexually repressive “Mother”, Norman murders Marion Crane (popstar Rihanna) when she arouses him and therefore rouses Mother’s fury. So when Norman offed his mom at the end of season 4 in May 2016, we knew it wasn’t the end of her. But predictable isn’t boring – the show shocks the most by being touching at its most grotesque, like when Norman rests his head on the lap of his mom’s frozen corpse in the season 5 première on Wednesday 5 April. Even when we think that we know it all, we don’t!
PSYCHO VS PSYCHO
With Bates Motel arriving at the shock- ing events from Psycho at last, series co- creator and writer Kerry Ehrin warns that “this final season isn’t going to be a retelling of Psycho, but it is going to travel through Psycho. We are going to see certain things from the film, certain characters and scenes, but you are also going to see things you didn’t see in the movie. You’re going to see things that were offscreen. It’s like a collision.”
BATES & SWITCH
For example, from season 1, the series has made a point of laying the “whatever is wrong with Norman” issue at the feet not just of a smother-mother, but an abusive dad too. And that will be paying off as Bates Motel twists the Marion Crane/Sam Loomis (Austin Nichols) thread of the story. Not only do we have the excitement of Rihanna as Norman’s infamous shower-murder victim Marion, but that scene itself will be transformed with a nod and a wink in episode 6 (10 May), because while Mother disapproves of Marion, Norman himself might disapprove of Marion’s lover Sam even more. We can’t wait!