Bates Motel: Season 1, Episode 3 "What's Wrong with Norman?"

Bates Motel: Season 1, Episode 3 "What's Wrong with Norman?"

April 01, 2013


What is wrong with Norman, indeed? A mighty fine question in an episode so aptly titled and one that features Freddie Highmore’s Norman Bates showing his psycho tendencies even more. I enjoyed this episode very much, even if not everything makes a whole lot of sense. Freddie Highmore’s portrayal as Norman Bates has been growing on me and I think he finally makes his break in this episode. The whole mystery of the Chinese sex slaves got an added twist here and it results in one heck of a cliffhanger. The show does well depicting the mental breakdown of Norman’s, but the sexual overtones of the show continues. As you might remember, the premiere showed a very gruesome rape scene to Norma and here, we have Norman fantasizing his English teacher in various forms of bondage. Yeah, Norman is messed up. The relationship between Norma and Norman continues to get weirder and the relationship between Norman and Dylan actually gets a little tender when Norman tells Dylan that he cannot recall almost killing him with a meat cleaver.



In this episode, “What’s Wrong with Norman,” Norman is taken to the hospital after he faints during his English test after thinking about all these fantasies about his teacher. The tests come back negative, but Norma refuses to allow Norman to stay the night. Sheriff Romero and his deputies issues a warrant to search the premises, but apparently Norman kept Summer’s belt. Dylan has a new job guarding a marijuana field, the same field that Norman and Emma discovered previously. Emma is obsessed with the marijuana field and Chinese sex slave mystery. She claims the sketch book they found showing what was going on is actually real thanks to a Chinese symbol they discovered in one of the rooms of the motel. Finally, we learn that Deputy Shelby may not be the person he seems as he may be holding on to a horrifying secret.



I really liked this episode. This episode is where we see for the first time that Norman is not in the right state of mind as we can clearly see the darkness that is within him. The one scene that pops into my mind is when he rages at Emma after she suggest they go to the police after they discover the sketch book and the symbol. It was really scary, and it all works thanks to Highmore’s great performance. I did not buy his performance much at first, but this episode proves he might have the chops to pull this off. That cliffhanger the episode leaves us on is a dandy and it makes us wonder what will happen next.



My Grade: A-

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