Bates Motel: Season 1, Episode 8 "A Boy and His Dog"

Bates Motel: Season 1, Episode 8 "A Boy and His Dog"

May 06, 2013


As we move towards the finale (two episodes away), I was really surprised how subdued this episode was. The episode was designed for character-building and I’ll take that any day of the week. Some fans were disappointed because there are really no big horror shocks or intense action scenes, although there is a satisfying cliffhanger. As I said, this episode is all about relationships. Norma vs. Norman, Norman vs. Emma, Norman vs. Emma’s father, and Dylan vs. his new partner Remo. Each relationship I mentioned moves the story dynamic in one way or another. I really liked the Norman vs. Will Decody relationship. Last episode, Norman’s dog was killed in an abrupt and manipulative way. So the taxidermy scenes should not have worked well as they did. But Norman has great chemistry with Will Decody, played by Ian Hart. Will teaches Norman the art of taxidermy while also giving him some insight on love. It was quite beautiful to see.



In “A Boy and a Dog,” Norman beings a friendship with Will Decody who teaches him the trade of taxidermy. Meanwhile at school, Emma let slip to the school that Norman had sex with Bradley. The fallout had Norman screaming at his teacher Ms. Watson and running out of class. The school suspends Norman for 3 days and advises Norma to get him psychological help. Norma pleads with Sheriff Romero regarding the town’s planned bypass which would keep customers away. She also begins to stalk Jake Abernathy, who apparently has something to do with the sex slave ring (they are really beating this story into the ground, huh?). Abernathy begins to slowly threaten her. Finally, Dylan and Remo are sent to California where they have to pick up drugs for their boss. However, they don’t seem to like each other.



I enjoyed this episode for what it was. A subtle, more laidback episode. There were some great, hard-hitting moments. Some examples that come to mind are when Emma confesses her love for Norman thus strengthening their relationship. Honestly, I would have personally gone after Emma instead of Bradley, even if she has that disease. Come on, Norman! Also, I love when the school calls out Norma for being too controlling. We all know she is the way she is to protect Norman, but that doesn’t stop her from being possessive, needy, and sometimes incompetent. This is an episode that explores relationships and the ending sets up the last two episodes in an effective manner.



My Grade: A-

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986)

Image
Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986) “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in awhile, you could miss it.” Ah, wise words from our new young friend, Ferris Bueller. In John Hughes’s 1986 film, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off , all Ferris wants to do is take a day and have fun. That is the most simplistic theme the movie has. You can go deeper, but the main takeaway is that it is okay to have fun. That is a motto I have taken to heart. I really loved the film. People consider The Breakfast Club to be Hughes’s best and most important movie. That’s a fine statement to make, but I would personally rank the film number two behind this particular one. The teen characters are instantly relatable, it has a memorable antagonist for the children, and this is basically a thirty-year-old travel guide for Chicago. Just how Woody Allen creates his movies as love letters for New York, this is applicable for John Hughes. A Chicago love letter!   Like all of his films, Hughes wrote...
Read more

The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)

Image
The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) The James Bond franchise is one of those franchises that will never die. It has been going strong since the first movie rolled out in the early 1960’s, and new James Bond movies are still produced today. What makes this series unique is they use multiple actors to play the titular character over the years. They all bring their own gravitas to the role, and each Bond is a different man when compared to each other (although the martini, shaken not stirred and the beautiful women among other things remain a constant.) So my first James Bond review for this blog is 1977’s The Spy Who Loved Me. This wasn’t my first look at the series, but it was my first look at the older movies. I really liked what I saw. This is an old-fashioned story that combines a spy drama and an action-packed war movie into one package. Like many of the older Bond movies, the story can get borderline preposterous. The cheesiness of the plot did come to grow on me after awhile, even...
Read more

Table for Five (1983)

Image
Table for Five (1983) I can guarantee that ninety percent of my readers here have not seen this tear-jerking melodrama 1983’s Table for Five , yet alone heard of it. Hopefully after reading my kind words, you will be somewhat intrigued by this movie. When doing my research for the film, I was shocked to see how vastly underrated the movie is. There are only a few reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, hardly any information on Wikipedia or Google-hardly anything out there in this vast Internet landscape. Then, why on earth is this movie so good? Sure, maybe some folks will say the movie is just a predictable Lifetime TV movie, but honestly it is much more than that. There are some elements that makes this film seem destined for the television at times, but to me it is much more than that. I consider the movie to be an honest, emotional portrayal about fatherhood and family. Directed by Robert Lieberman, this film is about a man named J.P Tannen (Jon Voight) who fails at being fathe...
Read more