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While Norma spends the episode dealing with the day-to-day while having more and more bizarre roadblocks thrown in her face -- murder evidence discovered in her home, Norman having random violent blackouts, possible sex slavers trading sex for paternalistic offers of help -- everybody else is feeling pretty okay. Dylan's got a job guarding the marijuana fields, which indirectly causes a fairly touching welling-up about how twisted his little brother's gotten. In fact the only person not in a fairly great mood this week is Norman himself.
One concerned touch from Miss Watson and Norman abruptly blacks out, mashing her odd cuteness and his weird sex torture comic together into a full-on seizure that lands him in the hospital. Norma's very careful to make sure everybody knows he's not constantly doing this and going into murderous fugue states, so that's not suspicious at all, and in the course of the day she also learns that Keith Summers's toolbelt/raping kit -- squirreled away by Norman in a moment of anticipatory creepiness -- was discovered during a warranted search, and then kept secret by Deputy Shelby.
So that's good, then, right? I dunno. Although Norma was clearly planning on sleeping with him anyway, Norman does have a point about the leverage this now gives the good Deputy over them both -- not a thing I can see Norma Bates suffering for long -- and you can see his weird little gears turning: If Norma sleeps with Shelby because of the belt, then he has engineered his own romantic demise, because either she's whoring herself out for him, or she isn't, but either way he's no longer the man in her life. It's pretty sad...
But then immediately pretty awesome, as a ghostly Norma appears to him in his bedroom, compares this situation to whatever hold Norman's father had on them before he died under those ever less mysterious circumstances, reminds Norman that everything is his fault, and then sends him to the Deputy's house to steal the toolbelt back. The house becomes stranger and stranger as Norman investigates, and in the episode's last moments -- as Shelby's arriving home -- Norman discovers that fluorescent-light heroin chick from the end of the pilot, chained up in ol' Shelby's basement for the purposes of sex slavery.
So while he begins the episode crushin' on Bradley and ignoring -- and then openly abusing -- the ever-lovely Emma Decody, by the end of the hour she's got him convinced enough that you knew what he'd probably be walking into/imagining at Shelby's house. But the really lovely twist here is how honest, as usual, Emma Decody is: She chose him because he's a weirdo and she's lonely, she felt perfectly fine pimping out these imaginary dead girls for his company until they turned out to be real, at which point she kind of unspooled -- and she's pretty clearly in no denial about exactly why young dead girls fascinate her so much. She doesn't hold a grudge about Norman's stressed-out bitchiness (which is a thing to behold), but it seems she'll be taking less cues from his direction now that she knows just how prissy His Highness can get.
Week: Nobody believes Norman about the sex slave in his mom's new boyfriend's basement -- except, it looks like, possibly Dylan, who seems likely at this point to either be turned into a man by this show or brutally murdered or, you know, both. Knowing Norma knows a lot more about Norman's 99 psychological problems than she lets on -- and that sometimes he'll just go ahead and hallucinate conversations for himself -- really moves the titular question to the forefront, without taking away anything from the deliberate way it's exploring the many other problems of the many other people on the show who are not Norman but for all we know are worse off than Norman.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!PREVIOUSLY
Dylan Bates has moved into his mother's house, with no idea that on their first night there, Norma and Norman were forced to kill a man and toss him in the lake. The cops are suspicious, which is tricky because in White Pine Bay the law works a little more Old Testament than it does anywhere else -- which means Norma could well find herself stabbed and tossed in the lake too, if her alliance with Deputy Alex Shelby doesn't work out. While looking for the possibly imaginary dead Chinese sex slaves detailed in a mysterious illustrated journal, Norman and Emma Decody came upon some of the marijuana fields that provide the town's economy its liquidity, and found a shed where one of the girls may have been buried.
FOYER
Dylan bros out with the gun he needs for his new job -- obviously, guarding the pot fields -- by posing in the mirror in a variety of uncomfortably Steven Seagal-type ways. The goodness of Dylan -- and his probable path toward being a man -- are delineated here: He's a boy, but dangerous; he enjoys the power of the gun, but finds it uncomfortable no matter where he shoves it down his pants. He manages to go from off-putting to fairly sympathetic over the course of the scene and even moreso the episode, but it's interesting that a house and story with so much emphasis on men and women spends so much time literally on the symbolic value of the ultimate destructive phallic symbol here: Does the gun make him a man? What exactly does it do?
KITCHEN
Dylan: "Good morning, Mr. and Mrs. Bates."
Norma and Norman roll eyes, instinctively irritated less by his words -- and blithely ignoring the connotation because he just doesn't get it -- than the fact that he's there to say them. Norma asks him to handle a delivery for later (the replacement carpets for the four units they tore up in the middle of the night) and he proudly demurs.
Dylan: "You know, I'd love to. But I have... a job."
They can't hear the pride in his voice, so they don't know to congratulate him. It would never occur to them that he'd try to impress them or find a way inside: He belongs to the world of men, and everything he says and does chafes them, because he's brought it here. So he gives a "fuck me for hoping" finger to the world and sets off for this job. They don't even notice that he's gone, except for the relief.
SCHOOL
Norman doesn't want to chat at his locker, but lovely Emma is having a time, sputtering over half-tears and generally acting a mess.
Emma: "Okay, I'll do bullet points. A) I'm terrified those guys with guns are gonna try and find us because we saw their stupid pot field. And B) I feel so incredibly guilty I couldn't sleep."
Norman: "Guilty? It's not like we were trying to see their pot field..."
Emma: "It's because I was pimping out those dead girls so you would hang out with me..."
Norman: "Ugh, girls."
Emma: "And it was self-serving and I didn't really believe the story until we saw that shed, but then it was like this electric shock. Oh my God, that dead girl is buried there. I could feel it..."
Norman: "Stop, chill, relax. Breathe..."
Emma: "That dead girl is calling us from her grave!"
Instead of rubbing his palms together with trainwreck excitement, like everybody in my house did at this moment, Norman gets very intense on her about this, and finally since she won't chill, demands the journal back from her.
Norman: "It's pornographic and we're at school..."
Emma: "Most text messages are dirtier than this!"
Norman: "But you're, like, obsessed with it."
Emma: "I'm not the one that spends all night staring at it while clicking a rapist's flashlight off and on."
Norman: "So it was in my room... so what? I found it and I didn't throw it away."
She stares, because a second ago they were friends. She doesn't know that's a classic Norma Bates move: State your alibi aloud, even if nobody can hear you and you're okay. You can just shove all those bad feelings way down where they won't ever come back to bite you.
LANG ARTS
I think what happens is that Norman's feelings about the décolletage of Miss Watson -- who is not Norma's age, true, but is sure as hell not Emma's -- connect up with the journal, in a teenage morass of complications and neural connections that would be grody future kinks in regular life. But because Norman is a crazy, instead/also means that he goes into Smiling Norman mode for a second, possibly blabbing the word burning, before blacking out altogether.
My working theory is that this is a murder we just saw, the Norman cycle of duality and violence and unconsciousness, just... without the actual murder part. We skipped to the blackout, or he kept himself from doing it or he couldn't actually do it. Does that sound right to you?
HOSPITAL
Doctor Guy: "We're doing like a million tests. Hey, does your son do this? Black out suddenly?"
Norma: "Uh... certainly not. Nope. Never, not ever. Not at all. Not even once. It's certainly not something I've covered for before. And I wouldn't say it's related in any way to the hefty life insurance settlement we got six months ago. No sir, not my son. He's awake or he's asleep. Nothing in between."
POT FIELDS
Dylan: "Is this where they shot Deliverance?"
Ethan, Stripclub-Weeper: "What's that?"
Dylan: "Uh, the movie? Boy, you got a pretty mouth?"
Ethan: "What kind of movies do you watch?"
I guess because of the gunslinger/Western motif going on with Dylan this week, the music goes to a kinda Inon Zur, Fallout place as they make their way down. The shift pulls guns on them as they're walking up, and Dylan has a mortifying moment of trying to do the thing he practiced all morning -- be a man -- but gets all tangled up in himself. The dudes leaving laugh at him for a while, welcome him to the fold and leave them to it. They settle in to wait: $300 bucks a day to chill, drink beer, sleep in shifts and watch a $5M pot field do nothing, with occasional pheasant.
HOSPITAL
Norman's in a gown and bed, clicking away at the monitor, until finally Norma slaps his hand to make him stop; then grabs it to hang on tight. They assure each other several times that everything is going to be fine and that they are not at all worried or freaked out. He's watching one of his old movies, I can't figure out what it is but it's about some real "hip" "kids." One of them is named Gladys and she gets "the sneak" for somebody's cousin Phillip, which makes another friend laugh, presumably because she's a "dick hound," I guess. I don't really know old sayings, I guess they were called something else back then.
The carpet guys call from the Motel and after much wishy-washiness Norma allows herself to leave Norman there to deal with it; she's stressed out enough that she doesn't notice Bradley Martin coming down the hallway from the ICU, carrying a potted plant. I had a fantasy she would clothesline her without even stopping, but there's carpet on the line.
Bradley: "Norman, you look luminous in this scene. Like a beautiful, six-foot tall baby."
Norman: "Notice how my dick boyfriend didn't jump between us and totally cockblock you?"
Bradley: "It was really cool that you came to see me when my father was burned alive. Most people seemed to think that was too weird, or a bummer."
Norman: "Well, I have no social skills and I'm into you. So I guess you could say that I was being brave, but that would be mostly incorrect."
Bradley: "My father is in a medically induced coma and I sincerely doubt he is going to make it."
Norman: "That is weird. And a bummer. My father died under super mysterious circumstances about six months ago. In our garage. So I guess I win, for now."
Bradley: "Scootch over so I can crawl in bed with you and watch this old-timey mystery movie about the girl and the cousin."
"Come on, Gladys -- we can still get away with childish enthusiasm..."
Bradley: "I just want to be happy."
MOTEL
The carpeteers have delivered one extra room's worth of carpeting, and Norma has just about fucking had it with today. Then mean old Sheriff Romero comes in there -- warrant in hand - to search the building. He is a little bitch about it, too, because that's how he rolls. Good thing Norma and her son have been scrubbing the kitchen down for like a week with every kind of cleaning product. Bad thing, though, is how Norman kept Keith Summer's raping utility belt under his bed, in a not-very-hidden fashion.
HOSPITAL
Doctor: "The tests came back negative."
Norma: "Great! Let's get out of here, I need to scheme with my child-husband about our murder real quick."
Doctor: "Uh, we still don't know why he blacked out..."
Norma: "And you never will. Sayonara!"
Nurse: "But a doctor needs to check him out, lady."
Norma: "I have a doctorate actually -- it is in Get The Fuck Out Of My Way. I got it at the university of Look Into My Crazy Eyes, I'm Not Playing."
HALLWAY, RUSHING
Norma: "...No idea if they found anything. It was one of the most horrible experiences of my life, I couldn't do anything..."
Norman: "Did they find anything?"
Norma: "Did you hit your head when you fell over on it? I just said no."
Norman: "Yeah, but did they find anything in the house?"
Norma: "If we weren't escaping from a hospital right now I would take you to a hospital. No."
Norman: "Well, I bet they found something."
Norma: "Hmm?"
Norman: "I mean for sure they probably did not find something."
HOME
There is something eternally teenage-boy guilt about the way Norman tears his ass up the stairs the second they get home, like just launches directly up the stairs as if she's going to beat him to it and find his dirty magazines or whatever. Did you burst out laughing when he did this?
Norman: (Whoosh.)
Norma: "What's up?"
Norman: "I have to change clothes and lie down and take a shower and do homework!"
UPSTAIRS
Sadly, no. The belt is gone. The duct tape, the flashlight, the handcuffs, all the rape devices and the belt they came on. Which is enough to send Norman scooting down onto the floor, breaking into tears like the saddest little ashamed-est guy, and it's dreadful to watch. He keeps asking, "What's wrong with me?" And it's enough that yeah, he kept a souvenir of the big rape/murder, and yeah, he probably should not have attached so much meaning to it or used it as a ceremonial object in the sex-torture-comic book ritual, but mostly it's both and mostly it's neither: He also feels very, very stupid for having left evidence lying around that could betray their secret.
The classic example of luminosity-entails-numinosity is Freudian in a way we're avoiding for the most part, but it goes like this: Why did the little boy steal his father's favorite pen and take it to school with him? Because it was a special object to him, it signified things he didn't have words for. He stole it to get power, which is why most stolen things get stolen: They glow.
Luminosity here, think about how the murder weapons on a Clue card glow with that weird glow: They are special things, the way Norman jumps out of the world to Emma or Bradley or the way Dylan can't keep his attention from swinging back to their weird connection. And then numinosity is the meaning of the glow: The thing acquires religious or spiritual or otherworldly import, because of the power, and because of the things the pen-stealer doesn't have words for. Sometimes good, sometimes bad. Always radioactive. Another word we casually toss around, but has a real meaning that applies here, is taboo.
In fact there was a Jungian conversation around transvestism -- specifically, men (usually straight) who derive sexualized sensation from wearing women's clothing -- that had to do with one of the myths of Herakles, which has all kinds of degradation stuff that doesn't necessarily apply here, but basically that in this therapeutic formulation the man would put on his mother's clothing as a kind of armor: A way of taking her protective strength and power on for himself. Like little kids trying on their parent's clothing, but twisted into a kink as a grownup. Same luminosity, same numinosity, as anything else, but a hearty reminder that females of all species have been protecting their kids for a lot longer -- and a lot harder -- than males.
I have trans friends that are turned off by the Norman Bates myth because of the weird way it permeates our culture, which is already so confused about gay and transsexual and transvestite and pedophile and whatever else you can cram in there. It's something I was wary about going in, but I've never felt that way about the movie and I certainly don't here, because if anything this is a situation in which everything in their entire house is basically luminous, basically numinous -- look at the way each room is used differently, with a different spirit and family dynamic -- and even objects brought into that house acquire a glow if they come in the right/wrong way. So while I'm not exactly dying to see Freddy Highmore in slingbacks at any point in time, it's firstly not really ever gonna be a question of gender identity, that's simply part of the whole difficulty people seem to have separating their memories and cultural understanding of the movie from the actual movie itself, but most of all because hiding this gun under the bed was -- just as it was this morning for Dylan -- already an act of drag.
So he sets his back straight, in that way he has when he's about to tell the truth, but first: He very carefully unrolls an immaculate sweater down, straightens the collar, snaps the cuffs. Mother calls it putting on her face.
KITCHEN
Norma: "I make a turkey pot pie! And it smells magnificent!"
Norman: "I kept Keith's belt."
Norma: "Do what?"
Norman: "When we loaded his body into the car, I kept it? Hid it under my bed?"
Norma: "You hid it there? I mean... why? Why would you do that? Why would you want to keep that thing?"
His face crumples, because he already knows that he doesn't know why: That he doesn't have the words for why. And that's the part that is killing him right now. Not the complications, not the betrayal of their household, none of it. The why of it. And that's what she keeps asking, and that's why he breaks down. And once she sees that, she stops, because that's terrifying. And sad.
Norma: "...All right. Well, if the police had found it, they would have said something, so. And they haven't. Now I've got to go figure this out. Enjoy your pot pie and please do not be so hard on yourself."
DYLAN
Ethan explains the White Pine Bay Thing to Dylan, how the pot works and how the justice system works and how sometimes somebody will set your boss on fire and you will cry and cry, but eventually that person will also be set on fire.
Ethan: "Everything should settle back down now. You want a beer?"
Dylan: "Uh, yeah."
There's a rustle in the bushes, but Dylan's fear turns to joy when he realizes it's a pheasant, and he can impress somebody with something for the first time like ever. Something about the conspiratorial smile with which he shoulders the rifle -- like it's turned back into just a gun, from whatever it was before -- made me realize I am pretty much completely on Dylan's side from here on out. Normal isn't always good, but good is always normal.
EMMA
Bonks her tank up every single goddamned step up to his door, knowing he's going to give her shit and not caring about it. Bradley, I think, is fascinated by the beautiful lake as an object; Emma recognizes something in it, subjectively. I don't think it's a love triangle happening so much as Bradley is somebody he can safely crush on without pissing off Norma -- a childish enthusiasm -- whereas Emma is giving him something nobody else has: A decent shot at accountability. "You be crazy all you want, I'm still your friend and I'm not asking for shit or making you my emotional pack mule, so you be the judge."
Norman: "I can't even talk to you. I don't feel good, from falling sideways at school in front of you if you remember, and my mother doesn't allow visitors in the house when she's gone or really ever at any time..."
(She fully shoves her tank in the door to keep him from slamming it in her face.)
Emma: "I never feel good, Norman, but life keeps moving. She was real. If we forget about her, then the world will forget about her. It'll be like she never existed. Like her life didn't matter."
Which is valid, but he can't ever forget -- between the tubes in her nose and the tank she clonks all over town -- that we're not just talking about the one dead girl. He takes her into the kitchen, and she shows him the one repeated non-Chinese figure in the entire thing: The number four, over and over. He makes the connection to the motel room where he found it and she drags him down the hillside.
ROOM 4
Emma: "So they bring 'em over here from China, and then the guys come to the motel for a test drive..."
Norman: "Yeah, but like who? Deputy Shelby, probably. He's a motherfucker."
Emma: "Yeah or Keith. Have you met Keith Summers? He is fucking awful. Sex-slave buying, nooks-and-crannies awful."
Norman: (Weirded out giggle.)
Norman gets a text from Bradley about how they now have "shared custody" of the plant she brought, and his cute grin about it causes Emma's eyes to roll wildly. Immediately, she finds a Chinese character scratched into the bottom of the sink bowl -- where the girls were chained -- and snaps a picture with her phone.
SHELBY
With her unerring Shelby GPS, Norma tracks the Deputy down immediately for a short weird conversation about some things, but also not about anything. Negative space around the thing.
Norma: "I am just a poor widow with a broken wing! Why is your boss so mean and scary?"
Shelby: "Don't worry about it."
Norma: "But money and medical bills and the hospital!"
Shelby: "I said don't worry about it."
Norma: "It's not like you even found anything, right?"
Shelby: "I mean it. Do not worry. Talk to me about this later when I am not a cop."
Norma: "I'll be at your place at eight, wearing my boobiest dress."
Shelby: "I will bring my sick body and also my magic ass. Things are going to be fine."
Outside his vehicle she snaps her collar -- just like Norman -- and stands there for a second as if to say, "We're probably going to do it. My life is so hard."
HOME
Poor old Norman's sitting on the steps when she comes back.
Norman: "What's going on?"
Norma: "I am going to put on my face and have dinner with Shelby."
Norman: "But dinner is our thing!"
Norma: "He obviously knows about the belt, so now I'm going to have to throw him one."
Norman: "Well, Norman Bates. You've really dicked it up this time."
SHELBY
Norma: "I'm here. Keepin' it tight."
Shelby: "Damn, girl."
Norma: "Why do you live in a house that is like an old lady house?"
Shelby: "I like things to be cozy. Would you like a Jack and Coke?"
Norma: "I am, after all, a woman of refinement. Have you noticed my boobs?"
Norma: "Thanks for the booze. So listen, what's the deal? I have a million problems."
Shelby: "Why don't you tell me what the deal is. Like this belt thing."
Norma: "What belt?"
Shelby: "Don't be hurtful. We are going to help each other, and that means trust, and trust means honesty. So be honest. Why would your kid have that belt under his bed?"
Norma: "My broken wing! My persecution!"
Shelby: "No, lady. I hid the belt. Stop worrying about Sheriff Romero and start worrying about how I am in love with you and we are going to be together forever."
Norma: "Oh, gotcha. Okay, I can do that. New status quo."
Shelby: "What's with your huge jagged scar on your leg?"
Norma: "Testament to a life well-lived, sir. It was an accident when I was a kid."
Shelby: "Speaking of kid accidents, did your kid accidentally kill Keith Summers?"
Norma: "I'm not going to say yes and I can't say no, so I will just say that."
He looks her in the eye and tells her he's an angel.
Shelby: "I know you've spent your life taking care of other people, or like any other narcissist talking endlessly about how you take care of other people. But in this case, I think it is true and you have a son with problems like you could make a whole TV show about. But the good news is that I am going to take care of you from now on."
Norma: "Even though we met five seconds ago? Okay, I am cool with whatever."
Shelby: "God, you are so beautiful, it just breaks my heart."
Norma: "That sounds like something you would say to a sex slave named Beautiful that you have locked in your basement. I am into it."
They make out. I guess probably they do it. It would be a shame to waste all that hotness.
PHEASANT
Dylan: "Funny you should ask. I learned to hunt in Aberdeen, SD, while I was on a natural gas fracking crew."
Ethan: "Fracking. So you're from South Dakota?"
Dylan: "No, I guess Arizona. That's where they moved here from. My dad grew up in Kansas."
Ethan: "Tell me more."
Dylan: "My mom... um, maybe Missouri? Or Colorado?"
Ethan: "You honestly don't know where your mother grew up?"
Dylan: "Actually that is kind of weird, I guess."
Ethan: "And are you close with your little brother?"
Dylan: "You must not have met my little brother."
But it makes him think.
HOME
Is it Angel and the Badman he's watching? I am not good at this at all, which sucks because it seems like a big thing with this show. It seems appropriate, but not as appropriate as what they're saying when Dylan gets home: "There's plenty of room on either side, do you have to come bulling in here between us?" And the guy says, "I didn't see you," but he's lying. "You interrupted a very important discussion on serious matters regarding big things!"
Norman: "Mother!?"
Dylan: "No, man. Just me."
For the second time today, somebody takes the remote away from Norman to get his attention.
Dylan: "Can I give you some advice? You gotta cut that shit out. 'Mother?' It's just weird."
Norman: "Whereas I guess calling your mom a whore is perfectly normal?"
He notices the hospital bracelet around his brother's wrist and gets concerned a little bit -- when Norman fusses with it, the whole complex surrounding his hospital visit still being a monster of a thing nobody knows about -- Dylan pulls out a knife and cuts it for him. When you see Norman through his brother's eyes, it's so sad and delicate, like an unborn chicken baby. Made of twigs.
Dylan: "So how come Norma's not here doting on you? You're the fave, I'd expect some homemade chicken soup bubbling on the stove, or..."
Norman: "She's out, she should have been back hours ago, she hasn't answered my calls or texts and I'm getting really worried."
Dylan: "Noted."
Norman: "Well, I mean it's not like her to do this. I'm not just being aggressively Norman about it, she's additionally not being Norma. It's a two-party system. I can't even sleep, I tried to go to bed and I just... I mean, what do I do?"
Dylan: "You get the fuck out of this house once in a while, for starters. What she is doing, has done, to you -- it's not healthy. You need some perspective."
Norman considers this. You can look at the two of them on that couch, with the old owner's old black and white TV and just imagine them being real for a second. Or like, I already thought Dylan was a good idea, narratively and psychologically, but for a minute you can see how his need to be a man and Norman's desperate need for a man would collide in this way: Like another unwanted, unwelcome father figure, but one who -- being Norma's son as well -- actually makes more sense in the dynamic. Like maybe it will work out. Dylan thinks this too, although not in words. He flows, in the absence of Norma, toward his brother, and says the best line of the entire episode:
Dylan: "I'm sorry you tried to kill me the other night."
It's great because it sounds hilariously passive-aggressive, but really it's just the best way of addressing and describing what went down: Now that you've mentioned the whole "whore" thing, by the way, I feel bad that that happened and that I beat you down. But what is sort of brusquely tender in the moment becomes something entirely different.
Norman: "I hardly think I tried to kill you."
Dylan: "You came at me with a meat tenderizer..."
Norman: "Oh, now did I."
You can see Dylan make note of this and get weird and a little sad about it, and then stow that entire line of thought, all in one second.
Dylan: "You were... pretty bad-ass."
Norman: "Yeah, I'm sure I was."
Dylan: "Our family is like inordinately screwed up."
Norman: "Yeah, I guess."
Their bodies relax, side by side on the couch. The angel and the bad man.
Norman: "Well then, I'm sorry I tried to kill you. According to you."
Dylan: "Yeah, it's cool."
MOTHER'S BED
When Norma gets home, he's in her bed in his pajamas. Couldn't sleep in his. She wakes him, gently and he sits up for the report.
Norma: "Zack has the belt. He seems to want to help us..."
Norman: "Seems to want to... nobody ever helps us, nobody ever helped us..."
Norma: "I am exhausted, go to bed. Just know that I feel fairly safe."
He sits there, begging for the full report. She knows what he wants, but she won't give it to him.
Norman: "This is a bad idea, letting him... use you."
Norma: "Oh, we're not having that discussion."
Norman: "What if he wants more? What if he makes you do things? Things you don't want to do?"
Norma: "I can't say yes and I won't say no."
He's still bristling, terrified, TMI all over the place, so she gets worried. The why.
Norma: "Norman. Why would you keep that thing? I honestly, I just don't understand why. I would like to."
Norman: "You know I keep mementoes -- all that stuff in my room..."
Norma: "Yeah, like nice things. Good days. But that was not a nice thing and it wasn't a good day. I got raped and killed a dude. Why in a million years would you..."
He can't say, because he doesn't know the words. So she nestles into his neck, his favorite place, and tells him over and over that she's here for him. Just for him. That smile from the pilot comes back, that foxy little grin: Well then, it's okay.
NORMALCY
Norman's surprised to find Bradley at her locker -- "Mom said it would be good for normalcy, as if that's possible" -- but before she can say much more than that she's happy he showed up too, Emma arrives to risk His Highness's bitchiest freakout yet.
Emma: "I put that photo of the Chinese character on Yahoo! Answers and -- after sifting through a thousand illiterate responses from people who don't know what the fuck they're talking about and should not have access to the internet -- got a translation. It's jiao, it means beautiful."
Norman: "That's a sad name to have when you're a dead drug addict sex slave, but I..."
Emma: "I'm going to the police after school, because I don't know about the police here yet, because I am from British lands, which is why my sudden accent in this scene."
Norman: "The fuck you are going to the cops. We are not doing the cops in this narrative."
Emma: "Norman, why did you just get scary?"
Norman: "I can't tell you why, but we are avoiding the cops and will not be bringing this into your little... look, maybe it's true, the whole thing is real. But guess what, this girl still isn't going to make a difference, to anyone. She's still going to be dead, you're still going to be sick and I'm still going to be who I am."
Emma: "I mean, wow. We both knew that's what was going on, but just shouting it like that at me is really..."
Norman: "Annnnd I'm back. That was awful. I am sorry. I was a real dick just now. I am really, really sorry. You're a good friend and a trusted ally. But don't go to the cops, and don't bug me about it again today. I cannot deal with this right now."
He storms off, hands flailing, and she makes the call yet again that he is allowed to be crazy.
TONIGHT
Norman spends the evening in bed, lying there like something taxidermied, as the sun passes over and out. Someone sits on his bed and he sits up to look at her. She's harder, more angry. Hates his little girlfriends more. Is not a whore. Her name is Mother.
Mother: "You were right. As long as Shelby has that belt, he can control us. He can make us do things, things we don't want to do. Just like your father did."
Norman: "We can't let that happen, not again."
Mother: "This is all your fault."
Norman: "I know, Mother. There's something wrong with me."
(There's nobody there. In fact that is the thing that is wrong with you.)
Mother: "You know what you have to do, don't you?"
Smiling just a little bit Norman heads down the street toward the town, standing tall. He climbs up into Zach Shelby's old-lady house, hitting every room on every floor. In the bedroom -- Shelby, a cop, sleeps with a baseball bat; it's luminous, it says ZEUS right on there -- he finds porn, pills, a key ring that could open the basement. A dog attacks Norman and he fends it off with the bat before locking the dog in the room and heading out into the house to put more of his fingerprints all over everything.
The basement -- at first just a garage, quite similar to the one where we met Norman's father -- transforms into a sad sex den, with a video camera trained on a chaise-lounge and a disco ball going giggity over the whole thing, and then a smaller door, slide-locked from the outside. And you know -- and Norman knows -- what he's going to find in there under the fluorescent light.
I don't know what her name spells, but she's still alive -- barely, track marks all the way down just like last time we saw her -- and she knows enough English to beg him for his help. Just as Shelby's arriving home.
WEEK
Is she real? We still don't know. But we do know that Norman has all the proof he's gonna feel he needs. His problems, besides being a crazy, are twofold: The dead Chinese girl and the purloined rape-belt. And I think pretty quickly in the first act of week's episode, both of those will not be any easier to solve, for having become two halves of the same problem: Deputy Zach Shelby, the Man Who Kissed Mommy.
JACOB CLIFTON is a freelance writer and critic based in Austin, Texas. He currently recaps The Good Wife, Bates Motel, and Defiance for TWoP. Jacob can be found online at jacobclifton.com, on Twitter, and on Facebook.
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