Jiao

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Oh dear. Well, it starts off innocently enough, with Norma explaining to Sherriff Romero once again that she is a magnet for bullshit and that 100 percent of his police persons should be watching her every move... Even as she is (delightfully) getting a gun and then gun-shooting lessons from poor desperate motherless Dylan. In the end it all goes to shit, because her titular meeting with Jake Abernathy (aka Joe Fioretti, which we'll talk about that name in the recap) at midnight is only hours away.

While Romero questions various meth-looking people about how the whole sex slave situation works, Norma chases her own ass down a rabbit hole of crazy, ending with a pre-Prom speech to Norman about how her own brother molested her fairly regularly and that's how her scar happened on her leg and hey! doesn't Emma look lovely. So he's primed for crazy before they even get there.

Emma and Norman ask each other out to the winter dance in a lovely, adorable way, but the second they show up it's all "Bradley's boyfriend finally shows up to get violent" and "Emma runs around yanking her oxygen tubes out of her face" so when Miss Watson -- who is clearly setting Norman up for a no-joking murder of her boyfriend or husband or whatever tawdry bullshit -- picks him up on the lonely road he's always walkin'... Norman can't help but say okay.

So while Norma is watching Romero gun down Abernathy -- in a not-even-very corrupt, more like totally-valid way -- Norman is getting a ride home from the one lady in the WPB that isn't Bradley, Emma, Norma... but somehow all of them, and looking for more. Mother appears, just as Miss Watson is undressing in her house for nefarious but very molesty reasons... And then sweet little Norman shows up back at home, everything fine for the whole family except for how we'll soon be hearing that Miss Watson's throat will be slashed.

For a show whose genius must have little to do with the ratings its buzz generates -- enough that we got a second season -- it makes the right amount of sense: This is where we leave it, with a dead molesty teacher and Norma sucked/tied in more and more to the corruption of the town that has driven them both insane.

But looking at this as a beginning, rather than an end, "Norman's First (eh?) Murder" is only the most logical pause for the story: Of course Miss Watson of the million red flags was up to no good, and of course "Mother" could call her out in one second. Especially after Norma's very realistic -- but oddly timed -- explanation of her own sexual bullshit, brought on by her assumption she was about to get murdered and a stray psych appointment she randomly commandeered.

We're left wanting more, which I guess is the point, but for a show that has staked its claim on the fucked up things happening in spite of or alongside or around the beautiful, soulful emotions of its principals, it's a funny little finale. In some ways very big -- Mother has just killed her first giant slut -- but in other ways, very small. It's discomfiting to leave an episode with Norma content, much less a season... But then, that's the scariest thing of all, right?

From what I've tasted of desire, I'm looking to dwelling in this episode a little longer -- especially knowing there's a whole 'nother season of fire and ice to look forward to, and none of the three female leads down at that!

Want more? The full recap starts right below!

PREVIOUSLY

Bradley took Norman's v-card and then got his brother to sneak her into her dad's drug-dealer office, where she learned a mysterious "B" was having an affair with her burned-up dead dad. This is in the previouslies for some reason. More relevant, though, is how Norman very nearly serial killed her for Friendzoning him, which was scary! Over on the mom side, Norma made the acquaintance of the so-called Jake Abernathy, a supercreepy sex-slaving resurrectionist who sent her flowers -- flowers of murder -- and will now be extorting from her one hundred and fifty-thousand imaginary dollars.

WPBPD

Norma: "I need to speak to Sheriff Romero right away! It is a matter of life and death!"
Distractingly Beautiful Receptionist: "And what is your name?"
Norma: "Bitch I know you know who I am."
DBR: "Yeah, sorry. I get bored because the cops in this town do not work. You're basically the only person I ever talk to, now that Shelby is dead many times over."
Romero: "Her name is Norma Louise Bates! And she is a pain in my keester!"
Norma: "We need to talk!"
Romero: "Yeah I'm sure. It's been five seconds, so."

Romero: "He wants a hundred-fitty? Where are you going to get it?"
Norma: "Obviously I don't have any money to give him. Even beating the shit out of that real estate bro last week only netted me a couple dozen Dave & Busters tokens."
Romero: "Then I guess we're gonna have to care. Ugh, Norma..."
Norma: "I know! I'm very inconvenient!"
Romero: "Okay, just let me handle it."
Norma: "What? Why would I do that?"
Romero: "Because you came here specifically to ask me to do that?"
Norma: "Yeah, when you say it like that it just seems weirdly trusting. Like, do either of us really believe I'm not gonna fuck this up and get us all killed?"
Romero: "Just don't do anything dumb like buy a black-market gun, and we'll be fine."
Norma: "Gotcha."

Norma: "Dylan, could you call me back? I need to acquire a gun immediately."

SCHOOL

Norman: "Staring up at this school dance banner makes you look like a real loser."
Emma: "Yeah, I was just thinking it's good you're a sociopath that won't ask me. I'd hate to get all gussied up. My oxygen tank is already so glam."

Norman: "You should go! Alone, pathetic. Staring with your big beautiful eyes at all the things you'll never have and don't deserve."
Emma: "Or alternately, you could ask me to the dance. The thing a human person would do."
Norman: "I didn't even think of that! Okay, let's do it. It's only charitable."
Emma: "Your words are hurtful, but your adorable delivery makes it seem like flirting."

KITCHEN

Norma: "So here's some French toast, you can taste that I made it with love. Because today, that is what I feel. Don't get used to it. Get me a gun."
Dylan: "Norma, there are a lot of things I would do for just a crumb of your affection. But I feel like it needs to be said that you are ass-crazy, and should not have a gun."
Norma: "Little backstory on that. I am being extorted for a hundred fifty grand by a sex-slaving resurrectionist who is going to kill all of us, starting with Norman and then you."
Dylan: "Maybe I can help in another way. Like some way where you don't end up shooting me, for example, purely out of acting nuts. Like you're doing. Right now."
Norma: "That's exactly what goddamn Romero said."

WHO HAS THE MONEY IS

Romero, of course. I would like that to be because of his non-slavery relationship with Zach -- who did seem to have real affection for Alex, just as he did for Norma -- but also because him being the Third Man doesn't jibe with his conversation with Abernathy at the end of the episode. All we know is that Jake keeps saying, "If you don't have the money, who has it?" and the answer is "A person unrelated to any of this," with of course the caveat that he's related to all of it, being that he is the most worthless sheriff in the history of sheriffing, and is in fact so bad at it that he is the opposite of it.

DR KURATA

Norma bumps into a dude on her way in to secretly see her son's therapist, and the guy's like, "Whatever," and she flips out on him. Sometimes you just gotta scream at a guy on the street, you know? His appalled side-eye in response is so powerful that even Norma is like, "Maybe I should think about getting my shit together. Even just occasionally."

Norma: "I'm here for my appointment! That I didn't make!"
Kurata: "Okay, firstly where is your kid?"
Norma: "He's at school, why?"
Kurata: "Okay. Actually for the record you cancelled last week, and never called to reschedule. So this is not just negligence -- it's actually crazy."

Norma: "Good thing I'm here then, huh? Let's do this."

There's a lake, pure and clean. Surrounded by concrete. Picture it.

Norma: "What I would like is some advice. On how to deal with stress."
Kurata: "What's stressing you out?"
Norma: "None of your... I mean, just normal stuff. Things anybody deals with. In normal life. The every day. What was stressing out your last patient? Let's say that."
Kurata: "Well, the major thing I know about you is that you are unhealthy regarding your son Norman..."
Norma: "I have never noticed that to be true, Doctor."

Down at the bottom, there's gators. They're angry.

They have every fucking right to be. What kind of a grown woman invites a teenage boy into her house and changes her clothes where he can see her? We're not born manipulative, we're beaten there. Our pain is only ever by demons driven. It makes you no less clean.

Kurata: "Are you going to lose your shit when he leaves?"
Norma: "Leaves what? Where? What have you heard? If that Dylan's been sniffin' around..."
Kurata: "No I mean like, college. Life. Like how people grow up and move away?"
Norma: "Oh yeah, no. We're not doin' that."

Kurata: "Let me ask you this. When you were a little girl, is this what you thought parenting would be like?"
(Clink! You can actually hear her go just a little more crazy.)
Norma: "When I was a little girl? I wasn't one. I mean, I don't remember being one. It's all just mainly a fog until I married Dylan's dad and escaped my house."
Kurata: "What were your parents like? Sometimes in therapy we talk about people's parents. No reason."

Picture a lake, in the center of a world of concrete. Breathe, let it ripple. The cleanest water you've ever seen.

Dad: "My dad was very kind. You know, just like the kind of guy who would smile at you all the time, no matter what... you'd feel like he would just take care of everything."
Mom: "My mom... um, she worked in a bakery? She always smelled like cookies?"

Kurata: "So the truth is the precise opposite of that?"
Norma: "Essentially. Pay no attention to my sudden obsessive scratching at this mystery scar on my leg. It already has more origin stories than Heath Ledger's Joker."
Kurata: "So they're both dead? And you don't know what state any of this took place in? That's perfectly normal. Any sisters? Brothers?"

Norma: "-- So this has been great but I have to go now."
Kurata: "There it is."
Norma: "Yep! Thanks for adding PTSD to my already very busy crazy-going schedule."

TO DIE FOR

Miss Watson is having a knockdown drag-out with a stalker named Eric, on the phone. You think it's setting up some kind of sex-for-murder scenario -- proving once again that Miss Watson's instincts are pretty stellar in the victim department -- but really it just seems like a way to get Norman off the hook (and of course onto another hook) season.

Miss Watson: "Why Norman Bates, were you listening to that? I'm so vulnerable! Men, I tell ya. They will control you and hurt you and chain you up in bathrooms and steal your carpet samples... I mean, you have to put up with so much..."
Norman: "Heard it. Listen, I don't want to publish my story about how I'm a serial killer, okay?"
Miss Watson: "Is this about your mom again? Didn't my boobs already explain that?"
Norman: "It's more about how I feel actually crazy, but yeah. She factors in."
Miss Watson: "Guess this means that we have a secret now, huh? You'll keep it for me, won't you?"
Norman: "Yeah, I won't tell anybody about your abusive boyfriend, and you don't tell anybody I wrote a story. That sounds like a solid foundation for you molesting me."

MAGGIE SUMMERS

Looks rough. Not horrible, just... very White Pine Bay. Very "my alcoholic brother pissed away our motel money on Chinese sex slaves and heroin and constant raping."

Maggie: "Why Sherriff, I haven't seen you since we buried just my brother's hand."
Romero: "Lovely service. Maggie, you look rougher than usual. Somebody beat you up?"
Maggie: "I don't know. I am crazy high."
Romero: "Okay, well how about some real talk. I know you did the bookkeeping for your brother and Shelby's little business -- importing girls from Asia and selling them -- and in fact, I've got all your paperwork. So we good?"
Maggie: "Consider me present for this conversation, yes. That was good real talk."

Romero: "So presumably Jake Abernathy did this to you?"
Maggie: "Well, I know him as Joe Fioretti. He wanted some money or something, and I clearly don't have it, so..."
Romero: "And how would I get in touch with him?"
Maggie: "He'd call us, I don't know how to find him. But get this, Alex! He totally has four other ports running the same scam, up and down the coast."

Romero: "That's what I call entrepreneurship."
Maggie: "So are you going to help me or anything? My life is pretty tragic."
Romero: "I'm gonna do some stuff -- crazy bad stuff. You might benefit, who knows."
Maggie: "Welp. That's more than I deserve."

BATES MOTEL

Norma: "Hello, it's Norma Bates. You may remember me from a few minutes ago when I called? Yeah, you too. Listen, about the ongoing patrol Romero promised me weeks ago..."

Emma: "Sorry I'm late to my internship at your crazy-people motel! But I had to get a vintage dress for the dance!"
Norma: "What dance?"
Emma: "The one your son Norman is taking me to!"
Norma: "How can I stop this?"
Emma: "Or we could double down on the weirdness by having you hold up the dress I'll be wearing to your own body. Maybe if we're lucky, Norman will walk in on that happening and just completely unspool."

Emma kneels to investigate a vintage possible-spot, getting right up in Norma's thighs where her big secret scar is. They share a moment about that, because it's dreadful.

Norma: "That is nothing. You did not see it."
Emma: "Oh girl, I am not about to ask you about strange scars on your body. I mean, this is not my first day."
Norma: "It was hot chocolate! In Florida or Ohio or one of those states with frequent hot-chocolate incidents."
Emma: "Yeah, that probably hurt..."
Norma: "I was just a kid. I don't really remember."
Emma: "I'm going to firmly change the subject, if you don't mind."
Norma: "I was two years of age!"
Emma: "Okay, sure. I'm going to hide elsewhere in your house now."
Norma: "Rad, I'm going to run out of the building like I have somewhere to be."

Dylan: "Hey Norma. Changed my mind. Got you a gun. Let's go to the shooting range and see if I can't leverage just a little bit of my position here as your kid."

SHOOTING RANGE

Dylan helps her with her stance and talks her through it, and it's marvelous in exactly the way you're thinking -- him glorying in being good at something, Norma giddy and distracted and happy to not be thinking about her leg, or her Norman, or the million scars thereupon -- and of course he's about two-thirds of the way through his very careful, caring spiel when she fires. So then he gets to yell at her about that and they both enjoy that, too.

Norma: "Okay, okay. Listen, why do you have guns now? All the time, guns. I remember Zach mentioning it, too. And possibly I heard Alex bring it up with the trimmers."
Dylan: "Guarding things. Like a... guardian."
Norma: "Guardian of what?"
Dylan: "Again with this? Obviously pot. It's always going to be pot. Welcome to the WPB."
Norma: "I don't love that."
Dylan: "Here we fucking go..."

She randomly pulls the trigger, I guess to shut him up about it and he points out that this is classic Norma: Acting like the judgy adult, but doing whatever crazy thing she feels like doing at the same time. Her biggest monster and kryptonite: People, men, who don't deserve authority, asserting it anyway.

Dylan: "This is serious shit!"
Norma, still goofy: "Okay, okay. I will follow your instructions. I promise."
Dylan: "Get in the right stance. And then once you have a good aim I want you to squeeze the trigger, okay? Don't yank on it, okay, just... gently squeeze it. Okay, Mom?"

She nails it, blowing both their minds. To which I would say two things: Number one, maybe Dylan calling her Mom did open up something in there, some Zen place she needed to hear it. Like she's been saying so long that she doesn't need to hear it, that this became her own inside-out issue and hearing it actually helped.

But also, of course, of everybody on this entire show, the reason I love Dylan the most is that he has actually figured this one out: Doing things gently and correctly. Not overcorrecting one way or the other, or always reacting to things, or jumping at shadows and voices in the head. Just gently being present. And I would say that the world is a vampire, but so is his mother. So the only way out for anybody -- all that stuff we talked about week one, about Oedipus and his mother -- is to be gentle, Goldilocks gentle. Not too hard, not too soft.

And if you can do that, then you unlock the thing, which he is still working on: Not hating your parents, but using them for totems. Because you cannot deny that Norma Louise Bates is a powerful fucking force of nature. The only reason she's screwed is because the world is a dumb awful place: Not because she isn't right about almost everything, not because she hasn't got the willpower of a War Goddess and a saint, but because the world had to break her, to contain her. It's too late for Norma -- we know that; hell, she knows that -- but as her son, as her child, Dylan has access to it.

And if he can hold onto that, gently, he really could be the man he wants to be. We act like women are soft and men are hard and that's the end of the story, but that's effects and not causes. The fact is that everything he needs to know about being a man, the world beat into him. And everything he needs to know about being a woman, he's got right here. He just needs to hold it right.

So he puts his arms around her waist and he sights down the barrel with her, and he calls her mom and it connects. For a second, they are the same animal; they are part of the same machine. Those who favor fire. And if she could only feel like this -- if either of them could only feel like this -- without Norman or Ethan, or Remo or anybody else around, they would be superheroes.

Dylan: "Son of a bitch."
Norma: "You called me Mom. You haven't done that in like, I don't know how long."
Dylan: "You've got a loaded gun in your hand, Norma."

She falls into his arms, then, weeping: Adrenaline gone, loud noise gone. The fear back.

Dylan: "I know. But Romero's the man in this town, right? Like, if the bravest thing you can do is the hardest thing... well, in your case that's trusting him. Correct?"
Norma: "Blech."
Dylan, verbatim: "I know that might be hard for you, but that's what you're gonna have to do."

When she runs out of bullets, he helps her reload. Watch it ripple.

BATES MOTEL

Maggie Summers appears out of the drizzle like some horrible drug mule ghost, scaring the crap out of Norma.

Maggie: "My family used to own this place."
Norma: "Nice family you got."
Maggie: "Can I just say something? If you have that money, you need to give it to the guy. Whatever you're calling him. I worked with him and Keith, and he will absolutely kill the shit out of you."
Norma: "Thanks for stopping by the motherfucking Bates Motel."

UP THE HILL

Norman: "Why Bradley, what on earth are you..."
Bradley: "Hi. Is Dylan here?"
Norman: "You're so vulgar!"
Bradley: "No, I'm honest. You should don't know what that looks like."
Norman: "I'll got get him."

I wrote a story that I was your father. Burning from the inside.

After Dylan manages to get Norman to go away -- tenderly, not rudely -- he gives her the box of Jerry's crap from his office and Norman listens behind a door as they awkwardly teen-flirt. Dylan is 22, Bradley is 17 or maybe 18. Which, okay bad Dylan, but Norman and Norma kind of blow that one out the water. And the very Motherness of Norman at this time makes it difficult to even pay attention.

Bradley: "Anyway, it was fun almost getting shot by a hot werewolf with you. I won't bug you anymore..."
Dylan: "Uh, feel free to bug me. My only friend is my mom and this dead guy that used to cry at strip clubs. I feel like we've got a lot in common, you and I. And not in the Miss Watson way."

Norma, proving Dylan's point about her well-regulated militia, is checking out the barrel of the gun -- as in, staring down into the gun like an insane person would do -- when Norman appears, already in sort of Dexter's Laboratory/Owen Meany freakout at this point. It's adorable because it's Norman, but also very scary because it's Norman: It's unacceptable to think about him being in pain.

When he screams, she takes that gun she was just pointing at her face and crams it under her mattress, so it looks like a particularly ungainly and ill-advised porn, like Octomom.

Norman: "MOTHER! I NEED BLACK SOCKS!"
Norma: "Did you look in the sock drawer?"
Norman: "I'M NOT RETARDED MOTHER! MOTHERRRR!"
Norma: "Okay so what do I do about that?"
Norman: "MOTHER! MOTHERRRR!"
Norma: "I don't know where your stupid black socks are! It's not my fault you decided to go to a dance at the last minute! What am I supposed to do, darn some socks?"

Dylan: "Here are some socks. Love you."
Norman: "UGH DYLAN YOU ARE THE WORST. STOP."
Dylan: "Honey, look at me. I was helping Bradley because her dad died. Okay?"
Norman: "JUST GO AHEAD AND FUCK HER DYLAN. I'M OVER IT."
Dylan: "...Are you sure?"
Norman: "IF I WAS GOING TO KILL HER -- OR YOU -- DON'T YOU THINK I WOULD HAVE DONE IT BY NOW?"
Dylan: "I mean, I just wanna confirm..."

"Yeah, all conversations are stupid. Just Blah blah blah like rats trying to find our way out through a maze, like it has some purpose or meaning, but it doesn't."

Dylan: "Kind of feel like you're being creepy on purpose."
Norman: "I will always be creepy about Bradley, but fuck me anyways. Ask her out, shit. I may kill somebody later but don't worry about it. She clearly has a crush on you because you are old and hot and competent and don't smell like formaldehyde, so what."

Somehow watching Norman Bates put on some black socks is like, literally the most moving thing that has ever happened. It took me ten episodes to realize that his physical acting reminds me very much of what we'll provisionally call the love of my life -- an age-appropriate but "gangly"-defining fellow, by any measure -- and that possibly my endearment toward him has been taking place partially on a level I did not know about until this week, but in another way that just confirms it: It's hard enough watching Norman struggle with just being-people activities, I can't be watching him put on socks.

Dylan: "On the off chance that's not a horrible idea, score. Emma's on her way?"
Norman: "Just as soon as Norma puts a goddamn albatross around my dick."
Dylan: "When's it over? Just in case you commit murder and disappear."
Norman: "Right around eponymous midnight, when mom will be dead."

DOWNSTAIRS

Norman: "This is fun waiting for my Last Place Girlfriend, huh? In these socks."
Norma: "Can I tell you something royally fucked up that will permanently alter your life? For no other reason than I think I might be murdered, but also because I am bored, but also because I like to ruin your romantic relationships?"
Norman: "Yeah, why would any of that be a problem?"
Norma: "I grew up in Akron Ohio..."
Norman: "That's not one of the versions I..."
Norma: "Shh. I say all kinds of shit but I want somebody to know the truth about me in this world. And I'd like that to be you. If that's okay with you."

Three questions that sound like one question. The last one is, "I've raised you to be okay with hearing this." It has an implied answer. The second one is, "You've turned out to be the one I was waiting for." I'm gonna lock my son up in a tower / Till I write my whole life story on the back of his big brown eyes. But the first one, oh. That's not abuse, it's not even sad. It's just true.

They say it a lot of ways, they say "you're only as sick as your secrets" and they say -- I say, usually -- "nothing dishonest is necessary." It's about burning off what doesn't work, but that only helps when you're not speeding into a head-on crash. At the end when they march the guns in or however it happens, when you're up against the wall, so many of these indignities aren't going to matter anymore. You are going to realize that all you wanted was to be known. Tonight's the night she may well die. She's up against the wall.

These indignities don't matter anymore. She had a brother. She was thirteen. Eventually he moved out. Maybe the same difference in age as Dylan and Norman: Maybe she looked at this -- the only beautiful thing that has ever happened in White Pine Bay -- and she wondered.

But if she can hold onto this truth for a second, gently, she can die the mother she wants to be. Hiding nothing. We act like women are soft and men are hard and that's the end. But that's effects, not causes. For a second they are the same animal, she thinks; they are part of the same machine.

"Oh, I know I shouldn't have told you. I shouldn't have told you. It's just, you're the person that I'm closest to in this world."

This is how she remembers it. There is a lake in the center of a world of concrete. At the end of your life, when you look straight down the barrel, you'll pull up from the bottom of the lake the thing that is you. If you have time, you will take the time to dredge.

"My mom was already checked out of her body. My dad was insane, he was so violent... I knew that if I told my dad, he would kill my brother, so I never told. One day... I heard the front door open and it was my dad. And I was so scared that I jumped up, so fast. And the hot iron fell off the ironing board and it hit my leg."

"It was a long time ago. It's just that I want to... I wanted someone to know this about me."

There is a lake in the center of a world of concrete. At the bottom lies the truth about you. At the bottom is why and how you should be loved. What means you should be saved.

It will never, ever be this. It's not what makes you special and it's not what made you strong. Maybe it's your art. Maybe it's your voice. Maybe it's your truth, or your story, or your ability to love. Probably it is your strength. But whatever it is, it's much more important -- and more interesting -- than this.

("You can go home, Norma," he will say.)

There's a lake, in the center of a whole world of concrete. At the bottom is something pure, untouched. Nobody could ever take that away from you.

You were never anything but clean.

DOORBELL

Norma: "Emma, you look beautiful. Norman, you look so handsome. Already ruined. Don't think about doing anything stupid."

Emma will be long gone; will have begged him to find another ride. Miss Watson will appear, like a brother on a motorbike, and take him somewhere warm.

You put up with so much, he'll think. Her words, his head.

Norman will lie in his blood and the rain and hate himself. Dreadfully. For things he can't explain or understand. Things that aren't his fault, but make the water seem so dirty.

Richard Slymore will beat the shit out of him. He won't know the story. He'll just see he's cleaner still; that Bradley is his. Belongs to him, like a house on a hill.

She'll only dance with him so long before she'll see him, staring at Bradley. The story will reverse, again. He'll break her heart, again. Like this one dress smelling of his mother could ever do it. We've all been there.

The song at the dance will go, Everybody's got a secret to hide / everyone is slipping backwards / I drank the water and I felt all right / I took a pill almost every night...

DOCKS

Romero: "The thing is, Jake or Joe, we're not dealing with Norma Louise Bates anymore. Now we're dealing with me. If you're running a business in my town..."
#9: "Well. I was."
Romero: "I am the Third Man, now. I'm Keith and I'm Shelby. And we're 50/50."

He'll agree. And Alex will gun him down, where he stands. $150K safely in its bag.

"You can go home now, Norma."

Didn't he tell her? Didn't he say it would be okay? Her little head will pop up and she'll stare, that crazy-lady stare, and he'll say "When I say Trust me, trust me." He'll say it, but he won't really mean it. It will be midnight. We never get free.

THE FUNHOUSE

Miss Watson will make tea and keep saying her questionable things, and when he's sufficiently warm she'll retire to a visible room of her apartment and change, before a mirror. He won't be able to look away and she won't want him to. She won't be in charge; he won't either.

Mother: "What kind of a grown woman invites a teenage boy into her house and changes her clothes where he can see her?"

Sometimes I get overcharged
That's when you see sparks

He'll argue, but he'll know. She's right, like she always is. He'll know what he needs to do.

BATES MOTEL

It'll be later. He won't know how much later. He'll run into his mother's arms. She'll hold him, so tightly. Gently, but tightly. They will be alive, parts of the same machine.

"Everything's all right now, Norman. You're home and we're safe. Everything is good. Finally, everything is good. Maybe we should get out of the cold. Let's go build a fire."

We never get free.

THE FUNHOUSE

Miss Watson is dead, throat slashed. Electric light going bzzt, bzzt, bzzt. We won't know who did it, but we can guess. We won't know what she wanted.

But we can guess.

UP THE HILL

But that's not really the point. All of these things are going to happen. All of these things were always going to happen. This life is a freaking cliff-dive that breaks you at best. I don't like it and I don't want to think about it. Even if it's right. I want to think about this:

There was a moment that Norma was free. She thought it would take this, passing her secret to someone else: She confused being seen with having secrets. She confused being wanted with being beautiful, jiao, for so long; that somebody can take that away from you. Girls dead in the forest are no less clean than the day they were born; not even Emma understands that yet. If the men understood that, they wouldn't try so hard to hurt, to ruin, to make us dirty. This at least Norma understands. But for a moment, Norma saw the whole truth and it burned like a fire.

There's a placid, clear, beautiful lake. Caged in the center of a world of concrete. It's clean all the way down. And for a second she saw -- Dylan saw, even Norman saw -- just how far down it goes. How clean it is, all the way to the bottom.

Miss Watson is still alive. Emma's heart is not yet broken. Richard Slymore waits in the wings. Miss Watson waits in the wings. Everything is going to be okay.

Everything is a man who burns from the inside, choking on thick black smoke. But if he could breathe, it would be this: Just a peaceful lake, beautiful as our boy. Beautiful as a girl, out in the woods. Only sleeping.

She looks at the bottom and she sees two choices: Alex Romero, dirty though he is, gets her free. Or else she dies and she goes free. After decades of putting up with things, in the world of men, she looks down the barrel and she sees stars. She has one chance to be seen, known, by the person she loves the most. Who knows her best. The best thing she ever did, in her whole shadowed life. Born, made, reared, shaped to carry this. In a world of concrete, one soft thing.

For a moment, she is free. She passes him her secret and she's clean.

Jiao. She always was.

JACOB CLIFTON is a freelance writer and critic based in Austin, Texas. He currently recaps Bates Motel and Defiance for TWoP. Jacob can be found online at jacobclifton.com, Twitter, and Facebook, as well as a regular column for Tor.com, Geek Love.

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