Alice Rush reviews the eighth episode of Bates Motel season 2…
There was a definitive change of tone this week in Bates Motel as the feud between the rival drug families came to the forefront of the episode. For once it didn’t just feel like the Norman and Norma show, instead it felt refreshed and more tense than ever as the Bates’ are dragged down into the seedy goings on in the corrupt White Pine Bay.
After Zane’s raid and subsequent slaughter of Nick Ford’s warehouse last week most of the characters are reeling from the attack and most of them are furious with him. His sister Jodie tells him to lay low while Dylan tries to figure out a way to fix the situation. Nick Ford however is less diplomatic and approaches Norma, demanding she organise a meeting between him and Dylan. When she lies and says she couldn’t get a hold of him he begins to threaten her, and if we know anything about these dangerous drug lords it’s that their threats are usually less than idle. Dylan meets with him anyway and Nick suggests he should kill Zane as this would end the feud. After playing second fiddle to a lot of the action between Norma and Norman it’s good that Dylan has been able to spread his wings in this second season and become a much more important character. Max Thieriot plays him fantastically as we get the sense of him being brave but because he has to be, not because he truly is. At moments he seems out of his depth and lost as well as trying to seem like the tough guy, which makes him a brilliant and believably human character that’s really been let to come alive in the recent episodes.
There was a lack of the standard Norman and Norma arguments scenes this week which was a pleasant change, mainly due to Norman purposefully acting like he doesn’t care in an attempt to annoy his mother. It works and she leaves her date with George to confront him about his behaviour which sees a rather different Norman standing up to her, a more dangerous and mentally unstable Norman. His mental state is not aided by Sheriff Romero, who tries to question him about what happened with Miss Watson but instead pushes him even further over the edge. The tension that has been bubbling away inside Norman for two seasons now looks set to boil over with the episode culminating in his kidnap. This will no doubt also push Norma past her own breaking point as she was not there to protect him, instead spending the night with George.
It seems that the Bates’ world is falling apart around them as Dylan is embroiled in a war he never meant to be a part of, Norman is forced to face the truth about his own actions, and Norma must confront the lies she has been feeding her son for years. Finally the show feels like it’s bringing all of the different narrative strands of the past two seasons together. When all of these elements work as one Bates Motel truly is a joy to watch, however it’s so prone to becoming overly concerned with one singular storyline at a time. Hopefully now that Nick Ford, the drug business and Miss Watson have all been brought together into one cohesive storyline that also includes all of the Bates’ family the penultimate episode and season finale will be more explosive than the last. Though with a third season confirmed it’s questionable whether all of the family secrets will be revealed just yet.
Alice Rush
Originally published April 23, 2014. Updated April 12, 2018.
