On Time Tuesdays: Bates Motel

Last night, A & E aired the first episode of their new show Bates Motel. If it's not obvious already from the title, Bates Motel is an update (in more ways than one) of Alfred Hitchcock's classic film Psycho. The show looked pretty promising from the teasers and overall I was pretty pleased with the first episode. With such familiar subject matter, I was expecting Bates Motel to be, if not exactly predictable, at least a touch formulaic. There's definitely a lot going on in the show's world already, and it managed to be surprising and fresh even with such well known characters.

Bates Motel is a prequel and also a modernization, taking us back to the days when Norman Bates and mother Norma, still alive, foxy, and played by the fantastic Vera Farmiga, buy the motel and start their lives together in that creepy old house. The show's writers have chosen to move the action to the present day, so Norman (played by Freddie Highmore, who is completely believable as a gawky teenage boy) gets to run around with a smart phone, an important prop since some of the subplots involve the cute girls he starts hanging out with at school. Costuming choices and a plot conceit involving the hotel and house also let the show keep the retro feel, though, and the show's creators have pulled off having their cake and eating it too pretty well. It is a bit of a disconnect when Norman goes from a very modern party or high school to Norma's kitchen, where she's clad in full skirts and heels or vintage-looking pedal pushers, but so far it hasn't been too jarring.

Norma and Norman celebrate their arrival at their new home. Image via aetv.com

Spoilers abound from here on out, so if you're planning on watching Bates Motel and want to be surprised stop here. The show opens with a frantic Norman, discovering his father dead in the garage. A few things are amiss here; first, Norman is upset before he comes across the body, and Norma hardly seems surprised or perturbed when her distraught son drags her from the shower and show her her dead husband. My initial thought was that one or both of them (particularly Norma) was off the rails from the start, but the remainder of the episode subverted that expectation. Someone else died, but not in the vindictive, premeditated fit of rage that I was expecting.

The show starts to establish the twisted relationship between Norman and Norma immediately, and she is certainly emotionally manipulative. It's obvious that the idea of Norman having a romantic relationship is pretty appalling to her (which will obviously come into play a few years down the road with a certain blonde in the shower), but she's equally pissed off when he considers joining the track team and spending most of his time outside of the house. Buying a motel is the perfect excuse for her to milk this, as she constantly needs his help to renovate the rooms and run the property.

The Norma/Norman relationship is the strongest part of the show thus far; the scenes with Norman being a 21st century teenager struck me as much weaker. The acting got a lot iffier, particularly with a popular boy played by an actor obviously trying (and failing) to channel Robert Pattinson and with the character of Emma, who will hopefully become more interesting once she has more to do. At this point you could practically see the script directions in her delivery, and again this is particularly jarring when juxtaposed against Farmiga and Highmore's scenes.

Admittedly some of the dialogue in those moments is bad, too, but Farmiga is so good that she more than makes up for it. As I mentioned, I was expecting Norma to be pretty cut and dry: here she is, she's super nuts. But Farmiga pulls off a much more subtle character. Certainly she's manipulative with her son, but she also garners a lot of sympathy as a woman desperately trying to start fresh and make a life for herself. We're not sure what happened to her husband yet, which could obviously change any interpretation of her motivations, but when we do see her kill her actions are much closer to justified than crazy.

The aspects of the show that worked the most for me were the most retro--the relationship between Norman and Norma, and the fun use of the original house and some of the referential camera work in that location. It's obvious that there will be many other subplots involving the town at large and Norman's teenage compatriots, and it's unclear to me how much those aspects are going to connect. Overall I felt like it was a successful start--hopefully Bates Motel just continues to improve and doesn't lose its footing as it adds on more characters and intertwining storylines.