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A&E announced that it has picked-up a third season of Bates Motel today. It's about midway through the second season and the series seems to have really found a way to extend and expand what was, theoretically, a simple tale of young Norman Bates' descent into madness. Originally pitched as a contemporized prequel to Alfred Hitchcock's seminal film Psycho, Bates Motel has revealed itself to be not only the story of one boy's damaged relationship with his mother, but also the story of a town that acted as a mirror for the Bates' poisonous relationship and Norman's fractured mind.
The Norman Bates of Hitchcock's Psycho was all sweetness and purity on the outside, but his milk and cookies exterior hid an inner evil that even he was unaware of. The show has managed to take that idea and apply it to both Norma and Norman's relationship and the town they live in. It's all about appearances for Norma. She is a woman who is used to covering things up, avoiding them, and/or pretending they don't exist. It's how she survived her childhood and it's how she is now choosing to handle her son's illness. She deals with Norman by not dealing with Norman, by painting on a happy face until the next explosion occurs.
As to the town White Pine Bay, from the start we were given to understand that crime and corruption were lurking beneath the idyllic surface and that has played out even more this season as we've come to know the crime families running this community. In some ways, Bates Motel has transformed into a big, operatic, nighttime horror soap.
The recent reveal about Dylan's parentage, Bradley's depression-turned-murderous rage, and a brewing gang war all serve as the side dishes to the meat that is Norman's evolving alternate personality. To some degree, Norman's insanity becomes understandable, and perhaps less impactful, when you look at the family and town that surrounds him. At times, the feeling as a viewer is, "Hey, what's one more murderer among so many!?!" No one on this series - other than sweet Emma - has bloodless hands, after all.
So the question for fans is: Are you happy with this soapy horror fest? Or would you have preferred to see a shorter series that singularly focused on Norman Bates becoming the killer we know from Hitchcock's film?
