A new and exciting season comes back strongly through this dramatic series. The third season begins with Norma and Norman, who are trying to focus on Anika's disappearance in mysterious circumstances. Norma also reveals the truth about Arcanum Club a long time later. Norman and Emma are thinking about their future and trying to make new decisions. Norman's relationship with Emma is the reason for his poor relationship with Norma and Romero looks at Griffin's death in White Bay Bay.
Bates Motel is a slow-moving show... But it tells emotional stories so well that it's easy to not care when the overarching plot is mostly standing still.
For all the criminal complications, the focus is on the psychology of the characters, from a clingy and jealous Norman uncomfortably intimate with his mother to Norma's manic personality...
In what is definitely the strangest "will they/won't they" relationship on TV right now, Norman and Norma continue to be equal parts disturbing and fascinating as a duo.
It seems likely that we may not get as much high-camp humor as in seasons past, but if the dark tone set by this episode is any indication, there may be plenty of gallows humor to fill the void.
Tthe more the show can bring Kenny Johnson into the same scenes as Farmiga and Highmore, the more crazily intense Bates Motel will be, and that's a good thing.
The Norman we saw here was an unsettling mixed of creepy and clingy. And very different from the boy we first met a few years ago in the series premiere. And it actually makes for some really cool TV.
Bates Motel has always been a compelling series, but I'm looking forward to watching Norma and Norman do an intricate dance for relationship domination.