"Psycho" is my all-time favorite movie. I don't need to tell you why. That would take to long, anyways. But because "Psycho" is my all- time favorite movie, I've really enjoyed "Bates Motel." The goal for this show has never been to remake "Psycho," which I appreciate. Instead they've done their own re-imagining of the iconic story while still maintaining the same tone and feel that made "Psycho" so great. There was a lot of fluff in seasons 1-3, but those who were patient with the show were rewarded with a phenomenal season 4 that was one of the best seasons of a TV show that I may have ever seen.
Quite frankly, they could've ended the show with season 4 and I would've been perfectly happy. Except they purposely left a few strings hanging to setup a final season, mainly with Alex and Dylan. So we carry on.
For the first few episodes, I was all in. This was a great final season that had me loving all the dynamics with everyone. Then they introduced a character that they called Sam Loomis. That made me slam on the brakes. There's supposed to be 10 years before the death of Norma and the events of Marion Crane and Sam Loomis with the Bates Motel. What were they doing? And Sam Loomis is now an unlikable character who is cheating on his wife? With Rihanna?!?!?! That's not right.
So let's talk about Rihanna. She is a singer. A pretty awful singer as of late who's always been overrated in my mind. She's had just as much success on the Billboard charts as people like Michael Jackson, Madonna, The Beatles and Elvis Presley. That's just wrong. But as awful of a singer as she is, she's an even worse actress. "Battleship" is one of the worst movies of all-time in my opinion and that's in part due to Rihanna being in the star role and how bad of a job she does.
You don't ever cast Rihanna in your movie or your TV show. You just don't do it. Especially not in an iconic role. Apparently the writers of the show learned that Rihanna was a huge fan and thus reached out to her and the rest is history. I honestly don't care how much she loves the show, she should've never been on this show, certainly not as Marion Crane. That was one of the dumbest decisions ever.
Enter this episode. I was pretty angry at the show heading into this because Rihanna, as was expected, did a pretty awful job as Marion Crane, one of the most iconic characters in movie history. It was a disgrace to this show. So I was expecting to hate this episode. And for a good portion of time, it was going just as expected. Rihanna enters the motel. She is hungry for food. Norman goes to the house to make her food and Mother gets mad at him. Then he goes back and talks to Rihanna for a while before she goes into her room. She gets naked while Norman is watching and goes into the shower. This is the moment where Norman is supposed to walk in and kill her and they set it up with an almost shot for shot shower scene...
And he doesn't? Say what?
Yeah, the twist here is that this is completely opposite of the movie. Rihanna walks back into the motel and asks for the guest registry. Norman doesn't give it to her, but instead gives her the address of Sam Loomis, where she goes and learns that he has been a complete dirt bag who never told her that he is married. So Rihanna goes all "B---- Better Have My Money" on his car (go watch the music video if you don't know what I'm talking about) and goes back to Bates Motel where Norman convinces her to run away so that he doesn't sleep with her and end up killing her.
Rihanna leaves and throws her phone away, never to be seen on this show again. Hopefully.
That's actually pretty genius. In the meantime, Norman has started to figure out that Mother is a fake persona that he created, something that I also was nervous about to start out with. But it works. This instead kinda makes Norman even crazier as Mother then confesses that, while she is fake, she's also a part of Norman and they are a team that has to work together. She then convinces Norman to do something that he's never consciously done on his own. Kill a man.
Because, you see, every time Norman has killed, it's been while he's blacked out. The fact that he has now accepted his fate and killed on his own makes him a more disturbing and terrifying character that is more psychotic and crazy as he has ever been.
So instead of Marion being killed in this episode, Sam returns to the Motel where he is the one that suffer's Marion's fate at the hands of Norman. Whereupon Norman responds:
"Mother, what have I done?"
A complete opposite statement than the classic line from "Psycho" after Norman kills Marion, which is, of course, "Mother, what have you done?"
Now with Dylan likely to return to the Bates Motel and Madeleine still very much in the picture, especially now that she knows Norman was telling the truth and will likely come to him to apologize, along with Alex still looming around and Chick figuring in somehow, we've set ourselves up for quite the epic series finale. Let's hope it delivers!
I'm not going to say this was my favorite episode of the show, but given that I went in expecting to hate it, I'm impressed with the direction they took. I think Hitchcock would be pleased.
Quite frankly, they could've ended the show with season 4 and I would've been perfectly happy. Except they purposely left a few strings hanging to setup a final season, mainly with Alex and Dylan. So we carry on.
For the first few episodes, I was all in. This was a great final season that had me loving all the dynamics with everyone. Then they introduced a character that they called Sam Loomis. That made me slam on the brakes. There's supposed to be 10 years before the death of Norma and the events of Marion Crane and Sam Loomis with the Bates Motel. What were they doing? And Sam Loomis is now an unlikable character who is cheating on his wife? With Rihanna?!?!?! That's not right.
So let's talk about Rihanna. She is a singer. A pretty awful singer as of late who's always been overrated in my mind. She's had just as much success on the Billboard charts as people like Michael Jackson, Madonna, The Beatles and Elvis Presley. That's just wrong. But as awful of a singer as she is, she's an even worse actress. "Battleship" is one of the worst movies of all-time in my opinion and that's in part due to Rihanna being in the star role and how bad of a job she does.
You don't ever cast Rihanna in your movie or your TV show. You just don't do it. Especially not in an iconic role. Apparently the writers of the show learned that Rihanna was a huge fan and thus reached out to her and the rest is history. I honestly don't care how much she loves the show, she should've never been on this show, certainly not as Marion Crane. That was one of the dumbest decisions ever.
Enter this episode. I was pretty angry at the show heading into this because Rihanna, as was expected, did a pretty awful job as Marion Crane, one of the most iconic characters in movie history. It was a disgrace to this show. So I was expecting to hate this episode. And for a good portion of time, it was going just as expected. Rihanna enters the motel. She is hungry for food. Norman goes to the house to make her food and Mother gets mad at him. Then he goes back and talks to Rihanna for a while before she goes into her room. She gets naked while Norman is watching and goes into the shower. This is the moment where Norman is supposed to walk in and kill her and they set it up with an almost shot for shot shower scene...
And he doesn't? Say what?
Yeah, the twist here is that this is completely opposite of the movie. Rihanna walks back into the motel and asks for the guest registry. Norman doesn't give it to her, but instead gives her the address of Sam Loomis, where she goes and learns that he has been a complete dirt bag who never told her that he is married. So Rihanna goes all "B---- Better Have My Money" on his car (go watch the music video if you don't know what I'm talking about) and goes back to Bates Motel where Norman convinces her to run away so that he doesn't sleep with her and end up killing her.
Rihanna leaves and throws her phone away, never to be seen on this show again. Hopefully.
That's actually pretty genius. In the meantime, Norman has started to figure out that Mother is a fake persona that he created, something that I also was nervous about to start out with. But it works. This instead kinda makes Norman even crazier as Mother then confesses that, while she is fake, she's also a part of Norman and they are a team that has to work together. She then convinces Norman to do something that he's never consciously done on his own. Kill a man.
Because, you see, every time Norman has killed, it's been while he's blacked out. The fact that he has now accepted his fate and killed on his own makes him a more disturbing and terrifying character that is more psychotic and crazy as he has ever been.
So instead of Marion being killed in this episode, Sam returns to the Motel where he is the one that suffer's Marion's fate at the hands of Norman. Whereupon Norman responds:
"Mother, what have I done?"
A complete opposite statement than the classic line from "Psycho" after Norman kills Marion, which is, of course, "Mother, what have you done?"
Now with Dylan likely to return to the Bates Motel and Madeleine still very much in the picture, especially now that she knows Norman was telling the truth and will likely come to him to apologize, along with Alex still looming around and Chick figuring in somehow, we've set ourselves up for quite the epic series finale. Let's hope it delivers!
I'm not going to say this was my favorite episode of the show, but given that I went in expecting to hate it, I'm impressed with the direction they took. I think Hitchcock would be pleased.