Bates Motel 4.08.
May. 4th, 2016 08:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakFor which Freddie Highmore wrote the script, thus proving he's talented in that department as well. Is there no end to what this kid young man can do? Seriously. If you've watched the episode, here are headwriter/producer Kerry Ehrin and Freddie Highmore discussing it.
I think what impresses me most is that this episode gets something right which often proves so elusive to both pro and fanfiction. The delicate balance between loving and understanding a flawed, morally ambiguous character without letting them off the hook for their misdeeds and/or blame someone else for same and/or ignore they ever happened. Incidentally, I'm not referring to Norman here, but to Norma.
She's my favourite character in the show and has made to one of my all time favourite characters ever. I want her to be happy, even though I know her ending. I want her to have all the happiness in the world. And of course I was thrilled at all she said (after working up to it through the episode) about how it's possible to love more than one person, and that Alex is in her life to stay. But Norman was still entirely correct that she created their co-dependent relationship, she taught him that there can be no one else, and until rather recently, she kept him so close there wasn't room to breathe. She treated every potential (or actual) girlfriend as a rival (except for Emma during the brief time they dated, and that was both due to Norma actually liking Emma and to her awareness that Emma was no emotional competition. Basically, she set up the rules, he tried all his life to keep to them, and now she's changing them unilaterally.
Now there are reasons the show has given us why Norma is the way she is, and why she slid into this co-dependent relationship with her younger son, going all the way back into her own abusive childhood and then her awful second marriage. But this doesn't change that she did what she did. (Anymore than Norman's own background, complete with the traumatic repressed memory from two episodes ago, changes his responsibility for his murders, past and future.) It's the difference between melodrama (which of course this show has plenty of) and tragedy (which it is overall, and never more than here): Norma fulfills the Aristolean requirement of a tragic hero(ine) being destroyed by a mixture of circumstance and their own flaws. A lesser show would have stopped the explosion at dinner with Norma's declaration of love, and would have let Norman simply express jealousy, instead of letting Norman lay out Norma's responsibility for their relationship. Or it would have written Norma as villain throughout and maintained Norman as the sole wronged party.
On a different note, a lesser show would also have kept the black humor away. Unfaithful gives us earlier a classic passive-aggressive Norma and Norman argument during the Christmas Tree outing that is entirely ic and yet also clearly a gift from Freddie Highmore to Vera Farmiga, because it's such a marvelous showcase of how funny she can be. The "pffft" dialogue was hilarious, and yet smoothly led into the next tragic step when Norman throws up upon hearing as much as the word "like" re: Norma's feelings for Alex Romero. Hitchcock - a great friend not just black humor but of making characters throw up, and prone to tell an anecdote of proposing to his wife Alma when she was throwing up en route from Germany back to England - would so approve.
Speaking of Hitchcock: the most overt homage in this episode is the shot of Norman creating that hole n the office through which in Psycho he'll watch Marion Crane and here watches his mother and Romero making love, complete with close-up on Norman's eye.
(The playful Alex-Norma "I'm a unicorn" exchange was golden, btw. )
Meanwhile, in another subplot: you know, Dylan, declaring that Norma and Norman are hopeless and you're better off without them might be the mentally healthy thing to do (and good for your long term survival, except for the part that I doubt it will happen unless the show is writing you out), but it also makes me like you less. Pray continue your investigation into Audrey's death instead, your mentally healthy relationship with Emma bores me. Otoh, Emma's scene with Norman, which showcased Norman at his best and was a reminder that he really does care for Emma as a friend, was great.
And also: I'm not surprised at all the DEA people when finally making their move on Rebecca are really interested in Alex Romero, and her only as a tool to get to him. Because again, just because audience sympathy is with Alex, they're still not wrong: Alex Romero has greatly contributed to enabling the White Pine Bay rottenness through the years. He's a part of the corrupt system, and a more important one than money laundering Rebecca. It has occurred to me that if the show wants to ensure Romero's survival beyond Norma's death while still providing an explanation as to why Norman gets away with matricide for years, putting the good sheriff in prison before said death happens is one possibility.
Speaking of matricide: I've seen predictions Norma will die in the season finale and Vera Farmiga will play Mother for the reminder of the show. I very much doubt that. Both for Watsonian (Norman still isn't far gone enough for that) and Doylist reasons - what's season 5 going to be about dramatically, one twelve hour version of Psycho? Norman and victim of the week? No way. Norma's survival is assured until the last two or three episodes of the show, mark my word.
I think what impresses me most is that this episode gets something right which often proves so elusive to both pro and fanfiction. The delicate balance between loving and understanding a flawed, morally ambiguous character without letting them off the hook for their misdeeds and/or blame someone else for same and/or ignore they ever happened. Incidentally, I'm not referring to Norman here, but to Norma.
She's my favourite character in the show and has made to one of my all time favourite characters ever. I want her to be happy, even though I know her ending. I want her to have all the happiness in the world. And of course I was thrilled at all she said (after working up to it through the episode) about how it's possible to love more than one person, and that Alex is in her life to stay. But Norman was still entirely correct that she created their co-dependent relationship, she taught him that there can be no one else, and until rather recently, she kept him so close there wasn't room to breathe. She treated every potential (or actual) girlfriend as a rival (except for Emma during the brief time they dated, and that was both due to Norma actually liking Emma and to her awareness that Emma was no emotional competition. Basically, she set up the rules, he tried all his life to keep to them, and now she's changing them unilaterally.
Now there are reasons the show has given us why Norma is the way she is, and why she slid into this co-dependent relationship with her younger son, going all the way back into her own abusive childhood and then her awful second marriage. But this doesn't change that she did what she did. (Anymore than Norman's own background, complete with the traumatic repressed memory from two episodes ago, changes his responsibility for his murders, past and future.) It's the difference between melodrama (which of course this show has plenty of) and tragedy (which it is overall, and never more than here): Norma fulfills the Aristolean requirement of a tragic hero(ine) being destroyed by a mixture of circumstance and their own flaws. A lesser show would have stopped the explosion at dinner with Norma's declaration of love, and would have let Norman simply express jealousy, instead of letting Norman lay out Norma's responsibility for their relationship. Or it would have written Norma as villain throughout and maintained Norman as the sole wronged party.
On a different note, a lesser show would also have kept the black humor away. Unfaithful gives us earlier a classic passive-aggressive Norma and Norman argument during the Christmas Tree outing that is entirely ic and yet also clearly a gift from Freddie Highmore to Vera Farmiga, because it's such a marvelous showcase of how funny she can be. The "pffft" dialogue was hilarious, and yet smoothly led into the next tragic step when Norman throws up upon hearing as much as the word "like" re: Norma's feelings for Alex Romero. Hitchcock - a great friend not just black humor but of making characters throw up, and prone to tell an anecdote of proposing to his wife Alma when she was throwing up en route from Germany back to England - would so approve.
Speaking of Hitchcock: the most overt homage in this episode is the shot of Norman creating that hole n the office through which in Psycho he'll watch Marion Crane and here watches his mother and Romero making love, complete with close-up on Norman's eye.
(The playful Alex-Norma "I'm a unicorn" exchange was golden, btw. )
Meanwhile, in another subplot: you know, Dylan, declaring that Norma and Norman are hopeless and you're better off without them might be the mentally healthy thing to do (and good for your long term survival, except for the part that I doubt it will happen unless the show is writing you out), but it also makes me like you less. Pray continue your investigation into Audrey's death instead, your mentally healthy relationship with Emma bores me. Otoh, Emma's scene with Norman, which showcased Norman at his best and was a reminder that he really does care for Emma as a friend, was great.
And also: I'm not surprised at all the DEA people when finally making their move on Rebecca are really interested in Alex Romero, and her only as a tool to get to him. Because again, just because audience sympathy is with Alex, they're still not wrong: Alex Romero has greatly contributed to enabling the White Pine Bay rottenness through the years. He's a part of the corrupt system, and a more important one than money laundering Rebecca. It has occurred to me that if the show wants to ensure Romero's survival beyond Norma's death while still providing an explanation as to why Norman gets away with matricide for years, putting the good sheriff in prison before said death happens is one possibility.
Speaking of matricide: I've seen predictions Norma will die in the season finale and Vera Farmiga will play Mother for the reminder of the show. I very much doubt that. Both for Watsonian (Norman still isn't far gone enough for that) and Doylist reasons - what's season 5 going to be about dramatically, one twelve hour version of Psycho? Norman and victim of the week? No way. Norma's survival is assured until the last two or three episodes of the show, mark my word.
no subject
Date: 2016-05-05 04:18 am (UTC)Thank you so much for saying this. I'm tired of other fans treating Norma as the victim and hoping Norman will go away so everyone else can be happy.
I'm trying to decide if Romero will:
a) die in the finale, (not by Norman's hands, but due to his own corruption)
b) end up in jail
c) have given Rebecca the key because he has some nifty plan in place to save himself and Norma. (He's usually not the conniving type, but you never know.)
no subject
Date: 2016-05-05 04:56 am (UTC)The shows have little in common otherwise, but I'm reminded of Babylon 5 and Londo Mollari in this regard. Londo is my favourite and I was so glad when from s4 onwards he was on the road to redemption (sort of), his relationship with G'Kar developed the way it did, and he was happy for a while. But that only worked because a) the show never forgot what Londo had done, and the characters didn't, either, and b) eventually, tragedy caught up with him, and said tragedy would never have happened if Londo had not made his original bad choices and caused a lot of suffering due to them.
re: fandom, it's the old principle again: loving a character being equated with declaring said character not at fault for anything. Especially when shipping madness kicks in. Which always struck me as taking away from the richness of the character! I don't fall for the characters in the first place because they are, how are the kids on tumblr putting it these days, "perfect cinnamon rolls". (Footnote: must be a US thing. I've never eaten a cinnamon roll, what does it consist of, other than cinnamon?)
Romero's fate (for this season): my guess is still that if someone dies in the finale, it's a returned Caleb, so b) and c) seem to be the most likely options.
If c), then, for starters, Rebecca having the key and hence Bob Paris' money (the part of it in the safe, not the cash which Romero took from the boat) certainly incriminates her, not Alex Romero, who pointedly when she asked how much of it he wanted declined to take anything. Basically, unless Rebecca kept proof of how she laundered money for Romero in the past, it's her word against his, and she's the one holding the money bag, so...
no subject
Date: 2016-05-07 12:34 am (UTC)And yeah, morally ambiguous characters are awesome and I've given up on trying to understand why some fans need their favorite to be lily white. My favorite character ever is Winn Adami, after all. I wonder if I would ship Norma/Alex as much as I do if they weren't both doomed. I just like the tragic characters that are at least partially to blame for their fates.