Bates Motel 2.06
Apr. 8th, 2014 11:01 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakIn which pennies drop, and people, too.
Apart from everything else going on, it was nice to get an illustration that while Norman isn't romantically interested in Emma, he does care about her as a friend. (And also might find Cody's teenage bravado entrancing when directed at himself, but draws the line at her endangering Emma.)
I think I know now why Christine and her brother befriended Norma: for the same reason Nick Ford did, and I wouldn't be surprised if the death of the Councilman was their work, not directly this (though he obviously knew and benefited). In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if Christine at least wasn't high up there in Ford's organisation. Christine spotted someone she saw as a good frontwoman for them at the council, someone who because she had no other friends would be entirely beholden to her and so grateful that she wouldn't question. And while Norma in the aftermath of the "accident" immediately calls it quits with Nick Ford because she doesn't believe it was a coincidence, it doesn't occur to her that Christine having the councilwoman idea ready is just as much of a coincidence. In a way, it's similar to the Keith Summers and Deputy Shelby thing last season - Summers is the obvious menace, to be identified immediately, whereas Shelby seems like a nice guy, but because of said nice facade and providing Norma with help, admiration and affection, she doesn't want to see the danger until confronted with it.
There are two possible parallels with the other members of the family in this episode: Dylan is taken home by Nick Ford's opposite number in the drug war - btw, did we get a first name for her yet? If so, I missed it - who provides medical care, attention and sex, and tells him she needs him to basically become a backseat driver for her brother, Zane the idiot. Which sounds plausible enough, though I doubt that's all she'll want from him in the longer term. It also doesn't escape me she's a bossy blonde.
And then there's Cody. Whom I can't completely read. On the one hand, going out of her way to make Norman drink alcohol after Norma explicitly asked her not to "for medical reasons" , which Cody, who has experienced a Norman blackout, has to know isn't something Norma just made up , strikes me as a bit more sinister than just teenage bravado and a kneejerk reaction to defy a parent figure. On the other hand, telling Emma about the blackouts does look like genuine concern, which would argue against one of my speculations (which the liquor scene fueled fo rme), that Cody had a vague plan to have Norman deal with her father. I can't make up my mind on this; her father ending up on the bottom of the stairs at the end of this episode came to be accidentally rather than pre planned, i.e. there was no way to predict how that tussle with Norman would go. Then again, Cody did know Norman had a temper and that abusive men triggered it (see him telling her about his uncle), so - I just don't know. Can't make up my mind on this.
During the first scene at Cody's house, when Norman and Cody are hiding from her father, Norman flashes back to both his early childhood (which is the earliest flashback we had on the show so far), and Norma hiding with thim in an closet from a rampaging Sam Bates (I assume, though we didn't see the man they were hiding from), and to What Happened Last Summer, aka the events immediately preceding the death of his father, Sam hitting Norma. It's as explicit as the show's gotten an explanation for the origin of Norman's blackouts - that sense of fear and helplessness shared with his mother. Cody saying that her father wasn't always "like this" but that he could be nice is a parallel to Norman saying "he had his moments" when Shelby tries to sound him out about Sam Bates during the s1 fishing trip. What's interesting is that this is a blackout where we know Norman didn't do anything violent, nor did he try to, whereas all the previous blackouts the audience has seen contained Norman taking action, usually violent one.
(So far: the blackout around Sam Bates' death; the short blackout during his fight with Dylan when he comes at Dylan for the second time, this time with a meat cleaver, and later can't remember that part; the blackout around Miss Watson's death, which has of course a question mark (did he? didn't he?), and the blackout around confronting Caleb with a knife. Whereas this one in Cody's house happens without Norman going into any kind of action until he comes by at her sofa again.)
Meanwhile, the times Norman gets angry in the episode are times he's definitely NOT blacking out - after Emma's plunge, and after Norma prevented him getting his driver's licence after her phonecall from Emma. He's also still himself when storming into Cody's house to confront her about revealing the blackouts. Whether or not he's at the very end, after his struggle with Cody's father, though, we don't know yet. Though I can't help but notice that in the trailer for next week, it's Norman and only Norman who apparantly got arrested. Oh, and something else just occured to me: by telling Emma about the blackouts, Cody has just ensured someone else knows Norman has them, someone not Norman's mother, that is, who can't be relied upon to tell the cops about them.
Trivia: The Man Who Killed Liberty Valance: of course the key twist of that movie is that the noble lawyer whose entire career is built on the story about how he defied and killed evil Liberty Valance WASN'T the man who did it at all, how that was a lie; 'twasn't Jimmy Stewart the lawyer but morally ambiguous John Wayne, who didn't shoot Liberty Valance in a duel but from behind. (This is the movie with the most famous line being about how if it's truth versus legend, "print the legend".) I'm seeing certarin parallels here to George versus Alex Romero, Norma.
Apart from everything else going on, it was nice to get an illustration that while Norman isn't romantically interested in Emma, he does care about her as a friend. (And also might find Cody's teenage bravado entrancing when directed at himself, but draws the line at her endangering Emma.)
I think I know now why Christine and her brother befriended Norma: for the same reason Nick Ford did, and I wouldn't be surprised if the death of the Councilman was their work, not directly this (though he obviously knew and benefited). In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if Christine at least wasn't high up there in Ford's organisation. Christine spotted someone she saw as a good frontwoman for them at the council, someone who because she had no other friends would be entirely beholden to her and so grateful that she wouldn't question. And while Norma in the aftermath of the "accident" immediately calls it quits with Nick Ford because she doesn't believe it was a coincidence, it doesn't occur to her that Christine having the councilwoman idea ready is just as much of a coincidence. In a way, it's similar to the Keith Summers and Deputy Shelby thing last season - Summers is the obvious menace, to be identified immediately, whereas Shelby seems like a nice guy, but because of said nice facade and providing Norma with help, admiration and affection, she doesn't want to see the danger until confronted with it.
There are two possible parallels with the other members of the family in this episode: Dylan is taken home by Nick Ford's opposite number in the drug war - btw, did we get a first name for her yet? If so, I missed it - who provides medical care, attention and sex, and tells him she needs him to basically become a backseat driver for her brother, Zane the idiot. Which sounds plausible enough, though I doubt that's all she'll want from him in the longer term. It also doesn't escape me she's a bossy blonde.
And then there's Cody. Whom I can't completely read. On the one hand, going out of her way to make Norman drink alcohol after Norma explicitly asked her not to "for medical reasons" , which Cody, who has experienced a Norman blackout, has to know isn't something Norma just made up , strikes me as a bit more sinister than just teenage bravado and a kneejerk reaction to defy a parent figure. On the other hand, telling Emma about the blackouts does look like genuine concern, which would argue against one of my speculations (which the liquor scene fueled fo rme), that Cody had a vague plan to have Norman deal with her father. I can't make up my mind on this; her father ending up on the bottom of the stairs at the end of this episode came to be accidentally rather than pre planned, i.e. there was no way to predict how that tussle with Norman would go. Then again, Cody did know Norman had a temper and that abusive men triggered it (see him telling her about his uncle), so - I just don't know. Can't make up my mind on this.
During the first scene at Cody's house, when Norman and Cody are hiding from her father, Norman flashes back to both his early childhood (which is the earliest flashback we had on the show so far), and Norma hiding with thim in an closet from a rampaging Sam Bates (I assume, though we didn't see the man they were hiding from), and to What Happened Last Summer, aka the events immediately preceding the death of his father, Sam hitting Norma. It's as explicit as the show's gotten an explanation for the origin of Norman's blackouts - that sense of fear and helplessness shared with his mother. Cody saying that her father wasn't always "like this" but that he could be nice is a parallel to Norman saying "he had his moments" when Shelby tries to sound him out about Sam Bates during the s1 fishing trip. What's interesting is that this is a blackout where we know Norman didn't do anything violent, nor did he try to, whereas all the previous blackouts the audience has seen contained Norman taking action, usually violent one.
(So far: the blackout around Sam Bates' death; the short blackout during his fight with Dylan when he comes at Dylan for the second time, this time with a meat cleaver, and later can't remember that part; the blackout around Miss Watson's death, which has of course a question mark (did he? didn't he?), and the blackout around confronting Caleb with a knife. Whereas this one in Cody's house happens without Norman going into any kind of action until he comes by at her sofa again.)
Meanwhile, the times Norman gets angry in the episode are times he's definitely NOT blacking out - after Emma's plunge, and after Norma prevented him getting his driver's licence after her phonecall from Emma. He's also still himself when storming into Cody's house to confront her about revealing the blackouts. Whether or not he's at the very end, after his struggle with Cody's father, though, we don't know yet. Though I can't help but notice that in the trailer for next week, it's Norman and only Norman who apparantly got arrested. Oh, and something else just occured to me: by telling Emma about the blackouts, Cody has just ensured someone else knows Norman has them, someone not Norman's mother, that is, who can't be relied upon to tell the cops about them.
Trivia: The Man Who Killed Liberty Valance: of course the key twist of that movie is that the noble lawyer whose entire career is built on the story about how he defied and killed evil Liberty Valance WASN'T the man who did it at all, how that was a lie; 'twasn't Jimmy Stewart the lawyer but morally ambiguous John Wayne, who didn't shoot Liberty Valance in a duel but from behind. (This is the movie with the most famous line being about how if it's truth versus legend, "print the legend".) I'm seeing certarin parallels here to George versus Alex Romero, Norma.
