TV Review: Bates Motel (Season One)
After the disaster that was Gus van Sant’s shot-for-shot remake of PSYCHO back in 1998, it’s surprising that some 15 years later a TV exec somewhere would say “you know what would make for a great new TV series? A prequel to the events of PSYCHO starring Norman Bates and his mother.” And yet that seems to be how the shit went down, and now that the 10 episode first season of BATES MOTEL just wrapped, it appears that TV exec was right. That cheeky fucker.
A&E’s BATES MOTEL has made Monday nights all the more fun and entertaining, delivering a solid hour of darkly comic entertainment, and doing a bang-up job keeping me thirsty for more each and every week. Vera Farmiga is smokin’ hot as Norma Bates (hot and batshit crazy), and Freddie Highmore was perfectly cast as the high school version of Norman. He has the right look, the right demeanor, and just the right acting chops to pull it off, and he did so extremely well. Let’s face it, if Norman was a total jerk-off, the show wouldn’t be worth watching.
As a mid-season replacement for some shit or another, BATES MOTEL covered a lot of ground…. Here are the highlights:
- The town where the newly established Bates Motel resides in is just about as crazy as any other character on the show. The town isn’t supernatural or anything off the wall like that, but there’s this unique sense about it that I dug.
- The production design is very timeless, in that it can be hard to actually tell what fuckin’ era this show is supposed to take place. At first, it feels like the ‘40s or ‘50s, just about the time this would have taken place if it were a true prequel to PSYCHO, but then kids are on their iPhones and there are HDTVs hanging on the walls, not to mention the cars on the street. But the look of the motel, the design of the Bates house lurking above the motel, and the style of Norma and Norman are very timeless, whereas everyone else is very 2013. A unique choice for sure, and one that works well for the show.
- All the chicks in town want to fuck Norman. And the hottest chick in town actually does fuck Norman. Sure, it was a pity fuck, a but a fuck’s a fuck, right? The town “dork” who is also hella hot underneath her oxygen tubes and matching tank also wants Norman’s cock, but he’s too hung up on the other slut to notice. His English teacher also wants some Norman dick inside her, and let’s not forget the incestual relationship between Norman and his mom. The dude may look and appear and be the biggest loner in the history of characters, but that doesn’t mean the ladies don’t want his meat. They want it… bad.
- I mentioned weed earlier, but there’s a ton of weed in this sleepy Oregon town, so much so that Norman’s half-brother Max Thierot has a job sitting around in a tent looking after the crops day in and day out. And there’s also dudes driving down the street on fire when said job of watching the crops isn’t done well. Weed’s a serious business… that’s what I’ve learned from BATES MOTEL.
- Also, human trafficking is also a serious business, and there’s a whole storyline going on there that goes to some pretty fuckin’ dark places surrounding human trafficking, keeping young Asian women captive, selling them on the black market, and using the Hotel and members of the police force to make it happen. It’s even more fucked up that then whole mother/son relationship going on between the Norman/Norma’s.
- Norma is one crazy bitch when she wants to be. Biopolar would probably be a better way to put it, as she’ll be Betty Crocker one minute and a psychotic crazy lady the next. Farmiga is great with pulling both of her manic personalities off, and you know what? She can be pretty funny, too.
- Norman’s crazy ways are set up quite well with his bouts of blacking out and doing crazy shit sprinkled through various episodes, followed by his recent obsession with taxidermy. The dude taxidermis a stray dog he falls in love with after knowing it for 20 minutes. That’s some crazy shit right there.
- The supporting cast is great, especially Nestor Carbonell, who plays Sheriff Romero (nice genre nod there!). He’s a tough guy who keeps things straight and narrow… and he really knows how to wear eyeliner. But fuck, even with the eyeliner, the guy is a total badass… but one where you’re not entirely sure where he stands with the Bates’ and all the crazy shit they’ve gotten themselves into so soon after arriving in town. He ends up being the hero at the end of Season One, and I couldn’t have been happier about it.
So what’s the verdict with BATES MOTEL? After one season of only 10 episodes, I’m hooked on the show and can’t wait for more when Season 2 starts (in the fall?). Season 1 ends on a nice little cliffhanger, promising more “classic” crazy shit coming from the Bates household. Plus, I gotta find out if his brother ends up nailing the town whore (Nicola Peltz), if Norman will finally play hide the salami with Emma (Olivia Cooke), will the entire town start to like Norma again or is she a lost cause and forever known as the “crazy lady at the Bates Motel”, and most importantly, how do the events of the season finale affect the lives of our favorite incestual mother/son duo? If you have a chance to check this out before Season 2 starts, I highly recommend it… it’s a great homage to the world Alfred Hitchcock created, yet it’s also its own thing, both of which work well together, surprisingly enough.
Grade: B+