Bates Motel – S4xEp03 – ’Til Death Do You Part

’Til Death Do You Part is about two men who go to extreme measures to play savior to the women in their lives. In one case, Sheriff Alex Romero has decided to marry Norma Bates, just so her son Norman can get the medical help he so clearly needs. In another, Dylan sees a future with Emma now that she has successfully received a lung transplant, but he’ll have to go straight first. While Dylan and Norma inch toward happiness, Norman finds himself alone.

Dylan finally makes it back from Portland, ready to fire Gunner and give up his life in the drug trade. Before he can do so, Gunner quits to head off to Cali, and Chick shows up at the door, badly hurt and gaunt. He’s a threat, but he’s mostly looking for Caleb, who beat him within an inch of his life and left him for dead last season. He tells Dylan, “I thought you ought to know what your father is capable of,” and I wonder if that means that Dylan’s uncle/father will be back soon.

Making the parallels even clearer, just as Dylan is confronted by someone from his past, Alex returns home to find his own visitor, Rebecca. It turns out that Alex has a girlfriend, or at least a friend with benefits. He drops the marriage bomb, and she’s not too happy about it. She works at the bank, and people have been asking questions about Bob Paris, the man Alex killed at the end of last season. Is she in trouble? Will she get him in trouble? She gives him back his key, but this is clearly foreshadowing for future problems. And I’m not sure burying his money in the Bates basement is the best strategy.

And of course, the episode deliberately contrasts their private wedding dinner with Norman’s first institutional day. I appreciate that the episode doesn’t make a caricature of mental institutions, and neither does it flinch from the the reality that being in one strips you of so much control. Norman reacts exactly how you’d expect; great stuff from Freddie Highmore, who plays this entire episode so ill-at-ease that he looks like an angry marionette being operated from offstage. And because he’s his mother’s son, he exerts control at the earliest opportunity by lashing out as hard as he possibly can. When Mother comes to see him? “You’ve painted me into a corner I cannot get out of and I’ve never been so disappointed in anyone.” It’s the worst thing someone could level at her, of course, and he wields it like a scalpel. Several people this episode assure Norma she’s done the right thing for Norman; she seems, moment to moment, to believe that herself. But her heart is a pit, and while she’s afraid it will bury him, she’s equally afraid he’ll climb out.

The most telling and tense scenes of the lot involve Norman’s sessions with his in-center therapist, Dr. Edwards. As you might imagine, putting Norman’s motivations under the microscope, watching him tic away, slowly letting out his inner self is constantly engaging. This whole season seems like it’s going to be a game of chicken with Norman’s psyche, with Dr. Edwards helping push those buttons early on. He’s exactly the sort of person that I’d say would have a huge bullseye on him if I didn’t think Norman was fairly pacified in his care here.

However, the biggest pin of all being Norman’s confession to Dr. Edwards that he believes his mother is killing people, and that might just be the one that sends them all crashing down. The future doesn’t look bright for Norma at all. But she has a bright spot now, in her husband, Alex. They’ve finally made love, too, which I can only imagine was a wonderful scene.

Here’s hoping she embraces the happiness while it lasts.