Bates Motel - A Death in the Family - Review / Recap.

The episode begins with Norman awaking in Norma’s bed. He cuddles her just as Dylan comes looking for him and spots them. Norma wakes up and makes breakfast for Dylan. He tells her that Norman should not be sleeping in the same bed as his mother and leaves for work. The phone rings, Norma answers. Her mother is dead but she doesn’t want to claim any of her belongings.

She takes Norman to school after telling him the news of his Grandmother. Norman doesn’t want to return to school but Norma throws him out of the car (literally). Whilst at school, he starts having visions of Miss Watson reading poetry to him before her neck gets sliced. He runs home.

Dylan arrives to his cabin. Gunner is standing out the front waiting. Apparently Remo told him how to find the place before he left town and that Dylan would need help.

Norman arrives back at the motel and tells Norma what happened. She asks him if he blacked out but he isn’t sure. A new guest pulls up and requests a room. Her name is Annika Johnson. She drops her things. Norman leans down to help her and checks out her cleavage. He is instantly interested in her. She heads off to her room as Norman and Norma head up to the house.

Dylan is sitting in a café. Romero comes and sits opposite him. Romero would like to talk to Dylan about the future of the drug business. Dylan tells him that he only wants to have his own legal farm and help sick people with it. Romero lets him know that he won’t be able to protect him anymore.

Annika goes up to the house looking for Norma but she isn’t around. Norman offers to help. Annika just wants some lights changed. They head to Annika’s room and begin. They talk about Norman’s family and about how his dad died. Norman also tells her about the bypass threatening to take down the motel. Norman asks why Annika is around. She decides to tell him the truth – that she is a prostitute. Norman tells her that she seems like a nice girl.

Dylan is headed back to the cabin when he notices a van following him. He stops, gets out and pulls out a gun. However the person following only turns out to be Caleb. He wants to talk to Dylan but didn’t want to go to the motel. He tells Dylan that his mom died and he wanted to give him the cash from the house. Dylan doesn’t want it and tells Caleb to leave.

Norman and Norma are in bed again. Norma tells Norman that he could home school. Norman is happy about this. Then she tells him that she wants him to be motel manager. He accepts. Then she tells him it would be a better idea to go to his bed because of her and Dylan’s conversation that morning. Norman is clearly upset but goes to his own bed anyway.

The next morning Dylan is driving back into town. He sees Caleb broken down and stops. Caleb asks for directions to the spare parts shop. Dylan then gives him a ride and tells him that his most important job is making sure that Caleb leaves town. Caleb tries to make small talk once they pick up the parts but Dylan wants none of it. Caleb then tells him how weird it feels not having any family left. He then tells Dylan that he knows that he’s his dad. He tells Dylan that his mother was crazy and his dad was violent. The only safe place for him and Norma was with each other. Dylan takes Caleb back to his van.

Romero is sitting at a bar when two of the ex-drug business employees approach him and accuse him of not protecting them. One of them threatens to kick his arse. Romero them slams him into the table and leaves.

Emma is sitting at reception when Norman walks in. She asks if he’s ok. He tells her about home schooling and how he is now manager. She then tells him that the doctor told her that her lung capacity has diminished by a lot. Norman tells her that he is sorry. She says that he wishes that she could leave school and Norman invites her to join him in home schooling. Norman then asks Emma out. She is worried that he only wants to do this because she is dying. Norman assures her that this isn’t the case. She then tells him that she has been wanting to go out with him for a while.

Dylan arrives home and finds Norma sitting up waiting for him. She tells him that his grandmother died. Dylan asks her if she’s ok. She pulls out a hair ribbon that belonged to her. She tells Dylan about how her mother used to wear it with a blue dress. It’s the only memory that she had that she sounded happy in. Dylan asks why she wasn’t happy. Norma replies that she wasn’t healthy and took a lot of pills. She was sedated a lot.

Norman is walking back up to the house and finds a raccoon going through the trash. He scares it away and goes to pick it up when he notices Annika’s window open. She is walking around in a bra and underwear. He watches her run a shower and get undressed. Norma comes outside with trash bags and spots him. She pulls him back into the house and has a shot up him telling him that he can not watch guests through their windows. Norman assures her that it won’t ever happen again.

Norman then finds Norma in bed crying. He thinks it was over the window incident and apologizes again. She tells her that she’s not crying because of that but because her mother is dead. She thinks it’s stupid because she didn’t get along with her. She then asks Norman to sleep with her to comfort her which he does.

Back at the Cabin, Dylan arrives to find Caleb sitting down with Gunner. He had gotten the wrong part. Dylan tells Gunner to take a walk whilst he talks to Caleb. Caleb begs Dylan to have a relationship with him.

Norman and Emma are talking about home schooling and their relationship before Annika shows up asking for directions to a restraint called Oliver Anker. Norman says that he had to go into town anyway and offers to drive with her to show her then walk home. The pair head off.

Norman asks Annika if she’s working. She is. She says that she’s only doing it to get some money saved and make a living. She’s used to it and sometimes it even feels good. She asks if the road ahead is where she needs to go. Norman says no, it’s the one after it.

Emma closes the motel and heads home. Annika’s car pulls back in. Out of the drivers seat hops Norman with that murderous look in his eyes. Annika is gone.

So what did I think?

As I mentioned in my advanced preview article the other day, I was slightly disappointed. I didn’t completely dislike the episode which a lot of you seemed to get the impression of, however I didn’t LOVE it either. In fact it was one of the weakest season premieres that I have seen this year to be completely honest. It just seemed a little ‘meh’ compared to the Season 2 premiere. I did feel that it was an improvement on the rest of Season 2 though. I just really hope that it was enough for viewers to stick around. Premieres set up the storyline for the rest of the reason which I do feel like a ‘Death in the Family’ did well. I am excited to see where the storyline goes from here.

I am very glad that there was only one new face in the premiere and I hope that A&E slowly introduce characters this season. It takes me a while to warm up to people so it is my pet peeve when shows rush to introduce a heap of characters over the period of 42 minutes and give them hardly any character development afterwards. Annika seemed to be a very likable character and part of me is hoping that she’s still around (despite how unlikely that may be).

I loved how Keegan Connor Tracy had a cameo. It was nice to see an old face that we haven’t seen for a while (apart from in stock footage).

All in all, I found the episode to just be ‘ok’ and I hope that it improves over the next few weeks.

2.5 / 5.