Solzhenknitsyn

Speculation on #nomero on Twitter (what? I'm not ashamed to ship) is that (MAJOR POTENTIAL SPOILER)

Seriously. Domestic abuse can involve so many different forms of violence and terrorization. Why do we gotta see the rape? I agree that it's largely due to lazy writing, but I'll bet that an additional reason is that a sexual assault scene is easier to film, from a production perspective, than a scene where the character gets brutally beaten. There's less of a risk that production shuts down for a week because your star gets clocked in the jaw by accident. So yeah. Lazy writers, lazy production team.

I don't think it's a coincidence that "The Vault" has generated more discussion than the other episodes in this (overall excellent) season. The writers did a great job of weaving together all of the threads that make this show so engrossing. Norma's contradictions: strength v. vulnerability; cruelty (telling Dylan "Have fun leaving me") v. lovingkindness (sensing that Dylan misses his father and telling Caleb to call him); maturity ("I've never loved someone enough to feel obligated to be honest with them") v. immaturity ("Do your best, you GIANT LAME ASSHOLE!") Tragicomedy: Her final stand against Chick in the foyer. Despite the aura of impending doom, it had me guffawing from the moment Norma snarled, "You can put it...RIGHT HERE" and double-pointed at her feet in the universal "Come at me, bro!" gesture. Norma to Alex, convinced that Chick is about to spill her deepest secret: "I, um, I love you. I just want you to know that." Alex: "You're telling me this right now?" Always the romantics, those two. :) The cycle of abuse and the price of keeping secrets: "Are you lonely, Norma Bates? Something tells me that you're lonely, because you can't tell the people you love that you had sex with your brother." My heart was breaking for Norma during the scene with Chick in the diner. The scenes with Norman and his psychiatrist, which reveal Norma's traumas and edge closer to revealing the murderous truth about Mother. "Twin Peaks" realness: ​Holy cow, Chick! I finally saw his appeal in this episode. Loved how his artistic, insightful nature made him that much more effective as a total sociopath. Danger: Again, Norma's scenes with his psychiatrist, particularly when Mother coldly tells the doc that Norman must be protected from remembering his horrible past. "Or I will have to do something about it." Dr. Edwards is DOOOOOOMED.

Beautifully stated. Her shortsightedness about her parenting, and her blindness to the lingering effects of her own trauma, are part of the tragedy. No-one sees his/her own shortcomings with perfect clarity. Norma's shortcomings are huge, and with Norman as a son, the stakes for lack of self-awareness were so high. One could argue that Norma was doomed from the start. "So foul and fair a day I have not seen." I agree with this as well.

I imagine it's possible to have dissociative identity disorder with psychotic features, such as auditory/visual hallucinations. Plus, of course, a touch of psychopathy, to account for Mother's murderous bent.

Oooh...intriguing theory! It dovetails nicely with Mother being part of Norman.

I agree with Mabinogia. The hand-holding scene could be interpreted as Norman grabbing her hand for comfort because he was confused and frightened. It could be interpreted as mutual comfort as well. I saw it as a continuation of the theme of "vulnerable people cling to each other in crappy situations, leading to unhealthy boundaries and unforeseen, life-changing consequences."

Seriously! What was with the little speech about looking people in the eye and lying?

Chiming in to agree with those who found the scene in which Norman turned into Mother to be creepy, chilling perfection. I only wish that Norman had sat on the couch in a more Mother-like fashion. He plunked himself down like a trucker at a backyard hog roast. Other than that, I found the episode a little weak. I got the sense it was intended to be a transitional episode between the early season arcs (Norman getting to Pineview, Norma getting married) and the story arcs going forward. But...I'm not sold on what those story arcs are apparently going to be. First, Dylan and Emma appear to be in stasis. She's healing well, her father's cool with Dylan, they're still in love. There's no obstacle or antagonist to their stated goal of moving to Seattle, so zzzzzzzzzz. Second, this episode did not advance Romero's storyline, which is a missed opportunity IMO. If his crooked past catches up to him, it will threaten his and Norma's newfound happiness, perhaps causing her to doubt her attempt to be happy without Norman, etc etc. I think the episode could have upped the stakes by having Rebecca threaten Alex, or showing her trying to cut a deal with the DEA to take him down for murder, or something. Anything other than the "Why didn't you marry meeeeeeee" scene with Rebecca. In the oh-so-interesting setting of the sheriff's department parking lot. Third, Chick. I do find his loopy-but-menacing-artist schtick entertaining. But IMO his character is too off-puttingly weird, and too one-dimensional, to be a strong antagonist against a well-written character like Norma Bates. I hope this whole "tell me where your brother is" arc is a sideshow rather than the main event. Fourth, Caleb. Sounds like he's going to re-enter the picture. Blegh. OTOH, it's a great choice because Norma will presumably do anything to avoid revealing this painful aspect of her past to Romero. OTOH, I feel as though Season 3 fully mined her conflicted feelings about her brother. To me, bringing Caleb back would feel like rehash at this point. The first four episodes of the season were so good, though! I still have faith in the writers, so I'm crossing my fingers that my take on where the season is going is wrong.

Heh heh. Liked this episode, didn't love it. Maybe because it felt a little fragmented? I don't watch a ton of TV, so I don't know how season finales are generally supposed to work. Is it necessary to have a nod to every single character or storyline on the show? I think it would have made more sense to wrap up Caleb's and Emma's storylines in the penultimate episode, so that they could be explored in a little more depth. I know Caleb and Emma are secondary characters, but I felt their treatment in this episode was a little rushed. I think another weakness is that there was no big storyline to resolve with a rush of action. The DEA agents swoop in on Bob Paris, but there's no dramatic tension there, because none of the main characters is physical danger. Bob Paris is dangerous to Norma, but the danger is conceptual. It doesn't compare to Norman getting thrown into a box by a bonfa fide drug kingpin, or Dylan getting caught in a cartel shootout, or Norma heading down to the docks with a peashooter to square off against a murderous sex trafficker. (And the writers kind of dropped the dramatic ball on the Arcanum Club. The two sex workers were murdered because of...a flash drive? Containing a spreadsheet? Which Alex simply hands over to the DEA? The drug sideplots are always this show's weak point, and this season's was particularly weak.) However, l lurved the Dylemma kiss. Lurved Emma's medieval-style hoodie. Dylan's like a white knight coming to rescue his ladylove, y'all! Lurved Normero's porch scene. "I'm not here to apologize [except I totally am] . . . ." Bradley's killing was well-shot and disturbing in the extreme. In fact, I could have done without seeing her head getting bashed against a rock, thank you very much. Am I the only one, though, who screamed "HIPAA privacy violation!" at the TV when the psych hospital administrator gestured to the patients and their visitors in the waiting room? I mean, maybe it doesn't rise quite to that level, but I can't imagine an expensive psych hospital letting looky-loos gawk at the patients.

My specific predictions, based on gingerhorsesnaps' link: (1) Mother has a lot to say about sex and bad girls. She articulates the standard for Norman's future victims. First up: Bradley. (2) Bob Paris offs the DEA agent and tries to pin it on Romero. Romero offs Paris, but remains under suspicion for the DEA agent's death. (3) Emma finds out that Dylan risked his life for her lung transplant. This scares her, because she doesn't want to admit that she digs him. She tries to reject the money. (4) Norman goes into a homicidal trance and kills Bradley. Norma witnesses it. Norma knocks Norman unconscious, dumps Bradley's body in the swamp, and concocts a bizarre cover story for Norman. (5) - (7) Romero and the DEA agent kiss before Paris offs her. OR, Romero and Paris kiss before Romero offs him. OR, Romero and Norma kiss. As Romero staggers away, blinded by the sheer intensity of the kiss, Norman offs Bradley, etc. (see (4), supra). OR, At the pot farm, Dylan and Emma kiss. Then Chick shows up. (8) Norma's bizarre cover story involves Norman knocking himself unconscious while cleaning out the basement. (9) Romero tells Norma that Paris is dead. She says, "Thank you for offing him. I knew you'd come through for me." They stare longingly at each other. (10) Chick starts shooting at Dylan, Emma, and Gunner. Caleb shows up and starts shooting back. At a crucial moment, Dylan decides to save Emma rather than Caleb. Caleb dies to protect his son, thereby finding redemption. Emma realizes that life is precious and accepts the lung transplant after all. Viewers weep. :)

Checking super late to say once again that it's the tiny details that make me love this show. When Alex breaks into Norma's house/motel rooms, there's no sign of forced entry. He slips in like a mutha-effin' ghost, y'all, like walls ain't shit to him. When Norma breaks into Alex's house? Broken glass everywhere. Norma's got no finesse. :) Count me in, though, as one of the few who didn't find their almost-kiss hot. (1) Because it was preceded by Norma slapping the shit out of Alex; and (2) because Norma looked so defeated. Don't get me wrong, the actors' chemistry was amazing. And Norma strikes out physically when she's overwhelmed with anger and a sense of powerlessness, so (unfortunately) her hitting Alex felt true to her character. But...blegh. #partnerviolenceisn'tcool #lovesexnothatesex Also, I agree with the point upthread about Norma -- hypocritically -- not liking over-emotionalism in her men. I half-expected her to cut off Romero's big speech with, "Quit whining, Alex. It's not masculine and it's not attractive." And yeah. Into the pit with Bradley! I don't care how hot some viewers may find her, her "Like, duh" line delivery kills every scene she's in. And I thought it was strange that the season's penultimate episode would spend so much time on a character whose story line ended almost two seasons ago. My guess is that she is the next victim, but still. Her scenes really made this episode drag.

I agree that his expectations were unreasonable. But I can buy them as the emotional flailing a tough dude who's mad-crushing on a woman and feeling vulnerable. Bob Parrish told Romero, in essence, that Norma was deceiving and using him. So Romero tried to prove to himself that she wasn't, that she would tell him the same secret that she'd told that turtleneck-wearing douchebag whom she'd slept with after knowing for like five minutes and who hadn't, like, gotten her out of a couple of serious jams and got her car back and everything. Yeah, there was male entitlement going on. Yeah, it would have been better if Romero had bared his soul to Norma, told her that he loved her, and point-blank asked her if he had a chance with her. But (a) it's TV, and there'd be no dramatic arc if people solved their problems easily; and (b) love makes you do dumb things. :)

Regarding Romero's (speculated) ultimate fate: I straight-up gasped when Norman turned up in the kitchen in Norma's robe. And when he started speaking with Norma's inflections! And using her mannerisms! He even walked like her! As a poster upthread said, Freddie Highmore played it brilliantly -- he could have gone with a campy, exaggerated performance of femininity, but instead he practically channeled Vera Farmiga. I take that back -- he played Norma, but ever so slightly exaggerated, as if she were closer to a 50s housewife in his mind than she is in real life. So he was playing Head Norma rather than Norma Norma. Oooh, it gave me the chills! Loved Romero lying stone-faced in his hospital bed, looking like he's finally down for the count, as his rival smugly tells him to fall in line or die. Next scene: Option Three. Did everyone forget that Romero's a stone-cold killer? In fact, didn't Bob reference his killing people for the good of White Pine Bay? If so, you'd think that Bob would have sent someone to finish the job in the hospital right away. Loved Norma's interactions with her therapist. Her relief at admitting the depth of Norman's troubles, then her conviction that she'd made a mistake, then her attempt to play it off cool, then her flailing panic. She must be an exhausting character to play, and yet VF makes her completely authentic. And her soliloquy about The Giving Tree! I love all of Norma's contradictions: she's selfish, she's giving, she's warm and open, she pushes people away. One question, though: is it my imagination, or has Norma gotten more sympathetic over the seasons? I feel like in the beginning, the writers played up her narcissism and controlling tendencies, but as the series progressed, they began to emphasize the massive obstacles she faced, both in the past and present.

Norma running into James Finnegan's arms makes a lot of sense, character-wise and plot-wise. She seems to be drawn to men who are too self-centered or myopic to notice that she's dealing with some pretty serious shit. Finnegan is presenting himself as someone who "gets" her and her struggles, but as others have noted, his willingness to play fast and loose with therapeutic boundaries suggests that he's a bit of a self-serving dick. It would be an interesting plot driver if Finnegan ended up as Darth Vader Boyfriend, M.F.T., encouraging her to make poor choices so that she remained dependent on him for emotional support. I agree with those who like Norman the supportive brother, but I can't see him going as far as to let Caleb move in! But I dunno...it could bring matters to a head between Norma and Caleb. I don't think Romero and Norma will get together until the very last couple of episodes that Norma is alive. A, the "will they or won't they" is too much fun for the viewers. B, I think they are both leery of each other. Romero is leery of Norma because she makes poor choices and constantly gets herself into scrapes. Norma is leery of Romero because he can read her like a book and isn't scared off by her *ahem* emotionalism. I think that Norma likes feeling safe, but she also needs to feel that she's a couple of steps ahead of any man she's with. That's not going to happen with Sheriff White Hat/Black Hat, yo.