S03.E07: The Last Supper

[Glade]

Thinking more about this scene, it strikes me what an asshole James really is.  Not only did he sleep with an extremely emotionally unstable client, his comments to Norman were really sick.  Maybe he cares about who his mother slept with because in the past his father was extremely abusive to him and Norma, and after that Zack Shelby tried to kill him and was just using his mother to run a human trafficking business in the motel. 

 

So,  you could claim it's none of his business, but I think if you're a minor and your parent continuously chooses partners that are extremely abusive to you and her, it's probably reasonable to resent her new boyfriend and look at her romantic life with suspicion and dread and feel a perhaps inappropriate level of protectiveness.   Not because you have a sexual attraction to your mother.  Especially if that 'boyfriend' is also her aggressive therapist who she sexually acted out her emotions with during a night of insanity while she was fleeing the memories of her incestuous older brother. 

 

I think it really comes down to the main point; since Norma won't admit her own issues, past and secrets to anyone, she can only paint a picture where Norman is the only problem and she is an innocent, healthy 'concerned mother.' 

[rue721]

Thinking more about this scene, it strikes me what an asshole James really is.  Not only did he sleep with an extremely emotionally unstable client, his comments to Norman were really sick.  Maybe he cares about who his mother slept with because in the past his father was extremely abusive to him and Norma, and after that Zack Shelby tried to kill him and was just using his mother to run a human trafficking business in the motel. 

 

So,  you could claim it's none of his business, but I think if you're a minor and your parent continuously chooses partners that are extremely abusive to you and her, it's probably reasonable to resent her new boyfriend and look at her romantic life with suspicion and dread and feel a perhaps inappropriate level of protectiveness.   Not because you have a sexual attraction to your mother.  Especially if that 'boyfriend' is also her aggressive therapist who she sexually acted out her emotions with during a night of insanity while she was fleeing the memories of her incestuous older brother. 

 

I think it really comes down to the main point; since Norma won't admit her own issues, past and secrets to anyone, she can only paint a picture where Norman is the only problem and she is an innocent, healthy 'concerned mother.' 

 

I agree with everything you wrote about what stake Norman has in his mom's "personal" life.

 

But I don't think that Norma painted a picture where she is innocent and healthy, and Norman is a problem, when she told James about his dad's death. IIrc, she said flat out that Norman was protecting*** her. I doubt that anyone needed it spelled out -- for her to say, "he was beating me next to a hot iron because he didn't like the curtains I'd bought" -- in order to understand that Norman didn't just inexplicably run up and kill the man.

 

***I think that because Norman protected her, she feels especially strongly that she needs to protect him. She's someone who clearly cares a lot about feeling safe. Her dilemma now, imo, is that she *doesn't* feel safe around Norman and doesn't know how to protect herself without hurting him. I think that's why she looked into getting him into a mental health center that was arguably even nicer than their home. Him going there would be better for her AND for him, it wouldn't be a zero sum game -- well, all that aside from the debilitating money issue, of course.

 

I think with Dylan, she thinks of him as a man and as therefore either an aggressor or a protector -- someone who will either actively help her or hurt her -- *not* someone that she herself is supposed to protect. Which is maybe for the best for him, but could be a kind of complicated thing, too, if the show wants to go in that direction. Makes me wonder how they'll handle his relationship with Emma, if they do end up getting together. I think his impulse is to be pretty caretaker-y, because otherwise what role does he have to play in a relationship but "the bad guy"/aggressor -- but obviously indulging a caretaker-y impulse is going to be awkward/complicated with Emma. Which he apparently knows, since he's keeping the lung bribe a secret. Anyway -- hopefully, they'll complicate that relationship a bit, instead of having it continue to be full-on treacle.

[Anela]

I'm ok with it because it's a small town and he was drunk and it's tv, but in reality I think a Romero would be way out of a Norma's league.  Annika would be more like it.  

But Annika is something like twenty years younger. At least Norma is age-appropriate. 

[Guest]

But when you're as hot as Carbonell, you don't have to date in your own generation unless you want to.