Season Three Wishlist

[Solzhenknitsyn]

Now that Season Two is over, I find myself crossing my fingers for a Nick Ford-style death for some storylines and the fleshing out of others. So here is my wishlist for Season Three:

 

DEAR BATES MOTEL POWERS THAT BE:

 

• The weed business subplot is apparently here to stay. Fine. So Bates Motel it up! Add some darkly funny, macabre elements to it. Highlight the tension between PNW nouveau riche/boho culture and small-town insularity. Anything other than this garden variety tough-guy nonsense.

 

• Give Dylan many opportunities to scrap, face-to-face, with Norma. I know they reconciled, more or less, at the end of Season Two. But I think Dylan's character is most compelling when he acts as a unheeded truth-teller and a discarded good son. It's tragic in its own right, and it highlights the tragedy of Norman's fate.

 

• Give some oomph to Christine as an antagonist! She's clearly as impulsive and intense as Norma, and she has a lot more money and power. It would be interesting to see how money, education, and social standing protect a person who is just as emotionally labile as Norma.

 

• Normero forever. Please give them many opportunities to bicker and accuse each other of being contrary. :)

[solotrek]

Emma. She was in every episode in season 2, but it seems like she was barely there. I hope they don't relationship Norman and Emma, just stay close friends. Just have her more involved with the Bates madness.The kiss they filmed tells me otherwise though.

[Aquarius]

Dylan gives up the weed business and takes a job as a lifeguard at an indoor pool.  Because he needs to be shirtless in every episode, Just not around Norma, please.  We get enough of that squick with Norman.

 

Just kidding about the lifeguard stuff.  Sort of.

 

I agree with maculae, I want to see more Emma.  She was very underused this season.

 

I also want to understand more of how Norma and Norman became so entwined.  I'll admit:  I had a slow start with this show, so maybe it was addressed in an early episode that I slept through.  But was it ever explained how Norma and Norman came to this conclusion that they are the same person?  What caused this unnatural attachment?  I would like to see more about Norman's childhood.

 

I want to see Dylan confront Caleb and the reality of his conception.  I want to see him get a little bit of closure with Caleb.  He got to say a lot to Norma but not much to him.

[Portia]

I'd like to see a clean-shaven Dylan. I like a nice beard on the right guy (my spouse included), but I think Dylan would be prettier without his.

 

Also, more scenes of Norma jumping up and down in frustrated fury, please!

[green]

Just have Oregon legalize pot and move on from that endless boring sub-plot.

[Bec]

Maybe Emma could interact a little more with Dylan. I don't mean make them a couple, but they both have Norma and Norman in common, so they could logically cross paths. It's gonna be awkward the next time she talks to him now that she knows the truth. Especially since she yelled at him about being such a terrible son and brother last time she talked to him (and now she knows she was mistaken). I want to see the awkwardness. Heehee.

 

Oh, it's likely the wish to see Dylan conflict with Norma again will come true. Now that Norman passed the polygraph she'll put her head in the sand about all the signs of "something's not quite right with Norman". I can't see Dylan going along with that.

 

I wouldn't be too sad if something squashes the little town's weed industry and kills that sideplot. Nick Ford didn't want the bypass to be built, maybe because it would be bad for the weed business (maybe someone else can fill in the blanks on how a bypass is bad for the weed business, I have no clue). Let's build the bypass and kill the town's weed business. Other types of crime will go up since the town will face economic hardship (maybe there can be something about illegal gambling and the show would have done the gambling, drugs and prostitution trifecta of vice). Dylan can be Romero's deputy instead (thus also granting the wish of clean-shaven Dylan).

[Solzhenknitsyn]

IIRC, Jacob Clifton also digs Romero and Dylan's sweet buddy chemistry. Tara as well. Hear that, PTB? Critics and fans alike adore Dylero.

Realistically speaking, it's unlikely Dylan will become a deputy. If he does end up running WPB's weed biz, though, I would expect to see a subplot that requires him and Romero to band together to fight a common enemy....

[radishcake]

Looks like the premiere of Season 3 is going to happen sometime in March 2015.