I am really tired how people tend to romanticize and ship hard Norma and Romero (or even Norma and Norman, yack). It could have been that Romero loved Norma but it definitely wasn’t a mutual thing. She liked him, like she herself said to Norman after she just tied a know with Romero to receive money for his treatment. She actually felt good when Romero was around deciding to live with him even but that doesn’t stop her to cut all her ties with him, took off her wedding ring and chose her son after her husband. Romero was a father figure who he hadn’t ever had one, and, I would even say, a brother figure. Because Caleb was definitely not a “normal” brother for her. But she didn’t love Romero, no matter how strongly fans ship them, even leading to producers made this “Normero” cake stuff. That is why she didn’t hesitate to leave him and choose her mentally ill psycho son over her caring husband. Not only because Norman is her own flesh and blood and favorite son, (whom she loved strongly but as a SON for sure)but because she didn’t love him at all. Nor did she love her other 2 husbands/any lovers as well. Her only true love was always Caleb. Till Death Do Them Apart.

I know their relationship isfar from the ideal. They are brother and sister who started their relationship when they were still kids. Not to say that on the last stage of their relationship when Norma realized it’s not “normal” decided to end it but Caleb wasn’t able to let her go and forced her to have sex with him. That doesn’t mean she ceased to love him. Love hurts. And love heals, too. Of course she forgave him after seeing him near his van. Both fell on their knees, embraced each other. How Norma touched Caleb’s face and looked directly into his eyes… How she kissed him 2 times on his cheek… What a powerful reunion of two wounded souls who are still madly in love with each other in 25+ years… How she invited him into her house and sing the song “Tonight You Belong To Me” (very related, isn’t it?:)). How she cried when Caleb should have left them for a while caring about Norma’s wellbeing after telling her about the situation happened with Norman in season 2… How she called him worrying about their son, hearing Caleb confessing to her that he loved her, and being unable to say a word to him. (Not a reaction of a person who moved on and didn’t have any feelings for the person on the other side of the call… No one EVER would argue they are not meant for each other. They remind me very much of Jaime and Cersei Lannister. No matter how far they were from each other, they still held each other deep inside their heart/soul. Totally the same thing regarding our Norma & Caleb. Damn, they are very canon, they even share a son & a granddaughter together who SURVIVED at the end of the series with Emma. I’m sure under other circumstances, if Norma (leaving her husband and not being killed by her motherfucking psycho son Norman) and Caleb (not being hit by a Chick’s car and running away from Norman) survived, they would definitely be together as a couple (if Norma would be ready to resume their love relationship being related by blood).

Does anyone else see this show as having an element of camp? At times it reminds me of twin peaks and more recently May/ December. I laugh out loud what seems like every episode

He was such a third wheel in that entire show about Norman and Norma. I can't believe the writers thought it was a good idea to include him but ofc the writers were all over the place with the writing. Also he killed like 10 people on the show and did it in the most casual way as well. I know this is an unpopular opinion but yea its my thought.

I was so happy that Norma died at the hands of Norman like this. I wanted to scream every time she didn't just slap him and tell him to GTFO of her house. I would have round housed his ass into the middle of next week.

She had love, she was happy, with Romero and she knew damn well he murdered those woman. She asked him to kill her as far as I'm concerned.

He was creepy to her and annoying and NEVER once did anything remotely likable. ("You slept with him"- Norman--) ("No honey I didn't please don't be mad I only love you" Norma) i couldn't stand this. Slap that creep and tell him to grow the hell up you little pervert or restraining order. But nope she kept rolling over and submitting to his crazy more and more until they switched roles.

Ugh I liked Norma alot and hated Norman the whole show but towards the end I was just praying she would die. Such a crazy show!!! Would recommend lol 😂 😆 😂

I miss her so much. The real Norma. It's like her death is felt in every single episode. I just start wondering what the real Norma would say or do with other characters, how she'd react what she'd say. The "fake" Norma is just her face and body and voice, sometimes intonations but with none of the soul, which shows just how good of a job she did with it + the writing is impeccable. But it just makes you miss her even more especially when Norman doesn't hallucinate her, you almost start to understand him not taking the pills so he can at least see her or hear her.

is strangely kinda hot?

Please don't tell me I'm the only one. He has this Tom Hardy vibe to me, of course TH is hotter but something about his voice and sometimes even his face it gets to me idk why. Please dont lie and admit it if you feel the same so I don't feel like such a weirdo

"Oh thank you sir for donating $20k and saving my life, but you're too weird to keep in our lives. Bye."

And in that moment she was a big hypocrite. I actually rolled my eyes at the childish reason she gave "I dont want to lie to my daughter about who you are". Yet..the kid will eventually ask who their grandparents are. So wouldn't they have to lie regardless?

If I'm being frank, never really was a fan of Emma. Her inability to keep secrets and dumping of Norman after she finds out he's ill was such a scoundrel move

I have watched Bates Motel many times now, and every time I watch it I enjoy it more. The story was well thought out and the characters, the story and the filming was brilliant.

No series is perfect.

As someone with mental illness in the family I can say here is where the problems lie. The delivery of the mental illness was fantastic, but the timing was brutal. It takes time to diagnose a person, therapy, prescribing the correct medication, which takes a LOT longer than two weeks. It often takes a few weeks just to know if they’re on the right track. This was an easy fix and do not know why the writers did not fix it, it would have made it an even better series.

Out of everyone that I know that has seen it, agrees with me that they felt like Norman was in Pine View a lot longer than a few weeks. It felt more like months as did the marriage of Alex and Norma. They both deserved to be happy and the writers took that from them. Yes, they had a long standing relationship that you knew there was chemistry between them—but once Norma let her guard down and admitted everything to Alex, he still accepted her for all her failures. Then they give them two and a half weeks together? Doesn’t make sense. Easy fix with dialogue alone.

The other issue is why Doctor Edwards had zero follow-up. He was suppose to see him a few times a week. Edwards saw how insane Norman was, and he just let it go?

Strange that Norma never really visited Norman like Dylan did—which was completely out of character for her.

Why was the church empty? Certainly it was printed in the paper and online. There would have been at least a few people there to show their respects.

Chic should not have been killed as he was the one writing the story. It would have made it for a much better ending for him to finish it, publish it and a TV series was made based on it.

There were a few other issues, but for the most part these are the things that stick out to me the most. Easy plot fixes, but it still will always stand out to me as one of the most underrated masterpiece television series ever made.

norma just died and i know this shit is about to get wild

Psycho is set in the early 60, I believe, so it would make since if the show was set in the 50s. I see lots of classic cars in the show, but I don't know what year(s) they are. It's definitely more modern looking and sounding then the 50s though, and they use plenty of stuff that hadn't been invented yet (I think)

Do they ever actually say what year it is? Or are we just to assume it starts off in 2013, when season 1 started?

I will go into spots later in the show so if you’re current watching, don’t read. I know I should view Norman as the primary villain on the show but I honestly view Norma as the big bad the whole thing. Did she have a bad upbringing? Yes. But her manipulation of Norman and really everyone whenever she doesn’t get her way is completely unacceptable for any reason no matter your past. She took every chance possible to prevent Norman from developing any sort of independence. Her annoyance and unapproval with every single person Norman has an interest with is creepy. Her main goal is to hold Norman hostage with her his entire life. And when they were sleeping in the same bed for a while and her continuous kissing of her grown child on the mouth, she judges Caleb so harshly for his incestuous behavior? Shes on the constant verge of sexual relationship with her son. And you know if he said “if we can be together (wink wink) mother, I would never leave you” she would do it in a heartbeat. I have zero doubts about that. Norma gets what she derserves, I just wish it wasn’t done the way it was so she was awake to see Norman kill her and feel that betrayal.

This made no sense to me. Caleb accepts the gun run, Chick has this weird smile on his face when he does. They make it to the meetup point, one of the guys said Chick sold out several previous dealers..Why though? Was he making a continuous deal with feds to stay out of prison? It's just weird that Chick would set up random ass people

Emma, Dylan, norman, norma, romero, etc.

I'm pretty sure I left off on the s3 finale since the last few seasons aren't available to me, but could anyone tell me what happens to the main characters?

How did I only just realise Dylan is played by the guy who was in The House At The End Of The Street like holy what 😭 sorry you probs don't care but I didn't know if anyone else could relate

Holy moly. I remember thinking this the first time round, too. This show is such a freaking underrated masterpiece. Every season's better than the last, the stakes get higher and higher, normans descent into madness is done so well, norma is characterised in a genius way, every actor ATE, basically everyone in it was hot, it was so tense and thrilling and visually beautiful and it's probably up there with the best of all time tv shows (twin peaks, sopranos, breaking bad) in my honest opinion. But no one ever talks about it? it's so forgotten??? It never got anywhere near the attention it deserved, it seems?

Nothing to add any real substance to this sub, as i’m sure this has been mentioned countless times, but damn is this little fucker not the most annoying yet brilliantly acted character that you’ve ever seen lol. there are times I wanna reach through my tv and choke him out to completion. Norma would be number 2 on that list. Norman is like that kid you knew when you were younger that was such a little shit but he never got punched in the mouth for it, yet Norman has had his ass beat several times and it does nothing for him lol. mental illness aside he needs some serious attitude adjustment

I was thinking about how many of the characters have killed people… is Norman actually the highest? Has anyone actually counted?

I've watched the episode of Bates Motel where Norma dies and I'm not sure if I'm missing something, but I don't understand why Norma writes a letter to Alex that night. Did Norma know that Norman was going to kill her?

hey guys, I love vera farmiga and have been watching all her films/series that she's been in and I was wondering if this was worth watching?

EDIT: I've started watching it! Thanks for all the Recs people!!!!

Norma x Norman ship. I think the ship is interesting but twisted. Let me know what your views about it are.

rewatching the show for the second time and it still creeps me out how dylan went after not one but two of his little brothers love interests or whatever they were to norman (bradley and emma). that in itself is weird to me but what makes it worse is how young they are. it's established that norman is 17, not sure if he's a junior or a senior in high school but we know for a fact that dylan is at least 21 from how he drinks at a bar and has a job handling guns. we don't know if the two girls were 18+ during his pursuit of them but im guessing they weren't

it's wonderful what he did for emma but still

maybe this is completely trivial and im being overly liberal/PC, i understand the age gaps aren't the biggest in the world... idk man

This was based on a true story check out 'The Shocking Truth" series.. The true story behind Norman Bates.

Norman starts getting angry in a tantrum/childish way? I can't help it, I wonder if ti was done on purpose but it's hilarious

Honestly I get that he’s part of the show but the more screen time his character gets the less I want to keep watching he’s so good at playing that creepy guy and the facial expressions he makes are always so smug and punchable.

Tell me I’m not the only one

I felt the TV series had too many characters coming in and out. It would have been more meaningful with a few characters (Norman, Norma, Dillan, Alex, Emma, and the PineView therapist). With fewer characters, the series would focus more on the Norma-Norman development (and with Dillian providing a foil to Norman).

We didn't need all that stuff with Alex in prison, drug trade in the city, the sex underground with whats-his-name, etc.