Bates Motel Recap: “First You Dream, Then You Die”

by Jessica Grafer:

Bates Motel Recap: “First You Dream, Then You Die”
Original Air Date (A&E): Monday March 18, 2013
Season 1 Episode 1

Being a huge fan of Hitchcock and the original Psycho, I was really looking forward to seeing this adaptation.  I was pleased with what I saw.  First of all the cast is amazing.  Vera Farmiga as Norma Bates is perfectly strong yet needy and completely creepy.  Freddie Highmore is fantastic as an awkward seventeen year old boy with an overbearing mother.  We know all this from the original film.  This series is set in present day.  The clothing, lighting and scenery sometimes make you wonder what year it really is.  Absolutely beautiful.

We start the episode with Norman waking up from what appears to be a nap.  He stumbles into the hall.  It’s almost like he was drugged.   Norman can tell something is wrong and begins to search his home for his parents.  He looks in one room and sees an iron waiting to be used.  In the kitchen there is food cooking on the stove unattended.  Norman runs to the garage and finds his father on the floor.  Dead.  He screams for his mother finding her in the bathroom.  Freshly showered.  While Norman is visibly upset and screams for his mother to follow him and help.  Norma just gives a creepy smile and slowly ties her bathrobe.  She doesn’t seem surprised by his death.  She only seems upset that Norman is so hurt by this.

6 months later.  On to Oregon.  Leave Arizona in the dust.  It’s time to start over.  Norma has bought a fantastic old home and roadside hotel that was in foreclosure.  Norman is less than thrilled to be moving, but he listens to his mother.  Norma is super excited to show Norman the house and his room.  Which, even though the house is huge, happens to be right next to dear old moms.  Just what every 17 year old boy wants.  Speaking of what every 17 year old boy wants, a group of girls meet Norman while he’s waiting for the bus to school.  They seem nice enough and offer the new kid a ride.  While mom is home she gets a call from Dylan, who is Norman’s older brother.  He and his mother have apparently had a falling out.  Norma didn’t even tell Dylan that they moved.  When she finds out he’s calling for money.  Norma promptly hangs up the phone.  At school, Normans advisor is being a bit too nosy.  She says that since he’s been to five different schools, maybe this time he should try to become more settled.  Join a sport.  How about the track team.  “You look like a runner” she says to Norman.  ” Do you do any running?”  “Not as a sport, no.” answers Norman.  Hmmm.  Running for fun?  For fear?

Norma and Norman get a visit from the previous owner of the motel.  The times have not been easy for him and he’s bitter that the bank took his family legacy and sold it.  Norma tells him in no uncertain terms that he is to back off.  It’s her property now.  Not a friendly meeting.

The girls that Norman met stop by the house to ask Norman to come to the library.  Norma puts a stop to that toot sweet.  Norman will not be studying with the girls.  Norman can’t believe she embarrassed him like that.  He stomps off to his room.  Norman decides to jump out the window and join the girls.  He’s so, um innocent, he even brings his books.  There will be no studying tonight however.  The girls take him to a weird rave, house party.  When I’m talking about the use of costume and design to not know exactly what time you’re in, the house party is a perfect example.  There are so many different moods and looks at this party.  It’s fantastic because it disorients you.  Norman is kind of hanging by himself in the kitchen.  One of the girls says how he is different.  Norman has this beautiful line, “I think people who are different don’t know they’re different cause they have nothing to compare it to.”  Norman is very eloquent and has lots of great dialog.  While Norman is off at the party Norma is being attacked by the bitter previous owner.  To say the rape scene is disturbing is an understatement.  Seeing her hand, cuffed to the table and bouncing back and forth made me sick to my stomach.  Poor mom had been screaming for Norman before Keith Summers (previous owner) finally got her restrained.  Norman does come in and hits Summers over the head with a wrought iron, iron.  I thought that was neat, considering the closeup of the iron right before Norman found his dead father.  Norman didn’t kill Summers though.  While he was out getting the first aid kit, Summers said a most awful thing.  He told the woman he was just brutally raping that she liked it.  After that, I felt no sympathy for Summers.  Even as Norma shoved that knife blade into his gut.  Over and over and over.  Norman wants to call 911 but Mother won’t have it.  They came here to start over and they are going to start over.  They clean up the mess and move the body to a tub in the hotel.  Lovely nod to the movie.  Norma pulls the shower curtain closed and that also made me smile.  Blood got on the hotel room carpet so Mother decides they need to rip up all the carpet to disguise it as renovating.  It’s already midnight but they get started.  Since it’s so late, two kind officers stop and check out what’s going on.  Norma keeps her cool pretty well.  That is until one of the officers (who reminded me a lot of Anthony Perkins) has to use the bathroom.  He takes a pee right next to the body in the tub.  Lucky Mother closed the shower curtain.  He finishes up and Mother and Norman breathe a sigh of relief.

Norman isn’t up for this killing thing.  That day at school he looks terrible.  At lunch he glances down at his sneaker and sees blood.  He has to rush and be sick in a garbage can.  A girl named Emma asks if he’s ok and offers him a mint.  She’s interesting, with a chronic illness and doesn’t seem to run in the same crowd as the hotties that made Norman’s acquaintance earlier.  Norman looks pleased that she talked to him.

Norman and his mom take the body, wrapped in chains out in the middle of a lake.  While Norman is rowing out there his mom is upset because she just found out that they are planning on building a new bypass on the other side of town.  That effectively drive all potential business away from the hotel.  While Norma is singing her pity party, Norman is almost forced to tell her all the nice things she loves to hear.  How he needs her and they are connected forever.  All these words bind him tighter to his mother in her eyes.  Everyday that Norman ventures out of the house he has other influences that are pulling him away.  I think this is the beginning of the inner turmoil that messes Norman up for good.

At the very end of the episode we see a young girl chained in what appears to be a basement.  She has track marks from needles all up and down her arms and she seems to be passed out.  Someone takes her arm and puts another needle into it.  The girl begins to wake up. I’m not sure exactly what this means, but I would venture to guess some sort of sex slave operation.  I know that doesn’t seem to fit, but it’s my best guess.  I suppose we’ll just have to wait for next week to find out.

Jessica Grafer has loved the “darker” things since she was old enough to pick her own books. She is a contributor for DarkMedia who covers Revenge and Bates Motel. She loves to walk the book store shelves and pick up whatever catches her eye. She is a movie lover with a great range in her tastes, and appreciation for all genres. Jessica is a writer and has several things in the works. You can follow her quirky Twitter posts at @scarletbe and check out her blog.