Bates Motel Recap: “The Man in Number 9”

by Jessica Grafer:

Bates Motel Recap: “The Man in Number 9”
Original Air Date (A&E): Monday April 29, 2013
Season 1 Episode 7

We were all waiting to find out how Norma and the gang got out of this latest bit of trouble.  Sheriff Romero took care of it toot suite!  Norma tells him everything.  How Summers raped her and they killed him.  About the sex slave and Zach Shelby.  Romero tells her that he will say he was figuring it out and came to the house where he caught Shelby and shot him.  Dylan is less than impressed with the cover up.  It’s kind of funny that Dylan wants to be so honest considering who he works for.  Anyway, Dylan’s ticked he’s not getting a bozo button for saving the day.  Norma and Norman creep him out of the room with an extra mushy embrace.

Norman is having hot and heavy dreams about the lovely Bradley.  Mom wakes him up and asks for help fixing the lattice before school.  While Norman is working on that he comes across a rabid looking Benji.  Norman is holding a hammer and calling the dog closer.  Am I the only one who that he was going to bean that dog with the hammer when he got close enough?  Norman lets the dog run off.  While Norman is fixing the lattice, just call Norma Martha Stewart inside the kitchen.  She makes a great breakfast for Dylan.  She wants to thank him for last night.  Dylan tells her he’s still moving out.  Norma is surprised and immediately changes from Martha to a crazy psycho.  Apparently she thought Dylan was going to stay and help her out with Norman.

The motel is opening in seven days.  Norma excitedly starts to hit the local businesses to ask if they’ll place brochures in their lobby.  She only makes it to one.  The woman there tells her that everyone knows the scandal that happened at the hotel with Zach Shelby and no one is going to want to associate with them.  Norma is hurt and shocked.  She really thought all the bad business was behind them.

Norma is in the office that night when she sees someone trying to get into one of the rooms.  It turns out this gentleman had a standing agreement with Summers.  Norma agrees to let him stay and eagerly gives him the new key to room nine.  Dylan pulls up and tells Norma he saw the gentleman earlier and he thought he was creepy.  Since Norma didn’t get any of his registration information Norman offers to get it.  Turns out the man is a Mr. Abernathy, he is in sales and pays with cash.  A lot of it.  Dylan still doesn’t like the guy.  Have I told you how awesome I think Dylan is?  He is smart and cute and loyal.  Aside from being related to a bunch of crazies, he’s quite the catch!

The next day Norma is trying to scrub the blood off the stone in front of the house.  Dylan tells her you can’t get blood out of stone.  Eventually it will wear off.  Dylan thinks Norma is overreacting about the town’s opinion and drops the creepy man’s money  on Shelby’s blood seeped in the stone.

Emma comes by to see Norman.  He fakes and illness because he’s hung up on Bradley.  Bradley is ignoring his texts and talking to him at school.  When Norma tells Emma Norman isn’t feeling well, Emma starts to tear up.  Norma invites Emma to run an errand with her into town.  While hanging out Emma tells Norma that Norman is hung up on this beautiful, smart, kind girl at school.  Emma says that Bradley is like a “locomotive of sexual energy”.  Norma wants to see this girl.  Like now.  Emma takes Norma to Bradley’s yoga class.  Norma is watching Bradley in a super creepy, stalking way.  While she is watching Bradley stretch, super sensual images of Bradley and Norman getting it on are flashing through her head.  Not the way a mother normally thinks of her child.  Norma wants to end this relationship.  At home later, Norma decides it’s time for “the talk”.  She tells Norman that nice girls don’t come to a boys house one day after they move in, and then have sex with them at age seventeen.  Norman tells his mother he really likes Bradley.  Norma counters this with telling Norman she’s hired Emma to work at the motel a couple of days a week.  More words are had and Norman flips out.  He stalks out of the house and heads over to Bradley’s.

Norman tells Bradley that he knows what they had is real.  He knows that she’s just confused and scared right now.  They have a connection.  Bradley tells Norman she’s sorry but what happened just happened.  Then she puts it over the edge, “I shouldn’t have done it with someone like you.”  What she meant was someone sweet and innocent.  Norman did not take it that way.  He left visibly upset.  Bradley grabs her coat and takes off after him.  Norman is having a conversation with his mother through himself.  Make sense?  Norman is repeating all the bad points Norma made about Bradley.  Not exactly in a woman’s voice but different from his normal voice.  He almost looked like he was talking to someone else too.  Bradley catches up with him at just this moment.  Oh snap.  Snap is the perfect world because we can tell something in Norman has finally snapped.  Broken.  Unfixable.  I’m very afraid for Bradley at this time.  Yes she slept with him when she shouldn’t have.  Emma is right though.  Bradley is a nice girl so it’s hard to hate her.  Norman turns around and says in a very creepy voice, “I don’t think you’re a nice a girl.”  Bradley throws her arms around him and says she’s really sorry.  Lucky for her Norman isn’t too far gone and the hug disables Normans crazy.  Bradley is safe for now.

The mysterious Mr. Abernathy comes to see Norma in the office.  He tells her he likes the progress she’s making with the hotel.  He offers to pass the word around while on his sales trips.  I’m thinking Norma really doesn’t want his kind of people in the motel but that’s just me.  Norma eagerly accepts his offer to help.  Then Abernathy asks if he can have the same deal he had with Summers.  The first week of every other month he rents out the whole block of rooms.  For men like him.  Salesmen.  They like their privacy so there will be no need to clean the rooms and they won’t be any bother.  Norma does ask a good question.  Is it something illegal?  No, no Abernathy says and they both laugh.  Hahaha.  Liar!  We know you’re up to something you creepazoid.  Maybe Norma doesn’t but Dylan does and we on Team Dylan do too.

Norman is almost home from his emotional roller coaster with Bradley.  He’s just across the street from the motel.  The scrappy looking dog is on the other side.  At this point Norman has convinced his mother that he deserves the dog and he’ll take care of it.  It’s what normal people do mother.  They have dogs.  He’s named the dog Juno and calls for her to come to him.  At this point a car starts to come down the highway.  Norman yells at Juno to stay but Juno comes forward towards his new friend.  I find this even hard to type but Juno doesn’t make it across the road.  (I’m tearing up again typing this)  The man who hit Juno felt terrible.  Norman is devastated.  Norma doesn’t understand what the big deal is.  Norman wants to take Juno to Emma’s dad.  He fixes dead things.  When Norma realizes how upset Norman is she agrees to get the car.  This is when Norman tells her he was wrong, about everything.  Norma realizes that mother has gotten through to him and rushes to give him a hug.  Poor Juno is still in Norman’s arms between them.

We finally see how Norma comes out through Norman.  Even if Norma wasn’t the killer originally, she is definitely psychotic.  The way she changes her emotions in a flash is frightening.  Dylan is so lucky to have missed those genes.  Norman seems to have taken them all.

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.