What's Wrong with Norman

Bates Motel: 'What's Wrong with Norman' (2013)

Rating: B+

A&E's "Bates Motel" mini-series is basically going to be re-working PSYCHO IV. If you've seen that film then you know it shows what was going on with Mrs. Bates and Norman before the events in the original Alfred Hitchcock film. While that prequel wasn't perfect, it at least put a nice wrap-around story to the original film.

The third episode finds Norma (Vera Farmiga) and Norman (Freddie Highmore) once again being stalked by the local sheriff who is still trying to prove that they are behind a local man's disappearance. As all of this is going on Norman continues to try and build a relationship with two different girls with both of them needing something different. This episode also finds Dylan Bates (Max Thieriot) learning what his new job is going to be.

Thankfully this third episode is a major step up from the previous one and this one here contains probably the best writing of anything up to this point. I think there were a lot of very strong points here including the terrific scenes where we see some relationships building stronger. There's a very good sequence between Norman and Dylan that actually works perfectly well for both characters. We also get a sequence where we see that Norman is slowly losing his mind and the way this is handled was perfectly done. I also thought the tension in the relationship between mother and son is growing more weird by the moment. The film takes a few new twists in regards to the disappearance, which I won't ruin but it's certainly interesting. With that said, the search for the missing girl just doesn't seem to be working and this too leads to something rather silly. Still, the ending is quite good and it certainly makes you want to see what's going to happen next.