Posted by Dustin on 03.20.2013 at 12:07 pm

If you still have a horror-mystery-bizarro show void in your schedule thanks to ABC yanking “666,” then “Bates Motel” is probably for you. The show on A&E is a reinvented backstory for a young Norman Bates of “Psycho.”

The show opens with young Norman discovering his father’s dead body. We don’t really know what happened, but given what we later learn about his mother, we have to wonder if foul play was involved. Norman’s mother Norma then uses every last penny to buy the Seafair Motel and adjoining house, which are located in the quaint coast town of Sea Point. We see Norma and Norman drive their in a classic car and pull up to the famous motel and house, which is fairly run down. We learn she got it in a foreclosure sale fairly cheap.

The first bizarro moment comes when we realize this version of the story is set in the present. Up until we see Norman on an iphone and meeting some girls wearing modern fashions, everything appeared to be set in the past. Norma’s clothes, Norman’s clothes, and the car they drove up in were all from the 50s. The house and motel too are straight from that period as well, and clearly hadn’t been updated.

A group of girls from Norman’s school take a liking to him, which doesn’t sit well with Norma. They invite him out to study, but it’s really a party. Norma doesn’t seem to want her little boy to hang around with them. You could almost hear her saying to herself “Those filthy sluts!”

We learn through a phone call, and from Norman’s conversation with the girls, that he has an older brother named Daryl. Daryl is MIA (until next week when he shows up according to the previews). He calls his mother up to borrow money, but she won’t hear of it and hangs up on him.

As Norma and Norman are cleaning up, a man (I forget his name, Sutherland or something like that) shows up and is furious. The house and motel are his, or were his. His great grandfather built the house in 1912, and his grandfather built the hotel in the 50s. He said only he can run them, and only he knows all their secrets. Norma threatens him, so he leaves. However he later returns at night, attacks and rapes Norma, who is saved when Norman clobbers him over the head with an iron. Norma then loses it and ends up stabbing the guy over and over.

Not knowing what to do, they hide the body in one of the hotel rooms. However as they get blood all over the carpet, they have to tear it up and all the other carpets in the other room as they match. At this point Norman finds a mysterious diary under one of the carpets. It features images of lesbians, someone peeping on women, and one woman being given drugs. At this point the local cops also show up, not knowing anyone had bought the place, and almost find the guy’s body stashed in a bathtub of Room 4.

By the end of the show they dump the body off shore, but Norma learns the town is voting on an overpass that will make their motel useless. She’s sure it won’t happen though. As Norman looks through his dirty diary, the last thing we see is a real life image of one of the scenes: a girl chained in a basement and being given drugs through a needle.

The show was definitely interesting. The previews were fairly twisted. It looks to have a lot of murder and a lot of secrets. Norma and Norman might not be the only nuts in this town.