Bates Motel – Marion

By: Kelly Kearney

Marie Samuels

There is arguably no moment in film history as famous as the Psycho shower scene with Marion Crane. Since its first episode, “Bates Motel” fans have been waiting to see how the show would do the film justice. That wait came with a surprising twist in the episode entitled Marion.

On a dark and stormy night, Marion Crane (Rihanna) pulls into the Bates Motel parking lot. The young woman has just stolen $400,000 and is looking for a place to wait for her boyfriend Sam (Austin Nichols) so they can make their big romantic getaway. She gets out of the car as Norman (Freddie Highmore) is coming down the house steps to greet her. Norman, ever the ladies’ man, offers her his very special middle of a rainy night rate and gives her the keys to room one, which happens to be in perfect peephole viewing from the motel office. Norman might be crazy, but he’s excellent at planning ahead. Marion signs the registry under the fake name Marie Samuels and asks Norman if there’s any place to eat this time of night. He tells her that White Pine Bay is small and nothing is open now, but if she doesn’t mind he could make her a ham sandwich. Famished, “Marie” takes him up on his offer and Norman heads up to the house to fix her a plate.

Of course, Mother (Vera Farmiga) is waiting for him at the house and she’s quite pleased with herself and fun from the night before. Norman isn’t so happy to see her and it has nothing to do with the fact she went to a bar to pick up random men. He’s ignoring her and she’s confused so Norman tells her she doesn’t exist, he made her up. If Mother is a figment of Norman’s imagination, then why is she here? She asks him the same question and then says, “What game are we playing Norman?” It seems Mother wants to talk truths and get Norman to face his own. While he’s on the verge of finding some clarity, he still doesn’t know why Mother is there. His guess? She came back because of the attractive Marion down in the motel. Mother stares at him with this all knowing, “you’re full of it,” glare and Norman promises her he will prove it.

A Son’s Heartbreak

After Dylan (Max Thieriot) told Emma (Olivia Cooke) about her Mother’s mysterious disappearance and its possible ties to his brother, she uncovers a Bates family secret that Dylan did not know about. By accident, Emma comes across Norma’s obituary in the White Pine Bay news and it’s a total shock. Dylan walks in and Emma tells him the awful news, that Norma committed suicide right after they left for Seattle, two years ago. At first, Dylan doesn’t believe her, but when she shows him the obituary he breaks down. Through all the heartache and disappointments Norma put Dylan through, she was still his mother and this shook her eldest son to the core. For Dylan, the suicide doesn’t add up, not when he knows his mother’s entire existence was keeping his sick brother safe. Especially not after he found out Norman killed his father, possibly his teacher and maybe even Emma’s mother. With all the evidence pointing to Norman in numerous crimes, Dylan isn’t about to except this theory about his mother’s demise.

Back at the motel, Norman invites Marion into the office for her snack and the two talk about his taxidermy hobby as well as his Mother and how disappointing some parents can be. Marion agrees and tells Norman a little bit about her absentee parents and the two seem to bond over a similar theme; loneliness. Sam calls and interrupts Norman’s speech about the traps of loving people and how it can destroy you, which seems fitting since Sam is lying to Marion and she has no idea. The wheels start turning when Madeleine (Isabelle McNulty) is heard screaming in the background. Before Sam can come up with another lie, he hangs up on Marion. Of course, the two-timing Loomis doesn’t answer Marion’s calls back and now she’s angry. Something is up with Sam and Marion doesn’t seem like the kind of woman who gets played. Since she has no idea where her boyfriend lives, she decides to cool off and take a shower while Norman watches her through his peephole. In a twist from the original film, Marion exists the shower, very much alive and heads to the office where she asks a very flushed Norman if she can see the motel guest log. She tells him she was there with her boyfriend Sam Loomis and was hoping his address was in the book. Norman says it isn’t, but takes pity on the woman and tell her Sam is married. His wife is a good woman and Marion seems like one too so Norman gives her Sam’s address, which she takes but she does not believe Norman’s Sam is the same person because her boyfriend isn’t married. It doesn’t take long for her to find out the truth when she heads to the address and sees Sam and Madeleine in the window fighting. She is devastated and it quickly turns into anger as she grabs a crowbar from her trunk and proceeds to smash Loomis’ car to pieces. Sam runs outside and demands to know what she’s doing all the while his wife watches on from the front steps. Marion drives off and Madeleine locks her husband out of the house.

I Made You Up!

After reading his mother’s obituary, Dylan calls Norman to find out what happened, but more importantly why he didn’t let his brother know. Norman is evasive and dodgy with his reasoning and says he doesn’t want to talk about it, but Mother had a darkness in her and she tried killing him, too. Dylan does not buy this and tells Norman she wouldn’t do that. Like a slap to the face, his younger brother tells him he didn’t know her and talking about it is too hurtful and then hangs up. Upset and visibly shaken, Norman hears Mother calling him to the kitchen for dinner. Rather than eat fake food made by a figment of his imagination, he starts making a sandwich which offends Mother after she cooked a wonderful dinner for her boy. She tells him he’s being ridiculous and tries to reason with Norman in her own flirtatious way.  For the first time, the confused killer thinks he found some clarity, but Mother shoots that down when she says, ‘Nothing like a crazy person announcing their clarity.” As his other half leads him closer to the truth, Mother becomes even more manipulative and violent than ever. When Norman tells her he made her up, “she’s not real,” Mother starts throwing the dinner plates and asking him if that was real. Norman screams, “I made you up,” over and over as Mother breaks every plate and smashes every pot until finally he gives up. “Say I’m real,” she says and Norman breaks down and agrees that she is real. Instantly, Mother goes from raging lunatic to sweet and maternal, hugging her exhausted boy. Alone, Norman stands in a trashed kitchen, no food in sight, leaning on a woman who only exists in his mind. It is a heartbreaking look at just how sick Norman is.

Now that Norman is starting to understand Mother isn’t real and it might be him doing all these things, he finds Marion at the hotel and convinces her to leave. She’s upset over Sam’s lies and Norman tells her to take her money and disappear, partly because he likes the woman but mostly because he fears he might kill her if she keeps flirting with him. Marion decides to take his advice and leaves her belongings behind. She tosses her cell phone, missing Sam’s call letting her know he’s at the motel waiting for her.

Up at the house, Norman feels like maybe for the first time in a long time he’s in control, only to have mother be disappointed that he let Marion get away. She might be gone, but Sam is there and Mother tells Norman he reminds her of his “selfish asshole of a father.” With that, the two-start talking, adult to adult, about what his father put both he and Norma through. The abuse Norma suffered and tried to shield her child from opens a flood of emotions and Norman’s truth is revealed. He starts to fully understand the scope of alter ego and that he made her up as a way of coping. In turn, she protected him from his father and the memories of the abuse, but now it’s time he feels that pain. He is no longer that little scared boy, making Mother and Norman two parts of the same whole. Sam hurts women just like his father hurt Norma and Mother uses this to channel Norman’s homicidal anger. She fans his flames and points him in the direction of Sam who happens to be taking a shower in Marion’s room. Obviously, with Marion on the run, someone’s blood had to ruin those new shower curtains and who better than the lying Sam who threatened Norman and hurt Madeleine? In a switch from the original version, Norman not Mother, enters the bathroom of room one and slashes Sam to bits in a perfect homage to famous shower scene. Loomis is bleeding and slumped over the tub while above him lurks an ecstatically psychotic Norman asking, “Oh Mother, what have I done?”