Over the course of its three seasons, Bates Motel has occasionally made some specific nods to Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. However, in episode eight, The Pit, we’re treated to two iconic references straight out of the 1960 classic. After an emotional disappointment, Norman (Freddie Highmore) sits for the rest of the day, and into the night, in his mother’s rocking chair. Then, at the end of the episode, he races down the stairs in front of the house and looks back to see his mother standing in the upstairs window.
The emotional disappointment comes after Emma (Olivia Cooke) utters the five words no man wants to hear, “I think we should talk.” She explains that she was there with Dylan (Max Thieriot) when Norman had a blackout. He comments, “That hardly makes me good boyfriend material.” But it’s not necessarily that, “It always seems like you’re with someone else, even when you’re with me.” Sitting in the rocking chair afterwards, his dead dog runs into the room, “The world’s a lonely place sometimes, Juno.”
Emma’s decision may or may not be influenced by rekindled feelings for Dylan. She claims to not want any romance for a while, but an awkward phone conversation with him indicates otherwise. It’s sweet and funny; both of them are like school kids. The call happens while Dylan is on the road with Caleb, delivering guns for Chick (Ryan Hurst). It’s noble that he wants to make enough money for Emma’s operation; however, as a viewer, you’d have to be more than a little naïve to think the job’s going to run without a hitch.
The job takes a lot of time in the episode, as does the continuing saga of Bob Paris’s (Kevin Rahm) flash drive and Norma’s (Vera Farmiga) fragile arrangement with him. Paris seems to be honoring his end of the deal as a crew starts digging for a pool at the motel. But when the hole in the ground becomes 23’ deep (the pit) and the crew disappears, it seems more like a threat. James Finnigan (Joshua Leonard) is more overtly threatened, and beaten to a pulp, to reveal information about Norman and her son.
Paris tries to use that information to bring Sheriff Romero (Nestor Carbonell) back onto “the team.” Even when he tells Romero that Norma is using him to protect herself and her son, he refuses. But he takes his newfound knowledge to Norma and gives her one last chance to tell him the truth. “How did your husband die?” When she maintains that it was an accident, Romero looks at her sadly and says, “Goodbye, Norma.” He later makes a phone call that will likely have dire consequences for her, Paris and perhaps all of White Pine Bay.
As James is in the process of speeding out of town forever, Norma catches him long enough to find out he betrayed her trust with Paris. What’s the first thing the drama queen does? She races home to warn Norman that they’re in danger. She tells him she was drunk and vulnerable and things just “vomited out” of her when she spent the night with James. Norman erupts in fury. Norma screams back at him that he has no idea what she goes through to protect him. “You’re going to kill me Norman.” (Yes, but probably not in the way she thinks.)
As you can imagine, this confrontation triggers another “event” for Norman and the episode ends with a dramatic surprise. This all comes after an earlier scene where Norman is vulnerable with his mother and they talk about his sexual development. At the end of that conversation, she tells him, “Don’t let anyone’s words come between us.” It seems to me that the only words she has to worry about may be her own. The next two episodes are titled Crazy and The Psycho. With the speed at which Norman is unraveling, I think we’re building to something big.
