Heartbreak Motel.
This is a mostly spoiler-free review of Bates Motel: Season 5. That is, until the end of the piece, where a spoiler warning will be provided.
Bates Motel, which was always plotted to be a five-season story, closed its doors for business this year with a 10-episode run full of stunning tragedy, deft surprises, and a nice sense of closure.
Overall, with Seasons 4 and 5 being representing the very best of the series, I'll have to give the edge to 4. Not just for what transpired in "Forever," but because it also managed to round out Romero as a character while bringing him fully into the Bates family dysfunction. In Season 5, Romero was more of a force than a character. The events of Season 4 had hollowed himself out so much that he became a directive, and, by the end, a tool for facilitating some much-needed plot points in the final two chapters.
So in that regard, Season 5 was a touch disappointing. Romero never got to "cat and mouse" with Norman, he just became a thug out for revenge. I thoroughly enjoyed the former Sheriff's love connection with Norma last year, but were those two weeks of marriage so intense that he was ready to go on this intense of a trek to avenge her?
Strangely though, without Romero acting like a hellbent hurricane, this season would have been rather light in the chaos department. Sure, there's always bloodshed when it comes to Norma and Norman (even, or especially, when she's dead), but Romero was the one who was constantly out there on this collision course, progressively sealing his own doom, ignoring everyone's warning to stop.
Doing the Marion Crane Psycho-arc midseason (with a fun bit of stunt casting in Bates super-fan Rihanna) allowed the series to officially state, before the end, that things would be playing out differently than the classic film it was adapting. If you still, for whatever reason, were under the assumption that Psycho was the endgame, you'd have to adjust your expectations and get ready for the show to take you to a brand new place. Granted, that place, ultimately, was kind of predictable, but there were some remarkable revelations in between.
Freddie Highmore was exemplary throughout this saga, as Norman often underwent massive mental meltdowns and changes that caused him further bury himself in delusion. He had a good few years, between seasons, of living within his demented fantasy life, but he was always on borrowed time. It could never hold. By the end, all that was left of him was a beat up boy who just longed for everything to be different.
Warning: the following paragraphs contain major spoilers for Season 5! Slip to the Verdict if you want to avoid.
I loved how, during this final this season, the show got to explore, more in depth, the Mother persona and how she reacted to Norman's rejection. She'd actually take over, black Norman out, and hit up bars to hook up with strangers -- men, in fact -- using Norman's body. It was a fascinating discovery. Especially since Norman would never allow himself (because Mother was watching) to get close to any other woman. His nagging subconscious would always interrupt and disapprove. All of this meant that when Marion showed up at the motel, Norman wasn't "Hitchcock Norman." He knew more about himself, and knew enough to spare her life.
He also came to realize all the horrors he'd committed as "Mother," which then caused him to commit his first -- I suppose -- enlightened murder. Oh, he was still in a fever, or haze, when he stabbed Sam in the shower, but he also wasn't Mother. He was Norman and he was stabbing away. Because of this clumsy clarity, Dylan managed to live through the series because Norman held back. He controlled Mother. In fact, looking back, Dylan and Emma, along with their child, were the intended survivors. Everyone else had to drop away in order for them to emerge as something new and, hopefully, happy.
Caleb, Chick, Romero and, finally, Norman had to pass so that Dylan and Emma could, presumedly, rise up from the ashes. I guess you can count Emma's mother as part of this cleansing fire too. Everyone who complicated their past, separately, could now do so as one collective ghost. And Dylan's final "handling" of Norman -- which he didn't want to do but got tricked into doing by Norman himself -- was laced with the show's permeating theme regarding the harmful effects of denial and inaction. Norma let Norman's illness progress too far. Dylan left them both behind even though he knew Norman was dangerous, and even suspected foul play. In the end, guilt played a huge factor in informing Dylan's sense of responsibility toward his bother.
The one thing, story-wise, that Romero's rage did, was allow us to see Norman once last time. If Norman has remained incarcerated, and assumedly sentenced to death or life in a hospital, Mother may have been all that was left of him.
The Verdict
Norman's insane life of illusion was a noble feat and an understandable ideal for the young man, so to have the final season begin and end with that concept -- though the final version was a truly and desperately warped version of the already twisted idea -- felt right. And this final season was thoughtful and provocative end to a complex multi-year tragedy.
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