BATES MOTEL 2.07
Episode Title: “Presumed Innocent
Writer: Alexandra Cunningham
Director: Roxann Dawson
Previously on ‘Bates Motel’:
Early in “Presumed Innocent,” a city councilman asks Norma Bates (Vera Farmiga) how she got a seat on the council and he tells her that she’s funny when Norma says that she just had a meeting with the mayor.
Norma is funny, but the humor comes from her lack of awareness. If Norma had bothered to think through her sudden rise to power, she’d realize that local drug lord, Nick Ford (Michael O’Neill) and the Heldens family put her there for a reason. They think they own Norma and they will definitely expect things from her in return. Although Nick may be feeling particularly vengeful towards Norma once the info revealed in this episode inevitably leaks to him.
On Norma’s first day in office, Norman Bates (Freddie Highmore) is hauled into the sheriff’s office after killing Jimmy Brennan by pushing him down a flight of stairs. In theory, this was an accidental killing done in defense of Cody Brennan (Paloma Kwiatowski), Jimmy’s daughter and Norman’s estranged girlfriend. But with Norman, are any of his murders really accidental?
For a while, it’s very refreshing to see how angry Cody is over her father’s death. But because this show is about Norman and his mother, the plot seems to dictate that Cody’s anger evaporate so she can have one more scene with Norman. And what Cody has to say is our gateway to the remaining episodes of season 2.
From this point on, there are full spoilers ahead for “Presumed Innocent.” So if you missed last night’s episode of “Bates Motel” then you should probably skip this review or else you’re not with Zane… and you know what that means.
The softening of Sheriff Alex Romero (Nestor Carbonell) towards Norma is pretty unmistakable at this point. Note that Romero personally escorts Norma to the sheriff’s office and he is unusually accommodating towards her. The writer even places Norman and Romero in a position to see Norma embrace George Heldens (Michael Vartan) to create a twinge of jealousy in both of them.
As always, Vera Farmiga carries most of the episode as Norma goes through alternately hilarious and intense moods. Norma’s interaction with Romero’s passive aggressive secretary and her line about doing Romero’s laundry were comedic gems. But Norma also does some light witness tampering when she corners Cody in the sheriff’s restroom. That was contrived, but it also got the job done for now. Cody bows to Norma’s pleas and she doesn’t mention his blackouts to the Sheriff. However, Cody does tell Norman before leaving town to live with her aunt, the cat lady.
If this is Cody’s swan song for the show then I’ll miss her. She was a much more interesting character than Bradley. But it didn’t feel right for Cody to forgive Norman so easily for the death of her father. That was rushed and it cheapened Cody’s emotional turmoil from earlier in the episode.
Cody’s only function was to tell Norman that his mother is lying to him about the extent of his blackouts and what he does while he’s “out of his body.” Amazingly, Norma admits that everything she told Cody was true, but she expects to shut down Norman’s inquiry and never speak of it again. Norman may not have much will of his own, but he has enough to reject that. And now, Norman doesn’t trust his mother and he has some serious questions about who he becomes when he blacks out. On a side note, someone on this show was having a little Psycho fun in that shot of Norman in an apron that initially looked like it was his mother.
Outside of the Bates family inner circle is Emma Decody (Olivia Cooke), who clearly wants in and Dylan Massett (Max Thieriot), who is still keeping his distance since learning that Norma is his mother AND his aunt. The funny thing is that Norma loves Emma and treats her like a daughter. She would probably approve of Norman dating Emma as well because Emma is sweet and she’ll probably die young, leaving Norman no one but his mom to turn to.
Emma doesn’t have much to do this week beyond confronting Dylan about his indifference to Norman’s latest crisis. Not that Dylan is doing that great either. Dylan’s promotion to the power behind Zane Carpenter (Michael Eklund) lasts exactly one week before Zane attempts to raid Nick Ford’s warehouse and unnecessarily escalate the drug war. When Dylan refuses to go along with it, Zane smashes his face with a gun and goes through with it anyway. Remo (Ian Tracey) is smart enough to say that he’s with Zane, but that only leads him to follow a fool into danger.
The cliffhanger of Dylan being left for Nick Ford’s men to find didn’t work for me because I have no doubt that Dylan will make it through to the end of the season and possibly to the end of the series. But there was a turning point courtesy of Romero’s star deputy, Patty Lin (Agam Darshi). Patty came out of nowhere this week and her introduction was slightly jarring. However, Patty’s lab contact matches Norman’s DNA with a semen sample taken from the late Miss Watson.
Now the mystery from the beginning of the season is back in play. It’s a little surprising that Norman apparently gave into Miss Watson’s seduction given how we saw him react in last season’s finale. There has to be more to it than that and I still think that Norman will ultimately be cleared of Miss Watson’s murder. First, Nick Ford will probably learn about the kid who slept with his daughter and remember him from their graveside encounter. That’s bad news for everyone, including Alex Romero.
Think back to earlier this season, when Romero pinned Miss Watson’s death on the other man that she slept with before getting murdered. Now Romero has to seriously wonder if Norman was involved and it’s a huge conflict of interest for him. He’s living at the Bates Motel and getting closer to Norma. And if Romero has any thoughts about protecting Norma and her son, then he should remember exactly how well that worked out for the late Zack Shelby.
“Presumed Innocent” was a transitional episode that put the pieces in play for the final three installments of the year. The tricky part will be giving “Bates Motel” a meaningful conclusion without making it feel like an endgame for the show. If Norman is already killing people then there’s only so long that this dance can play out.
