Bates Motel returns for its second season in 2014 on A&E, available through Comcast Cable!
Bates Motel: “Midnight”
In the previous episode, Jake Abernethy threatened Norma at gunpoint, telling her she was responsible for Shelby’s debt. He gave her until midnight the next day to come up with the funds.
As “Midnight” opens, Norma rushes to Sheriff Romero’s to tell him about Abernethy’s threats. Romero assures her that he’ll “take care of it,” but Norma is unsure of whether or not she can trust him.
Later, Norma drops in unannounced at the psychologist’s office for an impromptu session. She asks him for advice about how to handle stress, but deflects all of the doctor’s specific questions. When asked about her childhood, she says only that her parents were kind and that she was an only child.
At school, Emma complains about not having a date to the Winter Formal, and Norman offers to go with her as a friend. Later in the day, Norman overhears a tense phone conversation between Ms. Watson and a man named Eric. Ms. Watson is clearly upset and Norman attempts to comfort her. She makes him promise to keep the phone call a secret before rushing out of the room.
Dylan arrives back at the motel with a pistol for Norma and takes her to a field for target practice. Norma is clearly nervous, but eventually settles down enough to successfully hit the target. During their conversation, she notes with some eagerness that Dylan calls her “mom.”
Later that evening Bradley arrives at the house looking for Dylan. Dylan hands over her father’s belongings, including the watch she was initially looking for at the office. During their conversation, Norman stands just out of sight, clearly agitated by their apparent flirting.
Norman gets ready for the dance and waits for Emma to arrive. Norma, concerned that this might be the last time she sees Norman, confesses that she has a brother who used to sexually abuse her when she was a teenager. Norma was ashamed and afraid their father would find out; when he came home early one day, Norma panicked an accidentally knocked over an ironing board, burning her leg in the process.
When Emma arrives, she and Norma head off to the dance. Norman spends most of the evening looking wistfully at Bradley, causing Emma to realize that he will never return her feelings. Emma rushes off in tears, leaving Norman alone. Outside, Bradley’s boyfriend attacks Norman for sleeping with Bradley and warns him to leave her alone.
Meanwhile, Norma heads to the pier with a loaded gun to meet Abernethy. She hides when she sees Romero, carrying a duffle bag presumably filled with Shelby’s money. When Abernethy arrives, Romero offers a partnership deal to keep the old operation running. But as Abernethy reaches for the bag, Romero shoots and kills him. He then tosses the money into the water and tells Norma (who is still hiding) to go home.
As Norman walks home in the rain, Ms. Watson pulls up and offers to get him cleaned up at her house first. She tends to Norman’s injuries before going into her room to change. Norman watches her in the mirror and begins to hallucinate that his mother is there with him. The imagined Norma admonishes Ms. Watson for deliberately changing clothes in front of a young boy and ominously tells Norman, “you know what to do.”
Norman runs home through the rain, arriving at the motel at the same time as Norma. He seems to have blacked out and does not remember even being at Ms. Watson’s house, instead claiming he came straight home from the dance. Norma hardly notices Norman’s injuries and is simply elated that the danger posed by Abernethy is finally behind them.
The final scene of the episode shows Ms. Watson dead on the floor of her bedroom. Her throat has been cut and a necklace with the letter “B” hangs around her neck, possibly connecting her to the love letters Bradley found in her father’s desk.
Be sure to come back next season to see if Ms. Watson’s murder investigation turns up any connections to Norman.
