‘Bates Motel’ season 1, episode 9 review: Norman and Norma share a bed

After last week’s episode where Norma ended up getting terrorized by Jake Abernathy (in addition to everything else that has happened to her) it’s not surprising to hear her tell Norman in this week’s episode that she’s ready to dump this motel off on someone else and move yet again.

Finding the corpse of Shelby in her bed is not the last Norma is going to hear from Jake. In fact he is sending her flowers and trolling past her motel to make sure she knows that this isn’t over. She asks Sheriff Romero for help, but he tells her that Jake Abernathy doesn’t exist, all of his information is fake.

Norman is getting some positive attention from his teacher as she tells him that he’s a perfect straight A student and that his writing is good enough to be published. While working with Norman after school, there’s a chemistry between him and his teacher. When Norma brings up moving to Norman, he gets irrationally angry, telling her that he won’t move.

Bradley asks Dylan if he can get her into her father’s office to get some of his things and he says he’ll see what he can do, but when he talks to his boss, he’s not receptive to even hearing her father’s name. Fortunately fate smiles on him and his boss gives him her father’s old office telling him to just pitch all of his stuff int he trash. He sneaks Bradley into the office after dark, but Dylan’s partner catches them and even though he lets Bradley and Dylan go to her father’s old office, he know holds this over Dylan. When she gets into the office she discovers love letters from a woman to her father and is distraught over the idea that he was having an affair. Dylan comforts her and there is a serious connection between them.

When Norma meets with a realtor, she finds out that she can’t sell the property with the new by-pass being put in and starts to physically attack the man with her hand bag. She heads back to her car where Jake is waiting. He tells her that Shelby owed him $150,000 for the last batch of girls and now that he’s dead, no one seems to have the money, so he thinks that Norma is hiding it. She says that she will meet him the next day with the money and he’s happy with that arrangement.

The creepiest thing about this whole episode was Norma crawling into Norman’s single bed to sleep with him for comfort and it only gets weirder when she cuddles with him and kisses him on the neck.

Next week is the season 1 finale of “Bates Motel” and we will likely say good bye to Jake Abernathy (which totally sucks). Do you think anyone else will die this season? Do you think Norma will get the money together for Jake? Leave us a comment and tell us what you think will happen in the finale.

Photo: A&E