‘Bates Motel’ season 3 premiere spoilers: Freddie Highmore on Norman’s endgame

Is “Bates Motel” season 3 our first chance to really see the Norman Bates we’ve come to know from “Psycho”? It sounds like he will definitely be closer to that than ever before, and everyone else on the show has a reason to be afraid … very afraid.

In previewing Monday night’s season 3 premiere to TV Guide, actor Freddie Highmore did his part to break down what should be a very crazy season by talking about Norman’s development. Ultimately, he says that almost everything we’ve seen from the character so far is just a precursor for some some other crazy things that are coming soon enough:

“The first two seasons were necessary in setting up the relationships and the background of the descent of Norman into the psycho we know that he’ll become … I think for the first time, the end is in sight and the things that we expect Norman to take on certainly happen more frequently in the third season.”

By the end of the third season, we anticipate Norman at least being reasonably close to full-on killing machine, though we don’t think he will be there completely just yet. We feel like this show should be telling its story in four seasons. Of course, we’d selfishly want to see more than that, but this seems right in terms of getting us where we need to be without completely overkilling the premise and making it feel like Norman’s transformation is taking far too long.

One quick programming reminder: Tonight’s premiere is airing at 9:00 p.m. Eastern time. A&E is airing new drama “The Returned,” a more direct adaptation of the French series than “Resurrection” was, at 10:00.