If you thought for one second that the Bates Motel Season 4 premiere wouldn't incorporate yet another brutal murder right off the bat, then you were in for a rather rough surprise during the final few minutes of the episode "A Danger to Himself and Others." Much like the title suggests, Norman is no longer a safe person to be around because at this point he's pretty much capable of killing anyone when/if a hallucination strikes, which became quite evident when Norman killed Emma's mother on Bates Motel , as punishment for being a terrible parent.
As you know, Emma suffers from cystic fibrosis (hence why she's just undergone a lung transplant) and was abandoned by her mother many years ago, when the illness became too hard for her to deal with. So you can imagine how angry Norman — supreme ruler of abandonment issues — was upon meeting this woman face to face, especially during one of his hallucinogenic states.
After Norma left to run an errand, Emma's mother went up to the house in the hopes of enlisting Norman's help so she could reconnect with her daughter. And while Norman (dressed in his mother's bathrobe) appeared to sympathize, the tables quickly turned when he started strangling her in a fit of rage. "What sort of a person runs away from their sick child?," Norman demanded to know. "Do you have any idea the things she suffered? You think your pain is anything like what she went through? Everyday, feeling abandoned by her own mother."
Now, of course, this whole thing is very sad for Emma, but did anyone else feel as though Norman was projecting some of his anger toward his own mother onto his latest victim? I mean, Norman had to literally bust out of his own room because Norma had locked him inside without letting him know where she was going. Considering that he was just taken out of a super shady mental facility, I'd say that wasn't the smartest move she could've made. It left Norman feeling abandoned and he projected that betrayal onto the nearest maternal figure he could find.
But that makes you wonder... is that what Norman, deep down, wants to do to his own mother? Is this the writers' way of foreshadowing Norma's grim fate? We know how much Norman loves his mother, but if she continues to make him feel abandoned or unwanted, he may end up loving her... to death.
Image: James Dittiger/A&E
