Bates Motel airs Mondays at 10pm ET on A&E, available through Comcast Cable!
“Underwater”
At the end of the previous episode, Norma discovered Shelby’s corpse in her bed. She suspects that Jake Abernethy was somehow responsible, but is of course unable to prove anything.
The next day, Norma is upset when she discovers the other motel guests blithely smoking pot outside of their rooms. Dylan is evasive about the job he’s brought them in for, and it seems to finally dawn on Norma that the town is heavily involved in marijuana production. She angrily storms off and announces that they are moving as soon as possible.
Emma begins work organizing the motel’s office files, but Norma tells her to simply trash most of the paperwork left by Keith Summers. On her way out, Norma receives a flower delivery with a note that simply says “See you soon…” Norma assumes Jake sent the flowers and calls it in to the sheriff’s office.
At school, Ms Watson suggests to Norman that he should try to publish his latest short story. She offers to help Norman edit the story and seems creepily drawn to both he and his writing, referring to him as an “old soul.”
Meanwhile, Bradley approaches Dylan in town and asks him to help her retrieve some of her father’s things from his old office. Later, Dylan asks Gill about the office; Gill assumes Dylan wants the office for himself and tells him just to throw all the old stuff away.
Bradley, however, seems pretty insistent on getting into the office, and Dylan cannot resist her puppy dog eyes. They sneak in after hours and are stopped by Remo. He admonishes Dylan for bringing her there, but lets them into the office anyway. Bradley looks for her father’s pocket watch, but instead finds evidence that he was having an affair with someone with the initial “B.”
Sheriff Romero arrives at the motel and tells Norma that Jake Abernethy is an alias. Unfortunately without any physical evidence, they are unable to uncover his real identity or his connection to Shelby and Summers. Norma is understandably frustrated and Romero offers to patrol the area regularly in case Jake returns.
Norma begins taking steps to move her family elsewhere, including putting the motel property back on the market. She proposes moving to Hawaii to start over, but Norman insists on staying. He snaps and calls Norma crazy before quickly apologizing for the outburst.
Emma interrupts their argument when she stumbles into the living room and explains that she felt like she was being watched while sitting in the motel office. After a few moments, Norma realizes that Emma is high, courtesy of a pot-cupcake one of the guests had left out for her.
After they send Emma home, Norma asks if she can sleep in Norman’s room. Norman offers to sleep on the floor, but Norma insists on just cozying up in his tiny twin bed. They each apologize for the earlier argument and go to sleep.
The next evening, Norma’s realtor tells her there is no market for her property because he has to disclose the news of the highway bypass. When she threatens to sue him for not telling her about the bypass in the first place, he tells her he doesn’t have any assets so it won’t matter. She angrily hits him with her purse and storms out.
When she gets into her car, Jake pops up from the backseat and holds her at gunpoint. He tells her that Shelby owed him money and that it’s up to her to pay him back. He threatens to kill her sons first if she doesn’t comply, and tells her to meet him at midnight the following night.
Tune in next week for the season finale and see how Norma handles this threat to her family.