Bates Motel: 'The Man in Number 9' (2013)
Rating: B
A&E's "Bates Motel" mini-series is basically going to be re-working PSYCHO IV. If you've seen that film then you know it shows what was going on with Mrs. Bates and Norman before the events in the original Alfred Hitchcock film. While that prequel wasn't perfect, it at least put a nice wrap-around story to the original film.
The seventh episode starts off explaining how the mess of a cliffhanger gets wound up for everyone's liking. From here we have a new character entering the picture, a mysterious man who ends up renting a room from Norma but no one is exactly sure what he's actually wanting. Norman also has to come to terms that the love in his life might not feel the same way for him while his mom finds out about his romantic connection to Bradley.
I will admit that I didn't care for the previous two episodes and I thought this one here started off rather weak but that quickly changed and in the end this seventh episode turned out to be one of the better ones in the series and it also made me interested in seeing where they take things. I'll start with the negative and that's the explanation to the events that ended the previous episode. I'm not going to ruin anything but I'm sorry but things were wrapped up way too easily. After this the episode really picked up some steam and I especially liked the new relationship between Norma and Emma. I thought the scenes between the two of them were actually quite good and a lot of stuff could work between them going forward. I also liked the stuff dealing with Norman who is slowly starting to learn that Bradley isn't quite the girl he was thinking. It's becoming more clear that the writers are starting to make Norman crack and so far it's been handled quite well. As you'd expect, the performances are all extremely good still and while the ending here isn't a major jolt or cliffhanger, it's at least got the series back on track and I look forward to what happens next.