Bates Motel/Dark Paradise

Dark Paradise
Season 5, Episode 1
Airdate	February 20, 2017
Written by	Kerry Ehrin
Directed by	Tucker Gates
← 4x10 Norman	5x02 → The Convergence of the Twain
Bates Motel — Season Five

Dark Paradise is the first episode of the fifth season of Bates Motel, and the forty-first episode overall.

Starring: Vera Farmiga (Norma Bates), Freddie Highmore (Norman Bates), Max Thieriot (Dylan Massett), Olivia Cooke (Emma Decody)

and Nestor Carbonell (Alex Romero)

Guest Starring: Kenny Johnson (Caleb Calhoun), Isabelle McNally (Madeleine Loomis), Austin Nichols (Sam Loomis)

Also Starring: John Hainsworth (Jim Blackwell), Vivian Lanko (Village Woman), Lucy Ssuubi (Woman), Sam Vincent (Phil), Kyle Warren (Dean)

Plot Overview

Nearly two years since Norma's death, Norman is still managing the delusion that Mother is still alive and out of sight. However, they are soon at odds when he finds he suspect she's someone else and she gets jealous when he meets a woman who runs the new hardware store. Dylan and Emma, who now have a child together, get an unexpected visit from Caleb.

Notes

Music

• Bing Crosby - "You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby"

• Frank Fafara - "Only in My Dreams"

• Tim Sparrow - "On and On"

• Noah Gundersen - "Ledges"

• Etta James - "At Last"

Arc Advancement

Happenings

• A man checks into the hotel to have sex with a woman under the dubious name of "David Davidson".

• Romero arranged a man to kill Norman. "Mother" kills him instead.

Characters

• Norman's delusions are elaborated. As he perceives the home to be kept neat and tidy because of Mother, in reality, it is cluttered and a mess.

• Romero is held at the Bend Correctional Facility, with two years left on his sentence, and his latest parole turned down.

• Norman meets Madeleine Loomis, the owner of the reopened hardware store, and who bears a remarkable resemblance to Norma.

• Dylan and Emma has a daughter together named Kate.

• Caleb shows up after hearing about learning his grandchild. He plans to crash until he can get on his feet, but Emma tells him that as long as he stays, it's going to compromise Dylan's relationship with his daughter.

• Norman has Norma's body preserved in a freezer in the basement. He goes to visit it, a sign of his awareness of her real state.

• Norman discovers Mother killed a man and "they" dispose of his body in the lake.

Trivia

The Show

• The date on the receipt and Norman's journal log sets the episode mid-October 2017.

• This episode introduces Sam Loomis. It's the first character from Psycho the show has incorporated aside from the Bates.

Allusions and References

• Madeleine Loomis remarks that the Bates house reminds her of "that Hopper painting." The house, as copied from Psycho, was actually modelled in part on Edward Hopper's 1925 painting The House by the Railroad.