"Bates Motel" began its pilot episode with Norman finding his father's dead body in the garage. His brother Dylan theorized that their mother Norma killed her abusive husband, but this week, she finally told Dylan what really happened.
In flashbacks, viewers saw Norman mixing something in a blender while his father was threatening and yelling at Norma. Then, with a blank expression on his face, Norman bashed his father on the back of the head with the blender -- apparently, it was enough to kill him in one blow.
Norma took him to his room and put him to bed before staging the garage death scene. The Norman who was crying in the garage at the beginning of the pilot was genuine -- he had no recollection of having attacked his father, just as he had no recollection of attacking Dylan a few episodes later.
This week, things reached a head with Deput Shelby, who discovered that his sex slave had been rescued and took the whole family hostage. When he was yelling at Norma, Norman did it again: He blanked and bashed Shelby in the head -- only Shelby didn't die so easily. It took a brutal gunfight with Dylan to finally take him down.
The reveal about Norman's father left Mania.com wondering where he can go from here as a character. After all, we already know he'll never "improve."
Executive producer Carlton Cuse told The Hollywood Reporter that they did this intentionally. This means Norman was already a killer by the time viewers first met him. "We felt like this worked out well to have a big seismic event happen in the middle of the series as opposed to waiting until the end of the first season," he said. "There's a whole other chapter that lays beyond this that is not unrelated that will commence next week."
Find out what that is by sticking with "Bates Motel" on Mondays at 10 p.m. ET on A&E.
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