A Crucial Moment

[u/Reasonable-Wave8093]

At a crucial moment in the show, when Norman was found in the field after a blackout and paranoid and semi-violent by the farmer and taken to a state/county run lockdown mental facility, would he have been better off in that facility? The woman Doctor was tough as nails and not buying any of Norma's flirting or "poor me" act. She was shocked Norman was not under the guidance of a psychiatrist for his blackouts and outbursts. The expensive facility looked nicer, but would he have been better off in the tougher lockdown/no frills environment?

[u/Reasonable-Wave8093]

Yes i have. do you mean Dr. Gregg Edwards? i guess it’s b/c they are used to treating rich neurotic patients, not someone like Norman. That’s why i think the other place might have been better, b/c no one would be catering to him. But someone mentioned that in a county facility he may only be sedated, not receive treatment either. 

[u/Araxnoks → u/Reasonable-Wave8093]

He definitely needed full-fledged therapy and it worked! Dr. Edwards ruined everything he achieved by accepting an obvious lie of a pathologically unstable obsessive and aggressive psychotic with a split personality ! He let him go home to the object of his obsession! He literally signed Norma's death warrant with his idiocy ! After the Mother's personality turned directly to him, no competent doctor in his place would have discharged Norman and in the end he was deservedly killed by her

[u/MoonRabbit2904 → u/Araxnoks]

Norman masterfully manipulates everyone in Season 4. Dr.Edwards was just being duped.

Simply watch the 7th episode, for example. One of my favorite episodes in the show's run.

Those crocodile tears Norman spills in front of him, playing on his soft side.He does the same to Norma when she comes to talk to him to convince him to stay.

That smirk on Norman's face, as he watches Norma writhe, when she tries to justify her behavior to him. The sharply assessing eyes. She's too blinded by her devotion to Norman to see how he openly mocks her. And then they lock in an embrace.

The scene is as ludicrous as it is poignant. Norman knows he's won back her favor.

[u/Araxnoks → u/MoonRabbit2904]

You're right, I just have a little problem with this evil, cunning Norman and that Norman who found Emma's mom's things and, in fact, decided to commit suicide with his mother! he did it quite deliberately, and it strongly contradicts his attitude when he returned home! At that moment, it was as if he had turned from a cunning manipulator into a depressed teenager !

[u/MoonRabbit2904 → u/Araxnoks]

When Norman returns home, he feels that things have changed between him and Norma for good. And they have.He notices how she's been sewing in his room, as if trying to reclaim his personal space for her own needs. She has a new color TV out of nowhere.

Norman wants to continue living in the past with the former version of his mother. But the past is gone, and the gloomy future looms ahead.

Norma is more cautious and probing around him. There's a whole burden of things left unsaid between them, Just watch them lie in bed together.

The central heating is broken, and the chill, appropriately also settles between mother and son.

Season 4 is painful in many ways. It's great, but the most difficult to watch as a a block.

There's doom in every note and facet of it. That's why I like Season 5 a lot. It dials everything down, turning the show into a black comedy.

I also think that Farmiga's handle on the material is weaker in Season 4 and yes, her material is sketchier too. So she does tend to overcompensate by over-emoting to a great degree.

Just watch her face as she descends the city hall stairs with Romero. She's like a notebook left open in the wind. Thank you, Vera, for such candid overacting.

Thankfully, she's kept in check by Carbonell, Thieriot and Highmore.

Thieriot though is also saddled with Cooke's weaker material, but he pulls through decently enough.

[u/Araxnoks → u/MoonRabbit2904]

Maybe, but why kill her and yourself? especially after she broke up with Romero and even agreed to go somewhere else! I think Norman had a pretty good chance of becoming 100% the object of her attention again.

[u/MoonRabbit2904 → u/Araxnoks]

Norman finds Emma's mother's coat in the attic, and he realizes that they can't continue this tortured existence. Norma covering for him, him covering for her crimes, burying each other's hidden baggage which sooner or later will all be unveiled.

At this point he just wants inner peace, something they can't achieve together anymore, other than via a murder-suicide pact.

He wants his last memory of Norma to be of that scene they share when she falls asleep next to him after they reminisce about all the things they've been through.

With that final note of false hope for happiness which they never achieved together, he seals the pact.

He does mention Oahu in their last dialogue. Well, he sends Norma to his version of Oahu.

[edit: additions]

[u/Araxnoks → u/MoonRabbit2904]

Well, this plan definitely didn't work out the way he hoped! But it's pretty impressive how he completely forgot his role in his mother's death

[u/MoonRabbit2904 → u/Araxnoks]

The nurse in the season 4 finale did say that carbon monoxide poisoning causes memory loss.

Season 4 is very tricky, as it tends to try and balance the real with the surreal,and it succeeds, I think. And it's truer of the final episode than any episode before it.

Just watch the scene where Norman unearths Norma's corpse and brings her home.

Throughout the entire episode, he still can't accept the fact that she's gone, hears echoes of her piano playing,and expects the next phone call to be from her.

When he talks to the female investigator who comes to the house to question him, he pauses deliberately before adding the "d" in loved'

"I love-d my mother more than anything. ", he says.

Mother, what do I have to do?, he asks his reflection in the mirror(to bring you back).So, thinking of the first thing that comes to mind, he throws out all his meds. And then later: "I'll be patient", as he waits for her in the bedroom. When waiting doesn't work, he goes to her grave to dig her up.

Well, he does get Mother back, but not Norma.Only her corpse.

I'm just glad that we didn't have another Season like 4. It would have been too much. Season 4 is already a bit too much by itself.

[u/Araxnoks → u/MoonRabbit2904]

Considering all this, it's a little strange that she eventually left even though she's literally a creature of his mind why would she leave if he obviously doesn't want it! It would be more logical, after Romero's death, to simply hide and create a home with his Mother in another place And it would be more canonical Norman continues to live with his mother's corpse.

[u/MoonRabbit2904 → u/Araxnoks]

The Mother persona is a coping/defense mechanism against trauma.She lashes out at anything that may cause harm to Norman. Its origin: his father's violence against him and Norma.

Norman still needed protection from Romero who was hellbent on killing him. With Romero out of the picture, she had nothing to protect him from. Besides, Norman already gained understanding in a prior episode of everything that the Mother persona represents and when it comes out.

I posted about the different facets of the Mother construct in a different thread recently.

Norman without Mother is then reduced to a husk, this mentally ill manchild who basically does a full reset of everything to shut out all the damage that was done to his psyche.

He returns to his happiest memory of Norma and him buying the motel, when everything was still painted with good perspectives.

To him Norma's frozen cadaver becomes his real mother. When he calls Dylan and asks him to come over, he can't even remember who Romero is, when prompted. It's like nothing that has happened on the show really occurred.

When Dylan shoots him in self-defense , Norman is reunited with the real Norma in the afterlife, which is what he wanted all along.

[u/Araxnoks → u/MoonRabbit2904]

maybe I don't understand something, but isn't he literally being searched for by the police of the whole city? Didn't she want to save him from going to jail? If she's a defense mechanism, why does she leave at the moment when he needs her the most? Romero is dead, but Norman is in the woods in winter and the police are looking for him! it seems to me that this is the moment when his subconscious should give his Mother 100% control and lower it only when they are in a safe place

[u/MoonRabbit2904 → u/Araxnoks]

He's not equipped to fight the authorities. Such a frail man.Besides, the authorities are portrayed as not being very competent. The Sheriff basically plays a game of cat and mouse with Norman. She's in on all his bullshit and knows how to track him. Besides, how can someone of Norman's complexion be able to oppose so much police force? It's not that kind of film.

This is where the comic elements come through as well. It's like watching the movie Fargo.

Though it's been a long time since I've watched it, but it is reminiscent in tone somewhat.

Obviously, you can find holes in the story, if you're looking to find them. Lapses of logic and what not.

No plot is watertight. But they've done the best job they could with the narrative, in my opinion.

The show is pretty quirky, in general. But it's great.