Bates Motel: Season Three

The third season of this "prequel" to Psycho—centering on the relationship between teenager Norman Bates (Freddie Highmore) and his mother Norma (Vera Farmiga)—takes Norman from being an awkward high school boy to becoming a psychologically troubled kid with murderous blackouts and hallucinations that eventually blossom into a full-blown split personality. Along the way, Bates Motel explores the dark underside of a rural Oregon town where drug dealing and gun running attract the attention of the FBI. While Norman is promoted to hotel manager and starts dating Emma (Olivia Cook)—who is still awaiting a lung transplant—Norman's half-brother Dylan (Max Thieriot) tries his hand at the legal weed business with the help of his estranged father (Kenny Johnson), and also ends up falling for Emma himself. This season adds a sinister club catering to the town elite that is located in the deep woods, a group that Sheriff Romero (Nestor Carbonell) takes on when they target Norma. The show's producers go their own way with the story, which is ostensibly based on Robert Bloch's novel, but also clearly inspired by Hitchcock's classic movie. And for all of the criminal complications, the focus remains on the psychology of the characters, from a clingy and jealous Norman who is uncomfortably intimate with his mother, to the latter's manic personality that is impulsive and needy in one scene, maternal and protective in the next. Compiling all 10 episodes from the 2015 third season, extras include a behind-the-scenes featurette and deleted scenes. Recommended. (S. Axmaker)