I saw that movie back when it came out (at a drive-in!) and was amazed by how much I liked it. Anthony Perkins and Meg Tilly are both great. The twist wasn't good, though.

Bradley is a character/performance I'd like to expunge from my memory. Guess the town did just that.

Yup, and that was emphasized by having Norman "reset" to the beginning of the series when Dylan was still in his jerky adolescent rebel phase. (Remember him putting Norma in his phone as "Whore"? Hee.) Prompting the audience to see how Dylan has grown.

You called it and it was anything but cheesy. Nice work.

I assumed she was in the pit at the time, but I guess it was misdirection.

Ooooh. I want this to happen (will they reproduce the movie's final monologue?) and at the same time I don't. Poor Norman.

I was thinking this, too. We all know the real Norma Bates was not exactly a master manipulator, and Norman takes after her in having no poker face, etc. There's not much successful guile in this family. But some part of me wants to believe that Norman pours all his hidden deviousness into the Mother personality,…

I was cringing a little when Marion's shower scene started, and then I was laughing in some inappropriate places, but overall this worked for me. It can't be Psycho. Canon has already been flagrantly violated. Ten years haven't passed since Norma's death, and Romero didn't die with her, for two things. Everyone in…

Ever since the Wuthering Heights shout-out at the end of last season (Norman's plea to dead Mother not to leave him echoing Heathcliff, who also exhumed his beloved), I've been thinking of the show in that context. And Caleb reminds me more and more of Hindley, Cathy's older brother. He's an abusive drunkard (not…

I don't know. It's true it's not a full-fledged eerie impersonation of her, but I wonder if that might take me out of the moment by making me laugh. I like how you can see by his body language when he's becoming Norma; for instance, in this episode on the stairs when his movements suddenly get more fluid. He isn't…

I like how he described his oeuvre as a true crime novel, which is a contradiction in terms unless you're Truman Capote. But I can totally see him giving this story the In Cold Blood treatment if it doesn't take 20 years for him to produce it on that manual typewriter (it could), and Norma(n) doesn't kill him first.

I'm from Vermont, and the backwoods kinda-hipster is a thing here. They live off the grid in tiny houses and gather morels and brew their own craft beer with exotic ingredients. There's this odd confluence of urban refugees and rural eccentrics going on. I've been a Chick fan from day one because he's like an…

Thanks! And thanks for the reviews; I've really enjoyed reading them!

OK, I usually lurk here, but (a) this episode was amazing and wrecked me; and (b) I've been waiting for someone to mention the Wuthering Heights connection. When Norman was alone in the house begging Norma to return to him, I started getting flashbacks to Heathcliff after Catherine's death, when he starts begging her…

Here's what happens when studios don't want to release anything opposite the second weekend of BvS: Godless heathen movie critics in small markets have to see God's Not Dead 2.

Yeah, that's kind of the problem — you can't channel a "posterity" that doesn't exist yet and won't be monolithic when it does. Ignatiy's review of Hail Caesar here was a B-minus (which I agree with). The comments are full of arguments that posterity will be much kinder to the film.

I saw ASM 2 (not by choice) with my 80-year-old mom. She leaned over during the film to say (yell, really), "This is the stupidest movie I've ever seen! It's for three-year-olds!"

As a long-time horror fan, I've had to realize that for some people (me) horror is a cathartic, stress-relieving adrenaline rush, and for others it's no kind of relief at all, just a reminder of the horror already present in the world. If I were in the latter camp, I'd avoid it, too.

Yeah, that's the thing. It's the McDonald's of torture porn — bland, mass produced, and yet somehow more vile than the low-budget indie-flick version.

I started watching last season to enjoy the reviews better. Quit watching again a few episodes ago because I couldn't make it through the hour without seeking distraction. More than bleak, it's boring.