Bates Motel: Season 1, Episode 9: 'Underwater' Recap

“Bates Motel”, season 1, episode 9, “Underwater”

The police carry away Deputy Zack Shelby’s rotting body, as Dylan’s crew of pot processors watch on in confusion. Inside the house, Norma tells Sheriff Romero that she knows Jake Abernathy is behind all of it, and wonders why crazy people seem to gravitate to her. Romero asks if she has Jake’s info, and Dylan says it’s in the motel office. He takes him out to the office.

The next morning, Norman and Dylan drag Norma’s soiled mattress to the dumpster. Dylan warns Norman that Norma is going to milk the incident for all its worth. She overhears him and gets upset. She notices the smell of pot, rushes to the motel, and finds Dylan’s crew smoking on the walkway. The smokers argue that no one cares, give the local economy, but she pulls the cigarette out of his mouth and stamps it out. She says that can’t smoke there, regardless. She storms back towards the office, complaining that the entire town is a nightmare and tells Norman and Dylan that they are going to move. Norman is not very happy to hear that, since he’s beginning to gain friends.

That night, Bradley fills her tub with water and soaks in it. Norman appears over her and grabs her throat, holding her under the water and she struggles for life. Norman’s alarm wakes him up. He was having a dream.

Norma heads into the motel office that morning and is surprised to find Emma there early, working on organizing all the files. Norma tells her to just trash everything except for the deed and legal papers. She also tells Emma to make sure the guests don’t smoke any pot on the property and to use her authoritative voice if she has to. She dismisses herself to run errands, but as she leaves, a delivery truck arrives with a vase of flowers for her. It contains a card saying “See you soon”. She realizes it’s probably from Jake Abernathy. She calls Sheriff Romero’s office, and leaves a message with the secretary about the flowers, and to have him come over when he can. She tells Emma to throw the flowers away, and she leaves.

Norma pays a visit to the Realtor who sold her the motel. She is very upset with him. She asks why he would sell her the motel if he knew about the highway bypass, and how it’s going to ruin her business. She tells him to relist the house on the market and to get her her money back, or else she will take him to court.

In school, Norman’s teacher stops him and says that she absolutely loved his short story that he had turned in, and that she has a friend in publishing who would be interested in it, as long as they edit it a bit to fix some mistakes. She tells him to come by after school. She also adds, as his advisor, that he’s getting straight As, and that she’s proud of him, and the school is good fit for him.

That night, Dylan sees Norman’s stuffed dog and thinks it’s really weird. He also sees that Norman is searching for “drowning someone dreams” on the internet. Norman says that drowning in dreams signifies being overwhelmed, and that he dreamed he was drowning Bradley. Dylan asks if he’d ever actually hurt anyone, and Norman says he’d never want to. Except for Dylan sometimes.

At the motel, Emma spots one of the guests smoking pot. He quickly runs into his room, but she knocks on his door. He denies smoking, but she can see the smoke coming from behind his back, so he offers her a hit. She says she’d explode, since she’s uses an oxygen tank. She begs him to put it out, or else she’ll lose her job. He does.

After school, Norman and his teacher work on revising his story. She asks how he came up with the idea for the story, and he doesn’t know. She points out that Norman is an old soul, and so wise for his age. She adds that, since Norman is a minor, he would need Norma’s permission in order to get his story published. He says he’ll ask, but he’s not too happy about it.

That night, Sheriff Romero finally arrives. He sees the stoners sitting around the motel smoking. They offer him a hit, but he declines. He goes into the office to see what Norma wanted. She shows him the card that came with the flowers. He asks how she knows it’s from Jake Abernathy, and she says she just knows. He points out that all the information Jake Abernathy gave when he signed in was fake, and that he’d need to dust the room he stayed in for prints if they want to do anything. She says she cleaned it already. He says there’s nothing they can do then, but he’ll have someone keep an eye on the house.

Emma finds a cupcake sitting on the front desk of the office with a note from the stoner boy. It says that he hopes he didn’t get her into trouble. She begins to eat it.

In the house, Norman does his homework while Norma looks for houses to move to in safe cities. Norman says he doesn’t want to move, and that Norma can’t make him. She says she can, since he’s a minor. He says it’s another one of her stupid restarting life ideas, and that no matter where they end up, it will always be the same because she’s crazy. Realizing what he said, he begins to apologize. Emma walks in, stoned, and paranoid that someone is monitoring the office with surveillance cameras. Norma asks if she was smoking, and she says she ate it in a cupcake. Norma tells Norman to get Emma some toast and juice.

Later that night, Norma asks Norman if she can sleep with him because she’s still scared to sleep in her room after the incident with Shelby’s body. He lets her into his bed. She apologizes about all the moving talk. He apologizes for calling her crazy.

The next day, Norman tells his teacher that he can’t send in the story because he doesn’t think Norma would like it. His teacher asks how his therapy is going, and Norman says he went once and that was it. He apologizes once again for wasting her time with his story. She stops him and says that he doesn’t really need to tell Norma about it, and that his work deserves recognition. He says it doesn’t seem right. She tells him that she knows that his life isn’t fair, and reassures him that Norma would probably never know.

That night, Norma pays her realtor a visit again. He sees her coming in, and he quickly begins to pack his bags. She asks him what’s going on, and he tells her the truth; there will be no open house, the motel is only worth half of what she paid for it, and it would probably be best if she let the banks take it and walked away. She threatens to sue him again, and he points out that he’s $30,000 in debt already, lives with his girlfriend, and that his mom owns his car. She smacks him repeatedly with her purse. She storms out of the office.

In the parking lot, she climbs into her car and notices a parking ticket. She sighs. As she goes to grab is, Jake Abernathy appears from her backseat and holds a gun to her neck. He says that Deputy Shelby owed him $150,000 for the last batch of sex slaves, and that he can’t find the money anywhere. Since Norma and Shelby were together, she must know where the money is. He tells her to bring the money to the pier the next night. He asks her if she can do this, and she nods. He then reassures her that he knows where she lives, and if she doesn’t show, he’ll kill her sons first, and then her. He climbs out, and she is left in tears.