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We're like the same person.
~ Norma to her son, Norman.
We came here to start over, and I am starting over.
~ Norma to Norman.

Norma Calhoun, better known as Norma Louise Bates, is the deuteragonist of the 2013 television series Bates Motel.

She was portrayed by Vera Farmiga, who also played Joanna in The Commuter, Emma Russell in Godzilla: King of the Monsters, Livia Soprano in The Many Saints of Newark, Lindsay Carson in Law & Order, and Eleanor Bishop in Hawkeye. Sarah Grey played the character as a teenager, as Madyson Parsons and Mira Eden played the character as a child.

Biography[]

Backstory[]

Norma Calhoun grew up in an abusive, dysfunctional home. Her father, Ray, would beat Norma and her older brother Caleb, while their mother, Frances, suffered from severe depression for which she was "sedated most of the time". When she paid attention to her children at all, it was to lock them in their rooms for days at a time to keep them safe from their father's rages. Norma and Caleb had a consensual sexual relationship when they were teenagers, but when Norma told her brother she wanted to stop, he flew into a rage and raped her. He continued sexually abusing her until she got pregnant with her eldest son, Dylan, and Ray threw her out of the house.

She later married John Massett and manipulated him and Dylan into believing that he was Dylan's father. Years later, Norma had an affair with Sam Bates, which caused the marriage to dissolve, so she left John with Dylan. She later had another son, Norman, with Sam.

Sam was an abusive alcoholic who beat Norma, and sometimes Norman, during his frequent drunken rages. Norma once tried to leave Sam with seven-year-old Norman in tow, but Sam caught them and threatened to kill them and himself unless they returned home with him. Sam forced them back into their house at gunpoint and raped Norma while Norman hid under the bed, holding his mother's hand during the assault. It is implied that this trauma fractured Norman's psyche and caused him to develop an alternate personality named "Mother" who "handled" things Norman could not bear to face.

Norma remained married to Sam for another 10 years, during which the abuse worsened. Dylan had long since estranged himself from her because he believed (correctly) that she favored Norman over him, so Norman was all she had. She became intensely possessive and jealous of him, forbidding him to have friends, a girlfriend, or any semblance of a life outside of her. Norman, in turn, was completely devoted to her, and resented anyone or anything that took her attention away from him.

One day, Sam began hitting Norma more severely than usual, and Norman blacked out, allowing "Mother" to take control and kill Sam by hitting him over the head with an iron. When Norman regained consciousness, Norma told him that Sam had died accidentally, a lie she repeated to the police. To protect Norman, she moved with him to White Pine Bay, Oregon, where she bought a motel.

Personality[]

TBA

Gallery[]

Trivia[]

  • In the novel and films, Norman Bates was Norma's only child. Also, Norma in the film series had a sister named Emma Spool.
  • The show is set in modern day and retcons much of what was established in the original films. Farmiga's performance differs greatly from Olivia Hussey's in Psycho IV, with her being much more sympathetic and less cruel and spiteful. She is no less an overbearing mother, however, and is implied to have an unconscious sexual interest in her son.
  • Like her original counterpart, Norma in the TV series is loosely based on the late Augusta Gein, the abusive mother of the late murderer and graverobber Ed Gein, who was the inspiration for Norman.
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