Bates Motel: Season 4 Review 

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Warning: Full spoilers for Bates Motel: Season 4 follow.

Bates Motel\'s best and most tragic season to date zeroed in on Norman\'s mental maladies while also bringing Sheriff Romero into the family fold. Also, gone was the idea of the "local bad guy of the season" and in its place was a much more focused, emotional story of a young man with dangerous problems and a mother incapable of seeing beyond her co-dependency.

Ryan Hurst\'s Chick sort of stuck around as a remnant of the first three seasons\' tendency to focus too much on the White Pine Bay crime scene, but way more was done with him this year with regards to bringing him into Norma\'s world and then teasing his interference in Norman\'s crazy delusional life of solitude heading into next year\'s final season.

Bates Motel Official Season 4 Finale Trailer

In fact, not many threads remain un-snipped as we now head into the show\'s final bow. Romero will most certainly have an axe to grind with Norman. And Dylan and Emma could easily be brought back into the story somehow. Their arc represented a shred of meager happiness this season so it\'s only fitting that they return to the darkness as all will most likely end badly for those who aren\'t Norman.

But yeah, the way this season ended, given the final two episodes, it wouldn\'t be that much of a stretch to just jump ahead to the Hitchcock movie. The daring move was made to kill of Norma in the penultimate episode, leaving Norman alone in a house full of illusions. A snow globe that he\'s now made for himself, and one that he\'ll probably protect vehemently and violently. And so aside from all the characters who still remain on the show, who could come knocking on Norman\'s door, he\'s set. He\'s the younger version of the character we\'ve come to know as a horror icon. All that\'s left is a little spring cleaning.

Which might easily make this season the most effective and dramatic of the bunch. Not just given the fact that Norma got killed off, but because Norman himself was also ready to die. He\'d reached a savage impasse. He\'d first blamed his mother for his own crimes but then came to realize, truthfully, that he didn\'t know himself at all. And was perhaps responsible. He never came to a hard answer, but the ambiguity was enough to bring him to a dark place where he thought the both of them dying would be a good thing.

For the first time too, Nestor Carbonell\'s Romero felt like a vital part of the story and not someone who wandered around giving Norma the side-eye. And the quick, honest relationship he had with Norma this year (which began as a marriage of convenience - and guilt) was a nice surprise. A flickering pause of happiness for Norma while Norman was off at Pineview. Albeit briefly, she was allowed to be in a bubble with someone else. All while Norman got better at both manipulating and resenting.

Bates Motel\'s haunting and focused fourth season brought Norman to an extreme breaking point. One that unexpectedly cost him dearly as a huge character exited the show before we expected. This was the year that Norman both realized that he was dangerously unstable and realized that he preferred to ignore that fact and live in a delusional world of his own mad design. There are those out there who can still call Norman\'s actions into question, but for now this is the man who will believably grow into Norman Bates from the classic horror franchise.

In Bates Motel\'s best season to date, Norman was sent to a mental health facility while Norma unexpectedly found love.

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