‘Bates Motel’ Catch-Up Guide: Everything You Need to Know to Jump Into the Final Season

The end, sadly, is nigh, and while Norma Bates is already gone — well, literally gone, but then again, not gone, literally — she will continue to haunt sons Norman and Dylan as Bates Motel prepares to wrap its five-season run on A&E. The Psycho prequel series promises lots more twists, turns, murder, and humor in its final season, premiering Feb. 20, as we wait to find out just how close the Norman of Bates Motel becomes the Norman Bates of Psycho. There’s also that major guest spot by pop music superstar Rihanna to look forward to, so whatever your reason for checking in at Bates Motel for Season 5, here’s a deep dive on everything you need to know from Seasons 1-4, if you don’t have time to watch 40 episodes yourself.

Related: Review: The Final Season of ‘Bates Motel’ is a Radiant Achievement

Season 1
Norma Bates (Vera Farmiga) and her teenage son Norman (Freddie Highmore) move to the fictional White Pine Bay, Ore., after the death of Norman’s father. Norma buys the rundown Seafairer Motel in town, which she plans to fix up and run as the renamed Bates Motel, while she and Norman live in the Gothic mansion that’s up the hill. Norma’s older son, Dylan (Max Thieriot), from a previous relationship, also shows up shortly after she and Norman arrive in White Pine Bay, and despite his contentious relationship with his mother, he also moves into the mansion. And the family’s first months in town are eventful: The motel’s former owner, Keith Summers (W. Earl Brown), claims the property is still his, and he breaks into the mansion one night and rapes Norma. Norman returns home and knocks him out, and Norma stabs Keith to death. Norma is initially charged with Summers’s murder, but with the help of her sons and local sheriff Alex Romero (Nestor Carbonell) and his deputy Zack Shelby (Mike Vogel), she faces no legal consequences for the killing.

Deputy Shelby, who Norma briefly dated, turns out to be a big baddie who’d been running a sex-slave business with Keith Summers. When the Bateses learn about it, he holds them hostage, and Dylan saves them when he kills Shelby in a shootout. Sheriff Romero covers for them, saying he shot Shelby.

Key Moments for Norman:

— He doesn’t remember killing his father after witnessing him beat his mother, which Norma continues to hide from Norman. It’s the first clue to his murder/blackout habit. When Norman passes out at school and is hospitalized, Norma claims it’s never happened before.

— Norman meets and befriends Emma (Olivia Cooke), a schoolmate who has cystic fibrosis. Norma hires Emma to work at the Bates Motel. Her father later teaches Norman taxidermy, which he uses to preserve his beloved dog, Juno, after it’s killed by a car.

— Mother is not happy, however, when Norman befriends Bradley Martin (Nicola Peltz), one of the most popular girls at his high school, and has sex with her. Norman has feelings for Bradley, but she rejects any further romance, telling him they’re not right for each other. Bradley’s father is killed in a fiery car crash, which Bradley and Norman witness.

— After being beaten up by Bradley’s boyfriend at the school dance, Norman is offered a ride by his teacher, Miss Watson. She takes him to her house, and as she changes clothes, Norman hallucinates Norma telling him that Miss Watson (Keegan Connor Tracy) is actually stripping so she can seduce him. The next thing Norman can remember is running home, but Miss Watson is shown in her home, dead and with her throat cut.

Must-See Episode: “First You Dream, Then You Die,” the series premiere that introduces us to the pre-Psycho Bateses as they attempt to start over after Norman’s daddy dies. Norma has a childlike level of excitement — delusion? — about their chances for a do-over, but Norman is more skeptical. “Maybe some people don’t get to start over,” he tells his mom. “Maybe they just bring themselves to a new place.”

Season 2
Norman obsesses about Miss Watson’s death, making frequent visits to her gravesite, where he spots an older man he thinks may be her killer. He takes a photo of the man, and presents it to Sheriff Romero, along with his theory, but Romero instead asks where Norman was on the night of Miss Watson’s murder. Dylan discovers Bradley’s dad was having an affair with Miss Watson, whose boyfriend was Dylan’s boss, Gil (Vincent Gale). When Dylan tells Bradley, she kills Gil, and Norman and Dylan help her flee town after leaving a suicide note. Meanwhile, Norman’s brother Caleb (Kenny Johnson), the one who raped her when they were teens, shows up in town with expectations of being a family, and bonds with Dylan by claiming he protected Norma from their abusive father when they were growing up. This prompts Norma to reveal the rest of the story: Not only did Caleb repeatedly rape her, but she also became pregnant, and Dylan was the result. Dylan is traumatized by the news even further when Norma admits she used the pregnancy to get away from her family by pretending her high school boyfriend was Dylan’s father.

The Bates Motel has become a hot spot for those vacationing in nearby White Pine Bay, but a new bypass that will prevent travelers from even seeing the motel threatens Norma’s new success. Norma goes to a prominent local businessman, Nick Ford (Michael O’Neill), for help in stopping the bypass project. Romero warns her to tread carefully around Ford, who operates the town’s biggest marijuana business, but Ford helps her get a seat on the town council. Ford kidnaps Norman in an attempt to force Dylan, who works for his drug biz rival, Zane Morgan (Michael Eklund), to kill Morgan. He keeps Norman hostage in a hot box in the woods. Dylan ultimately ends up killing Ford instead.

Key Moments for Norman:

— While thinking about his mother being raped by Caleb, Norman goes into a “state.” He thinks he’s Norma and attacks Caleb. Caleb hits Norman and flees, and when Norman later wakes up, he doesn’t remember anything that happened.

— Norman kills again: He pushes the abusive father of his rebellious teen girlfriend Cody (Paloma Kwiatkowski) down the stairs. The death is ruled an accident, but his DNA was taken to process as evidence. Cody leaves town to live with a relative in Indiana, but before she leaves, she warns Norman that Norma is keeping information from him about his blackouts.

— Before Romero and Dylan rescue Norman from the hot box, Norman remembers he killed Miss Watson while they were having sex. Norma tries to tell him it was a hallucination, but Norman knows otherwise, and plans to kill himself. After packing up his taxidermy supplies and letting Emma in on all the family secrets, he takes a gun and goes into the woods to shoot himself. Norma finds him and begs him not to leave her, planting a big kiss on him — on the lips — and telling him she’ll die without him. He agrees to return home with her.

— Romero finds out Norman’s DNA matches that of semen found in Miss Watson after her murder, and wants Norman to take a polygraph test — which he passes. When he’s asked if he killed Miss Watson, he answers — having slipped into Norma’s “persona” — with a truthful “No.”

Must-See Episode: “The Immutable Truth,” the Season 2 finale, for that kiss — one of the most talked-about moments in Bates history — and the wicked look on Norman’s usually sweet face after he beats the lie-detector test.

Season 3
Because Norman’s “spells” continue, Norma decides it’s best if he’s homeschooled for his senior year, and Emma decides she’ll join him. Determined to forge ahead with as much “normalcy” as possible, even as he continues to become more aware of his hallucinations and blackouts, Norman asks Emma on a date, but she clicks with Dylan instead. Caleb returns to try to connect with Dylan after the death of Norma and Caleb’s mom, which causes more drama initially, but then sparks an attempt for some bonding among the dysfunctional Bates clan.

A Bates Motel guest, sex worker Annika (Tracy Spiridakos), goes missing after Norma had caught Norman peeking into Annika’s room. She returns to the motel days later, with multiple gunshot wounds. Just before she dies, she gives Norma a USB drive and tells her to use it to save herself and Norman.

Bob Paris (Kevin Rahm), a powerful local businessman, threatens Romero’s job when Romero begins asking questions about a local strip club Bob owns. Bob wants the USB drive, which Dylan’s roommate and co-worker Gunner (Keenan Tracey) decode: It contains financial data that reveals Bob has made $15 million in illegal drug money. Norma uses it to blackmail Bob into erecting a billboard for the Bates Motel near the new highway bypass. He also agrees to pay for the construction of a swimming pool at the motel, which Norma thinks will help attract more clients.

Romero is shot, and visited at the hospital by Marcus Young (Tomiwa Edun), who tells him he isn’t going to be sheriff much longer. Romero later shoots and kills Young, a Bob Paris associate. Norma tells Romero where the USB drive is so he’ll have the upper hand with Bob. Romero is crushed and angry to learn from the drive’s contents that his incarcerated father — the former White Pine Bay sheriff and the one responsible for starting the town’s drug ring — continues to use Romero’s dead mother’s name so he can continue to receive drug money.

When Norma finds out that Caleb and Dylan are becoming close, she feels betrayed, and flees town with a suitcase full of clothes and a gun. After a brief stay in Portland, and a meeting with James (Joshua Leonard), a psychology professor who listened to her talk about some of her problems with her sons, she returns home and allows Caleb to apologize for everything he did to her.

Norma asks James to talk to Norman, who insults James and asks what it’s like to sleep with his mother. He then tries to choke James, who flees the Bates mansion and tells Norma she needs to get help for Norman right away. James is later kidnapped by Bob and tortured into revealing Norma’s family secrets. Bob then reveals that info to Romero, including Norma’s confession that Norman killed his own father. When Romero confronts Norma and she lies to him about the death of her husband, Romero says their friendship is done. They later make up when she admits the truth, and he tells her the DEA is investigating Bob. Romero later lures Bob to his getaway boat and kills him.

Dylan and Caleb nearly get themselves killed doing an ill-fated gun run to Canada for Chick (Ryan Hurst), their ex-con neighbor. Caleb beats Chick and makes sure he pays them for their effort. He gives the money to Dylan and leaves town again. Dylan gives the money to Emma’s dad to pay for the lung transplant they hope will save her life. Dylan and Emma later share their first kiss, and he tells her she is the strongest woman he’s ever met when she shares her fears about her body rejecting the transplant.

Key Moments for Norman:

— Norman finds out Bradley has returned to town. She’s angry her mother has moved on with her life and Norman’s had a fight with Norma about his possible institutionalization, so they decide to run away together. Norma knocks Norman out, however, and puts him in the basement of their home.

— Norman escapes and drives off with Bradley. He has another spell, which makes him think Norma is in the car with them. “Norma” wants to talk to Bradley, so “she” drags Bradley out of the car, and kills her by beating her head against a rock. “Mother, what have you done?” Norman-as-Norma yells, before he rolls Bradley and her car into the bay.

Must-See Episode: “Norma Louise.” The midseason episode finds Norman freaking out about Norma’s departure from town, which leads to our first peek at Norman-as-Norma in Norma’s clothes. Dylan finds Norman in the kitchen, wearing Norma’s robe and completely having adopted her personality while he cooks breakfast.

Season 4
The drama’s penultimate season is its best so far. The biggest spoiler: Norma dies, or rather, is killed, by Norman, as part of his only semi-successful suicide/murder plot. Norma does find true love and brief happiness before her death. She and Romero get married, initially so she would have health insurance to admit Norman to a mental hospital, but their slow-burning feelings for each other turn the friendship into a real romance.

Chick, eager to get revenge against Caleb for beating him, befriends Norma and eventually figures out that Caleb is her brother and father of Dylan. He threatens to reveal that info to Romero unless Norma tells him where Caleb is. Norma considers it, knowing it would mean her brother’s death, but eventually tells Chick to do whatever he wants to her. She tells Romero about Caleb and Dylan herself, expecting him to leave her, but he doesn’t, and their connection deepens, leaving Romero heartbroken — and thirsty for revenge against his stepson — after Norma’s shocking death.

Key Moments for Norman:

— The season begins with a local farmer finding him in a field sometime after his murder of Bradley, and he’s taken to the county psychiatric hospital, which holds him for 48 hours and scolds Norma for neglecting to get Norman treatment for his blackouts.

— Norman, back home and in full Norma persona, strangles Audrey (Karina Logue), Emma’s estranged mother, as he berates her for leaving Emma and causing her so much pain. Dylan later finds a letter Audrey had brought for Norman to give Emma, as well as Audrey’s earring. When Dylan confronts Norma about it, she tells him he’s jealous of her closeness with Norman. He’s hurt, and worried for Norma’s safety, but it gives him the emotional freedom to break away from his mother and brother and move to Seattle with Emma. The next day, Norman can’t remember what happened, but he has brief moments of seeing Norma killing Audrey and hiding her body in the freezer. When he accuses Norma of it, she knows it means he killed and froze Audrey, and she becomes truly fearful of Norman.

— Romero goes to Pineview with enough cash to pay for Norman to be admitted, but Norman has to sign the consent forms himself because he is 18. The forms are faxed to Norma, but Norman finds them first and freaks out. He hallucinates his dead father telling him that Norma is really the one who killed him, not Norman, and that Norma is trying to set him up as being a murderer. Norman has Norma’s gun and insinuates the two of them should kill themselves as they’ll never be happy alive. Finally, Norman agrees to sign the papers and he goes to Pineview so he won’t be taken back to the county psych hospital.

— Norman and Julian (Marshall Allman), a fellow young Pineview patient, escape and go to a strip club. When they’re thrown out (just as Norman is about to go into “Norma” mode with a stripper), his psychiatrist, Dr. Edwards (Damon Gupton), comes to pick him up and persuades Norman to let him help him. Edwards figures out that Norman has dissociative identity disorder, and that he adopts his Norma persona during his blackouts. Norman also shares a shocking memory: When he was 7, he hid under his parents’ bed, holding his mother’s hand from the edge, while his father raped her after she tried to leave him.

— While at Pineview, Norman finds a newspaper that has the announcement of Norma and Romero’s wedding. When he calls the Bates house, Norma lies to him about their marriage. His anger leads him to leave Pineview and return home.

— During the latest awkward family dinner, Norman confronts Norma, asking her why it’s OK for her to have found love and entered into this marriage with Romero, when, for his whole life, she’s kept him so close to her that there was no room for him to have a real relationship with a girl.

— Romero pleads with Norma to have Norman committed back to Pineview, and he even secretly meets with Dylan to ask for his support in convincing her. When Dylan mentions this to Norma, she rejects Romero, telling him their relationship is over. She is distraught about the breakup, in front of Norman, and after she writes a breakup letter to return Romero’s mother’s wedding ring to him, she lies down in her bed. Norman lights the house furnace and closes all the vents, intending they’ll both die of carbon-monoxide poisoning. Instead, Romero comes to the house and drags them both out of her room. Norman starts to breathe again. Norma is dead.

— Romero vows vengeance against his stepson, and attacks him during Norma’s funeral. But before he can make any real moves against Norman, Romero is arrested by the DEA for lying to them when he claimed he’d never had a relationship with Rebecca (Jaime Ray Newman), the ex to whom he’d given the key to a safety box in which the late Bob Paris had stashed $3 million.

— Chick arrives at the Bates mansion to offer condolences and a casserole to Norman, and sees Norma’s body on the couch. He calmly tells Norman his mother is dead, and Norman plans to kill himself with Norma’s gun, until he hears music.

Must-See Episode: “Norman,” the Season 4 finale. Norman, after digging up Norma’s body from her grave, glues her eyes open and imagines she’s still alive with him, celebrating the holidays with music and laughter, in the Bates mansion.

Bates Motel Season 5 premieres Feb. 20 at 10 p.m. on A&E.

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