Vera Farmiga Talks Deciding To Do TV And 'Bates Motel'

'Pyscho' Gets An Oedipal Twist With 'Bates Motel'

Norman Bates and his mom were just really, really close, okay? That's the jumping-off point for A&E's "Bates Motel" (premiering March 18 at ten), a sort of prequel to Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 classic "Psycho" in which mother and son have set up shop in Northern California following the mysterious -- and bloody -- death of Norman's dad. But rather than going back to the fifties, Norman's coming-of-age story is set in the modern day, by way of Twin Peaks with an Oedipal twist. As played by Vera Farmiga, Norma Bates is haunted, protective, sexy, and her relationship with Norman is at once innocent, intimate, and smothering.

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