Dysfunction Junction: <i>Bates Motel</i> and <i>Gilmore Girls</i>

Dysfunction Junction: Bates Motel and Gilmore Girls

In this blogger's humble opinion, Bates Motel is one of the best series in recent memory. I'd like to write more about it over time, especially digging deep into Vera Farmiga's truly astonishing performance as Norma Bates. Her performance is astonishing, a true tour-de-force crafted over five seasons as one extraordinary character arc.

The show offers one of the most thoughtful, sustained depictions of a woman in constant turmoil with herself and the world around her, yet who still fights tooth and nail every step of the way to do what she perceives to be right. Appallingly, Farmiga was only nominated once for a Primetime Emmy for her work. That's ridiculous, because I'd go so far as to say it's the best performance by an actress on television in the last decade.

At another end of the television spectrum, Gilmore Girls is also one of my favorite series. My wife and I watched during its initial run back in the day, and watched it several times over since. It's a deeply layered series, with plenty to scrutinize and dissect even while you're enjoying it for sheer entertainment value. It, too, featured a stellar lead performance by an actress—in this case, Lauren Graham—one that was never properly recognized outside hardcore fan and astute critic circles.

So. Bates Motel. Gilmore Girls. Why am I mentioning these in the same space? Besides the fact that I love both, it's because I experienced a moment of clarity about them the other day that deepened my respect and admiration for each. Hear me out: Bates Motel can be read as a dark-mirror version of Gilmore Girls. Each has an unhealthily dysfunctional mother-child relationship at the center, a charmingly taciturn love interest who would do anything for the mother character, and a town full of eccentric weirdos.

There's also enough avoidance, denial, regression, acting out, and compensation happening on both shows to fill several volumes of psychology journal articles, but at least the characters on Bates are slightly aware of their emotional hangups, even if they rarely deal with them in healthy ways.

I need to flesh these connections out even more, but I hope my moment of clarity just blew your mind.

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