<P> In the 1987 television spin - off movie and series pilot Bates Motel, Norman is never released from the institution after his first incarceration . He befriends Alex West (Bud Cort), a fellow inmate who had murdered his stepfather, and wills ownership of the titular motel to him before dying of old age . </P> <P> The TV series Bates Motel, a contemporary prequel to the 1960 film Psycho, set in the present day, depicts the young Norman Bates' life with his mother, Norma (Vera Farmiga). However the final season of the series loosely adapts the plot of Psycho . In this continuity, Norman suffers from hallucinations and blackouts, and begins manifesting his "Mother" personality while Norma is alive . He kills his abusive father, Sam (David Cubitt), while in a dissociative state, and Norma moves them from Arizona, where he was born and raised, to White Pine Bay, Oregon, to protect him . The series also introduces his maternal half - brother, Dylan Massett (Max Thieriot) and gives him a love interest in Emma Decody (Olivia Cooke), a classmate with cystic fibrosis . </P> <P> As "Norma", Norman murders Blaire Watson (Keegan Connor Tracy), one of his teachers who seduces him; Bradley Martin (Nicola Peltz), a girl he has feelings for; and Audrey Ellis Decody (Karina Logue), Emma's estranged mother . Fearing for his sanity, Norma briefly has him committed to a mental institution . While there, Norman recovers a memory of witnessing his father rape Norma; it is implied that this trauma fractured his psyche . </P> <P> When Norman's sanity begins to deteriorate, Norma marries the town sheriff, Alex Romero (Nestor Carbonell), so she can use his insurance coverage to pay for Norman to be treated in a mental institution . While the marriage is at first merely a financial arrangement, they eventually fall in love . After Norman is released from the institution and finds out that Norma is married, he grows insanely jealous and tries to kill both Norma and himself by flooding the house with carbon monoxide while his mother sleeps . Romero arrives at the house in time to revive Norman, but finds that Norma is already dead . Romero figures out what happened and swears revenge, but is arrested for perjury before he can do anything . Meanwhile, Norman cannot bear losing his mother, so he digs up her corpse and assumes her personality to preserve the illusion of her being alive . </P>

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