Norman: "It's like there's a cord between our hearts..."
Norma: "Honey, that's from Jane Eyre. Orson Welles says it to..."
Norman: "Joan Fontaine. Yeah, but you know what I mean."

Not Mr. Rochester and Jane, note. Norman retreats into old films, but there's a slyer joke being made here about remakes and reboots and copies of copies and art. And, of course, the fact that Rochester owns a house with a madwoman upstairs, who comes between him and his true love even though all she wants is a home. And all he wants to do is give it to her.

Rochester: "I've a strange feeling with regard to you. As if I had a string, somewhere under my left ribs, tightly knotted to a similar string in you. And if you were to leave, I'm afraid that cord of communion would snap. And I have a notion that I'd take to bleeding inwardly."

Norman: "It's you and me. It's always been you and me [by design]. We belong to each other."
Norma: "I love you, Norman. You're the best thing that has ever happened to me."

They sit there, on their midnight date, and feel good and healthy love feelings. And then they push Mr. Summers out of the boat, wrapped in chains, down to the bottom of the lake. He rows them back, then, to the concrete world. To the house on the hill.

NEXT DAY

It's raining when the men come to replace the sign. One of the most beautiful things in the world is the aqua color of the opening sequence and the little A&E bugs in the corner of the screen and the kitchen at Bradley's party. If you saw it in the daytime it would be a little garish, but at night -- surrounded by literal and figurative darkness -- there's something so sad and lonely about it. That motel sign, in that pale electric blue. It says morgue and killing floor and ice and sparks.

In his bedroom, as the sun sets, Norman gloats over his little book. His story full of nasty dreams. The girl takes a shower, cowers in the bathroom. There are tender kisses and violent ones. A girl is chained to the floor. A man wraps rubber around her arm and pulls out a needle. Her dress barely covers her. The story's in a language Norman doesn't know; it speaks to him in a language that does.