The episode description said, "Emma takes a trip," and I thought, "How funny it would be if homegirl got high." Forgetting, of course, that we're in a drug paradise and that we now have twelve drug dealers living in the motel. So yes, Emma does eat an edible, and yes, it does make her paranoid. Of course, living in WPB should make you paranoid, so it doesn't really matter -- but it's nice to see Emma tying herself closer and closer to the Bates Family Unit, however that takes its shape.

Meanwhile, everybody else is just breaking the hell down: Dylan (Massett! But we're still calling him Dylan Texas) breaks Bradley into her father's office at Gil's warehouse, with Remo's reluctant approval. Daddies and sons and daughters all over the place there. And Norman, who's still having dreams about murdering Bradley, gets all caught up in editing his literary short story for some Miss Watson idea about his talent, which ends up in a whole new configuration: Norma wants to move the fuck out of WPB, while both her children -- the one she claims, and the other one -- are doing everything they can to stick around.

So Norma spends the episode freaking out about that highway, beating her real estate agent with her purse -- which yes, was amazing and a high point of the episode -- and later trying to figure out a way to reconfigure her connection with Sheriff Romero to benefit her. She's practically out of commission, between this and yelling (again, awesomely) at the trimmer kids for smoking pot on her property.

In the end, Norma wants to leave town and can't, and her boys have no interest in doing so. But with just the finale to go, one wonders exactly how weird -- between the boys' conflicted interest in Bradley and Norma's continual messing about with the established social order -- it's going to get. I would say one of the three (Emma, Bradley, Miss Watson) is going to buy it in the finale next week, but it's a testament to the show that all three would be both surprising and fascinatingly apropos, by turns.

Norma, you'll never leave White Pine Bay. Norman, your creative expression will not be through fiction (and stuffed Juno would agree). Dylan, I can't believe you didn't nail Bradley this week, but I'm guessing there's a Big Winter Formal next week where everything comes to head. My money's on Miss Watson, simply because her "caring authority" vs. "total pervo" is rating higher than anybody other than Shelby at this point.

Next Week: "Romero decides to take action" (meaning presumably Norma makes too much noise about her psycho stalker); "Norman brings Emma to the dance" (meaning presumably that he does that); and "Norman gets a ride home from Miss Watson" (meaning presumably that he ties her up and things get very awesome next season). But based on this week's cliffhanger -- Abernathy (#9) grabbing Norma in her car demanding huge sums of money -- and next week's trailer -- Emma telling her to shut up and give him that money -- that at least ol' Mr. Abernathy won't live out the finale. Jeez I love this show.