‘Bates Motel’ Season 5 Spoilers: Marion In, Norma Out; Vera Farmiga Still Staying on Series

‘Bates Motel’ season 5 is set to introduce the iconic murder victim Marion Crane as Norma Bates exits Norman’s life – although not completely. Vera Farmiga, who plays Norma in the series, is confirmed to stay on as a key character.

According to Yahoo! TV, executive producers Kerry Ehrin and Carlton Cuse revealed that actress Vera Farmiga will not be exiting the series just yet. When asked why they killed off her character with still a final season to go, Cuse answered, “We wanted the final season to allow us to do our version of the Psycho lore. We will be colliding with certain events in the narrative of the film, but it would be boring to just recreate Psycho.”

Ehrin added, “The obsessive love of Norma is what the show is going to be based on. It’s the heart of what drives it. That is going to be hugely important in Season 5.”

They also admitted that killing off Norma was always the plan from the beginning but it was still a challenge to execute. Audiences were treated to a shocking yet still predictable murder by the end of Season 4. Norman succeeds in killing his mother through carbon monoxide poisoning and digs up her corpse to haul back home after he instantaneously loses his wits.

Cuse explained that Farmiga will continue staying on as a main character saying, “Vera’s still very much a part of the show, she just has a slightly modified role… She’s existing now in Norman’s brain. In the original Psycho you don’t really know anything about Norma Bates… But we re-imagined their relationship as this complex, intense, co-dependent love story. And that relationship continues very much in Season 5. It just has a different dimension, which is that she’s dead. But it’s not the end of the story.”

According to another article on Screen Crush, season 5 will see the introduction of another iconic character into the series. Marion Crane, played by Janet Leigh in the classic film adaptation by Alfred Hitchock, was one of Norman’s victims who stayed at the motel. Leigh is best known for portraying the iconic shower scene wherein Norman stabs her multiple times until she meets her end.

The actress to play Marion is yet to be confirmed. The incoming season is reportedly the popular television show’s last one.

‘Bates Motel’ is a drama-thriller television series on A&E intended as the prequel to Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 film ‘Psycho’. It stars Farmiga as Norma Bates, Freddie Highmore as Norman Bates, Max Thieriot as Dylan Massett, Olivia Cooke as Emma Decody, and Nestor Carbonell as Sheriff Alex Romero.

The show’s fourth season ran from March 7 through May 16, 2016. Season 5 is scheduled to return to the small screen but the official release date has yet to be confirmed.