Bates Motel series finale recap: 'The Cord' 

, the future is certainly not mine to see. In its final season,

proved over and over again that it is one of the few series on television that can simultaneously subvert predictions, exceed expectations — of which there were many, given its inescapable source material — and make every shocking twist feel completely earned.

Before Dylan goes back into his mother’s former house to see his brother, who has officially lost any and all touch with reality, he calls his wife. He tells her that he has to go check on Norman alone; he can’t call the sheriff because she’ll kill him: “She doesn’t give a s— about Norman.” And that’s true. Dylan is the only person left in this world who gives one single s— about Norman Bates. Well, Dylan…

And us. In the last analysis, five seasons planned and five seasons completed,

has done so right by its audience. For its entire final season, Alex Romero has been fighting his way back tooth and nail, stomach wound and prison fight, stolen car and hostage situation, to be able to get back to Norman Bates and kill him for what he did to the woman he loved. But what we know is that Norman didn’t kill Norma — Mother did. What we know is that Norman has only ever killed one person, and when he had control of his mind, he turned himself over to the police for it. What we know is that Norman was a broken boy without the means to fix himself.

It doesn’t make him any less a murderer. But for Romero to have killed Norman, when the person he really needed to settle up with was Mother, would have made sense… but it would not have been particularly satisfying. Making Norman a sympathetic character was a narrative feat, but it was also a huge risk; a happy ending for

Norman Bates is one twist that even this series could likely not pull off. Dylan weeps to Norman once they’ve truly come to the end, “What I really want is something that can never happen! I want you to be

.” He now knows what we’ve known all along: There could be no happy ending for Norman. I guess I just assumed that meant there couldn’t be a truly satisfying end for Norman either.

I was wrong. In the end, Norman Bates is just a lost boy who wants to be returned to his mother… and those of us who give a s— have to let him go.

series finale is called “The Cord,” in reference to Norman’s line spoken in the very first episode, while he and his mother disposed of their very first body together: “It’s like there’s a cord between our hearts… It’s you and me; it’s always been you and me. We belong to each other. I don’t ever want to be without you.” He may have copped it from

, as Norma pointed out at the time, but the sentiment resonates even more fully now. Because Mother might have been a nightmare in a cardigan, but she was right about one thing: Norman needed her. When faced with the weight of what he’d done to Norma, and without Mother around to protect him, Norman simply could not handle the tragedy of his own life.

The finale continued to revisit the romanticism of the pilot, drawing the starkest of contrasts to the hopelessness of Norman’s current state, to truly heartbreaking effect. But at the top of Monday’s episode, we’re not yet dealing with Norman. Mother is still in control (though Freddie Highmore plays the part almost entirely this episode), and Romero still has her in the back of a car that he’s forcing the sheriff’s station assistant to drive at gunpoint. And though there was some confusion last week as to whether Mother would know where Norma’s body was, since Norman did the snow burial all by himself, she seems to know have accessed that part of the brain briefly enough to point Regina in the right direction.

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