‘Bates Motel’ Composer Reveals Norma Bates’ Death Scene Originally Had A Darker Musical Score

“Bates Motel” composer Chris Bacon opened up about making the right musical score for the show’s most heartbreaking death scene to date.

In a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly, Bacon said that ever since he started composing music for the A&E series during its freshman run, he knew that Norma Bates’ (Vera Farmiga) inevitable death was going to be a “big musical moment.” So when the time came for him to create the score for the beloved character’s death, he made sure that it’s unlike any other musical piece he’s done for the show before.

“I think when I first watched it, they had music in there that was a bit darker and played it more like most of the other deaths and dark scenes on the show, and I didn’t think that was the right approach,” Bacon said. “So I tried to go at it more melodically and emotionally.”

Ultimately, Bacon came up with the track “Goodnight Norma” for the death scene. And according to Bacon himself, the music was able to encapsulate Romero’s (Nestor Carbonell) love for Norma. “[In the death scene,] you see Romero, who is kind of this steely, unmovable object who is breaking down, so that was important because I thought it captured the fact that he really was in love with this woman,” said Bacon.

Although Norma and Romero’s romance was cut short due to the former’s death, the characters’ bond had been one of the most beautiful relationships on the show. It even became more interesting when executive producers Kerry Ehrin and Carlton Cuse revealed to Yahoo TV in June that the relationship between Norma and Romero was not part of the show’s original five-year plan.

Ehrin said that the idea of Norma finding love before she died was always part of the plan, but they didn’t initially know that it was going to be with Romero.

“When we first started conceiving the show, and we started talking about the importance of the sheriff character, Nestor immediately popped into my brain from ‘Lost,’ but there was no way that Kerry or I knew that he would work so well romantically with Vera until they started doing scenes together,” Cuse shared.

Despite Norma’s death, Farmiga will return for the fifth and final season of the series as a regular. “She still exists in Norman’s [Freddie Highmore] imagination,” Cuse told Entertainment Weekly in July.

Ehrin said the same thing during an interview with Yahoo TV in May. “Vera is going to be fully present [next season],” she said. “We’re really excited about the idea of unleashing a character that is ... a hallucination.”

“Bates Motel” Season 5 is expected to premiere March next year.