The Point Radio: Check In For More Creepy At BATES MOTEL

It’s a sure sign that spring is on the way when the doors open for a new season of BATES MOTEL. Show runners Carlton Cuse and Kerry Eihern, along with the main momma herself, Vera Farmiga, lay out what is coming up this year. Plus remember Trapper Tice and the boys from AIMS? They’ve decided to focus their creature capturing activities on one target this year, Big Foot. It’s all on a new season of MOUNTAIN MONSTERS and we have a preview.

In a few days, more BATES MOTEL as we sit down for an exclusive talk with Nestor Carbonell who finally reveals the connection between his character and Norma. And POWERS debuts on Playstation this week and we go behind the scenes for a look. Be sure to follow us on Twitter @ThePointRadio.

Transcript

the point radio. Hey, it's Mike Raub. One sure sign of spring is the opening of the doors to the Bates Motel. We got the folks behind the show to talk about what's coming up. And that, of course, includes main bomber herself, Vera Farmiga.

Plus, the guys from Mountain Monsters are back. And this time they have one enemy to look for. And that's Bigfoot. But did you know there's more than one? Let's get to the point.

This is the point. The point radio. Get the point. The doors are open for season three of Bates Motel. And over the course of those last two seasons, one thing has changed has been the competition

for TV viewing. It maybe has even grown as much as 50 percent. And I talked to show runner and producer Carlton Hughes about his view on that. I mean, I think it's harder to get people attention just because of the sheer magnitude of choices out there.

I mean, there are, you know, one hundred and fifty plus cable scripted cable shows plus, you know, one hundred plus network shows. I mean, I don't even know what the total is, but it's it's massive. And so I think it's very hard to find. There's just so many options that people have.

But I think as a as a as a writer and as a showrunner, you'll drive yourself crazy if you worry about that too much. I think the way that it slips into the writing process is that, you know, Carrie and I talk about this a lot, I think there are certain conventions people have, you know, people watch a lot of TV so they think that certain things are going to happen.

So I think the process is you're always trying to subvert expectations. And I think those expectations change based on the amount of TV people are consuming. So I think I think we try to, you know, stay relevant. And at the same time, you know, we're always looking for ways to to not have our stories unfold in a predictable manner.

So what has the journey been like so far, especially for lead character Norma Bates, co-creator and executive producer Carrie Ahern talked about that normal plan and going to White Plain Bay was to have a normal life. And it's although she had a hell of a lot of trouble since she got there, it has forced her to have to deal with a lot and interact with a lot of people and and find parts of

herself that were stronger than she probably ever knew. And that actually has had the effect of making her stronger. Norma herself, actress Vera Farmiga, she still credits everything to the writing. She's taken the lead on writing Norma and she writes Norma for me like I'm some sort of demigod.

But I'm not man, I'm just a mere mortal in Verdi and I'm mortally wounded from what she has me go through. It's pretty nutty to see, you know, what we explore with this character this season, like the height of righteousness that she possesses and the depths of manipulation and depravity almost that she is capable of.

And that just so many antics and adventures for me to explore. It's yeah, it's an outstanding role. I have never been challenged the way I am with this story and this particular character. And even as we speak, I swear it's like I I'm it's like a mental role that is frankly so not healthy for me with all due respect to everyone.

But it's formidable and it's like it's as it is to Carrie man. She writes the stuff. It's torturous to us all to hit the notes that are required emotionally and to do it earnestly and Carrie really keeps us on point like that. This season there are several new characters, including a major one played by actor James

Finnegan. And that was the decision that Vera was behind 100%. Sure. Yes, I I rooted for for he he. Well, let me explain James Finnegan.

I think that, you know, she's she's normally determined to to make her business a success. And so she starts enrolling in business classes at the local community college. And so there she meets James Finnegan. And he kind of launches her into a whole new path of discovery. James I rooted for Joshua to get this role.

You know, it's very interesting, though, in Higher Ground, we played a husband in relationship that I'm leaving in this. Well, this is more of a romantic role. And yet we're very close friends. It was a very interesting and bizarre dynamic between the two of us.

I it's it's a character that Norma bonds intensely with. And, you know, he's just he's phenomenal. And it was it was a but I'm not it was a quirky experience to embarking on it. We were so close. And this is just a weird twist.

And it was and it was it was. Amazing, but odd at the same time to to work so closely in a different capacity. When you boil it all down, the heart of the show was the relationship between Norma and her son, Norman, played by actor Freddie Highmore. So how to very and Freddie handle the parts dancing on some pretty uncomfortable topics yet never crossing the line.

It's a really great question because I it's always it's a great acting challenge for me and for Freddie as well. And and I think, you know, as they sort of head towards what seemingly is going to be their inevitable Hades, you know, these emotional scenes also come at such high frequency and duration that sometimes I honestly just sort of running out of ideas. And and it's you know, it's it's really interesting the closeness and the best friendship and the respect and the trust between Freddie and myself. And, you know, from an acting perspective, it's it's it's just it's really intense work.

And Freddie has become really particularly adept at sort of instigating me and knowing my soft spots emotionally and treading like a bulldozer over them. And it's like in this last season in particular, you could be a real prick when it comes to help that endurance and the emotional earnest. For the producing side of things, Carlton weighed in on that same question. We strive for a lot of nuance. And I think we are incredibly blessed because Vera and Freddie are so amazing.

I mean, a lot of a lot of what makes that work is not what's on the page. It's what it's what they do as performers. You know, they they bring, you know, this this innate chemistry to the relationship. And, you know, we what we put on the page, they elevate in so many ways in terms of how they translate that and and and and deliver that in their performances. All right, to be honest, it's not all murder, mayhem and almost incest on the show.

There's some light moments, too. There's so much love there. And that's what makes this show so special. That there's so much simultaneous, so much darkness and yet so much humor watching these characters navigate in in some ludicrously improbable situations, you know. But that's what makes it for me so exhilarating.

You know, yeah, it's acute. It's intense. It's agonizing most of the time, but it's balanced so beautifully. It's a lot of joy and beauty and friendship and love. Season three of Bates Motel is running right now.

You can see more at AEDV.com and do episodes every Monday on A&E. Let's get you up to date. Here is the latest in pop culture. It may not have a title yet, but it's headed to TV this summer. AMC has given a two season order to the companion spin off to the hit series Walking Dead.

The first six episodes will debut later this summer. The next ones will premiere on the network in 2016 off on memories of Zena. Lucy Lawless is reunited again with Sam Raimi and Robert Tappert to be in a new star's original series called Ash. Versus the Evil Dead, following up to the horror film franchise, the Evil Dead, of course. It's filming in New Zealand right now.

It'll premiere late this year on the Star's Network. A Chinese investment group has given a $100 million vote of faith at Deviant Entertainment, allowing them to move ahead with projects for both television and movies. The company DMG Entertainment is no stranger to show business. They were involved in the production of Iron Man 3, among other films.

The investment is in the hopes of bringing valiant characters closer to the big and the small screen. Right now, Dione has three projects in development, including ones based on Bloodshot, Archer and Armstrong, and Shadow Man. Amazon is gearing up its mobile game division and reaching out to Apple for some more games as well. Very soon you're going to find games like Tales from Deep Space, Lost Within till Morning's Light, and the arcade game Tofu Fury available for Apple.

There will be a charge. Amazon's planning on a premium price tag of $6.99 per game. NBC has lost faith in a couple of their recent show editions and are moving things around to help protect the blacklist, the big winner for this season as far as NBC goes. Allegiance has been pulled from the schedule on Thursday and the slap is being moved from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m.

And new editions of Dateline will premiere in the 8 o'clock slot, all leading into the blacklist, mostly again, all due to lower ratings. While the blacklist continues to be a rating success for the network, both the slap and allegiance turned in pretty poor showings over the past few weeks. While movie ticket sales here in America have been a little soft the past couple of weeks, over the worldwide scene it's a lot different and American Sniper has debuted to be the number one highest grossing movie of 2014. It replaced the Mockingjay on the list, pulling in well over $500 million so far in worldwide ticket sales.

Biggest time waster of the weekend was speculation, especially when it comes to what's being referred to as the Arrow Flesh Team-Up Show. A few days earlier there was news that the CW planned a spin-off show from both of those series. That would include characters like Victor Garber, one half of the Firestorm character, Brandon Routh as the Adam, Wentworth Miller as Captain Cold and Katie Lotts as at least some variation of her Canary character from the Arrow series. Despite the fact that she's kind of dead over there.

In the meantime news linked that there were other characters also being considered for the show, including one that may or may not be Booster Gold and another that may or may not be Hawk Girl, or maybe even some variation of Wonder Woman's family as well. We do know that the CW plans to take this concept direct to series by passing the pilot process and more than likely put it sometime on the schedule in 2015 to 2016, perhaps as a spring or wintertime replacement.

A few months ago I introduced you to Trapper Ties, leader of AIMS, the Appalachian Investigators of Mysterious Sightings. In the first season of the show, Mob Monsters, Trapper and his buddies look for all sorts of legendary creatures thought to be in the middle of the US. Now for a second season they've got one enemy in mind and that is Bigfoot. So why Bigfoot? Well we came to the conclusion that any place you go in this country, Bigfoot is the most prominent number one,

I hate to say monster, but Bigfoot's the number one creature of interest. So this season we're out there to prove that Bigfoot exists in Appalachia. That this is one of the great bases for Bigfoot. You know behind the state of Worshik and Oregon there's more Bigfoot sightings in the state of Ohio here in Appalachia than any other place in the country. So of course in the past we've been

after the Yahoo down in Nicholas County, West Virginia, he's a Bigfoot type creature. So it just came naturally that we focused more on Bigfoot and Appalachia this season than the rest of the creatures. Believe it or not, you'll find out as the season goes on there's a connection between these other creatures in Bigfoot. So there are actually more than one? There's different clans of Bigfoot. There's a clan that, there's a couple of two or three clans here in West Virginia. There's a clan up in Worshik County,

Pennsylvania, down in Aged County, Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, Ohio. These are different clans of Bigfoot, but you'll also find out that I believe they're all connected. That maybe every year or every five years or so that they actually have a rendezvous where they send people, send Bigfoots in each of these clans to meet up. And it's a network that's hard to explain and we try to do that this season to explain the networks and the different clans and how they're connected all

through Appalachia. So far does a group have any hard clues to go on? Yes, we started in central Kentucky because that's where we believe that the first Appalachia Bigfoot came into existence and maybe emerged from the mammoth caves there and they branched out from there into different parts. But this season we come on to some really, really fantastic clues and some really fantastic evidence that our witnesses have. We'll find out what happens when Trapper and the guys from Ames do

confront Bigfoot. It's all this season on Mountain Monsters. New episodes every Saturday on Destination America. That's it for now. We're back in a few days. Oh, more on Bates Motel, including our exclusive talk with Mr. Carbonell and the Power Series debut this week. How close is it to your favorite comic? All that and more on websites like ComicMix.com, MichaelDavisWorld.com, in the iTunes podcast directory and on GetThePointRadio.com too. Follow us on Twitter,

Facebook and always on Instagram under The Point Radio. Catch you right back here in a few days.