‘Bates Motel’ Season 5 Trailer Introduces Rihanna as Norman’s Iconic Victim Marion Crane; Series Follows Norman 18 Months After Mother's Death

‘Bates Motel’ season 5 is set to introduce Rihanna as Norman Bates’ iconic victim Marion Crane. The series picks up 18 months after the death of Norman’s mother, Norma.

Rihanna will star in season 5 of the psychological horror-drama television series described as a contemporary prequel to Alfred Hitchcock’s famous 1960 film ‘Psycho.’ Robyn Rihanna Fenty, better known for her stage name Rihanna, is set to play Norman Bates’ iconic victim from the original film. Her involvement in the series was first announced at last year’s San Diego Comic-Con.

The Grammy Award-winning singer- songwriter was finally seen stepping into the character Marion Crane in the newly released trailer posted on Pitchfork. Marion appeared in the final moments of the trailer checking into the Bates Motel. By the end of the trailer, Norman is seen peering through a small hole, presumably to watch Marion as she showers.

Marion was portrayed by Janet Leigh in ‘Psycho’ and sealed the character’s place in film and pop culture history with the iconic shower death scene. In the original film, Marion stole her boss’s money for her divorced boyfriend and ended up in the motel. She was killed in the film’s first act.

Executive producer Kerry Ehrin revealed during an interview with Entertainment Weekly that viewers will come to expect a different version of Marion. She said, “We’re taking threads of that story and definitely using them so it’s recognizable, it’s just where we go with it is very different.”

She added, “In Psycho, you just see the outside of that more. It was trying to do a story about a contemporary woman with some edge, with some expectations, who isn’t perfect, who isn’t always perfectly sweet, who is in that situation, but we’re rooting for her to get what she wants.”

The upcoming season is set to begin 18 months following Norma’s (Vera Farmiga) death. Norman will struggle internally despite being seemingly happy and well-adjusted. He will be haunted with violent blackouts as “Mother.”

Ehrin teased, “Norman is in an incredibly intense and interesting place that we’ve built him to when that sequence of episodes starts… It’s this collision of Bates Motel storytelling and then Marion Crane showing up into that. He’s in a very fragile and lonely place, and Marion Crane is a charismatic woman, she’s super present when she’s with him and she’s very attractive — all those things are exactly what he needs right at this moment.”

‘Bates Motel’ season 5 is expected to air on A&E on February 20, 2017. It will feature the return of Freddie Highmore as the lead character Norman Bates, a serial killer suffering from dissociative identity disorder. It also stars Vera Farmiga as Norma Bates, Max Thieriot as Dylan, Olivia Cooke as Emma, and Nestor Carbonell as Sherriff Alex Romero.