There's an interview with the writer on Rob Ager's YouTube channel.
He was gonna kill her with tea, as you saw Norman start to do, but wanted a "bigger bang ending that would keep the audience talking as they left the theater."
https://youtu.be/Q_l7z_zJ3PU
Now me talking: He needed a twist of some kind, and a death at the end. He'd already killed off Lila, so I believe the Spool character was invented out of whole cloth to provide a death and to get Norman onto a "really crazy" track for the next film.
To me, it was contrived, makes no sense, had no foreshadowing and, along with this movie, was amateurishly written and produced (for cable, BTW). Meg Tilly's acting was ruined by the poor looping, the soundtrack by Goldsmith, usually a master, sounded hollow and quickly written and produced (four violins some percussion a cheap synth and lots of reverb.... screams "TV movie" to me.
I was most disappointed.
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Martoto (5024)
5 years ago
Norman talks about how the memories of his mother, bar one happy one, had been stripped away in the institution. This was the key to his sanity and it was reinforced with the sight of his mother's buried corpse.
He had nothing to frame his fantasy with until Miss Spool told him he had a real mother. The stress of the whole episode with Mary and Lila, including the death of his shrink, pushed Norman to want to fuel the fantasy of a living dead mother again.
If it hadn't been for Miss Spool killing Toomey and that boy, Norman and Mary might have been happy. So once again Norman's love life is undermined by his mother.
I personally think it's a good twist and complements the movie that come before it, which is kind of nutty all round.
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