10 Horror Television Episodes That Are Practically Flawless

Bates Motel is one of horror's more underrated television pieces. A&E's psychological horror charts the origin story of one of cinematic horror's most famous faces - the frightfully disturbed Norman Bates, proprietor of the titular establishment and the primary antagonist of Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho.

The show was never short on rave reviews throughout its four-year run, and no episode was more deserving than Season Four's penultimate offering, Forever. The episode depicts the moment that Bates Motel had been building to ever since it debuted - the death of Norman's mother, Vera Farmiga's Norma.

At this point, Norman's madness has begun to take full hold of him, to the point his mother is afraid of him, while Dylan and Romero attempt to have him committed. Freddie Highmore's portrayal of Norman's rapidly disintegrating sanity is electric; an exemplary performance that utterly horrifies the viewer but is impossible to tear one's eyes away from.

The overwhelming sense of heartbreak in this endlessly evocative episode culminates with Norman attempting to kill himself and his mother by closing the house's air-vents and filling the building with carbon monoxide. The emotional gut-punch delivered to the audience when they realize Norman has survived but his mother has not, is legitimately desolating - Romero's tears as he fails to revive Norma are enough to tug on the heartstrings of even the most stone-faced of individuals.

Devastatingly flawless.