TV Review: Twin Peaks: The Return Parts Three and Four (dir by David Lynch) (SPOILERS)

Posted on May 29, 2017 by Lisa Marie Bowman

David Lynch as Gordon Cole

It seems appropriate that there should be a picture of David Lynch at the top of this recap. There’s a lot of good things to be said about the third and fourth “parts” of Twin Peaks but ultimately, these two hours are all about Lynch and his unique vision.

This is especially true of the first 20 minutes of Part 3. This is Lynch at his best. Unconcerned with the traditional rules of narrative, Lynch creates an extended nightmare, one that sticks in your head long after the show itself has moved on.

Much as how Eraserhead started in space, with a hideously scarred man pushing and pulling the levers that eventually created that film’s mutant baby, Part 3 opens with Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) falling through darkness, plunging into a purple cloud. When Cooper lands, it’s in a purple-tinted world that immediately made me think of the final scene in Lucio Fulci’s The Beyond.

Cooper is standing outside a house, looking out over what appears to be a purple ocean. When Cooper enters the house, he finds a woman. She is wearing a red dress and her eyes are sewn shut. The first time I saw this, I assumed that the woman was meant to be Ruth Davenport, mostly because Ruth was found without eyes. However, Ruth is not listed in the end credits. For that matter, neither is the eyeless woman.

Cooper asks where they are but the woman cannot speak. Perhaps she has lost her tongue, as well as her eyes. Suddenly, someone starts to pound on the door. The woman holds her finger to her lips, telling Cooper to be silent.

Cooper sees what appears to be a safe on the wall but, when he tries to approach it, the blind woman steps in front of him and pushes him back. As the pounding continues, the woman leads Cooper to another door and then up a ladder.

And suddenly, Cooper and the woman are standing in outer space. The house has now become a satellite, hovering in the star-filled sky. As the pounding continues on the soundtrack, the woman tries to speak but Cooper cannot understand what she’s saying. Suddenly, the woman pulls down a lever, apparently electrocuting herself before falling off the satellite and disappearing into space.

Suddenly, Cooper sees the face of Major Garland Briggs (Don S. Davis) floating underneath him. “Blue Rose,” Briggs says.

(In Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, it was suggested that the FBI refers to paranormal cases as being “Blue Rose cases.”)

Cooper reenters the satellite. He finds himself back in the house. There is now a second woman and those familiar with the show will recognize her as being played by Phoebe Augustine, the same actress who played Ronette Pulaski in the earlier seasons of the show. If Augustine playing Ronette here? It’s hard to say. Her character is listed as being “American Girl.” Cooper does not seem to recognize her but, then again, he also hesitated before recognizing Laura Palmer during Part One. Being in the Black Lodge for 25 years can’t be good for one’s memory.

Cut to Doppelganger Cooper, driving down a South Dakota highway. At the same time that the real Cooper is once again approaching the safe in the Space House, Doppelganger Cooper is having a seizure while driving.

In the Space House, American Girl/Ronette says, “When you get there, you will already be there.”

The pounding starts again.

“You better hurry,” American Girl/Ronette says, “my mother’s coming.”

Suddenly, Cooper is sucked into the safe, with only his shoes being left behind in the Space House.

In South Dakota, Doppelganger Cooper flips his car, crashing into a mountain. Doppelganger Cooper survives but suddenly, he starts to throw up. He puts his hand over his mouth and then sees the red curtains of the Black Lodge appearing before his car.

In an empty house located the Rancho Rosa development in Nevada, a dorky guy named Dougie Jones (Kyle MacLachlan) has just paid a prostitute named Jade (Nafessa Williams). While Jade takes a shower, Dougie puts on a mustard yellow suit jacket and, judging by how ugly it is, I’m guessing that Dougie must be in real estate. (Perhaps he works for Rancho Rosa, selling people suburban houses in the middle of the desert.) Suddenly, Dougie grabs his stomach and collapses to the floor.

What follows is one of the grossest scenes ever as we cut back and forth between Dougie and the Doppelganger vomiting. Seriously, this was one of the most grotesquely realistic vomiting scenes that I have ever seen. I averted my eyes and covered my ears! It was so gross.

At the same time that Dougie vanishes from the house, the red curtains in front of the Doppelganger’s car also vanishes. But the Doppelganger is too busy throwing up to notice. Again, I have to admit that I averted my eyes during most of this. (I also realize that both Dougie and the Doppelganger were throwing up their essences, the stuff that allowed them to pretend to be human. I don’t care. The only thing I hate more than vomiting is watching other people vomit.)

Dougie is in the Black Lodge. MIKE (Al Strobel) doesn’t appear to be too happy to see him. MIKE explains that someone manufactured Dougie. I’m assuming that the Doppelganger created Dougie so that, if Cooper ever escaped from the Black Lodge, he would take over Dougie’s existence instead of the Doppelganger’s. “That’s weird,” Dougie says, as he his hand wastes away. Then Dougie’s head vanishes, replaced by a black cloud of smoke.

Back at the house, another black cloud comes out of an electrical outlet. Soon, the cloud forms into Cooper. Cooper lies on the floor, next to Dougie’s vomit (ewwww!) until Jade yells at him that they have to get out of the house.

Apparently in a state of shock, Cooper silently follows Jade out of the house. After being locked away in the Black Lodge, it appears that Cooper no longer quite remembers how to be human. Or maybe he’s not really human at all anymore. All I know is that he’s acting strange and, as brilliant as Kyle MacLachlan is, I do kind of hope the old Cooper returns at some point soon.

Because Dougie/Cooper doesn’t have his car keys (though he does still have his room key from the Great Northern), Jade gives him a ride into Vegas. Two gangster types watch as Jade drives off. One of them has a rifle. The other has a bomb. Apparently, they work for someone to whom Dougie’s owes money. Because Cooper leans down to pick up his room key, the one with the rifle does not spot him in Jade’s car. The other places the bomb under Dougie’s car, which is still sitting outside of the empty house.

While this happens, a woman — listed in the credits as being “Drugged-Up Mother” and played by Hailey Gates — is shouting “One one nine! One one nine!” while her son watches on the couch.

In South Dakota, two troopers approach the Doppelganger’s car. One of them catches whiff of the vomit and collapses to the ground, physically ill.

At the Twin Peaks Sheriff’s Department, Hawk (Michael Horse), Andy (Harry Goaz), and Lucy (Kimmy Robertson) look through all the evidence that was collected in the Palmer case. Andy says that he and Lucy can’t find out what’s missing. “If it’s here,” Hawk replies, “how can it be missing?”

As Hawk recites what the Log Lady told him — that something is missing and that the way he’ll find it has to do with his heritage — Lucy freaks out when she spots an empty box of chocolate bunnies. Many years ago, Lucy ate the bunny.

“Do chocolate bunnies have something to do with your heritage?” Andy earnest asks.

“IT’S NOT ABOUT BUNNIES!” Hawk snaps. Then, “Is it about the bunny? …. No, it’s not about the bunny.”

Meanwhile, off in the middle of nowhere, Dr. Jacoby (Russ Tamblyn) spray paints the ladders that were delivered to him at the start of Part One.

In Vegas, Jade drops Dougie/Cooper off at a casino. Dougie/Cooper has been reduced to just repeating back phrases that other people say to him but no one seems to notice. Still, when Jade tells Dougie/Cooper that he can “go now,” Dougie/Cooper has a flashback to Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee) saying the same thing.

The casino, with its combination of glitz and the grotesque, brings out the best in Lynch. As Dougie/Cooper wanders through the casino — which is populated by typical Lynchian characters — he notices that he can see the red curtains of the Black Lodge floating over certain slot machines. Cooper pulls the levers, hitting jackpot after jackpot. As the coins flood out of the machines, Cooper announces, “HELLO!” Why? Because he heard another gambler do it. Dougie/Cooper is learning how to be human again.

When Dougie/Cooper walks away after having won another jackpot, leaving all of his coins on the floor, one old woman considers taking the coins for herself but then glances up at the camera on the ceiling — “and the eye in the sky watches us all,” to quote Casino — and thinks better of it. Instead, she just asks Cooper to tell her which machines are about to hit. She calls him Mr. Jackpot, which is kinda sweet.

Meanwhile, in Philadelphia, the FBI is meeting and — oh my God! It’s Gordon Cole (David Lynch), Albert Rosenfield (Miguel Ferrer), and Tamara Preston (Chrysta Bell). (Preston will be familiar to anyone who has read Mark Frost’s The Secret History of Twin Peaks.)

They start out discussing a senator who has been accused of murdering his wife. The senator says that he knows who did it but he can’t reveal the name because of “national security reasons.” (Since this is taking place in 2014, I’m going to continue the Casino theme and assume that the senator was creepy old Harry Reid.)

Cole is more interested in hearing about the murders of Sam and Tracey in New York City. It turns out that the cameras caught a picture of that demonic creature in the glass box.

Suddenly, a call comes in. Cooper has been found and he’s in a South Dakota prison and … oh shit! That’s not Cooper! We know that’s the Doppelganger! Regardless, Cole announces that he, Albert, and Tamara are going to South Dakota. Albert says he can’t wait to see Mount Rushmore.

“The absurd mystery of the strange forces of existence,” Albert tells Tamara. “How about a truck load of valium?”

Cut to The Cactus Blossoms, performing at the Roadhouse and announcing that Part Three is over.

Part Four opens with Dougie/Cooper still hitting jackpots and still chanting, “Hello!” When the old woman who has been following him around hits a jackpot of her own, a small smile comes to Cooper/Dougie’s lips.

A friend of Dougie’s, Bill Shaker (Ethan Suplee), approaches and he and Dougie have a thoroughly superficial conversation. Dougie/Cooper asks where his home is. Bill assures him that he lives at Lancelot Court, in a house with a red door. The house, Bill says, is near Merlin’s Market. As Cooper/Dougie leaves to get a cab, Bill says, “I hope he’s okay.”

“I don’t think he’s okay,” Bill’s wife, the wonderfully named Candy Shaker (Sara Paxton) says.

Before Dougie/Cooper can leave to find the house with the red door, he is dragged to the office of the vaguely threatening casino manager (David Dastmalchian). The manager gives Dougie/Cooper his winnings and then asks if he wants anything — like “companionship” — for the night. “Think of us as your home away from home,” he says. When Dougie/Cooper repeats that he wants to go home (his real home), the manager arranges for him to ride in a limo.

(It pays to be a winner.)

As the limo drives down Lancelot Court, the driver (Jay Larson) says that it might be hard to spot a red door at night. However, he then sees the door and oh my God, is it ever red! Dougie gets out of the limo and seems unsure what to do. Fortunately, his wife — Janey-E (Naomi Watts) — comes out of the house and starts hitting him. Apparently, Dougie has been missing for three days. He even misses his son’s birthday party! (Perhaps significantly, as everyone stands outside the house, an owl flies overhead.)

Fortunately, once they’re inside the house, Janey-E sees just how much money Dougie/Cooper won at the casino.

“Don’t tell me you hit the jackpot!” Janey-E says.

“Mr. Jackpot,” Dougie/Cooper says, pointing at himself.

“There’s enough here to pay them back!” Janey-E continues as she looks at the money, “This is the most wonderful day of my life!”

“Of my life,” Dougie/Cooper says.

“Yes,” Janey-E replies.

At FBI Headquarters, Cole has a meeting chief of staff Denise Bryson (David Duchovny). Cole tells Denise about finding Cooper and says he’s going to South Dakota. Denise is concerned about Cole traveling with Tamara. “I know your profile, Gordon,” Denise explains, “Female agent. Early 30s.”

“I’m old school,” Cole replies, “you know that.”

Cole reminds Denise that he defended her when she first transitioned. He told everyone who had a problem with her to “Fix their hearts — or die!”

At the Twin Peaks Sheriff’s Department, Sheriff Frank Truman (Robert Forster) enters the front lobby, which causes Lucy to scream and faint. Apparently, Lucy was confused because she has just been talking to Frank on the phone and she can’t understand how Frank could be in two places at once. Andy attempts to explain to her how cell phones work. “You’re so good at your job,” Andy says, “in every other way…”

At the Sheriff’s Department, we learn a few interesting things:

First off, Bobby Briggs (Dana Ashbrook), former drug dealer and murderer, is now a deputy, one who specializes in watching for drug dealers sneaking across the Canadian border. (That’s something that Bobby should know a bit about.) He also has gray hair and he cries when he sees a picture of Laura in the conference room.

Secondly, Major Garland Briggs died in a fire, a day after being the last person to see Dale Cooper. (Presumably, Major Briggs actually saw Doppelganger Cooper.)

Third, Lucy and Andy’s son has grown up to be Wally Brando (Michael Cera). Wally is a motorcycle enthusiast who has spent the last few years riding across the country. Wally dresses like Marlon Brando in The Wild One and delivers a hilariously nonsensical monologue that is largely made up of pretentious references to different Brando roles. What makes Wally’s scene so wonderful is the combination of Cera’s Brandoesque scenery chewing and Robert Forster’s deadpan reaction.

The next morning, in Vegas, Dougie/Cooper still can’t figure out how to do anything. After spending 25 years in limbo, even urination is a new and scary experience for him. Even when MIKE appears to tell him that he was tricked into leaving the Lodge and that either Dougie/Cooper and the Doppelganger must die, Dougie/Cooper looks confused. Still, his son — the oddly named Sonny Jim (Pierce Gagnon) — is amused when his father eats breakfast with a tie wrapped around his head.

In South Dakota, the police investigating the murder of Ruth Davenport are shocked to discover that they can not access the identity of the owner of the finger prints that they took off of the male Joe Doe. Apparently, it’s top secret. “Military authorization required.”

Meanwhile, Cole, Albert, and Tamara are driving out to the South Dakota prison. During the car ride, Cole complains that they’re not anywhere near Mount Rushmore but, luckily, Albert has brought a picture for him. Meanwhile, Tamara has to ride with her head leaning out of the window because she gets car sick.

(I sometimes get car sick too. That’s one reason why I never sit in the back seat. I share your struggle, Tamara!)

At the prison, Cole, Albert, and Tamara meet with Warden Murphy (James Morrison). When it is mentioned that the Doppelganger was throwing up poison, Murphy says, “Must have eaten locally.” I love that line!

Anyway, the meeting with the Doppelganger doesn’t go well. The Doppelganger, having thrown up whatever it was that allowed him to act human, is now speaking in a stiff and halting tone. The Doppelganger claims that he’s spent the last 25 years working undercover for Philip Jeffries. Haltingly, he says that he needs to be released so that Gordon can “debrief” him. Stiffly, the Doppelganger attempts to give Gordon the thumbs up sign.

After the meeting, Cole and Albert agree that something was off about “Cooper.” They agree that there’s one woman who can tell them if it’s really Cooper in prison. Cole asks if Albert still knows where she lives.

“I know where she drinks,” Albert replies.

Who could Albert be talking about? Audrey Horne? Or maybe Sarah Palmer? Sarah, after all, is psychic and appears to still have a drinking problem.

We’ll find out next week! Until then, Parts 3 and 4 — along with Parts 1 and 2 — will continue to haunt my thoughts and dreams.

Twin Peaks on TSL:

14 Initial Thoughts About Twin Peaks: The Return Part 3 (dir by David Lynch)

Posted on May 28, 2017 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Because they’ve been available on OnDemand since last Sunday, I’ve watched and rewatch Parts 3 and 4 of Twin Peaks: The Return several times. And I’m going to rewatch them again before I sit down and even try to write out a in-depth recap. Until then, here are my initial thoughts on Part Three.

(Be sure to check out Ryan’s thoughts on Parts Three and Four!)

1. Whether it’s intentional or not, Twin Peaks: The Return has so far been full of references to David Lynch’s entire artistic output, both Twin Peaks and non-Twin Peaks. The opening of Part Three, with Cooper apparently falling through space, reminded me of the opening of Eraserhead. The subsequent scene, in which Cooper met the eyeless Ruth Davenport, immediately made me think of both Lynch’s short film, The Alphabet and the hotel scenes in Inland Empire.

2. An older woman who I used to work with once asked me if I thought Stephen King was a devil worshipper.

“No,” I replied, “why?”

“How else can he come up with all that scary stuff?”

I can only imagine what she would think about David Lynch.

3. Can we take a few minutes to appreciate the amazing performance of Kyle MacLachlan? MacLachlan has always been a good actor but oh my God. So far, his work on this show has been nothing sort of amazing. Doppelganger Cooper gets all the good lines but, to me, MacLachlan is at his best when he’s playing the Real Cooper, the Dale who has spent so much time in the Black Lodge that he’s no longer quite sure how to be human.

4. To be honest, I could have done without all of the vomiting in tonight’s episode. I hate watching people throw up. That said, if Twin Peaks: The Return truly is a cumulation of Lynch’s career up to this point, I guess the vomiting could be seen as a tribute to his short film, Six Figures Getting Sick.

5. Speaking of shout outs to previous Lynch films, whenever Doppelganger Cooper was in the car, it was hard not to be reminded of Bill Pullman at the end of Lost Highway.

6. Las Vegas is the perfect David Lynch town. Lynch has always had an eye for surrealistic Americana and that’s the perfect description of Vegas. Of course, Vegas is often held up as a symbol of America, the ultimate triumph of man over his environment as well as a place where, depending on your luck, you’ll either find the American Dream or the American Nightmare. In interviews, Lynch has always described himself as being a Libertarian and his artistic vision as being essentially apolitical (the only two politicians that I’ve ever heard about him praising were Ronald Reagan and Bernie Sanders) but still, the subtext of Cooper escaping into the glitz, greed, and potential misery of Las Vegas is intriguing.

7. “Do chocolate bunnies have anything to do with your heritage?” I love the earnest way Harry Goaz delivered that line.

8. That lengthy scene of Russ Tamblyn painting the shovels was pretty much the epitome of what people either love or hate about David Lynch’s style of film making.

9. Cooper in the casino — “Hello!” — was everything.

10. Someone needs to do a Twin Peaks/Casino mashup. I want to see Cooper greeting The Ace Rothstein Dancers.

11. It was hard not to get emotional when Miguel Ferrer showed up. In both Part Three and Part Four, it’s obvious that Miguel was, physically, not in the best health while shooting his scenes. However, as an actor, he remained just as sharp as ever.

12. Speaking of actors, David Lynch has actually become a pretty good one. I just finished watching the first two seasons of Twin Peaks on Netflix. During those seasons — and in Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me — David Lynch’s role as Gordon Cole came across as almost a vanity thing. Lynch was having fun and he was fun to watch but, at the same time, you were always kinda happy that he only appeared occasionally. But in both Part 3 and (especially) Part 4, Lynch gives an actual performance in the role. Cole has gone from being a joke to being a compelling character.

13. For some reason, I just love the fact that Cole’s office is decorated with a picture of a mushroom cloud.

14. That was The Cactus Blossoms performing at the end. It’s nice to see that the Roadhouse is still doing well.

Twin Peaks on TSL:

TV Review: Twin Peaks: The Return Parts One and Two (dir by David Lynch) (SPOILERS)

Posted on May 22, 2017 by Lisa Marie Bowman

As I sit here working on my recap of the first two episodes of Showtime’s revival of Twin Peaks, it’s occurring to me that this is not going to be an easy job. Last month, when Leonard, Jeff, and I were reviewing the show’s first two seasons, we had the advantage of knowing where the story was leading. We knew what would be important and what was a red herring.

With this revival, we no longer have that luxury. I have no idea where this show is going. All I know, for sure, is that David Lynch has given us 18 hours of new material. It’s not necessarily going to be easy to review the revival. I can already tell that. From what I’ve heard and read, it appears that Lynch approached this less as a TV series and more as an 18-hour movie. I’ve already noticed that several reviewers are already overplaying the “Twin Peaks is weird” angle. David Lynch may be a surrealist but there is always a definite logic to all of his work. You just have to have the patience to find it and I imagine that’ll be the case with Twin Peaks: The Return as well.

I’ve already shared my initial thoughts on the first two episodes and Ryan The TrashFilm Guru has posted a review of his own. What follows below is a more in-depth recap of what we saw last night. Needless to say, if you haven’t seen the first two episodes of the revival yet, this entire post is one huge spoiler. So, read it at your own risk!

Okay — ready?

Let’s go!

We start where we left, with a clip from 27 years ago. In the Black Lodge, Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee) tells Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) that she will see him in 25 years.

Cut to Twin Peaks, the town that we all know and love. The trees are still shrouded in fog. The high school hallways are empty. Laura Palmer’s homecoming queen picture still sits in the trophy case. The title appears. Angelo Badalamenti’s haunting theme music starts to play. We see the waterfall. We read the opening credits. Twin Peaks is back.

In the Black Lodge, a much older Giant (Carel Struycken) talks to an aged Cooper. The inhabitants of the Lodge still speak backwards and we are still provided with subtitles so that we can follow what they’re saying. Cooper still speaks in his normal voice, indicating that he may be trapped in the Lodge but he has yet to truly become a part of it. The Giant tells Cooper to listen to the sounds and looks over at an old-fashioned phonograph. “It is in our house now,” the Giant says. “Remember Four Three Zero. Richard and Linda. Two birds with one stone.”

“I understand,” Cooper says. (I’m glad someone does.)

Cut to a trailer sitting in the middle of nowhere. A pickup truck drives up. The truck has two cardboard boxes in the bed. Dr. Jacoby (Russ Tamblyn) comes out of the trailer and gets the boxes. What’s inside the boxes? Shovels, of course! Jacoby certainly does seem to be happy to have them. Maybe he’s still looking for that necklace that Donna and James buried 25 years ago…

Cut to New York City. Sam Colby (Ben Rosenfield) has a new job. He sits on a couch in a room and he watches a black box that is sitting inside of a glass box. His job is to see if anything happens in the box and to make sure that there is always a camera filming the box. There’s a guard posted outside of the room. Sam’s friend, Tracey (Madeline Zima), is allowed to bring him coffee but she’s not allowed to enter the room or see the boxes. The sight of Sam sitting in that room, staring at that box, reminded me of the scenes with Michael Anderson as the man who controlled Hollywood in Mulholland Drive. As creepy as that box may have been, it was the stillness of this scene that made me nervous. Sam seemed remarkably uninterested in why exactly he had to watch the box and that lack of curiosity struck me as odd and just a little depressing.

Cut to … oh my God, we’re back at the Great Northern! And there’s Ben Horne (Richard Beymer)! He’s in his office and he’s leering at his new secretary, Barbara (Ashley Judd). It’s just like old times and, of course, it’s nice to see that Ben survived striking his head on the fireplace mantle 25 years ago. That said, Ben appears to have given up on being a do-gooder. He’s back to obsessing over money. Jerry (David Patrick Kelly) drops by for a visit and reveals that, since Washington legalized marijuana, he’s made a fortune. Way to go, Jerry!

Cut to the Sheriff’s Department and there’s Lucy (Kimmy Robertson)! An insurance salesman comes in and asks to see Sheriff Truman. Lucy asks him if he wants to see the Sheriff Truman who is sick or the Sheriff Truman who is out of the office. Neither one is available.

Cut to a country road. Someone is driving down the street while listening to evil music. The driver is none other than … Agent Cooper? Well, it kind of looks like Agent Cooper but it’s not Cooper. For one thing, this guy has long, greasy hair and doesn’t wear a dark suit. He also doesn’t smile. He has cold, dead eyes. For another thing, he parks next to a shack and beats up a redneck, which is not exactly Agent Cooper behavior. Then he goes inside, where he meets Buelah and Otis. He tells them that he has come to pick up Ray (George Griffith) and Darya (Nicole LaLiberte). I don’t remember Agent Cooper having such an affinity for white trash…

Oh wait! That’s not Agent Cooper! That must be Cooper’s Doppelganger!

Meanwhile, back in New York, Tracey shows up with more coffee. She and Sam are shocked to discover that the guard has left his post. This means that Tracey can now go into the room and see the mysterious box for herself! It also means that she and Sam can have some fun on the couch. While they do, Sam suddenly sees that the inside of the glass box has turned black. Suddenly, what appears to be a demonic creature appears in the box. It springs through the glass and, in a scene that leaves no doubt that this is Showtime Twin Peaks and not ABC Twin Peaks, it literally rips Sam and Tracey into pieces.

Along with giving me a good fright, this scene made me sad because I thought Sam and Tracey were a cute couple. The reviewer at TVLine complained about Sam and Tracey and the actors playing them and I really have to wonder what show he watched because, to me, both Ben Rosenfield and Madeline Zima were likable and sympathetic in their brief time on screen. Then again, the TVLine recapper also managed to confuse Bobby Briggs and James Hurley so we know he’s not a true Twin Peaks fan.

I should also mention that this scene, with hints of the demons flickering in the darkness before the sudden attack, reminded me of the infamous “there’s an evil man behind the dumpster” scene from Mulholland Drive.

Cut to Buckhorn, South Dakota. We’re confronted with a very Lynchian image. A fat woman walks a tiny dog down the hallway of an apartment building. She stops when she smells a terrible stench coming from the neighbor’s apartment. She calls the police, worried that her neighbor Ruth Davenport may be dead.

The police arrive and it takes them forever to find a key to open up the apartment. This is one of those sequences that Lynch loves, the sequence were a simple task is made progressively more and more difficult by awkward minutia. The neighbor doesn’t know if there’s a manager available but then remembers that the manager’s been committed to an asylum. However, the manager’s brother might have the key. But she doesn’t know where the brother is but the brother’s friend, Hank Filmore (Max Perlich), might know. Hank does know but he refuses to tell and then the neighbor suddenly mentions that she has an extra key to the apartment. When the police finally get inside the apartment, they discover the naked remains of Ruth Davenport in bed. Her eyes have been removed and her head has been disconnected from her body.

Continuing the Mulholland Drive comparison, the discovery of Ruth’s body was shot in much the same way as the discovery of Diane Selwyn’s body in Mulholland Drive. As well, Brent Briscoe played a detective in Mulholland Drive and he plays one in Twin Peaks as well, leading the investigation into Ruth’s murder.

Cut back to Twin Peaks. The Log Lady (Catherine Coulson) calls Deputy Hawk (Michael Horse), who is now Deputy Chief Hawk and who is in charge while Sheriff Truman is gone. The Log Lady tells Hawk that her log has a message. “Something is different and you have to find it,” she tells him. “It has to do with Federal Agent Dale Cooper and with your heritage. This is the message of the log.”

(Coulson died shortly after filming her scenes here and her frailty make her scenes here unexpectedly poignant. As she talks to Hawk, it’s obvious that both of them know that this could be their last conversation.)

Back in South Dakota, Detective Dave is informed that one man’s finger prints have been found all over Ruth’s apartment. The finger prints belonged to Bill Hastings (Matthew Lillard), a respected high school principal. As his shocked wife, Phyllis (Cornelia Guest), watches, Bill is arrested and charged with murder. “But the Morgans are coming to dinner!” Phyllis shouts as Dave leads Bill away.

Back at the Twin Peaks Sheriff’s Department, Hawk, Lucy, and Andy (Harry Goaz) gather in the conference room. Hawk order them to look through all the files on the disappearance as Dale Cooper. Lucy says that Cooper disappeared 24 years ago and then mentions that her son is 24 years old. “He was born on the same day as Marlon Brando,” Lucy says.

Back in South Dakota, Dave is interrogating Bill. When Dave asks Bill if he’s ever heard of Ruth Davenport, Bill says that he only knew her in passing. He denies having ever been to Ruth’s apartment but, when he says it, he nervously glances around the room. Is Bill hiding something or is he just nervous as anyone who has been arrested — whether guilty or innocent — would be? It turns out that Bill can’t account for where he was during every minute of the previous night. Dave jots down some notes on a legal pad. That’s never good. Bill wants a lawyer. Dave says that lawyer is on the way but he also asks if there’s anything else Bill would like to add “before we get a lawyer involved.” At this point, I was yelling at the screen, “Stop talking! The police are not your friends!” Dave immediately proved my point by accusing Bill of murder and then taking him to a jail cell.

Dave and the cops then go back to the Hastings house, the time with a search warrant. While the police search his car, Bill sits in his jail cell and probably wonders why he hasn’t been allowed to see his lawyer yet.

Suddenly, Dave arrives with Phyllis. Phyllis steps into the cell and tells Bill that they’re not going to give him bail. Bill says that he was never in Ruth’s apartment but that he had a dream the night that she was killed. “Fuck you!” Phyllis sanps, “you fucking bastard!” She reveals that she knows that Bill was cheating on her with Ruth. Bill shouts back that he knows about Phyllis and someone named George. Phyllis taunts him. “You’re going down. Life in prison.”

After Phyllis leaves, Bill sits in his cell. Little does he know that, three cells down, a shadowy man is sitting on a bed. The shadow slowly fades away, becoming a wisp of smoke that eventually dissipates in the air.

Phyllis arrives home. Doppelganger Cooper is waiting for her. Phyllis smiles and asks what he’s doing there. Doppelganger Cooper replies that Phyllis did a good job duplicating human nature and then shoots her in the head.

Cut to Las Vegas, Nevada. A man in an office (Patrick Fischler, who also played the man who had a morbid — and justifiable fear — of the dumpster behind the diner in Mulholland Drive) talks to his associate Roger about a mysterious figure who “uses” him. “You better hope you never have someone like him in your life,” the man says.

Cut to a diner in South Dakota, where Doppelganger Cooper has an awkward dinner with Ray and Darya. Doppelganger Cooper tells Ray that he doesn’t “need anything.” However, he does want things. Ray kind of smirks. Doppelganger Cooper explains that what he wants is information.

Cut to Ghostwood Forest. Equipped with a flashlight, Hawk walks. He gets a call from the Log Lady. “The stars turn,” she tells hm, “and a time presents itself.” The Log Lady says she wishes she could go with Hawk but then tells him to stop by. She has coffee and pie for him. Hawks says he will, as he approaches Glastonbury Grove, which once served as the entrance into the Black Lodge.

Speaking of the Black Lodge, Cooper is still sitting in the waiting room. He has been joined by MIKE (Al Strobel), the one-armed man. “Is it the future or is it the past?” MIKE asks before saying that someone has come to see Cooper.

Enter Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee), still wearing the black dress from the last time that we saw her but definitely no longer a teenager. (Of course, this is because 25 years has passed not only on the show but in real life as well. Still, in the world of Twin Peaks, it’s interesting that time passes in The Black Lodge and people continue to age, even after they die.) Cooper and Laura recite some of the same dialogue from the dream that Cooper had during the third episode of the first season of Twin Peaks.

When Laura says, “I am Laura Palmer,” Cooper replies that Laura is dead.

“I am dead,” Laura says, “yet I live.”

Laura opens her face like a door, revealing a bright white light.

“When can I go?” Cooper asks as Laura closes her face.

Laura kisses Cooper and then, just as she did in the original dream, she starts to whisper in his ear while the aged Cooper smiles.

Suddenly, the curtains shake and Laura screams. Something appears to yank her into the air and she vanishes. A wind blow through the lodge and suddenly, the curtain disappear. The same white horse that, 25 years earlier, appeared to Sarah Palmer now appears to Cooper.

Suddenly, Cooper is back in the waiting room and MIKE is again asking if it is the past or the future.

MIKE leads Cooper into another room, one that is inhabited by a tree that has what appears to be a perfectly smooth brain sitting atop of it. MIKE says that the tree is his arm. The tree starts to speak to Cooper. It asks if Cooper remembers his doppelgänger. Cooper does and we get a flashback to this still powerful scene:

The tree explains that before Cooper can go out, the Doppelganger must return to the Black Lodge.

Meanwhile, in South Dakota, the Doppelganger is busy killing people. First he kills a business associate and then he returns to his motel and confronts Darya with the knowledge that someone hired her and Ray to kill him. Darya says that she doesn’t know who hired them and puts all of the blame on Ray. The Doppelganger reveals that he’s supposed to go back to the Black Lodge but he’s not planning on returning. Then, in a disturbing and deeply unpleasant scene that I personally felt went on a bit too long, the Doppelganger beats and then murders Darya.

Having killed Darya, the Doppelganger places a phone call to Philip Jeffries, the FBI agent who was played by David Bowie in Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me. They have a cryptic conversation. Philip says that the Doppelganger should be in New York and then says that the Doppelganger met with Major Garland Briggs. “How did you know that!?” the Doppelganger demands. “I just called to say goodbye,” Philip says.

The Doppelganger downloads the plans for Yankton Federal Prison and then walks down to another motel room. There he is greeted by Chantel (Jennifer Jason Leigh!). He tells Chantel that he needs her to go “clean up” the other room. Chantel is more than happy to do it.

At the Black Lodge, Cooper continues to stare at the tree. The tree says that Cooper can go but when Cooper goes out to the hallway, he finds that he still cannot pass through the curtains and back into our world. Cooper continues to walk through the Lodge until he discovers Leland Palmer (Ray Wise) sitting in a leather chair.

“Find Laura,” Leland says.

Suddenly, MIKE and the Tree appear again. MIKE says something is wrong. The tree says to find the Doppelganger. Cooper continues to walk around the lodge. (Is this all he’s been doing for the past 25 years?) He finally manages to open the curtains and finds himself watching as his Doppelganger drives down a desert road. Suddenly, the tree appears and starts lashing out at him with its limbs.

“Non-existent!” the tree snaps.

Cooper falls through the floor of the Lodge. Suddenly, he’s in the glass box in New York. And he can see Tracey and Sam having the same conversation that they had before they were killed by the weird demon creature. (Is time looping back on itself, in much the same way that it did at the end of Lost Highway with Bill Pullman telling his future self that “Dick Laurent is dead?”)

Suddenly, Cooper is falling again.

In Twin Peaks, Sarah Palmer (Grace Zabriskie) sits alone in the Palmer House, drinking, smoking, and watching one of those traumatic nature documentaries where predators eat their prey in closeup.

At the Roadhouse, the Chromatics are singing a beautifully dream-like song. Shelley (Madchen Amick) is sitting at a booth with a group of friends. She says she’s worried about her daughter, Becky. Suddenly, they see that James Hurley (James Marshall) has entered the bar and is now looking over at them.

“What’s wrong with that guy?” one of them says.

“There’s nothing wrong with that guy!” Shelley says, “He was in a motorcycle accident but he’s just quiet. He’s always been cool.”

And it’s such a sweet scene, even if it does feel a bit odd since Shelley and James didn’t even seem to know each other during the original series. I found myself wondering if Shelley is now married to Bobby Briggs. If James ends up stealing Shelley away (and that certainly seems a possibility, especially with Lara Flynn Boyle not coming back to reprise the role of Donna Hayward), this will be the second time Bobby has lost a lover to James.

(By the way, both James Marshall and Madchen Amick have aged wonderfully. If anything, James Marshall is far more handsome now than he was during the first two seasons of the show.)

There was also some excitement online when Walter Olkewicz appeared as the bartender at the roadhouse. Could it be, we all wondered, that Jacques Renault was once again alive!? Well, no. According to the credits, Olkewicz was playing Jean-Michel Renault. Apparently, he’s the fourth Renault brother.

And that’s how this perplexing episode ends. The Chromatics perform on the Roadhouse while two of our favorite characters acknowledge each other. At times, I loved this episode. At times, I was frustrated. However, I was always intrigued and this ending — this wonderfully sentimental little moment between Shelley and James — was the perfect way to cap it all off.

Do I understand everything that happened tonight? No, but it doesn’t matter. I can’t wait to see where Lynch is taking us next.

TV Review: Twin Peaks 2.22 “Beyond Life and Death” (dir by David Lynch)

Posted on May 1, 2017 by Lisa Marie Bowman

“How’s Annie?”

— Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) in Twin Peaks 2.22 “Beyond Life and Death”

“The Log Lady stole my truck!”

— Pete Martell (Jack Nance), same episode

“Some of your friends are here.”

— The Man From Another Place (Michael Anderson), same episode

“I’ll see you again in 25 years.”

— Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee), same episode

Here we are.

Starting exactly one month ago, we started our Twin Peaks recaps. I handled some, Leonard handled some, and Jeff handled some. Gary added a post on David Lynch’s first three short films. Val shared music videos that were either inspired by Lynch or directed by Lynch himself. Jeff devoted his Movie a Day posts to reviewing films that all had a Twin Peaks connection. As Leonard put it on twitter, projects are fun and I know we certainly had a lot of fun putting all of this together.

But, all good things must come to an end and, at least until the third season premieres on Showtime later this month, we have reached the end of Twin Peaks. Episode 30 brought the story to a temporary end. (The movie, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, was a prequel about the last days of Laura Palmer. It’s a haunting film and one that we’ll look at tomorrow but, at the same time, it doesn’t offer up any answers to any of the questions that the finale left hanging.)

A little history: Twin Peaks was a huge success during its first season but, during the second season, ratings plunged. According to the book, Reflections: An Oral History of Twin Peaks by Brad Dukes, neither David Lynch nor Mark Frost were as involved during the second season as they had been during the first. As compared to the genuinely unsettling first season, the second season struggled to find its voice. Was it a mystery? Was it a broad comedy? Was it a show about the paranormal or was it a soap opera? It was all of that and, for many people, that was too much. Today, of course, audiences are used to quirkiness. They’re used to shows that straddle several different genres. It’s no longer a revolutionary idea to be openly meta.

But in 1991, Twin Peaks was the show that ABC both didn’t know what to do with and, by the end, didn’t really want. It was regularly moved around the schedule and, often, weeks would pass without a new episode. Consider this: nearly two months passed between the airing of The Path to the Black Lodge and the final two episodes of the show. (Miss Twin Peaks and Beyond Life and Death were both aired on June 10th, 1991.)

For the final episode, David Lynch returned to direct and, though hardly anyone saw it when it originally aired, it’s an episode that left such an impression that — 25 years later — Showtime agree to bring the series back. The third season of Twin Peaks will premiere later this month but until then, let’s go ahead and recap Beyond Life and Death.

One last time, we open with Angelo Badalamenti’s beautiful theme music and those haunting shots of Twin Peaks.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7d0Lm_31BE

We start at the sheriff’s station, with Lucy (Kimmy Robertson) and Andy (Harry Goaz) having a moment. Lucy talks about how scared she was when the lights went out and then says she found herself wondering what would happen if they were stuck in an elevator in the hospital and she went into labor. Andy replies that, if that happened, he would deliver the baby “in front of God and everyone.” Awwwww!

In Harry’s office, Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) and Hawk (Michael Horse) stare at the cave drawing while Harry (Michael Ontkean) says that he has deputies in three counties looking for Windom Earle. Windom appears to have vanished. Cooper replies that the only hope they have of finding Windom and Annie is in the map.

“Fire walk with me,” Cooper says, softly, “Fire walk with me.”

Pete (Jack Nance) steps into the office and announces that the Log Lady stole his truck. I love the way that Jack Nance delivers the line, “The Log Lady stole my truck!” (Sadly, Nance was murdered just a few years after the end of Twin Peaks.) Pete says that, when last seen, the Log Lady was driving into Ghostwood Forest.

“Pete,” Cooper announces, “the Log Lady did not steal your truck. The Log Lady will be here in one minute.”

“12 rainbow trouts in the bed,” Pete says.

This triggers Harry’s memory. He announces that there is a circle of 12 sycamores in Ghostwood Forest. It’s called Glastonbury Grove. Hawk says that Glastonbury Grove is where he found the pages from Laura’s diary. Cooper suddenly says, “That’s the legendary burial place of King Arthur! Glastonbury!”

“King Arthur is buried in England,” Pete says, dismissively, “Last I heard anyway.”

Right on time, The Log Lady (Catherine E. Coulson) shows up at the office.

“Where’s my truck?” Pete demands.

“Pete, Windom Earle stole your truck,” Cooper says.

Pete looks very confused. Jack Nance really acted the Hell out of this scene. (Interestingly enough, Catherine Coulson was, in real life, Nance’s ex-wife.)

The Log Lady ignores Pete. She has a jar of oil that she hands to Cooper. The Log Lady says that her husband claimed that the oil was the opening to a gateway. Everyone agrees that it smells like scorched engine oil. Cooper has Hawk bring in Ronette Pulaski (Phoebe Augustine), who says that she smelled the oil the night that she was attacked and Laura Palmer was killed.

Out in the woods, a pickup truck comes to a stop in front of Glastonbury Grove. Inside the truck, Windom Earle (Kenneth Welsh) forces Annie (Heather Graham) to look at the 12 rainbow trout in back. Annie tells Windom that, if he’s going to kill her, to go ahead and get it over with. Windom says that there is plenty of time for that but, right now, he is enjoying the fear that he is feeling.

(After being portrayed in far too cartoonish a manner over the past few episodes, Windom is finally menacing again. For that matter, this is the first — and, as fate would have it, the only — episode where Heather Graham seems to be truly committed to her role as Annie. This episode directly challenges anyone who thinks that David Lynch is merely a visual artist who can’t direct actors.)

As Annie recites Psalm 141, Windom drags her through the woods. Windom shoves her into the the middle of the grove.

“I tell you, they have not died,” Windom recites, “Their hands clasp, yours and mine.”

Suddenly, in the middle of the woods, the red curtains appears. Windom leads the now zombified Annie through them.

At the Hurley House, Doc Hayward (Warren Frost) is looking over the heavily bandaged Mike (Gary Hershberger) and Nadine (Wendy Robie). Meanwhile, Ed (Everett McGill) is cheerfully talking to Norma (Peggy Lipton) by the fire place. (I like the fact that, with everything that’s going on, Ed and Norma are just happy to be together.) Just as Ed and Norma start to dance, Nadine suddenly gets her memory back and starts to shout about silent drape runners. Nadine demands that Ed make everyone go away.

At the Hayward house, Eileen (Mary Jo Deschanel) sits in her wheelchair and stares at Ben Horne (Richard Beymer). Donna (Lara Flynn Boyle) comes walking down the stairs, carrying a suitcase. Eileen begs Donna not to leave but Donna starts screaming about not knowing who her parents are. Ben steps forward and apologizes. He says he only wanted to do good. He wanted to be good. He says that it felt good to finally tell the truth.

Doc Hayward arrives home and is not happy to see Ben. Ben is begging for forgiveness when, suddenly, his own wife (Jan D’Arcy) comes walking through the front door. She demands to know what Ben is trying to do to their family.

Donna looks at Doc Hayward and starts to chant, “You’re my Daddy! You’re my Daddy!” Eileen looks away, which is a polite way of saying, “No, Ben’s your Daddy and you’ve got a half-sister that everyone likes more than you.”

Ben tries to apologize again and, after 29 episodes of never losing his temper, Doc Hayward finally snaps and punches Ben. Ben falls back and hits the back of his head on the fireplace! Oh my God! Is Ben dead!? Is Doc Hayward now evil!?

(I know the answer but I’m not going to tell you until the end of this review.)

At the Martell House, Andrew (Dan O’Herlihy) is all excited because he’s figured out that the key is the key to a safety deposit box. He steals the key from the pie plate and replaces it with a duplicate. However, Pete steps into the room just in time to see Andrew doing it.

In the woods, Cooper and Harry come across the abandoned truck. They walk into the forest but Cooper suddenly announces that he must go alone. Cooper takes Harry’s flashlight and walks through the forest. Eventually, he hears the hooting of an owl and comes across Glastonbury Grove. Cooper steps into the circle and the red curtains appear. As Harry watches from a distance, Cooper steps though the curtains.

(Though it may just be coincidence, the red curtains always make me think about the opening of Dario Argento’s Deep Red.)

Cooper finds himself in the red curtained hallways. He walks until he reaches the room from his dreams. As the lights stobe, the Man From Another Place (Michael Anderson) dances while a lounge singer (Jimmy Scott) sings about Sycamore Trees. The Man From Another Place eventually hopes into a velvet chair. It’s deeply unsettling to watch because we know that, behind one of those curtains, BOB is lurking.

In the forest, Andy finds Harry. They sit outside of Glastonbury Grove and wait for Cooper to return.

Morning comes. We get a few final shots of the countryside around Twin Peaks. The mountains. The bridge where, 29 episodes ago, Ronette Pulaski was discovered battered and nearly catatonic. The forest. The countryside was beautiful when we first saw it but, after spending 31 hours in the world of Twin Peaks, it is now impossible to look at that wilderness without wondering what secrets are being concealed beneath the tranquil surface.

Harry and Andy are still sitting outside of Glastonbury and there is something truly touching about the sight of these two friends loyally waiting for their third friend to return. Andy volunteers to go to diner to get them breakfast. Harry says, “Yes.” Andy lists off all of the usual Twin Peaks food. Coffee. Pancakes. Desert. “Yeah,” Harry replies. When Andy finally asks if Harry wants pie, Harry falls silent. How can anyone eat pie with Cooper missing?

Meanwhile, at the bank — OH MY GOD! YOU MEAN WE’RE NOT GOING TO THE BLACK LODGE TO FIND OUT WHAT’S GOING ON WITH COOPER YET!? — an old lady sleeps at the new accounts desk. (It’s a very Lynchian image, to be honest.)

Audrey Horne (Sherilyn Fenn) comes in and says hello the elderly bank president, Mr. Mibbler (Ed Wright). Mibbler is really happy to see Audrey, even after she explains that she is going to be chaining herself to the vault as a part of her environmental protest. For whatever reason, almost all of David Lynch’s film features at least one elderly character who moves slowly and is utterly clueless about the world around them. Mr. Mibbler is certainly a part of that tradition.

(Speaking for myself, I like the way that the scene in the bank is shot and acted but it still frustrates me that, during the 2nd season, Twin Peaks could never quite figure out what to do with Audrey. When Kyle MacLachlan vetoed any romance between Cooper and Audrey, it pretty much destroyed Audrey’s storyline. To make us believe that Cooper and Audrey could actually fall in love with other people, the writers kept Cooper and Audrey from interacting and, as a result, it often seemed that Audrey was trapped in another, rather less interesting show. While Cooper investigated the Black Lodge and Windom Earle, Audrey was stuck playing Civil War with her father and improbably falling in love with John Justice Wheeler. Even in the finale, Audrey mostly serves as a distraction from the show’s main storyline. The character deserved better.)

Andrew and Pete show up at the bank. Mibbler is shocked to see that Andrew is still alive but Andrew is more concerned with opening up that deposit box. It takes Mibbler a while to find the box but when he does, he promptly opens it. What’s inside the box? Well, there’s a note from Thomas that read, “Finally got you, Andrew. Love, Thomas.” And there’s a bomb, which promptly explodes.

Oh my God, is Audrey dead!? Well, the episode never reveals who died or survived in the bank. However, having looked through the recently published The Secret History of Twin Peaks, I know the answer and I will reveal it at the end of this review.

At the Double R, Major Briggs (Don S. Davis) and Betty (Charlotte Stewart) are sharing a booth and, as opposed to the way they were portrayed all through the first season, they appear to be very much (and very playfully) in love.

At the counter, Bobby (Dana Ashbrook) watches his parents making out and then turns to Shelly (Madchen Amick.) He asks her to marry him. Shelly mentions that she’s still married to Leo and then she and Bobby start going, “Arf! Arf! Arf!,” which is a strangely cheerful callback to the way that Bobby and Mike taunted James Hurley at the end of the pilot. Bobby says that Leo is up in the woods, having the time of his life. A jump cut quickly reminds us that Leo is actually up in the woods trying to keep a bunch of tarantulas from falling down on his head.

Suddenly, Dr. Jacoby (Russ Tamblyn) and Sarah Palmer (Grace Zabriskie) step into the diner. They walk right over to Maj. Briggs. Dr. Jacoby says that Sarah has a message for him, one that she felt was very important. Speaking in the distorted voice of Windom Earle, Sarah says, “I am in the Black Lodge with Dale Cooper. I’m waiting for you.”

And here is where the finale basically goes insane. Seen today, the final 20 minutes of this episode remain genuinely unsettling and often rather frightening. I can only imagine how audiences reacted in 1991. I did a little research (which is a fancy way of saying that I looked on Wikipedia) and, believe it or not, the top-rated television show in 1991 was 60 Minutes. Needless to say, the finale of Twin Peaks was about as far from 60 Minutes as you could get.

In the Black Lodge, Cooper still sits in the room with red curtains. The Man From Another Place tells him, “When you see me again, it won’t be me.” The Man From Another Place explains that the room with red curtain is a waiting room. (Purgatory, perhaps?)

“Some of your friends are here,” The Man From Another Place continues.

Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee), dressed in black, walks in and sits down beside The Man From Another Place. “Hello Agent Cooper,” she says, speaking backwards. “I’ll see you again in 25 years. Meanwhile.” Laura vanishes.

(The 25 years explains why, way back in the third episode, Cooper appeared to be a much older man in his dream. It’s also interesting to note that, later this month, the 3rd season of Twin Peaks will air roughly 25 years after the 2nd season ended.)

Suddenly, the room service waiter (Hank Worden) appears with a cup of coffee. “Hallelujah,” he says. “Hallelujah,” the Man from Another Place agrees.

The waiter places on a table next to Cooper. Suddenly, the waiter is gone and the Giant (Carel Struycken) stands in his place. The Giant sits down next to The Man From Another Place.

“One and the same,” he says.

(Even though I know what’s going to happen, watching this scene still makes me nervous. The Giant, the Waiter, and The Man From Another Place are the only friends that Cooper has in the Black Lodge. Once the Giant leaves, who will be the next to come out?)

The Giant vanishes. The Man From Another Place rubs his hands together and gets a sinister little smile on his face. As he has done so many times since the series began, Cooper attempts to drink his coffee but discovers that it is now frozen solid. Suddenly, it’s not frozen and it pours out of the cup. Then, just as suddenly, it’s thick and only slowly dribbles out when Cooper tips the cup.

“Wow, BOB, wow,” the Man From Another Place says. He looks directly at the camera and says, his voice now much more rougher, “Fire walk with me.”

It’s an incredibly unsettling moment in an already unsettling episode. By this point, we all know what “Fire walk with me” means.

There’s an explosion. A woman (Laura or Annie?) screams. The lights start to strobe. Cooper walks out of the room and finds himself, once again, in the hallway. Having heard the scream and knowing what BOB did to Ronette, Laura, Maddy, and countless others, it is a coincidence that the only decoration in the hallway is a reproduction of the Venus de Milo, a beautiful woman who does not have the arms necessary to protect herself? As well, it is surely not a coincidence that the Black Lodge could just as easily pass for an “exclusive” section of One-Eyed Jack’s.

Cooper steps through another set of curtains and finds himself in a second room, one that looks just like the first room except that it’s deserted.

Cooper returns to the first room where The Man From Another Place snaps, “Wrong way!”

Cooper goes back to the second room. At first, it appears to be deserted but suddenly The Man From Another Place appears, laughing maniacally. “Another friend!” he says and suddenly, Maddy Ferguson (Sheryl Lee), dressed in black much like Laura, steps into the room. “Watch out for my cousin,” she says and then vanishes.

Cooper returns to the first room, which is now deserted.

Suddenly, the Man From Another Place appears beside him.

“Doppleganger,” the Man says.

Laura, her eyes white, suddenly stands in front of Cooper. “Meanwhile,” she says.

Suddenly, Laura screams and the lights start to strobe again. Still screaming, Laura charges at Cooper. Cooper runs from the room and suddenly, finds himself in the Black Lodge’s foyer. He realizes that, like all of Windom Earle’s victims, he has been stabbed in the stomach. Cooper staggers back into the hallway and, following a trail of bloody footprints, he returns to the second room.

In the room, he sees himself lying on the floor next to Caroline Earle (Brenda E. Mathers). Like Cooper, Caroline has been stabbed. Suddenly, Caroline sits up and … IT’S ANNIE! Cooper calls out her name but suddenly, the bodies disappear and the strobe lights start again.

Calling Annie’s name, Cooper returns to the first room. Annie is waiting for him. “Dale,” she says, “I saw the face of the man who killed me. It was my husband.”

“Annie,” Dale says.

“Who is Annie?”

Suddenly, Annie is a white-eyed Caroline and then she transforms into the still shrieking Laura. Laura turns into Windom Earle. As Cooper and Windom stare at each other, Annie materializes and then vanishes again. Windom says that he will set Annie free but only if Cooper gives up his soul.

“I will,” Cooper says and, for the first time, Cooper’s voice is now as distorted as all the other inhabitants of the Black Lodge.

Windom stabs Cooper in the stomach and suddenly, there’s another explosion. The strobe lights start again and Windom is screaming for help. Cooper, no longer wounded, sees that BOB (Frank Silva) has grabbed Windom. Windom screams and BOB snaps, “BE QUIET!”

(As scary as BOB is, it’s undeniably satisfying to see Windom Earle finally not in control.)

BOB tells Cooper to go. Windom, BOB explains, is wrong. “He can’t ask for your soul. I will take his!”

Windom screams as BOB literally rips his soul out of his head. Finally, Windom falls silent. As BOB continues to laugh, Cooper runs from the room. Suddenly, someone else comes running through the room and — OH NO! IT’S A DOPPELGANGER COOPER AND WOW, IS HE ACTING WEIRD!

Cooper walks through the hallway when suddenly, Leland Palmer (Ray Wise) steps out from behind a curtain. His hair is brown again but his eyes are now white. Leland smiles and says, “I did not kill anybody.”

Doppelganger Cooper appears and chases after the real Cooper. They run through the Black Lodge until Doppelganger Cooper manages to grab the real Cooper.

BOB appears and stares straight at the camera. AGCK!

Suddenly, at Glastonbury Grove, the curtains appear. Night has fallen again but Harry is still loyally sitting in the forest, waiting for Cooper’s return. When he sees the curtains, Harry runs into the circle of trees and finds the bodies of both Cooper and Annie.

Cut to the Great Northern. Cooper wakes up in bed, with Doc Hayward and Harry sitting beside him. Speaking in an oddly mechanical tone of voice, Cooper first says that he wasn’t sleeping and then asks, “How’s Annie?” Harry says that Annie is at the hospital and she’ll be okay.

“I need to brush my teeth,” Cooper says.

In the bathroom, Cooper squeezes an entire tube of toothpaste into the sink. He then rams his head into the mirror and, as the reflection of BOB stares back at him, he starts to laugh. “How’s Annie?” he mocking repeats. “How’s Annie?”

AGCK!

And, with that deeply unsettling turn of events, Twin Peaks came to a temporary end. This brilliantly directed episode ended with three cliffhangers. What happened to Ben? Who died at the bank? What happened to Dale Cooper?

I promised you answers to some of those question so, according to The Secret History of Twin Peaks, here they are:

Ben survived his injury.

At the bank, the bomb killed Mr. Dibbler, Andrew, and Pete. (Perhaps not coincidentally, both Dan O’Herlihy and Jack Nance died long before Showtime announced that it was reviving the show.) Audrey survived, largely because Pete shielded her with his body. Shaken by the violent death of both her brother and her husband, Catherine returned to Ben everything that he had signed over to her. Catherine became a recluse.

As for what happened to Dale — well, that’s question that we will hopefully get an answer to when Twin Peaks returns to Showtime on May 21st!

Well, that concludes our Twin Peaks recaps! Thank you everyone for reading and thank you, Jeff and Leonard, for going on this adventure with me!

Now, how about we all get some coffee and slice of cherry pie?

(Love ya,)

Previous Entries in The TSL’s Look At Twin Peaks:

TV Review: Twin Peaks 2.17 “Wounds and Scars” (dir by James Foley)

Posted on April 26, 2017 by Lisa Marie Bowman

“It was like taking a hike to your favorite spot and finding a hole where the lake used to be.”

— Deputy Hawk (Michael Horse) in Twin Peaks 2.17 “Wounds and Scars”

The year was 1991 and all was not well in the world of Twin Peaks. While, on the show, Leland Palmer murdered his daughter and Josie Packard died after killing Thomas Eckhardt, there was even more drama occurring behind-the-scenes.

Since the first season, the plan had always been for Agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) and Audrey Horne (Sherilyn Fenn) to end up together. MacLachlan and Fenn had serious chemistry in their scenes together. As characters, Cooper and Audrey seemed like they belonged together. Even Cooper’s concerns about the age difference didn’t seem like that much of a problem. (After all, Audrey may have been a teenager but Sherilyn Fenn was not.) The show’s audience wanted them to end up together.

However, there was one problem.

Lara Flynn Boyle.

Kyle MacLachlan was dating Lara Flynn Boyle and, according to several people who worked on the show, Fenn and Boyle did not get along. With Boyle not particularly excited about the prospect of watching her boyfriend play love scenes with her rival, Kyle MacLachlan complained to the show’s producers that Cooper would never get together with Audrey because of their age difference. As a result, Billy Zane was hastily brought in to replace Cooper as Audrey’s love interest.

Personally, I’m not really sure that Cooper needed a love interest. During the first season, he was written as being so old-fashioned and upright that he was nearly asexual. (The only indication that Cooper even had a sex drive came when Laura kissed him in his dream and he smiled.) In the second season, Cooper became a little more, for lack of a better word, “human.” But he was still traumatized by the death of Caroline and he put his devotion to the Bureau above all else. Ideally, Cooper would have spent the entire show as a chaste Galahad.

Obviously, ABC disagreed. They wanted Cooper to have a girlfriend. We’ll see how this was handled in today’s episode.

So, without any further ado, let’s look at “Wounds and Scar!”

Following the opening credits, we get an extreme close-up of Harry Truman’s (Michael Ontkean) bloodshot eyes. He’s drinking at the Bookhouse. A saxophone wails on the soundtrack. That’s never a good sign. He’s having flashbacks to his time with the now dead Josie. Deputy Hawk (Michael Horse) brings Harry a breakfast from the diner. Hawk tells Harry that everyone at the station is concerned.

“You and Cooper can handle it,” Harry says, “It’s a pretty simple town.”

Really? Twin Peaks is a simple town? What show have you been watching, Harry?

At the Diner, a new character steps through the front doors and — OH MY GOD! IT’S HEATHER GRAHAM! She’s playing Annie. It turns out that she’s Norma’s (Peggy Lipton) sister and she has just left a convent. Annie is going to be working at the diner. Heather Graham has really pretty hair.

Meanwhile, Major Briggs (Don S. Davis) is finishing his breakfast when the Log Lady (Catherine Coulson) walks up to him and touches the marks on his neck.

Back at the sheriff’s station, Hawk tells Cooper that Harry is about hit bottom. Cooper is frustrated with his lack of success in tracking down Windom Earle. Luckily, Hawk speaks exclusively in wise sayings. He suggests letting the rain fall where it may.

At the cabin (which, somehow, no one else seems to have stumbled across), Windom (Kenneth Welsh) sniffs the country air and tells his slave, Leo (Eric Da Re), that you can’t understand how wonderful country life is until you’ve lived it. It plays like a nice little parody of Cooper and Harry’s conversation about whittling in the pilot.

Windom checks the newspaper and gets upset over Cooper’s latest move. He says that Cooper is playing a stalemate game but he doesn’t know the meaning of stalemate. Neither do I, to be honest. I prefer checkers to chess. Windom then realizes that Cooper must be getting help and he throws a fit because he cannot stand people who don’t play by the rules. “Many people are going to regret this!”

Meanwhile, at the Great Northern, Audrey is demonstrating a proper runway walk while Dick (Ian Buchanan) hits on the models. Mr. Pinkle (David L. Lander) — the same guy who sold Bobby and Shelly the porto-patient device that didn’t really work out that well — shows up to tell Dick about the pine weasel. Mr. Pinkle is carrying a stuffed pine weasel but Dick says that they need a living pine weasel. Showing a stuffed animal at a benefit for an endangered species? That would be totally gauche.

Wheeler (Billy Zane) shows up to talk to Audrey about their dinner. They both try to apologize at the same time. Wheeler asks her to go on a picnic with him. And, hey — Billy Zane is cute and all but the Wheeler/Audrey romance feels totally forced. We all know that Audrey should either be with Cooper or killing ninjas in Hong Kong. Those are really the only two options.

Harry is still drinking at the Bookhouse. Cooper approaches and tells him about Josie’s sordid past. He says that Harry has to understand that Josie was a hardened killer. Harry yells at Cooper to go.

In her office, Catherine (Piper Laurie) looks over the plans for the Ghostwood Estatea when Jones (Brenda Strong) suddenly steps into the office and says that she’s there to expedite the transfer of Thomas and Josie’s bodies to Hong Kong. Jones says she has a gift from Thomas, so Catherine promptly pulls a gun. Calmly, Jones hands over a black box.

At the Hayward house, someone knocks on the door. Donna answer, only to find a friendly old man who claims to be named Dr. Gerald Craig. Dr. Craig says that he is an old friend of her father’s and he was just stopping by to see if old Doc Hayward was around and — wait a minute! That’s not Gerald Craig! That’s Windom Earle in disguise!

Donna asks Dr. Craig if he’d like to come inside and — DONNA, YOU IDIOT! DON’T JUST INVITE STRANGE MEN INTO YOUR HOUSE! In less than a month, a dozen people have died in Twin Peaks and Donna is still letting strange men into her house. Anyway, Dr. Craig gives Donna a small gift for her dad, makes her promise not to open it, and then leaves.

Meanwhile, Pete Martell (Jack Nance) is studying a dozen or so chess boards. Cooper comes in and Pete tells him that he’s studied every stalemate game in history but that there’s no way to play chess without losing at least a few pieces. No matter what happens, Pete says, at least six people are going to die. Cooper tells Pete to stick with it.

In the lobby, Lucy (Kimmy Robertson) and Andy (Harry Goaz) play chess. Lucy gets mad because Andy moved his knight “without doing the little hook thing.” “You don’t have to the little hook thing, that’s optional,” Andy says. Sound good to me, Andy! But, no, Pete explains that the hook thing is not optional.

Suddenly, Maj. Briggs and the Log Lady both step into the station. They’re concerned because both of them have the same three triangle pattern, Briggs on his neck and the Log Lady on the back of her leg. The Log Lady says that she got her mark when she was seven years old. She was walking in the woods when she saw a flash of light and heard an owl. When she returned home, she was told that she had been missing for a day.

Audrey and Wheeler are at their picnic. Wheeler is singing. C’mon, Audrey, are you actually falling for this? Go see Cooper before he meets Annie…

At the Hayward House, Doc Hayward (Warren Frost) returns home with Mrs. Hayward (Mary Jo Deschanel) rolling along beside him. Donna tells them that Gerald Craig visited. Doc Hayward says that’s not possible. Gerald Craig was Doc’s roommmate. He drowned after a rafting accident. (So? Drowning never stopped Andrew Packard.) Mrs. Hayward calls the contact number that Dr. Craig left and it turns out to be the number of a cemetery. Doc Hayward unwraps Dr. Craig’s gift and it’s a chess piece!

At the gas station, Ed (Everett McGill) tries to talk to Nadine (Wendy Robie) about breaking up. Unfortunately, Ed needs a divorce but Nadine still thinks they’re in high school. Dr. Jacoby (Russ Tamblyn) is there to try to help her understand what’s happening but he’s not much help. Nadine is more concerned about the fact that she just now noticed that she’s missing an eye.

Back at the Hayward House, someone else knocks on the door. This time, Mrs. Hayward answers and it’s Ben Horne (Richard Beymer). As Donna watches from the stairs, Ben whispers something in her mother’s ear and then kisses her.

At the diner, Peggy encourages Shelly (Madchen Amick) to enter the Miss Twin Peaks pageant. Meanwhile, Cooper has entered the diner and seen Annie and he’s immediately so overwhelmed by her attraction to him that he actually stammers. No, Cooper — AUDREY!

Before Cooper can fall any further in love, Hawk enters and tells him that they have a problem at the Bookhouse. Harry is destroying all of the furniture! When Cooper shows up, Harry calls him Deputy Dale and yells at him some more. This is the most emotion we’ve seen from Harry since the series began.

Uh-oh, Harry’s holding a gun and he doesn’t want to give it to Cooper. However, Harry eventually breaks down, shouts that Josie didn’t have to die, and then falls into Cooper’s arms. Cooper and Hawk put Harry to bed. Hawk says that Harry has never been like this before.

At the Great Northern, Mike (Gary Hershberger) and Nadine are getting a room under the name “Mr. and Mrs. Hinkman.” Seriously, the Great Northern looks way too expensive for just a one night stay. They should have gone to the motel and gotten an hourly room. Knowing Mike, they probably would have only needed it for 8 minutes or so.

In the ballroom, Ben Horne is thanking everyone for showing up at this charity fashion show. This is one of those plotlines that you’d never see today. Nobody has the guts to make fun of rich (and fake) environmentalists anymore. It’s a shame.

Anyway, the fashion show starts and there’s Dick describing each outfit. (I really love Ian Buchanan’s performance in this episode. He makes Dick into such a likable phony.) Lucy and Andy are two of the models. Good for them!

While the model walk the runway, Catherine approaches Ben and tells him that she knows he’s a just faking all of his environmental concern. Ben says that the experience of being accused of Laura’s murder and his subsequent bout with insanity have truly changed him.

Dick has Mr. Pinkle bring out a living pine weasel. Pinkle explains that the pine weasel is attracted to certain sells, like very cheap cologne. Of course, this immediately leads to the pine weasel leaping at Dick and biting down on his nose. Panic breaks out! Audrey nearly gets run over but luckily, Wheeler is there to literally sweep her off her feet and kiss her.

Meanwhile, at the Bookhouse, one deputy looks over the sleeping Harry. Jones sneaks up behind him and quickly knocks him unconscious. She places a gun on the nightstand beside Harry’s bed. She then undresses, lets down her hair, and lay down beside him…

End credits.

Overall, this was a pretty good episode except for the fact that we all know that Cooper and Audrey belong together. While I can understand Audrey’s flirtation with Wheeler, Cooper’s sudden attraction to Annie felt a bit out of character, a case of Twin Peaks trying a bit too hard.

Some would probably argue that the bit with the Pine Weasel was a bit overboard as well but I actually enjoyed that. Ian Buchanan’s performance saved that bit for me. Plus, wealthy environmentalists tend to be kind of smug so it’s always fun to see them satirized.

Up until this episode, I’ve had mixed feeling about Windom Earle but his scene with Donna was brilliantly creepy.

Tomorrow, we have “On the Wings of Love.”

Previous Entries in The TSL’s Look At Twin Peaks:

TV Review: Twin Peaks 2.15 “Slaves and Masters” (dir by Diane Keaton)

Posted on April 24, 2017 by Lisa Marie Bowman

“Get a life, punk!”

— Albert Rosenfield (Miguel Ferrer) in Twin Peaks 2.15 “Slaves and Masters”

Well, it had to happen some time.

We have reached the “Slave and Masters” episode of Twin Peaks. Judging from what I’ve read online, most fans seem feel that this episoode was the worst in the show’s history. Myself, I don’t know whether it is or isn’t. I’m writing this introduction before watching the episode. I guess I’ll know soon enough.

Interestingly enough, this episode was directed by actress Diane Keaton. When I first saw Keaton’s name listed as director, I assumes that she must have been a fan of the show and that she lobbied for the chance to direct an episode. However, according to Relections: An Oral History of Twin Peaks by Brad Dukes, the opposite was true. While the cast all liked and respected Keaton as a director, there was also a feeling that she didn’t seem to actually know much about the show. Considering that the show had suffered a severe ratings decline during the 2nd season, it seems probable that Keaton was hired to direct in an attempt to generate some new interest in the once hot show.

If that was the plan, it didn’t work. Apparently, the ratings for this episode were so low that Twin Peaks was put on hiatus a week after it aired. It was only due to a letter-writing campaign that ABC decided to air the last six episodes of the season. In short, it can be argued that this episode was truly the beginning of the end for Twin Peaks‘s original network run.

So, with all that in mind, let’s take a look at the 23rd episode of Twin Peaks, “Slaves and Masters.”

As always, we begin with the haunting opening credits and Angelo Badalamenti’s lushly romantic (yet ominously threatening) score. The mood has been set. We have returned to the world of Twin Peaks.

After the credits, we immediately cut to a close-up of a chess board. In slow motion, the camera glides over all of the pieces. The Queen, The pawns, the King, the Bishop, the little horsey guy. (I don’t know much about chess, sorry.)

Suddenly, we’re no longer looking at chess pieces. Instead, the camera is panning up the legs of Evelyn Marsh (Annette McCarthy), who is dressed in black and even wearing a black veil and — OH MY GOD, HAS THIS STORYLINE NOT BEEN RESOLVED YET!? Seriously, when people talk about Season 2 not being as inspired as Season 1, they’re talking about this half-assed film noir rip-off that James (James Marshall) rode into after he hopped on his motorcycle and left Twin Peaks. From the minute that Evelyn first showed up, I knew exactly what was going to happen with her, James, and her husband. Much like the whole Audrey kidnapping subplot, the Evelyn Marsh subplot should not have lasted any longer than an episode and a half. Instead, it’s still going on!

Anyway, the cops are talking to Evelyn and Malcolm (Nicholas Love) about how someone might have killed her husband. Malcolm is quick to blame James but Evelyn seems a little bit more conflicted about it. There is a funny moment when Malcolm says that James was hired to fix the Jaguar and the cop can’t figure out how to spell Jaguar. That made me laugh but, otherwise, this whole scene felt predictable and unnecessary.

Meanwhile, at Wallie’s Bar, a dozen cops are sitting at the bar, smoking cigars and listening to opera music. (Weird image is weird but it’s just weirdness for the sake of weirdness.) James and Donna (Lara Flynn Boyle) are in a corner of the bar. Donna says that they need to get help but James is all like, “I don’t need nobody!” He says that Malcolm framed him and that he just needs to talk to Evelyn.

Donna goes to call Ed but ends up having to talk to Nadine instead. Though we only hear Donna’s side of the conversation, it sounds like Nadine is talking about her new boyfriend. If her new boyfriend is Mike (Gary Hershberger) than that means that Nadine is now dating Donna’s ex and yet, Donna seems to be remarkably okay with that.

Back at the Sheriff’s station, Harry (Michael Ontkean) and Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) are interrogating Bobby (Dana Ashbrook) and Shelly (Madchen Amick). Bobby wants to know why Harry and Cooper aren’t making more of an effort to track down Leo. Cooper asks Bobby about the night that the mill burned down. Bobby lies and says that Hank Jennings shot Leo.

Harry says that he’ll have some deputies watch the house. Bobby claims that he’s all the protection that Shelly needs. (For some reason, Bobby is acting like a methhead in this scene.) When Bobby and Shelly leave, they pass Albert Rosenfield (Miguel Ferrer), who takes one look at Bobby and shouts, “Get a life, punk!”

(We love you, Albert!)

After giving Harry an out-of-character bear hug (but that’s okay because I like it when dudes hug it out), Albert explains that he’s been sent to Twin Peaks by Gordon Cole. He has brought with him a picture of Windom Earle, in which Windom looks like an extra in a 1930s gangster movie. He also brings the news that Windom has been mailing different pieces of clothing to police agencies across the country.

Windom has mailed:

1. A white veil

2. A garter

3. A pair of white slippers

4. A peal necklace

5. A wedding dress

Oh my God, I said as Albert listed the items, Windom Earle is marrying Pippa Middleton!

Cooper says that the clothing belonged to Windom’s dead wife (and Cooper’s ex-lover), Caroline. Albert says that Windom is definitely making his move and then says that Cooper looks good in the muted earth tones of a flannel shirt. That was nice of Albert.

Meanwhile, in his cabin, Windom Earle (Kenneth Welsh) plays a flute while Leo (Eric Da Re) lies on the floor. (I have to be honest that these cabin scenes between Windom and Leo made me think about Peter Boyle burning down Gene Hackman’s hut in Young Frankenstein.) Once Leo wakes up, Windom — who was previously described as having a mind like a diamond, cold and precise — starts acting like a Satanic little wood sprite. He jumps around the cabin. He says a lot of evil quips. He beats Leo with a flute and then reveals that he’s placed a collar around Leo’s neck. Windom can electrocute Leo whenever he feels like it. Windom forces Leo to eat gruel while Windom pretends to be a kitty cat. “Purrrr,” he says.

(Windom’s a genius so why is he acting like a sadistic towel manager?)

We cut to Ed (Everett McGill) laying in bed with Norma (Peggy Lipton) and talking about how it’s been twenty years since they first fell in love. They agree that it’s sucked not being together. Suddenly, they hear Nadine (Wendy Robie) arriving home. Norma starts to leave but Ed says, “No, no. We may as well talk to her now.” Sure, Ed — have this conversation with Nadine while you and Norma are laying in bed in your underwear. That’ll really avoid any hurt feelings.

Suddenly, Nadine rips the bedroom door off of its hinges. She comes into the room, carrying a wrestling trophy, and then jumps into bed with Ed and Norma. Nadine apologizes for beating up Hank and then says that she knows about the two of them. Nadine says it’s okay because she’s in love with Mike now.

Cut to the Martell house, where Harry and Cooper are talking to Josie (Joan Chen) about what happened to her in Seattle. Josie says she doesn’t know who killed Jonathan. Harry begs Josie to tell him the truth. Out of nowhere, a surprisingly cheerful Cooper announces, “I think I’ll get another cup of Joe!”

(Somewhere, Joe Biden looks up and says, “Oh my God, they’re talking about me in an old episode of Twin Peaks!” No, Joe, they’re not. Sorry. Maybe later.)

While Cooper’s getting more coffee, Pete (Jack Nance) stumbles in. He has picked up the dry cleaning and can barely see above all of the clothes that he’s holding. He and Cooper do that thing where, instead of being smart and putting the clothes somewhere first, they stand around and attempt to have a conversation, despite the fact that Pete is about fall over backwards. When the phone rings, Pete gives the clothes to Cooper and now its Cooper’s turn to struggle to remain standing. Eventually, Cooper puts the clothes on a chair (was that so hard!?) and then picks one thread off of a jacket.

Speaking of Josie, the phone call was for her. It turns out that the call is from Thomas Eckhardt (David Warner) and he is wondering if he and Josie could get together. Thomas reveals that he is responsible for Jonathan’s death.

After hanging up the phone, Thomas and his assistant, Jones (Brenda Strong), stare at a black trunk.

Meanwhile, Ben Horne (Richard Beymer) is apparently still convinced that he’s a Civil War general because he’s talking to Dr. Jacoby (Russ Tamblyn) about Stonewall Jackson. Much like all that stuff with Evelyn Marsh, this is a plotline that should have been resolved after an episode and a half. Instead, it’s been dragged out way past the point of being amusing. The Ben-Goes-Crazy storyline is the epitome of how Season 2 abandoned surrealism in favor of just being weird for the sake of being weird.

It turns out that Ben and Jacoby have an audience. Audrey (Sherilyn Fenn) and Jerry (David Patrick Kelly) are listening. Johnny Horne (Robert Bauer) is rocking back and forth while wearing a Native American headdress. And there’s a few members of the Hotel Staff, who have been transformed into some sort of marching band.

While Ben rants in his really crummy Southern accent, Jerry and Audrey leave the office. Audrey is worried about her father but Jerry seems to be fairly indifferent. (Needless to say, this goes against everything that we’ve previously seen about Jerry and his relationship with Ben.) Audrey points out that, conveniently enough, she is set to inherit the entire Horne business empire if anything happens to Ben and that Jerry better do what she says or she’ll cut him off.

Audrey returns to Ben’s office, where Dr. Jacoby looks perplexed. Audrey walks up to him and says she wants her father to turn back to normal. Jacoby says that he’s got it all taken care of. Bobby shows up, dressed like a Confederate soldier. Ben sings Dixie. Can this storyline just end, please!?

Meanwhile, at Walli’s, Evelyn is still dressed in black. Though the bar appears to be closed (there are chairs on the tables and everything), Evelyn is drinking. Suddenly, Donna walks up to her. Why is Donna still there? How much school can you miss in Twin Peaks? Why are Evelyn and Donna both hanging out in a bar that appears to be closed?

Suddenly, the bartender wanders by, lingering just long enough for Evelyn to order Donna a drink, “one that has a little umbrella in it.” Okay, is this bar closed or open? If it’s open, why are the tables covered in chairs? This stuff is confusing, especially for a non-drinker like me.

Anyway, Donna gets mad when Evelyn says that she won’t help James. Evelyn explains that life is crap. (Her words.) Suddenly, Malcolm (Nicholas Love) shows up and tells Evelyn to go home. He then threatens Donna and Donna reacts by yelling and then crying.

Back at the station, Albert reveals that the thread that Cooper found was from the carpet outside of Cooper’s hotel room. Apparently, this proves that it was Josie who shot Cooper at the end of Season 1. Bad Josie!

After swearing Albert to secrecy, Cooper heads to Harry’s office, where Harry is playing darts. Harry tells Cooper that the dead vagrant has been identified as being Eric Powell, a former member of the Merchant Marines.

“Powell was Caroline’s maiden name!” Cooper says.

Cooper says that this is all a big chess game to Windom. Harry says that, if Cooper needs a chess expert, they have one of the best right in town. And his name is Pete Martell!

At the diner, Pete shows of his mad chess skills by playing and winning four games at once. Cooper is impressed and invites Pete to help him play Windom’s chess game. Pete better be good because, every time that Cooper loses a piece, Windom is going to kill an innocent person.

Shelly walks into the diner and asks Norma if she needs any help. Norma hires her back. Then Harry shows up and says that he needs to talk to Norma. They slip into the kitchen where Harry explains that Hank is going away for a long time. Norma’s okay with that but I’m not. Hank may be a sociopath but he’s hella charming.

That night, Thomas shows up at the Martell house, where he is greeted by Catherine (Piper Laurie). Thomas appears to be slightly surprised by the sight of Josie in her maid’s uniform. Thomas and Catherine drink wine, eat dinner, and discuss art and killing. It quickly becomes apparent that Thomas has shown up to take Josie and that Catherine is more than willing to allow him to do that, for a price.

Meanwhile, at the Marsh house, Evelyn is stunned when James shows up in the living room and demands to know why Evelyn killed her husband and attempted to frame him. James says that it was hella lame to manipulate him with everything that he’s been going through. Evelyn confesses to everything. She says that she set James up. She says she did it for the money and also just because she felt like doing it.

Suddenly, Malcolm barges into the room and knocks James out. Malcolm says that they can now kill James and claim that it was self-defense. And you know what? He has a point. Bye, James.

Meanwhile, Ben and the gang recreate another Civil War battle. This whole Civil War subplot is so freaking stupid that I don’t even feel like talking about it anymore. While pretending to be General U.S. Grant, Dr. Jacoby announces that he’s surrendering. Having won the Civil War, Ben proceeds to faint. When he wakes up, Ben says that he had the strangest dream about being a general during the Civil War. He even does the whole “And you were there …. and you … and you!” thing. Anyway, Ben appears to be back to normal.

At the cabin, Windom is putting on a disguise. He continues to torment Leo with the electroshock collar.

At the Marsh mansion, James is still unconscious on the floor while Malcolm and Evelyn look down on him. Donna watches from outside the window. When Malcolm repeats that they can kill James and make it look like self-defense, Donna runs into the living room and screams, “NO!”

As Evelyn watches Donna cry over a motionless James, she stands up. Uh-oh, she’s got a gun. Evelyn shoots Malcolm and then says that she’ll frame Malcolm for her husband’s death though I don’t think it’ll be that difficult a frame-up because Malcolm is actually guilty.

At the Great Northern, Cooper walks down a hallway and stops in front of an elevator. He looks at a picture of Caroline that he has in his wallet. As he does this, a poorly disguised Windom Earle steps off the elevator. Windom goes to the front desk an drops off a note for Audrey. (Oh, goddamnit, is this going to be the start of yet another Audrey-gets-kidnapped storyline?) He also notices several postcards that all feature owls. “Owls,” he says.

Cooper arrives back at his room. He finds a white mask on his bed. Windom Earle has been there and he’s left a taunting message. The episode ends with Windom’s line: “It’s your move.”

Agck!

As for this episode, it definitely felt a bit off. The main problem is that it focused on two largely uninteresting subplots — Evelyn Marsh and the Civil War — and portrayed Windom Earle as so cartoonishly evil that it’s hard to believe that he could also be the villainous mastermind that Cooper’s spent the last few episodes describing. It was a weak episode but at least it finished off the whole Evelyn Marsh thing.

Always look on the bright side of life.

Previous Entries in The TSL’s Look At Twin Peaks:

TV Review: Twin Peaks 2.14 “Double Play” (directed by Uli Edel)

Posted on April 23, 2017 by Jedadiah Leland

Welcome back to Twin Peaks!

Last episode, Major Briggs (Don S. Davis) returned from the land of missing and brought with him a tale of the White Lodge. Ben Horne (Richard Beymer) obsessed over the Civil War. James Hurley (James Marshall) found himself trapped in a second-rate film noir. Jean Reanult (Michael Parks) was finally killed but, when Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) and Harry (Michael Ontkean) returned to the sheriff’s station, they discovered that someone had left them a present: a dead man sitting in front of a chess board.

Things start with the station still in darkness. Doctor Hayward (Warren Frost), Harry, and Cooper are looking over the dead man’s body. The first thing that they discover is that a chess pawn has been stuffed in his mouth. When Cooper correctly guesses that the dead man will have a stab wound in his chest, severing the aorta, Harry deduces that this is not the first time that Cooper has seen something like this.

Cooper says that he knows that his former partner, Windom Earle, is responsible. He guesses that the victim was a vagrant who was offered a lift by Earle. (In reality, the victim was played by Craig MacLachlan, brother of Kyle.) Earle stabbed the man and then set off the explosion in the woods. When everyone was distracted, Earle carried the body into the station. “Windom Earle has been in this room,” Cooper says, “I can still feel his presence.”

At the Great Northern, Audrey (Sherilyn Fenn) makes a deal with Bobby (Dana Ashrbook). She wants Bobby to help her bring her father back from “limbo land.” “From now on, Bobby,” Audrey says, “I’m the one you suck up to.”

“What about Shelly?” Bobby asks.

“What about Shelly?” Audrey replies.

Speaking of Shelly, she is in trouble because Leo (Eric Da Re) has suddenly woken up and now she’s trapped in a dark house, with no power and a very angry husband. Fortunately, Bobby arrives home right when Leo is about to attack Shelly with an axe. When Leo attacks Bobby instead, Shelly stabs Leo in the leg with a kitchen knife. Like an unmasked Jason Voorhees, the wounded Leo staggers off into the woods while Bobby and Shelly embrace.

The next morning, back at the station, Cooper watches as the body is wheeled away. Harry gives Cooper a cup of coffee and tells Cooper that, until he is reinstated in the FBI, he is still a deputy. “If you want this case,” Harry says, “it’s yours.”

Out in the front lobby, Andy (Harry Goaz) tells Lucy (Kimmy Robertson) that he has to talk to her about Nicky. Andy explains that he and Dick have been doing some detective work and they think that Nicky may have murdered his parents.

“He’s nine years old,” Lucy says.

“We know,” Andy nods, “we think he was six at the time of the crime.”

Lucy is not amused.

At the Marsh place, James is working on another one of classic cars when Jeffrey Marsh (John Apicella) walks up and introduces himself. He says that he’s envious of James’s carefree lifestyle. He says that he’d love to talk to James about the cars later in the day but James says that he should probably be moving on. Evelyn (Annette McCarthy) walks up and says that she is sure that she can find all sorts of things for James to do around the house. James walks back inside the garage and Jeffrey drives away in the car that James just finished working on. As Evelyn looks off in the distance, there is the sound of screeching tires and a car crash.

At the diner, Ed (Everett McGill) is having a cup of coffee of Doctor Hayward. Ed is worried because Nadine wants to start dating boys and, since she’s She-Hulk now, Ed worries that Nadine could kill them with her sex drive. Doctor Hayward suggests that Ed tell her to be home by 9:00 on school nights. I could be wrong but I don’t think Doctor Hayward is taking Nadine’s condition very seriously.

Doctor Hayward is actually more concerned about Donna, who took the van that morning to go see James. Ed explains that Donna is taking James some money, presumably all twelve of the dollars that were in James’s bank account.

After the doctor leaves, Norma (Peggy Lipton) sits down across from Ed. She says that Hank is in the hospital. He says that a tree fell on him but Ed tells her that Nadine actually beat him up. Norma is happy because, once Hank gets out of the hospital, he will be going back to prison for violating his parole.

At the sheriff’s station, Cooper and Harry are staring at the chess board that Windom Earle placed in front of the dead man. Cooper explains that he and Earle played a game of chess every day for three years. Earle thought that all the answers to life’s mysteries could be found in the game of chess.

Cooper explains that Windom Earle was his first partner. Everything that he learned about the law and the bureau he learned from Windom Earle. Cooper tells the story (the same one that he told Audrey earlier) of how, four years ago, he fell in love with a woman named Caroline who was a material witness to a federal crime and how, when she was attacked, Cooper was not prepared and could not save her life. Cooper adds the detail that she was stabbed, in the same way as the vagrant. Cooper also reveals that Caroline was Windom Earle’s wife.

Donna (Lara Flynn Boyle) arrives at a bar called Wallies, looking for James. James is not there but Evelyn is. “You look like someone who needs help,” Evelyn says. When Donna says she’s looking for James, Evelyn says that James did some work for her and then left for Mexico. Donna leaves, presumably taking James’s twelve dollars with her.

At the Great Northern, Dr. Jacoby (Russ Tamblyn), Audrey, and Jerry (David Patrick Kelly) watch as Ben continues to play with his little army men. Ben thinks that Jerry is General J.E.B. Stuart. Ben assures everyone that they are marching forward and only God can stop them. “The almighty is a Southerner,” Ben declares. Dr. Jacoby explains that if Ben can reverse the defeat of the Confederacy then he will also reverse his own recent mental defeats. Jacoby and Ben start to sing Dixie.

At the sheriff’s station, Major Briggs stumbles in, says that he needs to see Harry, and then collapses.

When he comes to, Major Briggs explains to Harry and Cooper that, when his superiors questioned him about his disappearance, they exhibited a degree of “intolerance and suspicion” that apparently left Briggs feeling traumatized. Briggs goes on to explain that, during his disappearance, he believes that he was taken to the White Lodge. Briggs goes on to say that there will be much trouble ahead. “I will return,” Briggs says, “but until that time, I will be in the shadows if you need me.”

As Briggs leaves, Andy enters the office and tells Cooper and Harry that he needs to show them something. He leads them to the conference room, where Dr. Jacoby announces that he has spent the last few hours talking to Lana Milford (Robyn Lively) and he has found no evidence of her being crazy or cursed. There is no way that Lana is responsible for Dougie’s death, Jacoby says. Jacoby goes on to say that Lana has a heightened sexual drive and skills that few men could ever hope to experience. Jacoby announces that he and Lana are going to go bowling but, as soon as they step out of the office, they run into Mayor Milford (John Boylan), who was a rifle and who demands that nobody move.

The Mayor wants blood but Cooper has a solution. He takes the rifle and then locks Milford and Lana in the conference room together. After a few minutes, Lana and the Mayor are in love and talking about adopting a child.

At the Martell house, Pete (Jack Nance) tells Catherine (Piper Laurie) that they forgot to pick up the hot dogs. Catherine is more interested in telling Pete the true story of how she survived the fire and marshaled the resources to defeat Ben. She reveals that her brother (and Josie’s husband), Andrew Packard (Dan O’Herlihy), is not actually dead and he’s sitting in the study. Andrew explains that he and Catherine faked his death in a boating accident because a contract had been taken out on Andrew’s life by Andrew’s former business partner, Thomas Eckhardt. Catherine also reveals that Josie works for Thomas Eckhardt and that Eckhardt will be returning to Twin Peaks to rescue her from having to work as Catherine’s maid.

At the exact same time, Thomas Eckhardt (DAVID WARNER!) and his assistant, Jones (Brenda Strong), are checking into the Great Northern.

At the sheriff’s station, Lucy is sick of both Andy and Dick (Ian Buchanan) so she brings Doctor Hayward in to talk to both of them. Doctor Hayward explains that he called the orphanage and that Nicky is no murderer. Nicky’s mother was a chamber maid at the Great Northern and his father was a man who fled back to Canada following the back alley assault that led to Nicky’s conception. Hayward explains that Nicky’s mom died in childbirth. Nicky was adopted by a loving couple who died in an icy car crash. Six year-old Nicky heroically attempted to pull his adoptive parents to safety but failed. Andy and Dick both start to cry.

Harry gets an alert from Seattle, telling him that the man who Josie left with, the one who Josie claims that she merely escaped from, has been found murdered. Since Cooper is now a deputy, Harry orders Cooper to find out if Josie killed him. For once, Harry gets to order Cooper around.

At the Marsh house, James is packing his stuff when Evelyn comes in and swears the she is in love with him. Evelyn says that there’s been an accident and Jeffrey’s dead. James immediately figures out that Evelyn killed her husband and set him up to take the fall. Evelyn says that it was Malcolm’s idea and that Malcom isn’t really her brother. As the police arrive outside, Evelyn tells James to run and go find “that young girl who loves you.”

As James tries to sneak out of the house without being spotted by the cops, he runs into Donna, who is hiding behind a tree. They run off while Evelyn talks to the police.

In the woods, a dazed and confused Leo comes across a cabin. Inside the cabin, a man (Kenneth Welsh) plays a flute and invites Leo to enter. The man sits down in front of a chess board and introduces himself as Windom Earle.

End credits.

This episode shares the same flaws as a lot of season 2. There are a lot of good scenes, like Leo menacing Shelly and Bobby or the introduction of Windom Earle, but there are also scenes that are just too cartoonish, like anything involving the Mayor and Lana. This episode was the first and only episode to be directed by German director Uli Edel and he does a pretty good job, putting his own unique spin on the show’s signature style.

Tomorrow: “Slaves and Masters,” in which Cooper gets unexpected help in his chess game against Windom Earle.

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TV Review: Twin Peaks 2.10 “Dispute Between Brothers” (directed by Tina Rathbone)

Posted on April 19, 2017 by Jedadiah Leland

The 10th episode of the 2nd season of Twin Peaks opens with a shot of Laura and Leland Palmer’s pictures on the mantle and a title card telling us that it has been three days since Leland’s death.

At the Palmer house, Mrs. Palmer (Grace Zabriskie) is preparing to bury her husband. Doctor Hayward (Warren Frost) tries to give her a shot, which she refuses. Agent Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) assures her that Leland did not actually kill her daughter.

(It’s interesting to note that this episode was directed by Tina Rathone, whose last episode also featured a funeral.)

At Leland’s wake, the entire cast has shown up and they’ve all brought food. Nadine (Wendy Robie) is dressed like a 1950s teenager. Audrey (Sherilyn Fenn) wonders if people are invited to wakes or if they just show up. Hank (Chris Mulkey) grabs all the food that he can. Donna (Lara Flynn Boyle) tells Ed (Everett McGill) that James is blaming himself for everything that happened. Ed promises Donna that James will eventually come back. Speaking of coming back, Doctor Jacoby (Russ Tamblyn) has finally returned from Hawaii and arrived just in time for the wake.

Cooper tells Harry (Michael Ontkean) and Major Briggs (Don S. Davis) that he has some vacation time coming up so he will be sticking around town for at least a few more days. The Major invites Cooper to go night fishing.

Twin Peaks’s elderly mayor, Dwayne Milford (John Boylan) throws a swing at his equally elderly brother, Dougie (Tony Jay), the owner of the town’s newspaper. As Harry and Ed pull them apart, Pete (Jack Nance) tells Cooper that Dougie and Dwayne have had a running feud for over 50 years. Cooper says he’s really going to miss Twin Peaks.

Fade to commercial.

When the show returns, Ed and Jacoby are at Twin Peaks High School and trying to talk the vice principal (Don Calfa) into admitting 35 year-old Nadine as a member of the senior class. Nadine runs into the office and tells them to hurry up because class is about to start and she wants to try out for cheerleader.

Cooper is in his hotel room, packing. Audrey comes in, says that she’s from customer relations, and asks if his stay has been satisfactory. Audrey asks if Cooper’s just going to leave and break her heart. Cooper explains that he can’t get involved with anyone who was involved in any of his cases. Cooper explains that he once fell in love with a material witness. He was supposed to protect her but, when the attempt was made on her life, he was not prepared and she died in his arms.

At the Johnson house, Bobby (Dana Ashbrook) is trying on Leo’s (Eric Da Re) suit. Bobby is going to try to convince Ben into giving him a job. Shelly (Madchen Amick) is already getting bored with her new life.

At the sheriff’s station, Harry walks into his office and finds Catherine (Piper Laurie) waiting for him.

“Hello, Harry,” Catherine says.

“Forgive me for saying so, Catherine,” Harry replies, “but aren’t you dead?”

Catherine shrugs. She explains that, after the explosion at the mill, she woke up in the woods with no knowledge of how she got there. She says that a guardian angel must have rescued her. She spent a week living in the woods, eating only tuna fish. Harry asks what made her come back. Catherine says that she ran out of tuna fish.

In the lobby, Dick (Ian Buchanan) tells Lucy (Kimmy Robertson) that he wants to talk about their “bambino.” Dick says he wants to be a father, he believes the child is his, and that he’s enrolled in parenting classes. After hiding around the corner and listening to the conversation, Andy (Harry Goaz) walks into the lobby and says that, for the sake of the baby, they should all be friends. As Andy later explains to Hawk (Michael Horse), the key to Lucy’s heart lies in “morals and manly behaviors.”

Cooper stops by Harry’s office to say goodbye. Harry gives Cooper a parting gift of a special fishing lure and a Book House Boy patch. Cooper then says goodbye to Hawk, Andy, and Lucy. However, the goodbyes are interrupted by the arrival of FBI Agent Roger Hardy (Clarence Williams III) and Preston King (Gavan O’Herlihy) of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

(Long before they both appeared on Twin Peaks, Clarence Williams III and Peggy Lipton co-starred on The Mod Squad. Gavan O’Herlihy is the son of Dan O’Herlihy. Best known for playing Conal Cochran in Halloween III, Dan will join the cast of Twin Peaks in one more episode. As for Gavan, he is probably best known for playing Chuck Cunningham during the first season of Happy Days and getting shot by Charles Bronson in Death Wish II.)

Roger tells Cooper that he has been suspended from the FBI. Cooper’s raid on One-Eyed Jack’s was a violation of FBI policy because it involved crossing the border into Canada. Roger says that there are other allegations as well but they’re waiting for the evidence to arrive. Roger explains that King was involved in a sting operation to capture Jean Renault and that Cooper’s actions screwed it up. Also, the cocaine that King was using as a part of the operation disappeared after Cooper’s raid. Roger tells Cooper that he has 24 hours to assemble his defense.

At the Great Northern, Audrey helps Bobby get into Ben’s office but Ben (Richard Beymer) immediately has Bobby tossed out. Audrey saves Bobby from Ben’s goons. In order to thank her, Bobby buys Audrey an ice cream cone. “I like to lick,” Audrey says.

At Twin Peaks High School, Nadine tries out for cheerleader. Nadine now has Hulk-like super strength now, which she demonstrated by picking up a student and throwing him through the air.

Bobby calls Shelly to tell her about the meeting. While Shelly talks on the phone about how they have to put Leo in a home, Leo moves forward in his wheel chair. “He moved!” Shelly says, shocked.

At the diner, Norma (Peggy Lipton) takes the fancy table cloths off the tables and complains to Vera (Jane Greer) about a bad review that the Double R got from the mysterious travel writer, M.T. Wentz. Vivian reveals that she’s M.T. Wentz and she gave her own daughter’s diner a negative review. Vera says that she can’t violate her professional ethics.

At One-Eyed Jack’s, Hank and Ernie (James Booth) are chasing women and acting like fools. Hank is pressuring Ernie to steal Vera’s money. Ernie says he could never do that, he’s gone straight. That’s when Hank introduces Ernie to his new employer, Jean Renault (Michael Parks). Jean is looking for someone to serve as a money launderer and Ernie agrees, bragging that he has set up deals for everyone from the Colombians to the Bolivians. Jean is pleased and introduces Ernie to his other partner, Preston King of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

That night, Harry is woken up by someone knocking on the door to his cabin. When he opens the door, Josie (Joan Chen), who was supposed to be in Seattle, stumbles in and collapses.

In the woods, Cooper and Major Briggs are camping, roasting marshmallows, and discussing right and wrong. Briggs says that it is some men’s fate to face great darkness. Briggs asks if Cooper has ever heard of the White Lodge. Cooper says he hasn’t but he looks forward to hearing more about it. Cooper then goes off to relieve himself. There is a flash of white light. “Cooper!” Briggs shouts as a hooded man appears in the woods. Cooper runs back to the camp, just to discover that Briggs has vanished.

This uneven episode finds Twin Peaks struggling to establish an identity after the conclusion of the Laura Palmer storyline. For me, the highlight was Leland’s wake, which showed Twin Peaks as a community. Nadine’s adventures in high school may be cartoonish but they hold up better than I thought they would. Finally, this was the first episode to mention that all-important White Lodge.

Tomorrow, both David Duchovny and Dan O’Herlihy join the cast in Masked Ball.

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TV Review: Twin Peaks 2.3 “The Man Behind The Glass” (directed by Lesli Linka Glatter)

Posted on April 12, 2017 by Jedadiah Leland

The third episode of season two opens at the hospital, where Ronette Pulaski (Pheobe Augustine) is having another freak out while Harry (Michael Ontkean), Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan), and Albert (Miguel Ferrer) look on. Someone tried to poison her IV. Cooper discovers that someone has also put a “B” under Ronette’s fingernail. Harry says that Ronette was under guard all night and there is no way that anyone could have gotten to her. Albert says, “Maybe she heard a Sousa march and got up to twirl a baton.”

Cooper reveals to Albert and Harry that he was visited twice by a giant and tells them the three clues that he was given.

“You were visited by a giant?” Harry says.

“Any relation to the dwarf?” Albert asks.

Elsewhere, Donna Hayward (Lara Flynn Boyle) goes to reclusive Harold Smith’s house and we finally meet Harold (played by Lenny Von Dohlen, who was the direct-to-video version of Anthony Perkins in the 1990s). Harold’s house is full of flowers. He explains that he used to be horticulturist but now he is a shut in. He says that he and Laura were close and that she told him everything about Donna. Donna asks why Laura never said anything about him. Harold says that Laura liked to think of him as being, “the mystery in her life.” After promising to come back and visit later, Donna leaves.

Back at the police station, Cooper is at the chalkboard again and explaining to Harry and Albert how four living people — Sarah Palmer, Ronette, Maddy, and himself — have seen the “long-haired man.” Harry is still hung up on the giant. “Did he have a booming voice?”

Albert suggests that Harry should learn how to walk without dragging his knuckles on the floor which leads to Harry grabbing Albert’s shirt and Albert declaring that he rejects violence.

“I love you, Sheriff Truman,” Albert says before leaving.

“Albert’s path is a strange and difficult one,” Cooper says. No doubt, Coop.

James (James Marshall) comes to the station. Cooper tells him that he is not being charged because the cocaine was planted and that he needs to stop hanging out around the police station.

Harry is still trying to understand what Cooper meant when he said he saw a giant when Leland (Ray Wise) finally shows up at the police station and tells them that “the long-haired man” used to live next door to his family’s summer home. His name was “Robertson” but everyone called him Bob. “One more thing,” Leland says, “he used to flick matches at me.”

At the Double R Diner, Lucy (Kimmy Robertson) is having lunch with Richard Tremayne (Ian Buchanan), who may be the father of her baby. Richard is a salesman at Horne’s Department Store and he’s so slick that smooth jazz plays whenever he enters a room. Richard and Lucy had one date, in which he promised to take her to the Seattle Space Needle but instead, took her to Pancake Plantation instead. Lucy tells Richard that she’s pregnant.

At a nearby booth, James and Maddy (Sheryl Lee) sit and talk. James is confused because he says that Donna is trying to “act tough all the time.” James says that sometimes, he thinks he should just get on his bike and go. (Maybe he has been watching old episodes of Then Came Bronson, starring tonight’s special guest star, Michael Parks.) Donna comes in the diner and sees that James and Maddy are together. Donna announces that she met Harold Smith and that he is bright and charming, “unlike anyone I know.” Then, she leaves.

At One-Eyed Jack’s, Emory and Blackie (Victoria Catlin) have tied up Audrey (Sherilyn Fenn). Blackie is going to hold Audrey hostage and demand a ransom from Ben Horne.

Back at the police station, the One-Armed Man, Mr. Gerard (Al Strobel), is showing Harry his latest selection in shoes. Gerard blanks out for a minute and says that he sometimes gets disoreintated. Harry goes to get Gerard a glass of water and runs into Shelly Johnson (Madchen Amick). Cooper wants to talk to her about Leo and the fire at the mill but Shelly says she can’t testify against her husband. Laying on the charm, Cooper tells her that is okay and then sends her out of the office. He says the Shelly wants to get Leo’s life insurance and that she didn’t “think up this scheme by herself.”

But what about Laura Palmer!? Isn’t that what Cooper is supposed to be investigating?

Cooper goes to the Great Northern and asks Ben Horne (Richard Beymer) if he knows where Audrey is. Ben says that Audrey is missing but he does not seem to be to worried about it.

At One-Eyed Jack’s, tonight’s special guest star, Michael Parks, shows up. He is playing Jean Reanault, the brother of Jacques Renault. Blackie explains, to Emory, that Jean will act as their go-between with Ben. In return for 30% of the ransom, Jean will pretend to be the one who has kidnapped Audrey. Jean also demands that Agent Cooper, who he blames for the death of Jacques, be brought to him. Jean gives Audrey a shot of something. I had forgotten that Jean and Blackie kept Audrey drugged at One-Eyed Jack’s. I hope it’s not heroin because I don’t know if I can handle Twin Peaks turning into The French Connection Part II.

Michael Parks, like Russ Tamblyn and Richard Beymer, was one of many 1960s teen idols to be cast in Twin Peaks. Long before Tarantino has even made his first film, Lynch was resurrecting the careers of forgotten actors. If it’s thanks to Tarantino and, not Lynch, that Michael Parks is currently having a career renaissance, that’s because Michael Parks, quite frankly, lousy on Twin Peaks. Parks is much more convincing as Earl McGraw than he ever was as the French Canadian Jean Renault.

At the police station, Cooper wants to take a break and drink a cup of coffee but Harry is having a crisis because Josie is coming back to Twin Peaks tomorrow and he is worried about having to interrogate her about the fire at the mill. Harry also mentions that the One-Armed Man came by the station to sell shoes.

“The One-Armed man was here!?” Cooper says.

“Yeah,” Harry shrugs.

“Remember, in my dream,” Cooper explains, “the One-Armed Man knew BOB.”

Good point Cooper. Why wouldn’t Harry have told Cooper that the One-Armed Man was at the station? Are they even trying to catch Laura’s killer anymore? Even Deputy Hawk gives Harry a “You fucked up” look.

Going to the men’s room and searching for the One-Armed Man, Cooper comes across a hypodermic needle. “Without chemicals, he points,” Cooper says, “The Giant’s third clue. Harry, we’ve got to find the One-Armed Man.”

(Too bad that they had the One-Armed Man and then Harry let him wander off. Albert may have a point.)

At the hospital, the comatose Nadine (Wendy Robie) has been tied down. Dr. Hayward (Warren Frost) tells Ed (Everett McGill) that Nadine now has Hulk-like super strength. “She’s pumping out more adrenaline than a wildcat well,” Hayward explains.

Following the doctor’s advice, Ed sings “On top of Old Smokey” to her. (I was waiting for James to come in with his guitar and provide accompaniment but I guess he was busy with Maddy.) Ed singing causes Nadine to wake up and rip off her restraints. “Good God!” Ed says. Nadine does a cheer, because she now thinks that she and Ed are in high school and she is looking forward to cheerleader tryouts.

In his hospital room, Dr. Jacoby (Russ Tamblyn) is getting a foot massage from his Hawaiian wife, Eoloni, when Cooper and Harry drop by so that they can hypnotize him. Jacoby is so good at hypnosis that he hypnotizes himself. He flashes back to the murder of Jacques Renault and says that he knows the killer.

While this is happening, Donna puts some flowers (provided by Harold) on Laura’s grave. Donna talks to the dead Laura. Lara Flynn Boyle knocks her emotional monologue out of the park.

Of course, while Donna is pouring out her heart, James is kissing Maddy. Donna walks in on them and then runs out on them. James runs after her, screaming, “WHY!?”

Maddy goes to Leland for comfort but then Harry and Cooper show up and announce that Leland is under arrest. For killing Laura? No, for killing Jacques Renault.

Donna goes to Harold Smith and tells him about James and Maddy. Harold gives her a gift, the secret diary of Laura Palmer.

There is a classic episode of The Simpsons, in which the producers of Itchy and Scratchy become concerned that their show has become stale and uninteresting. To bring in new fans, they create the character of Poochie the Dog and, of course, they hire Homer to play him. Poochie has no real personality or reason for being on the show. He is just a mix of things that television executives think will appeal to their audience.

In Poochie’s first episode, Itchy and Scratchy are driving to the fireworks factory when they see Poochie standing on the side of the road. They pull over. “It’s our new friend, Poochie!” Poochie introduces himself and suddenly, the entire cartoon becomes about Poochie. Itchy and Scratchy are pushed to the side while Poochie sings, dances, raps, and plays basketball.

Watching the cartoon, Milhouse cries out, “When are they going to get to the fireworks factory!?”

That is probably how many viewers of Twin Peaks felt as they watched the second season. They had gotten wrapped up in the show. They had come up with their own theories about who killed Laura. All they wanted to know was who killed Laura Palmer and yet the show refused to tell them. Instead, it kept getting distracted by other things.

That is certainly the case with “The Man Behind The Glass.” While this episodes does do a lot to push the story and the mystery forward, it also gets sidetracked by a lot of subplots — like Jean Renault, Nadine thinking she was a teenager, and Lucy’s pregnancy — that are far less compelling than the mystery that has always been at the heart of Twin Peaks.

Who killed Laura Palmer?

For tomorrow, Lisa is back and reviewing episode 2.4, “The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer.”

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TV Review: Twin Peaks 2.1 “May The Giant Be With You” (dir by David Lynch)

Posted on April 10, 2017 by Leonard Wilson

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For four months, people wondered about the fate of Special Agent Dale Cooper, while speculating on who really killed Laura Palmer. The impact of that first season was strong. Twin Peaks would go on to win a number of Golden Globes. Kyle MacLachlan won for Best Actor in a Drama, Piper Laurie for Best Supporting Actress, and the show won Best Drama Series for 1991.

This piece will be shorter than my last one, even though the episode was about an hour and a half long. As writing about TV is somewhat new to me, I ask for your patience as I fine tune things, and thank anyone for reading. This is a fun project.

Directed by David Lynch himself, “May the Giant Be With You”, opens with Agent Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) on the floor, having been shot 3 times in the chest and stomach and reflecting on the experience. He’s visited by both a member of the morning room service staff with a few communication issues and a very tall gentleman (Carol Struycken) who tells him three things:

1.) There’s a man in a smiling bag.

2.) The Owls are not what they seem.

3.) Without chemicals, he points.

The tall figure let’s Cooper know this is all he’s allowed to say and can’t elaborate. He also takes Cooper’s ring and promises to return it once Cooper sees the truth in what he’s told. As an afterthought, the figure adds that there is an additional clue at Leo Johnson’s house (“Leo locked inside hungry horse.”). The figure then disappears, leaving Cooper to think about what he’s been told.

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Meanwhile, at One Eyed Jack’s, Ben Horne (Richard Beymer) is trying to introduce him to the “New Girl”, unaware that the girl is actually his daughter, Audrey (Sherilyn Fenn). Audrey is able to fight off his advances while hiding her identity in a scene that shows her just how creepy her dad is. We also learn that Blackie is a drug addict, getting her fix from Jerry (David Patrick Kelley).

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Cooper, still on the floor, is still recording his thoughts on his tape deck, going over his regrets and hopes. Before he can expire, Truman, Andy and Hawk arrive, and Agent Cooper is rushed to the Hospital. When he regains consciousness, Dr. Hayward shows him the extracted bullet, which hit a tick he was trying to get to before the incident began. Cooper can’t recall anything clear about the figure that shot him. Lucy explains that in the time he was out, Leo was shot, Jacques was strangled, the Mill burned, Shelley and Pete got smoke inhalation, Catherine and Josie are missing and Nadine is in the hospital, having taken too many sleeping pills. It’s kind of comical when Cooper asks how long he was out and receives the response that it all occurred the night before.

Shelley is recuperating from smoke inhalation, but is inconsolable due to the loss of Bobby Briggs (Dana Ashbrook). Cooper witness a body bag being wheeled through the hospital, and is told that it’s the body of Jacques Renault, which causes Cooper to ask if the bag is smiling. Is that the first clue the Giant provided come to pass?

At the Palmer residence, Maddy (Sheryl Lee) and Sarah (Grace Zabriskie) are talking about Maddy’s dream of Laura when Leland (Ray Wise) steps into view, his hair completely white. Sarah and Maddy look on in disbelief. Having dispatched Jacques the night before, Leland is a new man. He still sings and dances, but appears to be much more pleasant and merry now. Before the scene ends, Maddy sees the blood imprint of what I believe is Laura’s body, stirring her to screams. Watching that moment reminded me of Sheryl Lee’s performance in John Carpenter’s Vampires (“He killed a Priest!!”) – pretty much the same scream.

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Leland makes a return appearance at the Great Western, presenting himself with the same song he gave his family. Ben and Jerry, who were trying to figure out how Leo wasn’t killed, greet Leland with a song and dance and welcome him with open arms.

Truman and Cooper are at Leo’s house, examining the bullet hole in the glass. Cooper is able to perfectly piece together the attack on Bobby, though Truman believes it’s Shelly that was the victim here. Cooper notes that they need to confirm when Shelly arrived at the Mill to confirm if she was the one. A car approaches, bringing Andy (Harry Goaz) and Albert Rosenfeld (Miguel Ferrer) to the scene. Andy runs out to warn Truman and Cooper that Rosenfeld’s there, but steps on a loose board at Leo’s porch. The board flies up and smacks Andy right in the face, causing him to stumble around like a cartoon character. Up to the that point, I enjoyed the scene, but Andy’s reaction to getting hit – while funny – is just a little too drawn out for me. It’s helped by one of Rosenfeld’s classic quips, but not by much. Under the boards, Cooper and Truman discover a shoe with “Circle Brand” on the bottom and some drugs. Leo truly was into some underhanded things.

The next scene takes us to the Double R Diner. Donna (Lara Flynn Boyle) is given a pair of sunglasses while Maddy destroys hers, as she’s tired of them. She’s looking for some change. Norma (Peggy Lipton) gives Donna a note that came into the diner that reads “Look into the Meals on Wheels”. They ponder the meaning of this while a lady cradling a log looks on.

Cooper is being checked by Rosenfeld, who was sent by Gordon Cole (David Lynch). Rosenfeld explains the obvious – he was shot at close range. Rosenfeld also adds that Jacques’ death could just be some kind of small town vengeance, which makes Cooper a little defensive. Andy comes into the room and adds some more information about the Giant’s clue. Leo was under arrest in Hungry Horse, Montana on the same date of Teresa Banks’ murder. Leo has his alibi.

Mike, the one-armed shoe salesman, makes an appearance at the precinct, to sell some shoes. Truman and James listen to Laura’s tape. Truman suggests it was break in. James states the door was already open. On the cocaine in his bike, James believes Bobby did that, possibly with Leo’s help. James explains that Laura went on about playing with fire, of playing with BOB, which Truman can’t figure out. Cooper comes in and demands the other half of Laura’s necklace. James gives it to him, and returns to his cell. Cooper understands that Jacoby is actually plays a bigger role in the entire affair, than previously expected.

Donna, sunglasses and all, pays James a visit. They have a mini between-the-bars make out moment, and she tells him she’s eager for him to get out of jail.

Cooper gives Lucy and Andy a task to go through issues of Flesh World to see if they can find a picture of Teresa Banks in it. Cooper and Truman visit Jacoby at the hospital. Cooper plays hardball and wants to know how Jacoby got a hold of half of Laura’s necklace. Jacoby claimed to be trailing a red corvette, but lost him near the Old Mill Road. A motorcycle and police cruiser passed him by and went into the woods. He trailed them (James and Donna) to the place where they buried something under the rock. The necklace was what Jacoby dug up and kept. Jacoby theorizes that Laura was looking to die, not by a suicide, but as a murder. In regards to Jacques murder, Jacoby was too sedated to have done it himself, but notes there was a strange smell in the air. It wasn’t Jacques voiding his bowels (as strangulation victims do), but of scorched engine oil.

Bobby visits Shelly at the hospital, who is happily surprised to see him alive. He promises to take care of her when she gets out. She tells him that Leo knows about the two of them and Bobby assures her she’ll be alright.

Rosenfeld, Cooper, and Truman find Ed, who is waiting on Nadine. She survived her suicide attempt, but is in a coma. He explains of how he proposed to Nadine and how she lost her eye, which he shot out by way of some buckshot ricochet. At the end of the conversation, Cooper discovers the smiling bag hanging on the wall of another room. Another clue brought to light. We also learn that the food in the hospital is really bad.

Norma, at the hospital, finds Ed at Nadine’s bedside. With a pained expression, she leaves them be.

At the Double R, Bobby runs into his father (Don Davis) and joins him at his table. They talk about school, and of a vision the father has of a place where he was born and raised. He dreamed of his son at this place, happy and carefree. They have a hug that’s warm and loving, and when he awoke, the father felt optimistic about Bobby’s future. He wishes Bobby nothing the best in life and heads home. Bobby actually sheds a tear. When Norma returns to the diner, Bobby watches her talk to Hank and realizes that he (Hank) was the one who shot Leo.

Back at the Precinct, Cooper breaks down what happened with Laura. Laura went to the cabin, had a tryst with Leo, Ronette and Jacques, and also note that the blood on Laura didn’t match any of the other individuals, so there’s another unknown that’s tied to the murder. For a clearer picture of what exactly happened that night, it’s recommended that one watches the Twin Peaks movie, Fire Walk With Me. If you want to keep with the mystery, avoid that and stay with the episodes until the reveal. Then jump to the film.

At Josie’s, Pete and Truman talk about Josie and Catherine, and adjusting to them gone. Pete has a sad moment here. A call comes in from an unnamed individual looking for Josie, which Truman picks up. We’re not given much information on that.

Over at the Great Northern, Ben and Jerry are debriefed on what happened with Hank and Leo. Hank lets them know that Leo was chopping wood inside his house – unaware that Bobby was ever there – and the shot was in his neck. Ben is hoping that the arson of the Mill will be pinned on Leo, who out of it, and Catherine, who’s presumed dead. The brothers will take care of the ledger.

Audrey is brought to Blackie at One Eyed Jack’s. She displeased that she didn’t give the owner the rendezvous he expected, and Audrey goes on to state that “he wasn’t her type”. Blackie warns Audrey that anyone and everyone will be Audrey’s type when she’s there. She has to get out of that place as soon as she can.

Donna makes a phone call to Norma inquiring about the Meals on Wheels. She offers to take over the route that Laura had when she worked there, to try to find out about what happened to her (though she doesn’t reveal this to Norma.

The next scene presents a happy surprise for Lynch fans. Gersten, a little red-haired girl, welcomes the Palmer and Hayward families to a mini party where she plays the piano. Fans of Dune will recognize the girl as Alicia Witt, who played Paul Atreides’ (Kyle MacLachlan) daughter. Fans of The Walking Dead will recognize her as the villain who captured Carol for a while before Carol broke loose and killed everyone on site. Gersten plays the piano (As Witt does so professionally) and they have some small conversation. Leland’s change in hair becomes the topic of conversation and in explaining how well he felt the morning it happened, he breaks into song. I’ll admit I liked this. Ray Wise is pretty good at singing, overall. Leland goes a little overboard and passes out, but with the doctor right there, they’re able to assist him right away. When he comes to a minute later, he says he feels happy. Just a rush of blood from the head, I suppose.

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Nighttime. Cooper is in his room, about to sleep. At the same time, Audrey is awake, lying on her bed and talking to him in the hopes that he can hear her. She hopes that he received her note and that she may be a little over her head in having gotten caught up in the craziness of One Eyed Jack’s. She only wanted to assist him. We then cut back to Cooper, who is visited once again by the Giant Man. The giant passes on some riddles for Cooper to solve.

The giant mentions Cooper shouldn’t search for all of the answers at once, and that they’ll occur like a path, one after the other. “One person saw the third man. Three have seen him, yes, but not his body. One only, known to you. Ready now to talk.” The giant also points out that he forgot something and imbues Cooper with a strange yellow light before disappearing. I’m not sure I understand it either at this point, but given how well the tiniest of clues have worked out in Twin Peaks, I’m certain it’s important.

The final scene is trailing shot into the hospital. Ronette wakes up to visions of BOB. BOB rushing at her. BOB at the cabin and BOB killing Laura under flickering lights. His laugh is maniacal as he does this. So, the question becomes “Where is BOB?”