The head float in the Directorial Excess Parade rides into town very, very early this week. In the first Lynch-directed endeavor since the halcyon days of Episode 9, we join the action in progress inside the Sheriff's Station, where Hawk, COLE, Cooper, The One-Armed Man, and Andy stand in silence in front of Lucy's empty desk, all enjoying large cups of coffee (they drink coffee on this show?) brimming with cream, sugar, and more than the heaping teaspoonful of Overarching Thematic Relevance. Man, how'd they fit all that stuff in those tiny little mugs, anyway? Truman enters the room with his own cup of coffee (they drink coffee on this show?) and announces to the assemblage, "Everything's set. They're waiting for us at the Great Northern." The One-Armed Man stares directly into his mug (they drink…oh, never mind) and intones verbatim his closing filibuster from last week's episode, which helped Cooper identify the location of BOB: "A large house made of wood, surrounded by trees. The house is filled with many rooms, each alike, but occupied by different souls, night after night." But without the benefit of a dark and stormy blowing-trees kind of night or a moody Badalamenti chord of any kind, the moment passes entirely without drama as the rest of the crowd stares him up and down as if asked to pick the creepiest guy on the planet out of this modified police line-up. Whatever. I still think it's Harry Goaz, but that's just me. Cooper skips the implied and bemused "Aaaaaaanyway" this situation so richly deserves, turning instead to Truman and asking if the guests will be in the lobby. Truman assures him "full cooperation" before turning the topic matter to other devolving subplots: "Hawk, you got that warrant for Harold Smith's apartment?" Hawk says that he does, and will be on his way to check out the house after he -- wait for it -- finishes his coffee. Which they drink. On this show. Got it.
COLE turns the topic to the matter of the ABC Primetime Infomercial for the collected written works of one Jennifer Lynch, bellowing, "Pages found near the bloody towel down the train tracks from the crime site were from a diary." Cooper adds that "Donna Hayward spoke of Harold Smith having a secret diary of Laura Palmer's. Could be important." Yes, important indeed. If by "important," you mean "written by his daughter." In an episode directed by, well, her father. The suspicious glare now shifts to COLE, who avoids staring back with a mondo-guilty "I say cross-media synergy, you say opportunistic nepotism. Let's call the whole thing off" kind of look until Cooper changes the subject and the hilarity-sanctioned volume of his voice, asking COLE of his imminent departure for "Bend, Oregon." COLE shrieks, "I'm over to Bend, Oregeon. Official business. Real hush-hush." See, and he yells the words "hush-hush." Irony. Because he can't hear, people. While they're trying to track down the secret diary, they'd better get their best Bookhouse Boy on the case of those missing sacks with the dollar signs on them to find out where all of their carefully mined comedy gold has mysteriously disappeared to. And so COLE begins his trip down the receiving line, shaking hands and offering "good luck" to them all before hightailing it back behind the camera, wresting control of the equipment from whatever productions assistant's temp would otherwise have directed this week's episode. So let's just say I'll forgive him the numerous obvious excesses we are about to endure during this week's episode, for at least they will be Lynch-originated rather than Lynch-derivative. Let's just say I'm gladder that way. Much, much Glatter.
Over in the lobby of the large house made of wood surrounded by trees and filled with many rooms each alike but occupied by different souls night after night, a close-up of the The One-Armed Man's face shows him repeatedly shaking his head and muttering, "No, no, no." We pan back to show him sitting in a chair to Doc Hayward as the guests of the hotel are paraded in front of him, but no one seems to possess the amount of demon possession required for Mr. Without Chemicals to point. Pan back further to note that the guests of the hotel are being escorted, cotillion-style, by men and women in what appear to be US Naval outfits, across the lobby to stand before Gerard, while other uniformed folk litter the surrounding area bouncing tennis balls back and forth to each other off of the hardwood floor. The sound closely resembles that of popcorn popping, but even this unceasing noise is soon to be drowned out by the even louder perverse and systematic thwack-ing sound of the gratuitous artistic masturbation that pervades this entire sequence. Cut to Ben Horne walking purposefully down a hallway somewhere in the hotel, puffing furiously at his cigar, and just as he enters the lobby, the One-Armed Man pitches himself off of the chair and all manner of havoc erupts. Ben stands over the convulsing man asking, "What the hell is going on here?" Andy tries to restore the peace and Ben's spirit fingers stand at attention as the drama escalates. But Lynch's primary target during the fade-out of this scene is on the military folks walking zombie-like around the lobby bouncing, bouncing, bouncing. Seriously, was he trying to get this show canceled? I mean, it's no skin off this recapper's back. I already know how many episodes I'm contracted for before I move on to some other noble MBTV project like the final three episodes of Freaks and Geeks (just kidding) or the entire run of Picket Fences (see, now I've moved from kidding to flat-out mocking), but if you ask me, adding "moodily bouncing balls" to this show's already clunky thematic résumé wasn't getting it any closer to an elusive Season Three. I'm just sayin'.
Hey, look. A shot of a police cruiser with lights a-blazing driving on an empty road toward the camera. Does this shot look familiar to anybody? It should, seeing as it is the exact -- not as in "reshot identically," but more as in "yanked from the stock footage vaults of this unicorn-like myth called quality television" -- shot used in the pilot when Bobby and Shelley are driving past it in the other direction toward Chez Johnson in the early, early goings. Mmmmm…early Bobby. Hi, Early Bobby. I sure hope David Lynch remembered to pick up his five-cent deposit (ten cents in Michigan), seeing as he has decided to reuse, reduce, and recycle so liberally. Because so few people sticking around for Episode 14 would be expected to have watched Episode 0. C'mon.
The cruiser this time carries Hawk to Harold Smith's house. The inside of the house is in total shambles, papers and flowers scattered on the floor, the desk overturned, blah. Hawk knocks on the door, repeatedly calling out Mr. Smith's name (I don't want to backstory too furiously here, Hawk, but my guess is that he's in there somewhere), then enters the house to see Harold's Dockers-clad legs suspended in the middle of the greenhouse. Dead and hanged. The green thumb turned blue. Harold Smith wore khakis. Moving on.
The Louis Armstrong version of "What a Wonderful World" (the industry standard, if you ask me) kicks up suddenly and rings through a pan of the Palmer living room so sustained that the red battery light on the camera begins to blink, threatening to shut down production entirely. On the Twin Peaks Music Not Written by Angelo Badalamenti and Featuring More than One Dreary Minor Chord Soundtrack Extravaganza, this track is going to be one lonely, lonely cut. Sarah (Yay! Where you been, Loonykins? Mental institution? Nah. Hair salon? Oh, definitely not) and Leland are sitting in a back, er, sitting room of some kind enjoying a tall and refreshing glass of Fresca (okay, just kidding, it's really coffee) when Maddy enters. Leland smiles disturbingly and celebrates the fact that Maddy "got some Tab Cola with a shot of vanilla flavoring syrup and a sprinkle of mint julep" (or "got some coffee," is what I believe he actually says. You can practically hear Juan Valdez splashing around, Scrooge McDuck-style, through his mounds of cash generated from this show's tireless regeneration of the Coffee Bean Industry. And they say this show hurt people's careers. Well, we say it, anyway. Not Juan's, though), and Sarah asks if she "slept well." Maddy sits in between the couple and launches right in: "I've been thinking. I've really enjoyed my stay and everything, but I really feel like it's time for me to go home." She misses her job, she misses her apartment, she misses having a life of her own. Leland tells her that though they'll miss her very much, "we understand completely." As a shot of the phonograph playing this song obscures the entire frame, Sarah tells her that she's been a great proxy-daughter around the place, and Leland asks if she'll come back and visit. She will. "It's all right," he continues. "Just know that we love you very much." She loves them, too. Wonderful world, indeed.
The whole of the TPPD shows up at Harold Smith's house, where the former shut-in just kinda hangs around enjoying a big brimming cup o' dead. It probably don't taste great, but at least it's new. Cooper finds a note on his person and carries it back out into the living room: "J'ai un homme solitaire. I am a lonely soul." Oh, of course Fruitsy McScaredyCat had to write the note in French so he could be both tragic AND continental at the same time. Hawk fishes through the debris on the floor and calls Cooper and Truman over: "Hey, look at this." They look at "this," a red book with the Borders price tag barely pealed off the back reading "This is the diary of Laura Palmer" in the font MT Shameless Self Promotion Bold. Cooper takes the book. "Pay dirt." A police photographer flashes a bulb and we fade to white. White, instead of black. I'm sorry, is this Get Real?
Commercials: Now, y'all know I love the early 90s commercials and rejoice in my mom's occasional wont to rest the itchy remote trigger finger, but I've got nothing to work with this week. Sprint? Still around. Comtrex? Yeah, cold medicine = comedy gold. Buick? Well, at least this was shot way back in the day before we had flying cars. Oh, wait, we still don't have those. Stupid millennial predictions. Anyway, where are the fun, kitschy commercials of TV yesteryear? What of the "Where's the Beef?" lady? What of Mikey and the Life's Cereal he so likes? What of elaborate "Just for the taste of it" Diet Coke ads that look like the opening credits from Fame? Sigh. It's a lost cause. Help me, Alex from Stroh's. You're my only hope.
The sky is dark with poverty over Chez Johnson this morning as Shelley "Bride of Frankenstein" Johnson and Bobby "Son of God" Briggs sit at the kitchen table reconciling some finances. Leo sits in his wheelchair, head down and eyes closed. Shelley, perpetually wearing her Double R uniform because it gives her the look of struggling blue collardom (the collar! It's actually blue!) announces, "Well, we have bills here that total $1,014." Bobby, reigning deity of the sovereign nation of Flannelonia, sits grungily (and I mean that in the nicest way possible. Even nicer than that, in fact) beside her, cigarette dangling, calculating, "Including insurance money, that leaves you with…" Shelley reads the written figure for him: "Forty-two dollars." Bobby optimistically volleys that "it's a good start," and Shelley wants to know how she's supposed to make it on forty-two dollars for the month. Bobby becomes incredulous, acting briefly like the seventeen year-old he was cast to play back in the pilot when he was already, I am sure, angling toward his late twenties: "We? Shelley, I can't keep telling my mom and dad that I'm spending the night at Mike's. What time is it? I'm missing Economics as it is." Shelley narrows her eyes ever so and spits back, "'We' meant me and Leo." Uh-oh. Trouble in Hotty Paradise? I must say I find this development quite disheartening. For if the truly beautiful can't see through to work out their problems, how can that give hope to the rest of us, the average, the ugly, and the otherwise plain? Regardless, Shelley points out that Bobby promised to take care of her, and she unearths a necklace he gave her and insists he take it back, so badly do they need the dough. Standing and leaning against the kitchen counter, Shelley hazards another futile flip through the Twin Peaks Monopoly "Chance" deck, as Bobby asks, "What about his truck?" What about second prize in a beauty contest? But it's no go, you see, because, " The police impounded it. They said if it was [sic] used in the commission of a crime, it becomes property of the state." Bobby responds that Leo was never actually charged with anything, and Shelley divests Bobby of his inherent ability to hot the place up with but a glance, seeing how cleanly she effortlessly bites his whole head right off: "I didn't make the rules!" Further quarrel ensues. Bobby, a former business partner of the entire vegetable crop sitting to them at the table, offers, "Leo was into a lot of different stuff with a lot of different people. He was in it for the money." Which is unique, considering the number of drug dealers and inveterate arsonists who pursue such lines of work for the deep spiritual satisfaction that is part and parcel of such employment. But perhaps that really was Leo's impetus, as Shelley asks Bobby to use a little logic: "Look around you. You really think that Leo had money?" Bobby thinks he did and does, and that it must be hidden somewhere. And, as if trying to join in on the conversation with his signature line, "Leo needs a new pair of thieving con artists. Intelligent ones," suddenly Leo produces a high-pitched screaming sound without moving an inch. Then he spits, and the saliva continues dripping from his mouth for the rest of the scene. He spits again and whispers in a high-pitched voice, "New shoes." Shelley practically jumps out the window Bugs-Bunny-style, leaving an exact silhouette of her figure in the glass she's just leapt through. Bobby leaps up and away from the table, and the two cower by the sink as Shelley repeatedly (well, twice) yells, "He's alive!" Bobby approaches Leo slowly and gathers the courage to, for reasons I remain at a loss to fully comprehend, pinch Leo's temple really, really hard where his brain (and the beginning of his hairline) used to be. He saunters back to Shelley: "He ain't alive, Shelley." Shelly points out that he talked, and Bobby decides it was gas. Leo: "New shoes." And so Junior Perry Mason turns the topic to shoes, asking Shelley if Leo had bought any -- wait for it -- new shoes in the past few weeks. He hadn't, but "He did have me take in a pair of boots for repair." Last week. Bobby sends her to get the receipt, then turns to Leo and confides, "New shoes. Want some new shoes, Leo? Give us what we want, I'll buy you the whole damn shoe store." Leo moans extensively and spits all over the table once more. "New shoes." If by "shoes" you mean, "active brain tissue." Poor Leo. All dumb and stuff.
Ben's office. I'm guessing Doc Hayward has invented some kind of "Heroin Patch CQ" (The power to calm, the power to comfort, the power to never have to act out that scene in Trainspotting with the baby on the ceiling), as I have never seen a heroin withdrawal end in such impressively record time. Audrey looks a little haggard, but more in an "I had three recaps due in two days" kind of way more than an "I am experiencing a chemical deprivation which modern medical science has proven can make the human heart actually explode" kind of way. Really, she doesn't even look that bad at all. Here's a tip to all you would-be directors with designs on making a non-glamorizing movie about the destructive nature of addiction: "straightened hair" does not constitute a tenable withdrawal symptom. Ben sits at his desk and Audrey hovers above him, ready for the confrontation. "Daddy, I know about One-Eyed Jacks." Ben initially attempts ignorance, but Audrey comes at him with brothel fun facts ahoy: "I know about Blackie, I know about Emory Battis, I know about Ronette, and I know about Laura." Ben tosses out a slightly more committal, "Oooookay." Audrey goes in for the kill: "I was there. I saw you. You remember Prudence? I wore a little white mask?" And so "Bad Ben Bad" Ben "Whatcha gonna do when they come for you" Horne looks down, snagged. Audrey asks how long Ben has owned One-Eyed Jacks. Five years. Did he know Laura worked there? "She was only there a brief time," but yes, he knew. But he never encouraged it: "She asked if she could work in the department store. Battis sent her without my knowing." Audrey asked if Ben slept with her, and even the glacial pause that transpires wouldn't have been enough time elapsed for Laura to have turned eighteen, even if she'd still been alive, before he nods in assent and whispers "Yes." He looks at a black and white photo of her on his desk, in his office, a pretty strange place for it considering her role of part-time concubine and not-at-all friend of his daughter. I keep a photograph of every prostitute I've ever…um, forget I said that. This happened to a friend of mine. Anyway, Audrey asks if her killed her. Ben slumps down in his chair and pauses for the duration of six episodes of this show and the entire run of Mulholland Drive before miserably whispering, "I loved her." Awwwww.
Commercials: Little Caesar's is offering its deee-licious Family Choice Pizza Deal for only $8.99! But only until January 6, 1991. Hurry! Run! Pizza pizza!
Down at the Double R, Shelley tenuously approaches Norma and asks if she can steal a moment of her time. Sure. What's up? Well this is: "With Leo coming home and all, I'm supposed to be there to watch him, and it looks like it's gonna be a full-time thing." Ah, yes. The perfect financial cushion for the home-cared-for invalid on the go: a zero-income household. Well, you know the old expression after all, "Feed a fever, starve a coma." Shelley starts to cry and tells Norma she'll have to quit, "just for a little while." A, um, little while? Sure, considering Leo's positive mental progression thus far from radish-like to, um, radish-esque, I'm sure he'll be stepping out on the town with his wife anytime now for a night of singing, dancing, spooking the remainder of the town's inhabitants with his overall post-trauma creepiness, and maybe even a little spousal abuse thrown in if he's really feeling himself. She cries and cries, telling Norma "I promised myself I wasn't going to do this." Norma tells her it's fine, and Shelley apologizes further: "I love you. I love working here. I don't want to let you down." Norma tells her that her job will be waiting for her whenever she wants to come back. Seeing as there are never any customers in the Double R during moments of personal conflict anyway, Norma is probably happy for the budget cut for now.
The good kind of soapy drama is soon to be compromised by the kitchsy 50s electric guitar that seems to follow around this show's more annoying characters during their more annoying moments. Norma looks toward the door to spy Norma "Be aggressive, B-E aggressive" Hurley and Ed "Be suicidal, B-E suicidal" Hurley walk through the front door and take a seat at the counter. Nadine spins around on the stool while Norma looks on in crazy shock. Rather than even checking the board for Today's Special of "Norma and Shelley's Salty Tears Peppered with Regret," Nadine begins barking her desire for a chocolate shake. Norma walks over to their section of counter, and Nadine stares her down: "Hi. Norma. Say, how long have you been working here?" Norma laughs and casually tosses out her response, "Well, it's twenty years this April." A glacial pause ensues, one so extended that the truthful answer to Nadine's inquiry finds itself changing from "Well, it's twenty years this April" to "Well, it's forty years this April" to "Well, it's sixty years this April" to "Well, since super-intelligent hash-slinging cyborgs have taken over the Earth and my carbon-based counterpart, this "Norma" of which you speak, has been replaced by me, the Norma3000. No disassemble, Stephanie" to "I am now dead." Finally, Ed breaks into a huge grin and Nadine gets the joke: "Oh, you kidder. What a kidder!" Ed volunteers that Norma has been working at the Double R for about "six weeks," and repeats it again until Norma figures out the ruse and non-believably agrees. Nadine orders two chocolate shakes, and all life in town comes screeching to a sudden halt, the saloon doors swing closed, and the rollicking version of "The Entertainer" previously lighting up the player piano slips off its track while the place goes silent. Then Ed tacks on a "coffee" to Nadine's order and the world appropriately resumes spinning on its axis, free of the stilted Old West imagery I feel so inclined to impose that never really happened. More banter. Shelley steps away to get "the shake [hushed silence, Old West imagery] and coffee [said resuming of Earth spinning on its axis]." Norma inquires, "Europe?" Nadine looks adoring at Ed and explains, "Yeah. My parents loved it so much they're still there, can you believe it? And they said it was okay for me to stay over at Eddie's." She turns to her husband and earnestly asks him if the house they're staying at belongs to his parents or hers, and Ed displays a deft sense of comic timing that briefly makes me wish he had become more famous when he completely ignores the question and looks straight at Norma: "That's right!" Heh. Even Nadine laughs at that a little, perhaps not aware that her ability to laugh in the presence of deftly timed comic actors was about to give way to a career direction more along the lines of laughing at lines like, "You're right, honey! This amazing inflatable air mattress can be used practically anywhere!"
Always the social dynamo, Nadine wants to clear the air that it's okay Ed is taking her out. Norma confirms that it's fine, but then she ups the fish-eye quotient to three (two of Norma's, one of Nadine's, and one blown-out vacuous ocular orifice that can only communicate an emotional response if that emotion happens to be, "I am a pirate") when Nadine continues, "Eddie told me you broke up." Ed looks very, very miserable. Shelley brings over the shake (gasp!) and coffee (sigh…), and Nadine holds it up and announces, "I am just so happy" before the glass spontaneously shatters in her hands. A clear sign, of course, that even God doesn't like it when the good folks of Twin Peaks imbibe any other beverage than the one so adamantly ordained. Nadine spins on the stool and holds up a bloody, shake-soaked hand and comments on her clumsiness of late. The stool comes to rest with her facing Ed, and she moves in on him, practically threatening, "I am so happy, I could just kiss you to death." And then she gives it her darndest.
Chez Johnson. Leo comas the place up, sitting alone in a corner. Through the front door walk Bobby (hi, Bobby) Briggs and The Mullet Formerly Known as Mike (or is it the other way around?), and Mike gets real close to Leo and asks, "Hank did this?" Bobby confirms that he did. Bobby begins speeching Leo on the boots he went to pick up, prompting Leo to slam his head against the naughty-rec-room-wood-paneling wall behind him, spit elaborately, and squeak, "new shoes." Bobby leans in, "I know you too damn well, Leo. There's something about these shoes. Isn't there? Huh? There's something with these shoes?" The Once and Future Mullet suggests that something is hidden inside of the boot, and Bobby leaves briefly and returns with a hammer. He slams the heel off of the boot and unearths a microcassette from inside. Leo spits. Bobby implores Leo from the floor in front of him to "stop spittin', man." Bobby stares hopefully at the tape. "It's not money, man. But who knows." One can only hope that when Bobby finally tracks down a microcassette player that he finds the extended dance mix of Hurley and the Hurlettes Star Search submission of "Just You" useful, because heaven help me, I can't even remember what's supposed to be on that tape.
Cooper sits inside the conference room at the Sheriff's Station talking to his sage and trusty assistant Tape Recorder and sitting to his best friend Tray of Donuts. On the table sit many the scrap of paper, the shredded remains of Laura's secret diary. Cooper tells Diane that the evidence he is gathering from these pages supports the proclamations of the One-Armed Man (because what self-respecting teenage girl doesn't have a diary that includes entries reading, "Geometry is really hard. Sometimes, school can be a total bummer. Other than that, made out with a fetus, walked with fire, ran from BOB who was ingeniously inhabiting my Cheerleading Vermont Teddy Bear, and bought a red velvet hat to top off the midget's already pimpish ensemble"?), adding, "there are intimations of abuse and molestation on several occasions." Tellingly, BOB was described in the diary as being "a friend of her father's." And then there's this: "Someday I'm going to tell the world about Ben Horne. I'm going to tell them who Ben Horne really is." He's…Audrey Horne's father, so it makes total, contrivance-be-damned sense when a knock on the conference room door brings Audrey into the room. She tells Cooper that she spoke to her father, and then goes on to retread the conversation that she had with Ben about sleeping with Laura and owning One-Eyed Jacks. Truman walks in as Audrey asks, "Are you going to arrest him?" Cooper tells her not to say anything and sends her out. Cooper reminds Truman that the One-Armed Man grabbed his arm and fell off his chair "when a certain person walked into the room" that morning at the Great Northern. Without chemicals, he points. Cooper needs a warrant. "A warrant for the arrest of Benjamin Horne." Dun-DUN-duuuuuuun!
And over to Ben's office we go, where a meeting with Tojamura reveals that Ben has checked he -- er, I mean "his" references and that the deal is confirmed for the Ghostwood property. But just as he finishes this Ghostwood Propaganda Speech he has now delivered to most of the nations protected under the UN's peace accord umbrella and perhaps even a country or two known only on the map demarcated by a white square surrounded by a black dotted line inside of which is written "Disputed Zone," the door to the office bursts open and Cooper, Truman, Hawk, and Andy" enter on the grounds of "police business." Ben fumes that he's "in a meeting" and would like for the cavalcade of law-enforcing types to be "a little more specific." Well, then, okay. "You're wanted for questioning in the murder of Laura Palmer. Is that specific enough for you?" Go, Truman! Burn! Ben pronounces them "insane," apologizes to Tojamura in that "and I would have gotten away with it if it weren't for you meddling murder investigators" way he's bared in mind since the Norwegians were leaving, the Norwegians were leaving, and begins to leave the office out the back door, threatening Cooper with his knowledge of "people in high places." He then adds, "I'm going to go out for a sandwich," which I really like. Hawk and Andy cuff him and drag him out. Maybe because he never promised that he'd have himself a big cup of coffee with that sandwich.
Trees. Oh, how they moodily blow.
Palmer house. The needle scratches off the end of the record on the phonograph machine, because Angelo Badalamenti's latest release Miraculously Sustained Chords for Moodily Blowing Trees has made everybody very, very sleepy. And there's one of the stupefied now. A hand reaches for a step, and we pan up to Sarah Palmer climbing head first down the steps. She reaches the floor, a look of "I know every Friday is Crab Soccer Night, but sometimes I just get so tired" crossing her face, and she comes to rest on the floor. Shots of the Palmer living room on Crawly Floor Cam. Ceiling fan. Phonograph. Ceiling fan. Floor. Couch. Ceiling fan. Steps. Floor. The sound of the Twin Peaks third-season contracts being slightly amended to include a continuous loop of Craig T. Nelson and Roseanne Arnold performing late-season episodes of their own flagging-quality shows IN THE NUDE in this time slot rather than subjecting the world's remaining audience (me and my brother) to another second of A Night at the Incomprehensible. In the nude. That's full-frontal, people. Which would you rather watch?
Police station. Ben stands defiant as he's dragged into the foyer and then down to the holding cell by Hawk and Andy. Cooper and Truman turn around to spy the Log Lady in the lobby. She speaks, apropos of no one caring: "We don't know what will happen or when." No, you certainly don't. Oh, more? Sorry. "But there are owls in the Roadhouse." Cooper asks, "But something is happening. Isn't it, Margaret?" She says it is. The world begs to differ. And I mean BEGS.
The moon. Moodily blowing fog. Mooooooooody.
And now, a silly ol' subplot made suddenly brilliant. Pete Martell makes up a sandwich and a glass of milk (awwww. Raise your hand if you want Pete to be your kindly ol' grampa) in his totally darkened kitchen. He hears sound coming from the front door, and turns to see the mysterious Mr. Tojamura enter the room. Pete is terrified. But not so scared as he's about to become, when the previously stoic Asian businessman grabs Pete by the shoulders and begins kissing his passionately. The plate and glass crash to the floor, but Pete pushes him away and yells, "I don't care WHAT I did in college. It was only experimentation." Oh, wait. Delete delete delete. Weird how he doesn't say that at all. Totally violated in a way that would ordinarily require him to run away and tell a parent, a friend, or a trusted member of the clergy, Pete pushes Tojamura away and growls in unfamiliar anger, "Say, look here, buster, just watch it." Tojamura continues courting, "Since the moment we met, I have been strangely attracted to you." Pete tells him to get the hell out, so Tojamura is forced to utilize some previously unseen feminine wiles in speaking in a decisively Piper Laurie-esque voice, "There's something about your eyes. So warm and deep." Back to Tojamura voice, in case we didn't get it (Pete doesn't), "and blue as the sky." She takes off the glasses. "It's me!" Hey, it's Katherine! And much as I was intrigued by the radical innovation of a little man/man action in the 50+ set (on second thought, ew) in primetime, it's nice to have Katherine back. Pete thinks so, too, hugging her and crying, "You look terrible! Just terrible!" No two men getting heavy on Twin Peaks for us today. No need for scouring the OED for alternate meanings of "moodily blowing." Wow, that was really tasteless.
Whoosh, whoosh. Trees of the flora species Moodus Blowius. This imagery, sadly, will not make like a tree and get outta here.
Back in the Palmer House of Lynchian Angles, the phonograph spins, Sarah Palmer crawls along the floor, and she looks up to an empty spot of living room to see a large white horse appear before her in a spotlight. The horse disappears. Close-up on the phonograph. Medium shot on the phonograph. Pan over to a suited Leland primping before a mirror, straightening his tie and preparing to film one of those ridiculously revealing Bravo promos we've talked so much about.
Roadhouse. Hey, who defrosted Julee Cruise from the cryogenic hell she'd gone to? And, um, why? She sings and sings. Over in a quiet nook, Donnna "Hurl, Interrupted" Hayward and James "My guitar only plays umbilical chords" Hurley sit in a booth, moodily. Of course. Donna asks James if he'd heard about Harold Smith, and James pronounces the situation "nobody's fault." Donna thinks he was in pain, and Michael Stipe takes notes from his Athens apartment when James retorts, "Everybody's hurt inside." Sometimes.
Donna watches from her booth as Cooper, Truman, and the Log Lady enter. Julee sings and sings.
James tells Donna that Maddy is going home. Donna finds it strange that Maddy never mentioned it to her. Shot of Cooper's table. Donna's table. Julee's red dress. My nausea and dizziness can, for once, not be completely attributed to the presence of James Hurley. My world is in turmoil. Suddenly, a close-up on Cooper shifts us to his POV and Julee disappears from the stage (not to mention the Roadhouse, my mind, and the national consciousness, all in one fell swoop) and is replaced by My Giant in spotlight, who twice repeats, "It is happening again."
Damn. I'm home alone and all creeped out right now. Why? Try this on. Leland looks in the mirror. The reflection is of BOB. They both smile. Leland's non-reflected face becomes BOB. He laughs. I need to leave now. It's not the best special effect I've ever seen, but it's plenty effective enough for me to say, oh, I don't know, wet myself? Not that I wet myself in horrible, horrible fear. Did I mention I work all alone in my big house? Um. This happened to a friend of mine. I did not just wet my pants. Leland snaps on plastic surgical gloves. Just then Maddy runs down the steps yelling that something smells likes it's burning. She stops at the landing to see Sarah lying on the floor before turning to dear Uncle Leland, who turns back into the demonically possessed version of himself. Maddy screams and tries to make a break, but he grabs her and takes her down in alternating slow (BOB) motion and regular (Leland) speed. But make no mistake about it, they both want her dead. After smacking her around a bit, Leland begins to cry and hug Maddy, calling her "Laura." A lot. BOB kisses her. Maddy bleeds and wails. Leland screams, "Leland says you're going back to Missoula, Montana!" Damn, I hate it when demonically possessed child murderers refer to themselves in the third person. How pretentious. He then slams her head into a large framed picture on the wall, and Maddy drops dead to the ground. Leland picks up Maddy's limp hand and inserts a small piece of paper underneath the nail on the fourth finger. My Giant stares at Cooper. My friend who wet himself before calls his mom and questions the parenting skills that permitted her children to watch this. Poor, poor my friend. The Elderly Room Service Waiter resurfaces out of nowhere and approaches Cooper at the Roadhouse: "I'm so, so sorry." Shots all around the Roadhouse again. Donna cries, Cooper stares, Julee sings, Bobby -- oh, hi Bobby. How are you? Please don't look at my pants. The ones I did not just wet. Sigh.