By Djb
Hi. This episode is plot-driven as hell and even more dialogue-heavy than usual. Sit back and get comfortable, folks. We're all gonna be here a while.
This week on Twin Peaks: Rejoice! Mom fell asleep at the wheel and accidentally documented a slice of Americana at the turn of the last decade by not pausing out the commercials this week. This poses quite the interesting sociological experiment, and we inhabitants of the future have quite a bit to learn from these artifacts: How did people in that prehistoric eon that was the early 90s live? What were their ways, the language, their customs? Let's take a trip back to the Spring of 1990 and find out!
As the first commercial after the theme song indicates, natives indigenous to urban areas during this period often ate at some kind of local Irish bistro apparently named after its founder, a Mr. McDonald. This restaurant apparently focused on the preparation of hamburgers, french fries, and chicken-like products not actually made of chicken. As the commercial for this "McDonalds" indicates, their clientele was diverse, indeed! A man in a business suit walks down a city street wheeling a baby carriage (how radical!) and yakking importantly on a cell phone approximately the size of cable car. Across town, a woman in an office building conducts herself some wheelin' and dealin' corporate business of her own (even more radical!) while holding yet another baby in her other arm. I guess this was during that period in the very early 90s when McDonalds was mixing fertility drugs in with the beaks and salt of their McNuggets and what-have-you. How else to explain this fast food induced babyfest taking over the streets of this bustling, impersonal urban center? And more importantly, dear viewer, where, oh where, could those beleaguered city-dwellers go to seek sanctuary from the sheer, brow-beating affliction that was everyday life? And how 'bout if you were hungry, to boot? A cloyingly sincere, Randy Newman-discovers-the-joys-of-helium voice thinks it's time for us to find out:
There's a newfangled daddy, comin' down the street
A modern mamma, movin' to the beat
In a high-tech world, you need an oasis
A place where you can get you get back to basics
[cue the jaunty dancers and other assorted circus folk performing some all-get-out high-wire trickery in their Jerome Robbins choreography and their "Yeah, like I'd put that crap in my body" physical contours.]
Food, folks, and fun
Food, folks, and fun
Food, folks, and fun
You're the one, McDonalds
La la la la la la la
Food, folks, and fun!
"In a high-tech world, you need an oasis." From what? The daily rigors of playing Lemonade Stand on your Apple IIE? Sitting around waiting for Q-Bert to be invented for a personal computing interface so you don't have to hang around the arcade to get your fix? Tough times, technology wise. Tough times. And who told "oasis" and "basics" they were allowed to rhyme? Anyway.
Dissolve from the opening credits waterfall to a shot of Audrey inside the Great Northern, wearing a flaming red "sex me" dress and leaning against what appears to be a wall-size replica of the immunity idol from Survivor (sorry for the anachronistic cross-reference, but it really does look like it). From around the corner comes Cooper, informing Diane and us alike that "I'll be heading to the Sheriff's after breakfast, and from there we'll be heading on to Laura Palmer's funeral." As Cooper walks into the Great Northern's dining room, he encounters Audrey, now standing in front of a fireplace and bidding him a "Good morning, Colonel Cooper" with a right-handed salute. He corrects her in a subtly delivered, faux-Dragnet style, "Just Agent, Audrey. Special Agent." Snare Drum Shuffle rages on as he invites her to have breakfast with him. She initially refuses (she has no time for any of food, folks, or fun this morning, it seems), but is quick to change her mind when Cooper compliments, "Audrey, that perfume you're wearing is incredible." Oh, ye both of silken skin and perfectly coiffed hair. Your flirty ways are so fabulous to behold. They sit at a nearby table, and Cooper is quick to ask Audrey to write her name on a provided piece of paper. While she does so, he flips open the note slid under his hotel room door reading, "Jack with One Eye." He looks at her handwriting, apparently deems it a match, and informs her, "Audrey, there's something you'd like to tell me." Vintage Audrey responds in her typical cadence, that subtly endearing mix of "coy vixen with the perfect smile" and "I'm just lost -- LOST -- without my meds," asking, "There is?" Cooper: "You slipped this note underneath my door night before last." Audrey: "I did?" See what I mean there? Cooper inquires as to what "One-Eyed Jacks" is, exactly, and she tells him as euphemistically as possible (he is, after all, an elder) that it's a place "up North" where men "go" and women "work." Hookers, Coop. They have sex with men for money. Cooper asks if Laura worked there, and Audrey tells him she doesn't know. She elaborates: "Laura worked at my father's department store." At the perfume counter. Cooper makes the Ronette Pulaski connection, but quickly steers the subject away from the investigation with the warning, "Audrey, that rightward slant in your handwriting indicates a romantic nature. A heart that yearns. Be careful." And though this statement signifies the first in a procession of tacit admissions that numerous extenuating circumstances prevent the two of them from being involved as more than friends, Audrey smiles broadly in the knowledge that she has gotten under the skin of a cosmopolitan, dashing out-of-towner who possesses the good graces to flirt using the word "yearn," rather than any of those words used by the drunken, flannel-clad old men shouting out Audrey's name from their porches in conjunction with words like "purdy," "real purdy," and "fine, fine, filly that one is" for the better part of her last eighteen years living in the forest. That was the longest sentence...ever.
Lucy and Truman rush in, desperate for Cooper to overlook one small, teasing little moment at the end of last week's episode. Y'know, the one where he called Truman in the middle of the night and threatened to shoot down the whole series mid-quirkiness by revealing Laura's killer? Cooper sends Audrey off, and Truman and Lucy are quick to take her place at the table. Cooper takes his time bidding them both an "absolutely beautiful morning," orders two more cups of coffee for the table, and practically sings his breakfast to the nearby waitress: "Short stack of griddle cakes, melted butter, maple syrup lightly heated, slice of ham." Apparently Cooper believes that the expectant faces across the table have shown up at the Great Northern because the town is in crisis over that one unsolvable mystery, the greatest in the history of this torn apart village: what on Earth is Cooper having for breakfast? A COMMUNITY IN TURMOIL MUST KNOW! And so he continues to editorialize on the matter: "Nothing beats the taste sensation when maple syrup [Cooper claps his hands together so hard that I'm sure one more clap of equal measure would provoke all of the lights in the Great Northern's dining room to go out simultaneously, as would befit another great pre-millennial invention of this bygone era] collides with ham." Finally, Truman can take no more, leaning in and whispering the one question on every man, woman, and child's lips during this time in TV history (or one of two questions, depending on when you, the individual, perceive as being the real end of the 'Where's the Beef' Era), "Who killed Laura Palmer?" Cooper takes a slow swig of his coffee and, on his perfectly paced internal schedule, starts in: "Harry, let me tell you about the dream I had last night." He tells them that his "dream is a code waiting to be broken. Break the code, solve the crime." He recounts pretty much the entire dream as we saw it (and which we subsequently read the bracingly brilliant recap about, of course), adding a few interesting things I'm not sure were stated explicitly. First of all, the one-armed man, "Mike," contacted Cooper through "a phone call," the tattoo that was on Mike's shoulder, before he cut off his arm, read, no really, "Fire, walk with me," and after Bob vowed to kill again, "Mike shot him." Confused yet? No? Yeah, well, wait three episodes. Truman proposes that there is a connection with the earthbound Mullet Mike and Bobby, but Cooper tells him that "it was a different Mike and a different Bob." Cooper, appropriately, offers a delightfully Cooper-esque speech about the nature of dreams, continuing his story right on into the red room and recounting much of what TLMFAP had to say about being filled with secrets and chewing yummy, en vogue kinds of gum. And all that. After Laura kisses the older Cooper in the red room, she "whispered the name of the killer in my ear." Yeah, well, who was it? Cooper: "I don't remember." Each of Truman and Lucy whisper a defeated "damn," before quietly muttering, "Huzzah! Maybe this whole show thing can be prolonged indefinitely. Second season contract negotiations aren't just pipe dreams after all. I'll have to call my temp agency and tell them I'm not coming in for a whole...couple of more months!" Oh, and then Truman gets a call on his walkie-talkie that "there's fight over at the morgue." Cooper ruefully mutters, "Albert," and I giggle excitedly against my will.
Best. Scene. Ever. It really, really is. This may very well be the only scene in the history of television that begins with an establishing shot of a dead teenager and ends with me falling over myself in helpless giggles and rewinding it to the beginning four distinct times just to get an official count of how many belly laughs it inspires. Eleven. The central conflict is that Doc Hayward has been designated to see that Laura's body find its way to a certain place and a certain time so it can participate in the ceremony of a certain funeral (y'know, hers). But Albert has not finished his numerous "tests," and he refuses to concede the body back to the town just out of some misguided sense of sympathy, as this is the middle of an FBI murder investigation, one which saw an autopsy Albert believes was the result of giving the corpse a shot of bourbon, grabbing a hack-saw, and chopping at will. Inside the morgue, Andy and Ben Horne stand aside as Doc Hayward screams that Albert has "no compassion," and Albert rants that he's got "compassion running out of my nose, pal. I'm the Sultan of Sentiment." There's the first
belly laugh, by the way. Let us so cleverly deem it "#1." Hayward stands tough as Albert goes toe-to-toe with him, and Albert defends his rather callous work ethic as such: "Doctor Hayward, I have traveled thousands of miles and apparently several centuries [There's #2] to this forgotten sinkhole [this is more of an aftershock chortle than a fresh guffaw. We'll call it #2a] in order to perform a series of tests. Now I do not ask you to understand these tests, I'm not a cruel man [Ouch! A blistering #3], I just ask you to get the hell out of my way so that I can finish my work, is that clear?" A Springer-esque shoving match ensues between Hayward and Albert, (without the chair throwing, the TJ Maxx-clad lesbian strippers from some state no one has ever heard of, or a "final thought" of any kind, but reminiscent for some reason anyway), and Ben authoritatively steps in to separate the two. He accomplishes nothing even close to garnering any respect from Albert with this suave introduction: "Mr. Rosenfeld, please." Wrong pronunciation. Albert looks away, almost disappointed that they're making it so damn easy for him to believe in the inherent place on the food chain of these provincial individuals. Anyway, #4. Ben appreciates the value of Albert's work, he says, but considering he has been appointed to represent Laura's parents, "I must insist that we consider the feelings of the Palmer family as well." Albert retorts that, being a community leader, he finds it logical that Ben's pithy statement would include a didactically "irritating method of expressing yourself" [Okay, punk. Leave Ben out of this, you stinkin' bully. That's #5 anyway, though], tapping Ben on the jacket lapel with what appears to be a pair of gardening shears [at which Ben looks slowly down, resolutely sickened by the presence of this small, small man. Subtler and subtler. #6] and Albert puts not too fine a point on it all by appealing to Ben's ego the only way he knows how: "Stupidity, however, is not an inherent trait [Awwww. I'm all warm fuzzies over here. That'd be #7]." Albert hopes that they can all understand that he needs to conduct these here tests. "I must perform them now," he orders, grabbing a nearby drill, pumping the trigger twice [#8] to ensure for maximum skull penetration, puts on his safety goggles [#9] and continues, "I've got a lot of cutting and pasting to do, gentlemen, so please, why don't you return to your porch rockers and resume whittling [#10]." Hayward pulls the plug on the Death Drill and insists that he's taking control of the body, and he and Albert go to the mat once more. At this moment, Truman and Cooper burst into the morgue and the tension increases. Albert tells Cooper that he wants no interference from the "hulking boob" that is Truman, and Harry tells Albert that he's had enough of Albert's insults. Then he clocks him one. Albert goes flying across the room and has his blow luckily softened by the conveniently located, still-stiffening body of Laura Palmer. Albert whines to Cooper: "He hit me." Cooper, equitable as always, deadpans, "Well, I'm sure he meant to do that." Ha! Best one yet. #11. Hee hee and more hee. Dead girls = comedy gold. Cooper demands that Albert release the girl to her family, and suddenly the room is empty but for Cooper and Laura. He looks somberly down on her discolored body. He's sad and blue, she's dead and blue. What of all the post-mortem hilarity of just a few moments back? Hee hee. Dead girls. It's just too rich.Over at the Palmer house, Leland occupies his mind with the latest melodramatic fun times of Invitation to Love, as a nurse administers a shot. The doorbell rings, and said nurse retires to answer it. From off camera, he hears a voice bid him, "Uncle Leland?" When he fails to respond, she gives it another attempt, and then we too are offered the chance to see who the voice is coming from. Bah! It's Sheryl Lee. In an awful, awful brunette wig and novelty red glasses so big it looks like she won them in a spirited round of Wac-a-Mole at the Twin Peaks County Carnival. He stands and walks toward her, repeatedly asking, "Madeline?" No, Laura. Laura with giant glasses and a brunette wig. Pay attention to the recap, Leland. But he seems to find some kind of solace in this Madeline character (herewith Sally Jesse Laura Palmer), and they hug and hug some more right on into commercial.
Commercials: "It's more than a drama. It's more than a musical. It's a totally new form of television." That's right, kids. On an ill-fated Wednesday night this fall, it's the premier (and finale?) of Steven Bochco's I-accidentally-chewed-the-morphine fever dream, Cop Rock. Even with ten years of astonished retrospect under my belt, I still can't believe they allowed this to happen. Oh, and I didn't know "laughably misguided and heinously objectionable crap" constituted something ABC is calling "a totally new form of television." I guess I was wrong.
Over at the Double R, Norma sits in booth, looking downcast, talking to a man in a cheap suit about "Hank," who is described as Norma's husband. His parole hearing is tomorrow, and Cheap Suit wants Norma to know that Hank has been a model prisoner. After his parole hearing and with Norma's "full support before the board, he could be released shortly thereafter." Norma seems the kind of thrilled that you are when you're near weeping bitter, bitter tears. That is to say: not thrilled at all. The swarthiness of cheap Suit leaks through the checkered polyester even further when he asks Norma where Hank will procure work in order to become a functional member of society once more, and Norma assures him that he'll be gainfully employed rather quickly, considering she owns the Double R. And, rather unbelievably, Cheap Suit takes a cursory stab at some of that patented parole officer pick-up material you've heard so much about, particularly effective in not wooing Norma because her murderer husband is getting out of prison in like [tick tock tick tock tick] now. The only reason I'm even discussing this in such detail is to make each and every viewer of this show love dear Norma as much as I do, and she rebuffs his vague and unctuous advances by telling him that she usually tells potential courtiers that "I have a homicidally jealous husband who is doing three to five for manslaughter. But he expects to be a productive member of society. Real soon." Easy comeback there. I guess he hasn't been in this line of work very long.
Cooper grins wide once more this week as he and Truman are on an outdoor walkabout toward the Johnson house. Ducks on the lake is the source of such excitement for Cooper today. Truman brings Cooper up to date on Leo's elusive bad-guy status around town, telling him, "Leo's one of those guys you keep on a list and keep your eye on. So far we haven't caught him with his paws in the cookie jar." They interrupt Leo chopping wood, wearing overalls with one strap left unfastened and hanging waywardly. Is he, um, trying out for the New Kids on the Block today? Leo "who the hell are you"s Cooper, and Truman introduces him before the questioning begins. After Cooper lobs a softball query and Leo indicates he has no interest in polite conversation, Cooper launches right into the interrogation. "Did you know Laura Palmer?" Leo tells him no, and Cooper asks how well they knew each other. Leo indicates Cooper please see his response about the part where he didn't know her, and Cooper flashes that beaming I-love-being-so-much-smarter-than-you grin and informs him, "You're lying." And he is. Leo tells him that he knew who she was. But he was in Butte on the night of the murder. Incidentally, that scene was about one-billionth the length of any other scene so far in this episode, and yet every time I rewound it to recap a line or quote, I just kept rewinding and rewinding and rewinding until I found myself right smack in the thick of the merit-free yet strangely mesmerizing previews for Cop Rock. I just kept doing it. Over and over and over. And this was by design, mind you. Not by accident. Sad, that thing which is my life.
Funeral home. Bobby "Captain of the Football Team, Captain of My Heart" Briggs stands alone in a room, back to the camera, before a crucifix. He slowly begins to raise his arms in the style represented before him, and I can't fully call his decision to do so blasphemous, considering, y'know, Bobby is God. And God works it so nicely in a suit here, I feel inclined to add. I'm growing my hair like Bobby's to look just like him. The current status of things is that I still look exactly like me but with a too-poofy haircut, and I'm a sprinkle of powder and a Victorian waistcoat away from playing George Washington in my elementary school's Independence Day Pageant. Without Dana Ashbrook's cheekbones, that haircut promises less "Renegade Rebel Bad Boy" and more "18th Century Classical Composer." Hi, Bobby. I still like you. His revelry is interrupted by the major, who enters to inform Bobby that "this may be a good time for a brief discussion." The two sit down to each other, and the major begins another sadly futile bonding speech with his son, telling him, "Each man is responsible for his own actions, each action contributing to the greater good." Bobby wants to know just what the hell is so good about "putting somebody in the ground." The major continues his usual sermonizing while Bobby goes about flipping his Zippo, saying that he understands why Bobby is reluctant to enter into a dialogue with him, finishing, "Don't be afraid. We'll all be there together." Afraid of what? "Of the funeral." Bobby finally turns to regard his father, for something the major said seems to have connected. And Bobby does take the opportunity to respond directly, but in doing so begins a rather maniacal afternoon of rants and raving and just generally bellowing "Afraid? I can hardly wait. AFRAID? I'M GONNA TURN IT UPSIDE DOWN!" akin more to the Sarahs/Nadines/Johnny Hornes/every other loony in town, rather than the collected Bobby we've come to know and really, really, really love. Really.
Back at the interrogation room of the Sheriff's station, Cooper and Truman reassemble with Albert, who gives them the update on his forensics findings, "to save your butt and get mine out of this godforsaken burg." I don't know about y'all, but I'm starting to think Albert must just have a little problem with this here town. The contents of the envelope inside of Laura's diary were cocaine, indeed (Albert: "News flash: The little lady had a habit."). Fibers of twine were found embedded in her wrists and upper arms, indicating that she was tied up twice the night she was killed, and Albert puts his fists up and elbows back to indicate how she was bound (Cooper spookily recounts Laura's line from his dream, "Sometimes my arms bend back." Oooooooh). Albert's tests also uncovered particles of soap on Laura's neck, leading him to the belief that "the killer washed his hands, and then leaned in for a kiss." Ew ew ew. This information, every time I hear it, fills me with a vague sense of nausea, particularly considering that the lamentable results of her tryst with this mystery man would indicate that said caress was not of the consensual variety. What else did they find? Oh, yes: "Distinctive wounds found on Laura's neck and shoulder appear to be claw marks, bites of some kind." And just at the moment it appears as if this sequence were going to be a burlesque-free retread of all things dead girl, Truman volunteers the statement, "An animal," and Albert all but sighs with relief that he can capitalize on one more opportunity to taunt the hell out of anyone who has committed the terrible transgression of not being him: "Look, it's trying to think!" Finally, Albert found a small, plastic, partially dissolved plastic fragment in Laura's stomach. And just as he bemoans once more not having had enough time with the body, Andy summons Truman and tells him "it's time." As Cooper makes for the door, Albert insists that they share a moment alone, and presents him with a "report concerning the physical assault on my person you witnessed this morning" that requires Cooper's signature. Cooper refuses to sign it, much to Albert's sheer amazement, and Cooper takes this opportunity to launch into a fabulous pro-Peaks homily on the decency, honor, and dignity of every person in Twin Peaks. Albert shoots back that it "sounds like you've been snacking on some of the local mushrooms." Hee. Thank you, Albert, for providing me all of the humor necessary for the recapping process, absolving me of having to do anything else but transcribe your every line verbatim. Albert leaves with a slamming of the door, and Cooper turns toward the window and thus spake to Diane: "I'd like you to look into my pension plan options regarding outside real estate investment. I may look into purchasing a piece of property at what I assume will be a very reasonable price." Yay, Coop! You can practically hear the show being renewed for another season during that speech.
Poor, poor Ed. I just can't get over it. The bandage still on his eye. The true love of his life so distant. The deranged Queen of Drape Runners and Psychosis by his side. Ugh. Poor Ed. I never realized what a sympathetic, downright tragic figure he is. Over at the Hurley house of horrors, Nadine interrupts Ed mid-stupefied, staring into the void of the sheer domestic tragedy that is his every waking moment of existence. She hugs him madly, asking, "Love me?" He replies, "You bet," in a miserable and detached way that really means, well, "No. No, I don't. Freak Police, arrest this woman!" She tells him, much to my repeated disgust, that "last night was wonderful. Oh, my darling Ed, you came back to me. Now I feel like we're really together again." Sex? He had sex with her? End my life, please. Unless she slipped him a mickie, I don't even want to hear his argument for consenting to that one. She hugs him and continues: "In high school, I used to watch Norma at those football games. She was so pretty. You made such a handsome couple." Hmmm. Her speech is interrupted by the sound of a motorcycle pulling up to the house, and Ed tells Nadine that "it's James," to which she responds, "James who?" Exactly. Slater Fetus walks into the house and tells Ed that he's not going to the funeral. Then he runs out. Blah blah blah Ed's domestic nightmare redux. Poor, poor Ed.
Oops. Sylvia Horne sighting. My three recaps stand corrected. Well, close to. A seen-but-not-heard conversation between Ben and his conveniently vanishing wife sounds through the Great Northern as Audrey, looking resplendent in her black funeral ensemble and it's-still-okay-to-harp-the-hair-styles-of-the-Eurythmics coiffure eavesdrops through a removable panel in a hidden back room. Through the hole, she spies Dr. Jacoby trying to coax Johnny to remove the Indian headdress on Ben's off-camera insistence that "we can't take Johnny to the funeral in that ridiculous get-up."
Trees + wind = some ominously spooky shit. Who on Earth came up with that directorial equation? And why in hell does it work so damn well every time it's used? To the funeral we go, where the priest goes on with his "ashes to ashes" spiel and into the personal testimonial about how he instructed Laura in Sunday school (before she became a two-timing, wild child, "perfume counter" blow addict, of course). I am skillfully reminded of the murder investigation witch hunt going on around town, and shot after shot of downcast, guilty faces fill the frame: Donna, wearing a black-and-white striped "Hello, My Baby" vaudeville hat that looks like she stole it off of the head of a hapless Good Humor man in some dietary revenge plot for his having run out of fat-free glacé. Bobby, whose eyelashes glint alluringly off the Twin Peaks spring sun. Ed Hurley, whose wife can only love him when he has some marring facial banding of his own on or near his left eye. Pete. Madeline. Audrey. Cooper, whose gaze catches something moving toward the service from the parking lot. It is Slater Fetus, standing near a tree, just as the priest says something about "rest from your labors." James. Labor. Get it? For the four billionth time? Furtive glance-o-rama ensues. The priest finishes his speech, and Johnny Horne intones a loudly inappropriate pair of "Amen"s, before Bobby busts out and barks a far more inappropriate "AAAAMEN" of his own that sounds like he's auditioning for the title role in the live-action film version of Captain Caveman which I'm sure will be hitting theaters any day now. All eyes, none too surprisingly, fall to him. Including mine, which had not left him for too long to begin with. He busts through the crowd and stands just at the base of the grave site, screaming, "You make me sick. You damn hypocrites make me SICK. Everybody knew she was in trouble. But we didn't do anything. All you good people. You wanna know who killed Laura? You did. We all did." And so on, until slo-mo funeral artiness kicks in as Slater Fetus lunges toward Bobby and Bobby takes on the challenge. But Mullet Mike and Truman hold back Bobby, and Ed and Cooper take care of James. Cut back to the coffin and Leland looking quite forlorn. Suddenly and without warning, he wails himself another plaintive cry and hurls himself onto the coffin, screaming, "Laura! My baby." Somebody, probably Sarah, screams from above, and Sarah kneels down at the big hole in the ground and curiously reprimands, "Don't ruin this, too!" Just like he's ruined what, the integrity of all his other daughter's funerals? The mechanical lever/pulley thing that lowers the coffin into the ground malfuntions under his weight, and the final shots of this scene feature Leland splayed out, riding the coffin express up and down and up and down and up and down.
Commercials: Apparently, as their tag line had it, Coors Light was once considered the "right beer," and it was considered so "now." I'm so glad it's not "now" anymore.
Later that same night at the Double R, Shelley gets her digs in on the whole "Dead Girls are Funny" platform, demonstrating to two old men the coffin follies from earlier that day with the visual assistance of a napkin holder. Behind them, Truman, Ed, and Hawk sit at a table, Ed warning Truman, "Careful who you trust. He's just not one of us." Cooper strolls in on cue and takes a seat at the table. He orders pie and coffee from Norma, who walks away from the table, an action that causes Cooper to ask, "Big Ed, how long you been in love with Norma?" Giggles all around. So, Cooper asks, what do you want? Truman launches in: "Somebody's running drugs into Twin Peaks from across the border." They think it's the infamous Jacques Renault, who is acting as the middle-man in supplying said drugs to high school students. Ed and Truman recount the story about the night Cooper arrived in town, during which Ed was "staked out" at the Roadhouse and Renault was tending bar. Cooper tells Ed he didn't know Ed was a deputy, and when Ed responds in the negative, Cooper interestingly foreshadows, "Well, that's a little outside your jurisdiction, don't you think?" Truman says that he calls Ed in when he needs him, and that "he's not the only one I call." Cooper takes a digressive moment to toss out another notable quotable on the fruity pastry situation in Twin Peaks ("This must be where pies go when they die.") before regrouping and asking Truman why they've really asked him there. And this part is important to remember, considering the "ambiguous evil" direction of the show from this moment forward. It actually makes complete linear sense within the story arc, and debunks the widely held theory that "Really, when did it tank" thread and the "I don't Renault what's going on" thread should be inexorably combined over in the forums. They shouldn't. Because in this scene, Truman alerts us to the following: "Twin Peaks is different, a long way from the world, you've noticed that. That's exactly the way we like it." He goes on: "But there's a back end to that that's kind of different, too. Maybe that's the price we pay for all the good things." And thus much of the dramatic action for the rest of the series is hereby rationalized: "There's a sort of evil out there. Something very, very strange in these old woods. Call it what you want. A darkness, a presence. It takes many forms. But it's been out there for as long as we can remember. And we've always been there to fight it." We? A secret society called The Bookhouse Boys. And even if you've seen this show a thousand times, there's a chance you just read the last four or five sentences, looked around disbelievingly, wondered if I weren't writing my own Choose Your Own Twin Peaks Adventure fanfic, and waited ten or twelve weeks for this ep to wrap around on Bravo's programming schedule. Look it up. Bookhouse Boys. 'Tis true.
Cut to said "Bookhouse," where Cooper finds James and some other biker embryo guarding a tied-up stranger with a deplorable French accent (it sounds like he's been taking diction lessons from TLMFAP and then playing THOSE in reverse) named "Bernard." And you have to really, REALLY care about this show for this small bit of information to matter, but I find it retrospectively of interest that Bernard was introduced to the viewing audience before Jacques was. Do you care? God, how I hope you care. Bernard came across the border this morning with an ounce of cocaine on him. Cooper takes the reins: "Did you ever sell drugs to Laura Palmer?" He says he doesn't sell drugs. Meanwhile, outside the Roadhouse, Jacques heads to work, but sees a blinking red light on the top of the building that seems to scream, "Run away, and run away now, you flannel-clad third generation Dom DeLuise photocopy, you. Run, I say." And so he does.
A phone rings inside the Johnson house, and Leo picks it up to hear a slightly more excelling graduate of The Celine Dion School of French-Canadian Diction in Jacques Renault, flexing his own under-par accent. I think he's from that part of France where your accent disappears when you get really mad. I think it's called La Accent del Fake. Right on the border of a Los Angeles sound stage marked "Twin Peaks Backlot," I think. From a pay-phone, he plot develops, "The bus light's on. Bernard's in trouble. You gotta get me outta here. Border run." Leo tells him he's on his way, and brushes past a curious Shelley and out the door to depart for points north. Rife with her own snazzy secrets, Shelley quickly makes her way over to a bureau drawer in the kitchen, removes a gun from her handbag, and stashes it in a hidden panel inside the chest. More tricks! More violence!
Sigh. So close to a Josie-free episode, we were. Over at the Packard Mill, Master Josie and Truman sit outside. Josie tells Truman that she has overheard conversations between Ben Horne and Katherine. Josie frets that "something horrible is going to happen. They want to kill me, I know it." He asks: who? I answer: the planet. And it wouldn't, truth be told, be all that darn horrible. Inside, Katherine predictably overhears this little chat as well, just as Josie tells Truman she's not sure that Andrew's death was entirely an accident. And also that "Katherine keeps two mill account books in her safe. Two books, different numbers." She takes Truman to show him, busts into the hidden safe, and uncovers, much to her boyish, child-like wonder, only one book. Truman takes a cursory glance at the ledger and pronounces it "not unusual" (i.e. it doesn't have the words, "July expenses: I KILLED MY BROTHER" scrawled in red marker across every page in Katherine's handwriting? Sorry to nitpick, but that was kind of a lazy moment). Over in the room containing Katherine, she turns off the intercom and, as the camera pans down, indicates she is holding the other, contraband copy of the ledger. She opens another mysterious panel , just large enough to slide the book into just before Pete enters the room. So many secret drawers and hidden passages. Katherine has thus far benefited greatly in her wily ways from having taken some architectural hints from the Clue house, I guess.
Nighttime at Laura's grave site, a caped man in a fedora (Interesting choice of outfit. Is that Sinatra playing the Phantom of the Opera? Oh, wait. It's Doctor Jacoby) stands over the grave clutching flowers. Cooper looks on from afar and eventually approaches. Cooper asks why Jacoby wasn't at the funeral, and he responds with a tearful speech about Laura being the only one of his patients he cared about. Back at the mill, a self-obsessed (and understandably so. Misguided vanity and mistrust of elders are two conspicuous manifestations of a young male's turbulent pubescent years) Josie worries some more about Andrew's death. Then, in one more blatant disregard for the statutory rape laws for the state of Washington and every other land I know of, they get busy with it some more. Yuck. O. La.
Over at the Great Northern, Cooper and Hawk discuss the nature of souls and The Land of the Dead while Leland stands on a dance floor, eyes closed and rocking slowly back and forth. As Cooper toasts "to Laura," the music suddenly changes to a Glenn Miller-esque big band hit, and Leland begins cutting in on the dancing couples and wailing "somebody dance with me." Eventually, the music kicks out, and Cooper and Hawk have to rescue Leland from the humiliation of it all, promising to take him home. And so they do, ending Leland's apparent assertion that, human frailty and tragedy notwithstanding, dead girls can be a hilarity-inducing plot that makes you want to dance, dance, dance.