Mad, mad props (not angry. Just, y'know, mad) to Strega, for looking after the place during my non-summer non-vacation. Three months between recaps isn't that long, is it? If by "time between recaps," I mean "gestating an elephant." Well then, no. No, it sure ain't that long at all.
The shark this show jumped somewhere around Episode 12 has already packed up its dorsal fin and moved on to dismantle the later seasons of Moonlighting and the entire cursed run of Major Dad, leaving us to join the inaction already in progress with Bobby "I'm Over Him" Briggs entering Ben Horne's office while Sassy Shuffle pesters us on the soundtrack with its persistently sassy shuffle. Disarray looms. Ben's desk has been pushed into the center of the office, and in the space it once occupied now sits a shrine to Put-Upon Set Designers With Recently Thrown Out Backs Everywhere, as all of the furniture has been piled atop each other reaching practically to the ceiling. On top of the two leather couches lie several tables, Ben's desk lamp, and the wooden nameplate indicating that the desk -- and now this new Totem Pole Of The Criminally Freaking Insane -- belongs, in fact, to "Ben." Acting as the star or the angel atop this tree, this centerpiece for the Very Special Twin Peaks Bipolar Christmas Spectacular, is the taxidermed white fox that Leland once used to try and frame Ben for the murder of Laura Palmer. Oh, I know. I can't believe this is the same show either.
Bobby surveys the situation and calls Ben's name. He circles the Shrine Of Insanity and discovers the same ol' natty Ben from last week, crouched in the corner. Young Briggs introduces himself (though I have a sneaking suspicion Ben would already know who Bobby is) and indicates that Ben's secretary told Bobby he could go right in. Very discreet secretary. Stupid temps. It's probably the actress playing Sylvia Horne, out for revenge. Ben wastes no time overenunciating his way to high drama, speaking from the crouching position, "Bobby, you know what you have to have in this life? Hmmm? Balance. Distance. Symmetry." He stands and climbs onto his office shrine, moving the "Ben" nameplate onto the top shelf. Meanwhile, Bobby attempts to act the swarthy manipulative businessman he showed up to play, asking, "Did you listen to that tape that I sent you?" Ben, from on high, gives linear conversational exchange its due, responding, "Yes, I listened to your tape, Bobby. Frankly, I am surprised that Leo could master the technology." They both laugh because the stage directions indicate that Ben's retort was, in fact, a hilarious quip (it wasn't bad, really), and Ben asks Bobby why he has come. Bobby says that he has "great admiration" for Ben, prompting Ben's response, "admiration is for poets and dairy cows." Bobby doesn't know what he means. Neither do I, at all, but I have a feeling that if I had graduated from high school in 1991, that would have been my yearbook quote all the same. Because it kicks ass of anything from Dead Poets Society, and the Billy Joel song "This is the Time" had yet to be invented for exactly that purpose. So really, what was the world left with? Either way, Ben leaps down from the shrine and stands to Bobby. The two regard the office furnishings monolith, and Ben smokes his cigar and informs his ingenue, "You're standing in front of a mammoth skyscraper. A leviathan that rips a hole in the clouds. Now, what's the first question that comes to your mind?" Mine is, "Has the Fox Network been invented yet, and if so, what's on it right now and can we watch that instead, please?" so it's probably a good thing Ben didn't decide to ask me. Bobby's eyes glaze over because he's not savvy to Ben's wily business tactics. Ben tells him that the first question he must ask is, "What's on the top floor? Who's in the penthouse and why?" Bobby confirms that that's just exactly what he was thinking, and Ben smiles and hugs him. He then walks three steps and picks up a gigantic camera, telling Bobby to "follow Hank Jennings. I want you to chronicle his existence. Show me something I don't already know." Oh, yawn. That is entry-level stuff, isn't it? Besides, there's already a place we can go to be bored into a coma watching the constant and perhaps evil actions of a ploddingly unengaging Hank Jennings for more marathon hours than we could ever hope to sanely stand. And that place, dear readers, is a little show called Twin Peaks.
As Bobby exits Ben's office, he is nearly thrown back against the door by the sound of a woman screaming and the sudden appearance of the Mayor's brother's new wife rounding the corner in some lacy lingerie and screaming, screaming, screaming. Bobby regards her briefly, makes that "you don't have to be crazy to work here but it sure helps" face (tm Daniel), and turns to leave. He walks right into the closed door to Ben's office, and the leather man-bag which should contain Ben's camera (which is on Bobby's other shoulder) slides off and hits the floor with a thud. Because this show = rich and unparalleled slapstick heritage. As history has adequately proven.
Sheriff's Station. A flannel-clad Cooper (this outfit is strongly reminiscent of the one he wore in a buried Saturday Night Live skit which involved him performing a lilting countrified ditty on an Ol' West kind of set, and ends with him staring directly into the camera and deadpanning, "Hi. I'm k.d. lang." Because he really does look quite a bit like her when he's not in that suit) regards two photographs of woodsy-looking cabins and informs a stout female of no future repute whatsoever, the first superfluous extra of the new year, ever, at all, bored already, kill me, "I'd like to see both." No Repute 2001 asks which one he would like to see first, prompting Cooper to place both photos on the table in the interrogation room and extract a quarter from the pocket of his Emily-Saliers-at-Lillith-'98 pleated khakis. He flips it. The quarter leaps off his thumb as a slo-mo shot from the director's training manual Gratuitous Shots of American Currency in Flight (not since the briefcase hit the bed in Indecent Proposal has this all-important directorial notion been rendered with such drama) follows the path of the quarter from the air back to the table. It bounces off a plate of donuts (run, running theme, run!) and lands on a slightly concealed photo of a small white ranch house that Cooper picks up. What is this? No Repute 2001 has an answer at the ready: "That property is called Dead Dog Farm. And it's worse than it sounds." She continues on that "no one ever really stays there long," and Cooper creases the brow and insists on seeing it right away. Quirky? I think he will.
Subplot Roulette's deadly spin lands us in the front room of the station, where Dick "Britwit" Tremayne walks through the front door wearing a wool-lined denim jacket with the cuffs folded up over a denim shirt buttoned to the top over a black turtleneck, cargo shorts, and chunky gray socks with ankle-high beige hiking boots. I know I rarely make a big deal out of what people are wearing on this show, but the man looks like one of those damn tri-fold flipbooks where the head, body, and feet hail from three completely separate bodies. He approaches an assembled group of Lucy, Andy, and -- holy crap, is that Molly Shannon, looking to the second the exact same age as she has on SNL for the last six years? Why yes. I do believe it is. Andy introduces her as "Judy Swain," Little Nicky's caseworker. And don't get me wrong, the lady's a hoot, but she introduces herself to Dick with every bit the same amount of please-don't-take-me-seriously arch detachment she brings to every one of her SNL characters and Will & Grace guest spots and Lorne Michaels vanity project failed feature length films I simply haven't gotten around to seeing just yet or ever. And speaking of toxic costuming, our Mary Katherine is wearing a black-and-red plaid jacket with a polka-dot shirt and a black bow, all of which lends the appearance that she is the head stewardess of Sardonic Air, the official airline of Molly Shannon. She informs the other three folks that throughout Nicky's brief life, he has been plagued by "a persistent random misfortune." Molly continues that Nicky is an orphan, prompting thick Andy to hilariously clarify, "Did his parents die?" and droll Dick to guffawingly retort, "Nicely deduced, Andrew." She further expositions something about his parents being killed under "mysterious circumstances." But before we learn any more about this most sub of all subplots, Truman bursts out of his office and informs Andy that there is "an emergency up at the Great Northern." Uh-oh. Emergency? Bad Dialogue has broken out its cage, you see, and it's already freed Undercooked Theme as well as Subplot I Wouldn't Care About Even If It Were Happening To Me In Real Life to roam freely around the halls of the hotel, unencumbered by any viewers around to wish something else were going on.
The Mayor's brother! He's dead! In lieu of flowers, send excess exclamation points! A four billion year-old man dies and it constitutes an "emergency"? I'd like to see how the TPPD would respond to news of a seventeen year-old prom queen washing up on the rocky shores of town, all wrapped in plastic and stuff. As if anything ultra-cool like that would ever happen on a show this boring. Blah. Duh. Sorry. Cut to a close-up of Dead Mayor's Brother's open eyes gazing upwards from his bed at The Great Northern. Doc Hayward (a familiar face. Yay) closes the man's eyes and pronounces Brother Doug dead from a heart attack. Truman surveys the scene and notes that "Dougie went out with his boots on" indicated by the paraphernalia scattered around the bed, including, Love poems of Lord Byron and The Kama Sutra. Ew. He's naked under there, isn't he? The Mayor enters then, already clad in black, and garbles senile-ishly in the general direction of his dead brother, "I hate to say it. But I told you so." He picks up a book from Dougie's bed entitled The Secret Life, handing it to Truman and pronouncing it "the murder weapon…she might as well have blown his brains out with a rifle." Andy escorts the Mayor out of the room, and he spies Dead Doug's frizzy-haired widow sitting in a chair talking to Hawk. The Mayor erupts that she'll "burn in Hell for this," seeing as she murdered his brother and, oh yeah, "she's a witch!" After he is led away by law-enforcing personnel, the widow begins to cry that the Mayor is right about her being a bad luck charm. Hawk tells her not to "be silly," but she continues: "It all started in high school. Prom night. My date went to kiss me. It was his first day with his new braces." At the prom? Damn, that's unfortunate. And then something happened with his jaw snapping and the Emergency Room. Hawk responds that "a curse needs a cure," adding, "I know a bit about these things." She asks if he is "the Sheriff," and I discard my ten billionth comment about Native spirituality and tokenism before he gets around to his response, "Let's just say that when something really big goes down, I'm the man." He leans against the door to the ex-brother's room, just as Andy pulls the door open from the inside and Hawk goes sailing in and disappears from the frame, crashing to the floor. Because this show = rich and unparalleled slapstick heritage. Yessir.
High School. A close-up on the face of a large man who happens to be black. Happens To Be Black delivers the following speech: "Boys, there's a story about a great football coach, whose name escapes me at this time, who was dead set against having any black players on his team." At the end of his pithy "The More You Know -- And In Fact Already Knew" segment, professional sports are surprisingly desegregated, and the man draws a parallel between his tale of triumph and "this young girl's right to compete. In addition to it being her moral and Constitutional right." We pan back to find ourselves in the TPHS gymnasium. Happens To Be Black is the coach of the wrestling team, and the girl in question with the moral right to compete is Nadine Hurley. The coach calls The Mullet Formerly Known As Mike's Mullet (don't worry, though. There are still plenty o' mullets left in the room to fulfill the rural, early 90s quotient of mullets-per-capita) out of the group of assembled high school wrestlers to the front of the room. We learn that "Nadine has chosen to prove herself by taking on our very best. District Champion, Mike Nelson." The wrestling team mutters their support for Mike. Coach blows the whistle and Nadine begins the match asking Mike if she'll go out with him tonight. Careful, sister. You can possess all the strength and wrestling acumen in the world, but propositioning a fellow wrestler during a scrimmage match will get you thrown off the team in a big ol' hurry. Trust me on this. It, um, happened to a friend of mine. Anyway, she takes him down and pins him while the Wrestling Extras register their carefully choreographed "that chick's got balls" looks from the bleachers. Coach pronounces Nadine the winner, and she
stands up and asks Mike, "Now will you go out with me?" He lifts up his head for a moment before collapsing back onto the mat. Because this show = rich and unparalleled slapstick…well, you know by now. Don't you? Yeah. You do. Coach slinks off to The Sylvia Horne Temp Agency to collate legal briefs while contemplating his lack of Molly-Shannon-esque post-Twin Peaks media exposure. Yeah. Like I ever, ever wrestled.God, what is he doing back on this show, anyway? Cut to Mike Of A Thousand Hairdon'ts limping up to Donna "Hey, Can I Have A Bite Of That…Hee Hee, Just Kidding" Hayward at her locker. She asks what happened to him, and he backstories us all the way to the pre-commercial-break past with his retort, "I got beat up by a girl." He begs Donna for some kind of "help," claiming, "It's one thing getting stomped on in front of the whole team. But she likes me." Donna turns her back and takes off, suggesting that an older woman is just what Mike needs. He begs her, for some reason, to talk to Nadine, and pretend she's still his girlfriend. Lara Flynn flashes the moxie: "Sorry, Mike. I'm not that good of an actress." Oh, hand me the punch line, why don't you?
And while you're at it, hand him one too. Cut to The Marshlands, where we join James "What Child Isn't This" Hurley's stillborn subplot in the process of me picketing in front of my local congressman's office for the unconditional legalization of fifty-fourth trimester terminations. Again. It's the woman's right, you know. And in case you're wondering, yes, I do have a template for writing these recaps, and it is with great pleasure that I check off the "James As Fetus" box under the "Character Nicknames" section. I've also conquered the "Bobby Is Hot" line and the "Donna Is Skeletal" jibe, and I've even danced around the "Dick Tremayne Is Gayer Than A Fire Island Drag Queen" references, but only obliquely this time around. Which means if I can only get around to sullying the director's good name, whomever it may be, we might be able to punch out sometime around the third segment today. Happy New Year, me.
Right. Recapping. I'm so on that. James is sitting in an upstairs room at The Marshlands examining a box of bolts and nuts and tools, regarding them all with that patented look of "eh?" that I always hope to see from my in-house auto specialists and the like. A lanky black-clad Another Guy appears at the door holding a highball glass containing a yellowish, scotch-colored liquid. James asks if he can help the man, and is met with the reply, "I'm heading up a local servant's rebellion. Wondering if you can help me bundle up loose sticks and burn that master?" Um, what? No, really. What? No, really…Oops. Too late. I just stopped caring. The man introduces himself as "Malcolm Sloan," Mrs. Marsh's brother and Mr. Marsh's driver. He asks how badly the Jaguar was banged up, and James responds that it's "repairable." Malcolm Sloan notes that "that's the nice thing about things" without a trace of self-conscious irony, considering the high level of idiocy successfully distilled into those six tiny words. Malcolm pulls up a chair and sits. He tells James that Evelyn's marriage to her as-yet-unseen husband has changed her life. Oh, how's that? Well, here's that: "Defensive postures, masking bruises, vicious cycles." Wha? "I'm sorry, am I being obscure?" Yes. But that's not the part of this wretchedness I'm complaining about right now. But he feels the need to explain anyway: "Once a fortnight, Jeffrey pounds her mercilessly, and she tries to get even by breaking one of his things." Fortnight? Thanks for taking a break from making this script resemble foreplay in a cheap gay porno to suddenly lapse into the territory of a particularly-overblown-episode-of-Hercules. To which office at Lynch/Frost Productions do I send my thank you note, Ye Olde Script Supervisor?
From an episode that knows a thing or two about being a dead dog, we pull up in the real estate agent's modest taupe sedan to the front of Dead Dog Farm. Cooper steps out of the passenger side (he's now added a Marty McFly "You jump ship, kid?" puffy vest to his aforementioned "lesbian lumberjack" ensemble…please wrap up this investigation and get this man back on the force in a hurry, even if just for the consequent improvement in his wardrobe) and surveys the front, as No Repute 2001 kills the engine and notes, "Well, it's still standing. Almost by force of habit." Way to close the sale, sister. Cooper asks after the origin of the house's name, and No Repute 2001 recounts an "old legend," which I must include here verbatim, so many times did I sit through it, rapt. Check it: "Of all the people in the world, the best and the worst are drawn to dead dogs. Most turn away. Only those with the purest of hearts can feel its pain. And somewhere in between, the rest of us struggle." Oh, you mean that old legend. About the death and the dogs and the eternal struggle. Meanwhile, the spirit of Bagger Vance sits at home, squints his eyes at the television set, and speaks aloud, "Man, even I get to think that's some kind of retarded legend right there, don't I?" Cooper, just happy that he's not the one forced to deliver a congressional-filibuster-length faux-spiritual missive about pureness of heart and deathness of dogs -- FOR ONCE -- turns the topic back plotwards and asks No Repute 2001 about the last time she showed someone the house. Noting that no one has been to the property in over a year, she expresses a bit of surprise (a mild shock that should have been reserved for her discovery that a dead animal, in fact, cannot feel pain. Y'know, due to its deadness and ultimate lack of life) when Cooper's detective work uncovers the car tracks of three automobiles which have recently driven through the marshy dirt to the house's driveway. The two venture inside, No Repute 2001 surprised again to find the front door open. Cooper notes a full ashtray on the kitchen table and deduces, "There's been a meeting here. In the past few hours." Over in the kitchen sink, he sticks his pinky in the drain and puts in his mouth a bit of white powdery substance. Well, I think we all know just exactly what that's going to turn out to…"baby laxative." Oh. Guess I lose the ol' office pool on that one. He walks back to the kitchen table and tastes a bit of white powder conspicuously found on one of the chairs. No Repute 2001 vies for repute once more: "More white powder." Thanks for that. Because this show takes place entirely on the radio and I wouldn't have been able to identify said powder without that essential narration. This time Cooper identifies it as cocaine and informs her that they have to notify the Sheriff, even though, to my knowledge, Cooper is not really a member of any law-enforcing branch of the planet, on a federal level of otherwise. Baby laxative. Just say no, America. This is your brain on baby laxative. Wise up, people.
The CrotchCam Operator is roused from an extended nap to come strap on the close-up lenses and capture the experience of watching Dick Tremayne sitting on a picnic blanket his car with his legs so far apart they appear to have registered for citizenship in two completely different parts of the country. One of the tires, which doesn't appear to be flat, is jacked up, and Dick sits with the car's manual (not the mention room for the entire sovereign U.S. states of Texas and New Mexico) between his legs, muttering variations on "I don't understand this at all" and "This is so technical" and "I need me a big bear of a man to take care of these big bear man problems." Little Nicky sits in the driver's seat acting the role of Generally Annoying Youth, turning the wheels and turning on the windshield wipers and honking the horn. Dick's patience thins until he screams for Nicky "get out of the car," and when the boy walks around the back of the car and approaches Uncle Dick from behind (he's just a kid, so I'll spare us all the easy joke on that one. You're welcome), we notice that he is wearing the same flipbook outfit as his traveling companion. Ha hee blee blah blarg. Nicky walks toward the direction of the trees, looks around all sinister, and with the turn of his head back toward the car, the tire Uncle Dick is attempting to change spontaneously slips off, and car nearly collapses on top of Dick. Nicky runs back to the car and hugs his Uncle Dick, asking, "You aren't going to die, are you?" Uncle Dick hugs him right back and insures that he is, in fact, not going to die. But his face takes on the concerned look of a man who believes that his charge may be more evil than he ever could have reasonably suspected. Meanwhile, Adam Sandler reaches into the past and files suit against this whole subplot. Because isn't that a weird coincidence? Feh.
Truman's office. A knock on the door brings k.d. cooper into the room, where Truman introduces him to a "Colonel Reilly," who is "heading up the Air Force investigation into Briggs's disappearance." Reilly recaps that Cooper was with Briggs the night that he disappeared, and then asks, "When you were at the site, did you notice any wildlife in the area? Birds, owls?" In fact, Cooper recalls seeing an owl. Wow. Way to lead the witness, Reilly. Truman interjects that he is a good friend of Briggs's, and wants Reilly to level with them. The Colonel reaches back into history and reminds us of the messages Cooper received from deep space, which were, in fact, sent from the middle of a patch of woods outside of Twin Peaks. Cooper asks if there is any connection between these messages and something called "The White Lodge," and Reilly volunteers only that this information is "classified." Reilly adds that his disappearance "has implications that go so far beyond issues of national security, the Cold War seems like a case of the sniffles." Well, this still doesn't make that much sense, but I'd be able to dig where this plot is going, provided we concentrate on such issues as that and leave us the hell out of…
…oh, now see what you've gone and done? We're back at The Marshlands, where Slater Fetus sits in the suddenly-working Jaguar. Well, you know what they say about…things. Evelyn walks into the garage in time to rear her ugly head and large 80s belts, and sits in the car to James. He tells her that he spoke to her brother "a little bit about [her] situation." Evelyn tells James to "mind [his] own business" (ah, the crackling originality…poke me with something sharp when she tells him not to count his chickens before they hatch, and I'll attempt to shove my gouged-out eyes back in my head and resume watching this most unwatchable plot unfold), but he pesters on and asks if she's afraid of her husband. He asks again. He asks again. He asks…again. Then he says, "I know what it's like to be alone," and they kiss. Just in time, a car pulls into the driveway down the lawn a bit, honks the stop-cheating-on-me-I'm-hoooome horn twice, and Evelyn leaps off James and jumps out of the car. She tells him, "It's not nearly as bad as I made it out to be," even though she never really told him anything at all. James watches as Evelyn walks down the drive to greet her husband. James slinks down into the front seat of the Jag and hides. Which is has plenty of room to do in the plush front seat. Because that's the convenient thing about things.
Well, welcome the hell back, everyone. Great Northern. Audrey conceals herself behind a door and waits for Bobby Briggs to lumber past her on his way to Ben's office. She steps out behind him and feigns a bit of surprise in seeing him, asking, "Daddy have a change of heart?" Bobby tells her that he is now a card-carrying member of Ben Horne's permanent payroll, and Audrey goes all full-tilt flirty (hey, stick with someone double your age, sister. It looks better on you), deeming him a "junior achiever." Bobby indicates a manila envelope, his "first assignment." Audrey asks if she can help him with anything, and they take a break from the paced Sorkin-esque hall-walk that's taken them to the door of Ben's office, and Bobby turns to face her at close range: "Maybe you could help me celebrate." Audrey puts a hand on his lapel and suggests that they "do business." He leans in for the nookie (hey, back off, harlot. You too, Audrey) and she turns her head away all coy (good girl), because her heart belongs to another. Bobby tells her that he likes the way she thinks before opening the door to Ben's office and taking his leave. Audrey, meanwhile, slips into the crawlspace hidden behind the wall. Bobby stops once inside Ben's office and notes that the furniture has again shifted itself all 'round the place. On the far wall by the fireplace now appears a table containing a Close Encounters-shaped mound of dirt adorned with tiny trees and bushes and, as we cut a bit closer, we note a number of tiny figurines of little silver people on top of the hill. From behind the table come billowing clouds of smoke, and off to Bobby's right sits the very representation of Public Enemy #1 in the Subplots We Hate To Love sweepstakes (which, considering the alternative at this point, isn't that bad a thing), a Confederate flag. Bobby steps up and calls Ben's name, and a close-up of Ben's eyes reveals him popping up from behind the Close Encounters mound, cigar in his teeth (hence the smoke), Confederacy reimagined (hence the flag), grainy black-and-white photographs of a Canadian Mountie up to no good about to become the central plot device (hence the impending cancellation). Ben places a tiny silver man on top of the mound and expositions for our benefit, "Gettysburg, Day One. The South is winning." Bobby hands him the envelope and lets him know, "I followed Hank." Ben curtails his dementia just long enough to regard the photos, and Bobby loudly explains, "I've never seen these guys before" as Audrey peeps through the peephole. Ben is pleased with whatever it is he's seeing and offers Bobby a raise and a position on the official payroll. Comprehensive dental plan notwithstanding, Bobby smiles and promises not to let Ben down.
Ambiguous Meal Time at the Packard house. Pete and Katherine sit at an elaborately decorated table, Pete popping a champagne cork and pronouncing the liquid, "Nectar of the gods." Pontificate? Why, I believe he will: "Wine comes in at the mouth. Love comes in at the eyes." He tells her he's quoting Yeats. "He's a poet." Looks like someone's been brushing up his Shakespeare. He continues on that the only other toast he knows is a limerick and, over Katherine's protests, launches in: "There once was a lady from Galway." Hee. They're wasted. Katherine calls out suddenly, "Josie!" A cut to the kitchen area alerts us to the presence of Josie "Look At My Chest…Of Drawers" Packard, wearing a twee maid's outfit and suddenly cropped hair. She approaches the table with a big smile. Katherine tells her it's appetizer time, calling her back to add, "Even though your station in this household has changed, I intend to show you all the respect and affection that you deserve." Which includes making her "put on [her] little maid's cap!" Tee hee. Really racist fan fic couldn't have written it better. Once Josie takes her leave of the room, Pete wonders briefly if Katherine isn't being too hard on someone who is "still part of the family." Katherine, quite truthfully, reminds Pete that Josie is an evil, evil little boy who deserves nothing more than this life of indentured servitude under Kathie Lee-esque salary constrictions and working conditions (I'm paraphrasing), and turns the subject to the matter at hand. "I would like to propose a toast. To Ben Horne's double-cross. Here's to Josie Packard's dirty deed. And here's to the woman who brought them down. Here's…to me." Word. I'll drink to that. There are still ten more episodes left to recap, people, and I don't think poor Strega is ever coming back. I'd better drink. I'd really, really better.
Ack! Lips! Whose lips, indeed? They speak: "Diane, I'm holding in my hand a nationally distributed newspaper." Hi Diane. Yay. A close-up shot of a newspaper reveals a small box in the middle of a slew of want ads, the one in the center reading, "EARLE: P to Q4." He tells Diane that he received Earle's response to his opening chess move before Earle even had a chance to see it. "He's toying with me, Diane." I even scoured the surrounding readable ads, but I was unable to find any ("Acclaimed television director seeks coherent narrative" or "Jan D'Arcy continues hilariously fruitless job hunt") that caught my fancy as worth passing along. Cooper continues that he has spent "two days without badge and gun," during which time he has "looked into real estate" in hopes that he will one day "make a home, raise a family, which, in spite of [his] past, [he] still hope[s] [he's] able to do." Whoa, Coop! Better slow down and make sure that "record" button isn't held down for too long, or you're apt to tape over the entirety of your book-on-tape version of Convenient Character Backstories Made E-Z you've so clearly spent a bit of time scrutinizing.
Knock knock knock. Cooper, who we now discover is sitting on his bed at the Great Northern, opens the door to discover Audrey carrying a manila envelope. She enters and tells him that she "stole it," insisting he look inside. She goes on: "They're pictures my father paid for." And, indeed, they are. Cooper regards the shots of Jean Renault, Hank, Hank's father-in-law, and Candian Mountie Guy standing in front of Dead Dog Farm engaging in some kind of furtive exchange. She asks if she did good. Cooper lays it on, "You did better than good, Audrey. You may have saved my life." She proclaims them "even." I think that's what she said, drowned out as it is by the ten remaining rabid viewers of this show screaming "Get it on! Get it on! Pleeeeease!" until the dialogue is drowned out completely. She sits down in the desk chair as a knock on the door reveals Denise Bryson, who gives Cooper a big ol' hug. Cooper introduces Mulder to Audrey, who stands in absolute shock. "They have women agents?" Duchovny deadpans -- no, really -- "more or less." Heh. Cooper asks Audrey to leave so he and Denise can take care of a little official business. She submits, stopping before she goes to show us a big, dumb, awesome goofy smile. Then she kisses Cooper full on the mouth before disappearing. Cooper shows Mulder the pictures and tells him about the cocaine. And though this information has probably saved Cooper's career and definitely salvaged what slim hopes we had of wardrobe improvement, Girlie Mulder is very quick to change the subject to "something more important. Exactly how old is this girl?" Cooper volleys that he would think Denise was "no longer interested in girls." Girlie Mulder has the retort at the ready: "Coop, I may be wearing a dress, but I still put my panties on one leg at a time, if you know what I mean." Not really. Coop: "Not really." Hee. This is going surprisingly well.
Double R. Norma interrupts Ed mournfully looking at a slice of pie, and she asks if he wants to talk about whatever is bothering him. "We used to talk about everything. We can still talk, Ed." And so he does. And does and does and does. "Remember when we were kids, all those plans we made?" He stirs a heaping tablespoon of pathos into his damn fine cup of coffee (and hot!) and talks about days gone by and hopes dashed. "Suddenly, you're halfway through livin' and those all plans, they just don't mean a damn thing. I'm livin' my life, Norma. I just don't like it much." Awww. She takes his hand and whispers something about "new plans." At the other end of the counter, a hand drops into the frame holding a domino. Oh, okay. Enough with that.
Thunder and darkness as Dick Tremayne bursts in the front door of the police station. Lucy primps at the desk, but the realizes his visit has nothing to do with her, seeing as he stares down the hallway and smiles all relieved when he finds his conversational target: "Andrew." Dick pulls Andy into a private corner and whispers as such, "I believe that Little Nicky, incredible as it may seem, may, in fact, be the Devil." He then proposes, just as whispery and just as not as absent of sexual tension as the collective viewing audience would so desperately like to believe, "we've got to find out what happened to his parents." Andy looks up toward a thought bubble, which appears above his head, containing licking flames and the aforementioned child wearing a Satanic Halloween costume and holding a plastic pitchfork. I'm in the background, recapping. Because I'm in Hell, people. I hope my repeated insistences that we're eternally trapped in "Subplot Hell" don't have anything to do with this mess. Thought Bubble Devil Nicky smiles. He's the only one.
Over in another cobwebby corner of the same rank underworld, the Mayor sits in Truman's office. Doc Hayward enters and shouts in Milford's ear something about his brother dying "of natural causes." The Mayor asks if the good doctor "checked him for witchcraft," claiming that he wants to press charges against Robyn Lively for killing Dougie with sex. On his detached exit, all of the menfolk of the police station are standing outside of the interrogation room when Hawk walks into the hall and asks Harry, "You still have that bottle of Irish in your office? I wanna put some in a little warm milk for the widow Milford." Drinking on the job? Shout-out? Mrs. Dead Doug steps out into the hallway and the men swoon. Lucy storms off quietly in the background. Some ambiguous passage of time later, Lucy can't find Harry when a telephone call comes in for him, and she follows the sounds of uproarious laughter into his office, where she espies all of the men present (Truman, Hawk, Doc Hayward, Andy, and Andy's beard -- I mean, "Dick") hanging on her every pointless word. Lucy slams out of the room in a hurry. It's almost over It's almost over It's almost over It's almost over It's almost over It's almost over It's almost over It's almost over It's almost over It's almost over It's almost over It's almost over It's almost over It's almost over It's almost over It's almost over It's almost over It's almost over It's almost over It's almost over It's almost over It's almost over It's almost over It's almost over It's almost over It's almost over It's almost over. Whew.
Double R. Girlie Mulder interrupts Ernie "Six Million Degrees Of Main Character Separation" Niles during a fried chicken dinner, sitting down across the booth from him and, nonchalantly, "I don't want to put the squeeze on you." Heh. More of same, please. "You've been to prison. I don't need to paint you any pictures. Girlie Mulder flashes the DEA badge and drops the black-and-whites in front of him. Cut to Niles confessing to something really bad, as the storm rages outside. Where are we? Cooper leans over him while Ernie blames the other men in on the deal for steering him down the path of evil. Girlie Mulder tells him that the only way he can atone for his role in the framing of Cooper is to frame them right back in a plot to go down the following day at Dead Dog Farm. Transvestite humor ensues. Oh, let it rest. He sleeps all night and he works all day and WE GET IT.
James. Rain. House. Screaming. Malcolm. "Blah I'll kill him." Nice job, me. I am the recapping master.
Bobby comes home to mom and dad's. Awwwww. Really, he's just a little boy inside. He walks in, soaking wet (I haven't completely revoked his introductory nickname just yet, but he's certainly building an excellent case as to why I should). Mrs. "Oh Yeah, Her" Briggs turns on a light and Bobby turns around. She's sitting on the couch, alone. Bobby assures her when she starts to cry about her husband's disappearance that the Major will be back as always. Bobby lights a cigarette and recaps for the collective benefit of no one that he and his father met at the Double R a few weeks ago, and the Major shared a dream he had about his son: "It was a big house. With white marble and lots of lights. Dad was there. I was there, too." Um, yeah. So were we, thanks. "We lived a life of deep harmony and joy. Or something like that." Oh, and note to the writer: tacking on the words "or something like that" does not constitute new script pages. Mrs. Briggs responds that the Major is "an extraordinary human being," and as the tears begin to fall again the lights in the house go out. Then the Major, looking like he spent his disappearing time from Twin Peaks on a mad hunt for the perfect "Snoopy as Red Baron costume" (and he found it, man), appears in the middle of the living room. He asks how long he's been gone. "Two days." The missus jumps up to hug him, and the Major asks Bobby to put out the cigarette and fix him a cocktail. Wow. Do as I say, not as I drink, eh? Mrs. Briggs asks her husband, "Is everything all right?" He hugs her real tight, like: "No, dear. Not exactly." 'Nuff said. Thanks, Caleb Deschanel. I'll loiter around my mailbox for a couple of days, waiting for you to send me this hour of my life back. Don't forget there's a postage hike Monday.