Props to amorgan, for breaking down and breaking the code of silence. Twice! Oh, and 'cause she's my new girlfriend, too.
Same episode, Part the Second. Maybe we'll discover who that dang varmint is who shot Mr. Burns after all. I think it was Tito Puente. Let's wait and see!
The moon is half-full tonight as Cooper continues to stand in shock, watching Audrey in his bed at the Great Northern. Yeah, Coop, I know it's a pretty pivotal development for the arc of the show as a whole, but you do realize the moon was full to the point of bursting at the start of this episode's first hour, do you not? So unless you've been standing there for the better part of this two-week waning cycle, biding your time until Audrey becomes legal, I'd say it's time to put that gun down (yeah, wink wink) and start asking some questions. Two whole weeks. Damn, those Scandinavians know themselves a whole lotta drinking songs.
Inside the room, a decisively whispery Cooper tells an explicitly defrocked Audrey, "You're a high school girl. I'm an agent of the FBI." Which was not already mondo-apparent from his proudly donned navy blue windbreaker screaming "FBI" in sewn yellow letters upwards of seven times like it's the team uniform for the elected captain of some intergovernmental color war. She asks, whispery, if she should leave, and he Chinese riddles right back, "What I want and what I need are two different things." He offers a pithy speech about upholding the values of the Bureau and his quest for moral purity and you-haven't-been-a-high-school-student-since-the-Coolidge-administration-but-you-play-one-on-TV and it's-impossible-to-get-the-smell-of-sex-out-of-this-governmentally-sanctioned- windbreaker-anyway and blah blah blah statutorycakes. Awwww. How can their love be so wrong when it feels so right...to me? She counters his this-is-wrongitude with the simple inquiry, "But don't you like me?" He does, but he believes that what Audrey needs right now, "more than anything else, is a friend. Someone who'll listen." He hands her a handkerchief and she wipes her snotty nose, probably right into the words "no, really, he's in the FBI" stenciled in yellow across the center of the fabric. And, finally, happy with the "friends" consolation, she smiles big, and I remember again why Sherilyn Fenn, even with the pillbox-requiring hair and the small amount of meat she adds to her bones later in the series, remains so much more in the hearts and minds of the American populace than a very, very, very rich man's Monica Lewinsky. Cooper is going to run downstairs and get them some food, and when he returns, he promises, "I want you to tell me all of your troubles." She warns him that this chore could "take all night" ("and then there was the time I was crazy, and then there was the time I was really, really crazy, and oh by the way have you met my brother, and where the hell is my mom these days, anyway?") and that she can't share all of her secrets. He responds, "Secrets are dangerous things, Audrey." He doesn't have any secrets. Audrey tells him that Laura was, as we have been told by another character familiar with the general locale of Cooper's bed, "filled with secrets." He says it's his job to figure out what those secrets were. Cooper makes for the door as one last shot of a sheet-cloaked Audrey causes that one last primally pubescent urge in me to volley at the screen, "I'll be more than a friend, Audrey!" before I reread the entirety of my first six recaps and shrug in resignation, considering the amount of time and energy I've already expended homing in on Bobby. I will be alone forever.
Establishing shot of the Sheriff's Station. Andy walks through the front door and tentatively approaches Lucy's desk. Oy. Lucy. MTV's first six years in existence called. It wants its poofy, Bananarama-esque haircut back. Not to be outdone, Andy's ferret-like 'do rises up from his scalp without the benefit of gel or spray in an inadvertent style I can only describe as a "Caesar's retarded little brother" cut. Lucy bids him her downtrodden and detached "good morning, Officer Brennan," and he responds that he wishes she would stop calling him that. Remaining aloof, she tells him that it is not convenient for her to talk to him right now as this is "peak activity time at the station switchboard," and dives at the ringing phone to illustrate her point. She tells the caller to hold and then waits for Andy to skulk miserably off before resuming her call: "Doctor Stanicek?" (Thank you, closed captioning, for the prompt and ostensibly accurate spelling of that name. I'm glad to see our conflicts from last week have been expeditiously resolved.) Anyway, there's news. Sad news. She hangs up, sings a quick verse of the remake version of "I'm Your Venus" (no, really, she doesn't, but that HAIR), and looks gloomy some more. Cooper walks in, whistling into his whittled creation as he so often does, and plot develops in our general direction when he informs Lucy that he heard she was out sick yesterday. She volunteers, barely above a whisper, that she's "much better today," and Cooper seems convinced in a not-at-all-convinced kind of way.
Doc Hayward (I forgot just how much time he spent doddering around the police station in the weeks following the murder) and Truman are reading about mynah birds in the conference room, while the apprehended Waldo sits in his cage across the table. So far they haven't heard a peep out of the crime-solving bird even though "its ability to mimic the human voice is amazing," and Hayward volunteers that this is probably because "mimicry is a kind of play with the mynah," and this bird was found weakened, starved, and decidedly unplayful. So they'll have to wait. Hayward asks if Cooper wants to feed him, and the suited agent stands back toward the window and mutters, barely loud enough for me to hear but plenty true enough for me to agree, "I don't like birds." Hayward continues from this strange manual Nature Lover's Weekly Guide to Solving Grisly Murders that the bird's desire to talk should return with its good health. And then he'd be their only witness. Yes, well, this case continues to run quite smoothly, now, doesn't it? Anyway, Hawk enters with a manila folder containing forensics results from DC confirming that "Jacques Renault had three guests to his cabin: Laura Palmer, Ronette Polaski, and Leo Johnson." There is also a black-and-white photograph from the discovered roll of film of a bird, and Cooper insists that the ambiguous gray patch that the bird sits on is Laura. Truman's having some trouble seeing all that, it seems. Cooper optimistically observes that "we know who [yeah, we know who didn't kill her], and when [er, the night before she washed up dead on the rocky beach, I'm guessing?], but we don't know why" (I'm gonna have to go out on a limb here and guess it's because somebody wanted her dead). To this effect, Cooper unearths a voice-activated tape recorder (oooooh. Is this an adulterous relationship developing with a technologically advanced version of Diane?) and leaves it below Waldo's cage in the hope that "when the bird talks, maybe we'll get some answers." I know, I know. A kitschy, crime-solving bird. I want desperately to make fun of it, but so many other far quirkier happenings have been taken in stride thus far in the series that, at this point, I am completely sold on the internal logic as set forth by the show. Forgive the non-jaded, disbelief-suspended-from-the-tallest-dourly-blowing-tree-in-the-Twin-Peaks-forest concession, I beg of you. Other evidence: the $1000 One-Eyed Jacks poker chip from Laura's stomach. Hawk reminds the viewing public that "Jacques Renault is working, dealing at the casino." Cooper suggests another field trip, but Truman stops him in a fine display of the sadly lost network TV art of SUBTLE foreshadowing that crossing national borders for an FBI investigation is, in fact, "a little out of our jurisdiction." But Cooper remains one step ahead, informing Truman, "That's why I was thinking this would be a good job for the Bookhouse Boys." Truman smiles broadly in that "shucks, if you think my club is cool, you should see my treehouse sometime" approach to grisly murder solving. The casino snooping subplot is officially set in motion.
An endlessly wide shot of Bobby getting out of his car is followed by another shot of a walking Bobby being watched through binoculars, still extremely far off. Man, those jaw bones must be visible from the surface of the moon. Hi, Bobby. Cut to Leo, sitting in his truck, looking through -- no, really -- a pair of binoculars. Hey, Johnson. I know you've already committed numerous crimes of love, but you can still avoid the most egregious one of all and stay out of the permanent shithouse with yours truly recapper and just keep your hands. Off. My. Man. You think I'm kidding? I AM NOT KIDDING! Hold me back, man, hold me back. I'm crazy over here. Er. Anyway, Leo watches Bobby approach his pre-fab, domesticated-as-a-rabid-wolf house from afar, and Shelley opening the door. Big hug. Leo grabs a so-unimposing-it's-just-unimposing hunting rifle, brought to you, product-placement-style, by the good folks down at Daisy Air Incorporated. He points it in the general direction of his house, after the door has already closed, and threatens no one, "Come on, loverboy, Leo's waiting." Hey, Leo. What was that about keeping your hands offa my man? Grrrrr.
Inside the house, Bobby is about halfway through the first chorus of "Workin' for the Weekend" (it's a Loverboy joke, okay? I don't know why I made it. I just did). Shelley starts to cry. "I shot him, Bobby. I know I did. He just screamed and screamed. He sounded like an animal." Bobby stands in shock with that you-did-the-who-in-the-what-now stare before collecting himself and insisting that Shelley start at the beginning. And so she does. Leo came home bloody (bear in mind the scuffle with the ambiguously but wholly evil Hank), she told him he couldn't hurt her anymore, blah. The gun went off when, well, she pulled the trigger. She needs to hide. She's afraid he's going to kill her. With the Daisy Air Rifle? He couldn't shoot an insult with that gun, I don't think. But Shelley continues to cry. Bobby calms her right on down: "Leo Johnson is history. I'm taking care of you from now on. I'm gonna deal with Leo, I'm gonna deal with James." Uh, James? Like Shelley gives a crap in the world about the ever-lingering Fetus subplot? I guess Bobby just added that as a rider to the "I'm your big bad daddy now" amendment to the Bobby Briggs Constitution of Love as a reminder that Slater Fetus still sucks. Guess who didn't need a reminder? Earth. Earth didn't, as it turns out.
Back outside, Leo is distracted from Daisy Air fun times by a conversation coming over his pick-up truck's CB radio. Lucy says, "The Sheriff says it's a witness. Not just because it saw something. Because it talks." Leo leaps in the truck and drives away, bringing this alleged guilty party back to the fore of the murder investigation plot and the Johnson's count of total vehicles up to three, including a snazzy new sports car. I knew drug smuggling was a lucrative business and all, but perhaps some of those illegally attained funds could go to other beautifying pursuits, such as adding a new aesthetic element to your home every once in a while. Like, for instance, a wall.
The fetid smell of death hangs as heavy as ever in the Palmer house today. Maddy, Donna, and Slater Fetus listen to a "What's up, Doc" tape that Laura made for Jacoby that Maddy unearthed in Laura's secret hiding spot. Laura asks, "Why is it so easy to make men like me when I don't even have to try very hard" as Maddy stares intently at the tape recorder, doubtlessly thinking, "I don't know who this girl is, but she should DEFINITELY consider sticking to voice-over." James reaches over a still-forming hand with its developing opposable thumb and turns the recorder off in under-acted (surprise!) disgust. Maddy takes an empty tape case out of the secret box and observes, and we thank her for the description, "This one's empty." The case is labeled "February 23rd," which James observes is "the night Laura died." Again, thanks. They decide they need that tape, and even posit briefly that Jacoby killed her. Shut up, Fetus Hardy Boy. So they need to find the tape tonight, and they have to sneak into Jacoby's office to get it. What if he's there? Well, Slater Fetus proposes, "Maybe he gets a phone call. From Laura." He rewinds the tape and presses play: "What's up, Doc?" A close-up on the tape recorder, inarguably the most interesting character in the scene, cuts to a shot from behind the couch, practically in the backyard. Thank you for that, faux-Lynch proxy director of this episode. I was getting a little tired of staring at that wig myself, thank you very much.
Let the sleuthing begin! Over at the infamous perfume counter at Horne's Department Store, Audrey is in the process of being a pretty darn underwhelming perfume girl. Bald, suited Emory Battis stops by the counter and whispers to the girl sharing fragrance duties with Audrey that he would like to see her in his office in five minutes. Audrey excuses herself to use "the little girl's room," and then slides surreptitiously into Emory's office, lights a cigarette and fairly walks to the beat of Snare Drum Shuffle ringing relentlessly in the rarefied store air. She secrets herself inside of a conveniently appearing closet in the office just as Emory and the other perfume girl enter, sit, and methodically ignore the billowy clouds of cigarette smoke emanating from between the slotted door of said conveniently appearing closet. Audrey watches as Emory hands the girl, "Jenny," a box as a token of his esteem for "a job well done." She opens it to discover a small unicorn figurine, and she can barely conceal her unencumbered delight that her Hummel collection has grown once more thanks to the rather robust employee discount of one Emory Battis. Through the slots, Emory goes on to ask Jenny if she "had a good time at the club." She did. He would like for her to come to work at this aforementioned club of theirs, telling her that "the variety of work is completely up to you. Hostess, cocktail waitress. Or, if you are chosen, hospitality girl." She wants to get to the euphemism behind that particular title, and Emory heaps subtext on subtext by telling her that one of a hospitality girl's main tasks is to "escort important guests...tending to wealthy men in need of company." Jenny responds that "it sounds cool. As long as they're wealthy," and I instantly form a belief that if any girl in the world deserves to get sucked down into the grimy underworld of prostitution, it's someone who is either too stupid to miss his point or too shallow to do anything about it. Stupid Jenny. Emory gives her a business card and tells her to "call this number. Ask for Black Rose." And they're off to evening wear to find her "something elegant." She thanks the good and great Mr. Battis and they leave. Audrey emerges from the office and picks up a conveniently-left-behind black book on Emory's desk filled with girl's names and differing numbers of hearts to those names. Revealingly (to her), one of those names is Ronette Polaski. She pockets the also-left-behind unicorn and leaves. His last name sounds a heckuva lot like "bad ass." I wonder if they did that on purpose.
Over at the Double R, Hank ("Mullet, Sr.") is unsurprisingly in the process of doing something unconscionably evil, I am all too sure. He and Shelley are alone behind the counter while Norma looks worriedly on from the kitchen door. Hank is telling Shelley what a help Norma always said Shelley was in her letters, and also how "Pete" was such a help as well. Pete, Shelley inquires? Oh, you must mean Big Ed. D'oh! Hank digests the name and waits for Shelley to walk away so he can mumble in his most roguish fashion, "Yeah. Big Ed." Cue sinister chord. Hank sees a silver lighter on the counter and pockets it while clearing dishes. 'Cause he's evil, is why.
The dynamic duo of Cooper and Truman (can we get a nickname for these two cronies traveling everywhere together? ["'Trooper'?" -- Sars]) enters the diner. Hank attempts his good country folk greeting with Harry, but Truman cuts him short: "What you are is on parole, Hank. That means that your case officer visits once a week, Fridays. You miss a visit, you go to jail." Truman don't like himself no Hank Jennings, that's for sure, and Truman mumbles an uncharacteristically cynical sentiment: "You think people really change, Cooper? I don't." Yikes. Shelley approaches all smiley and Cooper responds in the affirmative when she asks if they want some coffee. Truman tells Cooper they should really be on their way, but Cooper stops him in his tracks with a very pilot-esque type of quirk. It starts with -- aw, hell, here's the whole thing: "Everyday, once a day, give yourself a present. Don't plan it, don't wait for it, just let it happen. Could be a new shirt from at men's store, a catnap in your office chair, or two cups of good, hot, black coffee. Like this." Cooper's present to himself seems to be an amazing cup of optical-illusion, guess-the-meniscus, continuity-damning coffee, as the actual amount of liquid in the cup decreases by about a third by the time he finally sits down to drink it. But I really like the intent behind the speech, so I'm not even going to mention it this time. Oh, wait. Just did.
Let the sleuthing continue! Back at Horne's perfume counter, Audrey apprehends poor unsuspecting Jenny and clevers us all to death a little by asking, "Did Battis give you a dress?" Audrey takes out the unicorn she stole off Bad Ass's desk and asks if Jenny was given one as well. Audrey continues that she did "a really dumb thing," that she "lost the number" Bad Ass gave her for Black Rose. Hoodwinked, Jenny supplies the card. Audrey walks to the other side of the perfume counter and picks up the phone. Stupid, stupid Jenny. Freakin' fabulous Audrey.
I'm really not making this up. I had a dream last night that I got in trouble with the powers-that-be at MBTV because my Invitation to Love thread died in the doorway. No, really. I got an e-mail about it and everything and there was much fighting and accusing and furious anger. Don't take it too hard, though. Because I also had another dream in the very same night that I was in a plane crash over Toronto on the way to Miami from New York on a flight with the entire cast of Newsradio, all in character. Man, that Andy Dick. He can crack your shit up with so much as a glance. Until, of course, he died in that tragic plane wreck over Toronto. Man, I have gotta stop brushing my teeth with jalapeño poppers so soon before the bedtime hour, huh? The point of all this? Ha! There was no point, suckas! Just kidding. Here's the point: Over at the Hurley house, Pirate Nadine sits alone on the couch watching Invitation to Love, a fascinating topic for conversations, debates, and forum interchanges of all kinds, wouldn't you say? EH? Chet tells Montana that he "wasn't fooling," and then he shoots last week's bandana'd Warthogs leader as Nadine quietly roots, "Rejuvenate this awesome thread!" Okay, that's not really what she says. In fact, she says, "You show 'em, Chet. You show all of them." The Invitation to Love closing credits roll as Ed enters the house and sits to Nadine, who soon begins to cry. He tells her that "it's not that bad," and she responds, "You don't know how bad it is." She wanted a new life for them, but she hasn't gotten past the anguish of being turned down by the patent attorney who apparently didn't understand her silent-drape-runner invention. Yeah, patent dude. Get in line. "Rejected," she wails. "Rejected, that's what he said. No one else is going to say anything different." Ed hugs her and too-dramatically tells her, "Don't give up, don't you dare," as the surging pathos of the interlocution-friendly Invitation to My Forums, er, I mean, Invitation to Love closing credits continues to accompany the high drama of the proceedings. What an interesting juxtaposition of the two shows here. I like it. More importantly, though, what do YOU think about it?
Packard Mill. Pete is in the process of showing Harry a recently stuffed and mounted fish he caught. Pete rocks my tiny little party world. Pete leaves the room and is soon to be replaced by a slightly less tremorous rocker-of-my-world, Josie Packard. Josie tries to make nicey-nice with Harry, but he's too intent on finding out the whats and whys of her secret jaunt to the Timber Falls Motel back in Episode 4. She lies. Truman counters, "Hawk saw you." She hesitates, searching for the right cheap bastardization of the English language, perhaps to tell him that "what you don't know won't squirt you," while I muse that some master of directorial irony should just go ahead and "push the plug" on this entire scene already. So she comes clean, finally telling him that "Ben and Katherine were there together. I followed them and took pictures." And because this is a two-part episode and the writers were running out of original dialogue for Josie's character, she shows him the pictures. Slowly. Truman asks, "What's this all about?" She tells him that he had once asked for proof of their underhanded dealings, and then she repeats the identical speech about obtaining proof, all the while showing him the pictures. Yawn. Oh, and also she heard Katherine on the phone talking to a mysterious caller about a "fire at the mill. Fire at Andrew's mill. My mill." It's all the same mill. She won't let it happen. Truman promises that he "won't let it happen" either. Except he will. They both will. She tears up. Which only further drives home Josie's point that where there is smoke, there is crier. Or some such botched thing. God, how I hate her.
Cooper emerges from an interior room of the Great Northern and appears in the lobby decked out (just get used to the inadvertent cards/gambling/high stakes puns. Okay, just try) in a full-scale, extremely flattering tuxedo. He meets Truman and Ed, and the three are on their way to their north-of-the-border information-gathering visit to Jacques Renault at One-Eyed Jacks. Cooper slyly asks if the two like gambling, and then extracts "ten thousand dollars of the Bureau's money" and tells them that they're all getting lucky tonight. In cards. Which is what exactly zero percent of the rest of the male Jacks-going population means when they cross the border, desirous to "get lucky." Ed agrees to meet Cooper and Truman outside, as Harry requests a private audience with Cooper. Once on their own, Harry recounts Josie's fear at finding out about Katherine and Ben's shady business dealings, and her belief that the two rogues are planning to burn down the mill for Ghostwood-oriented purposes. Cooper asks how much Truman really knows about her, and Truman puts the "hopeless" back in "hopeless romantic" by telling Cooper, "I know all I need to know. I love her." Cooper promises to look into it, because he hates Josie too and just wants to be right. Or that's how I would act the part if I had been cast in the role of Special Agent Dale Cooper. And had also been allowed to write the script, in which Josie's character straps herself to a lightning rod and "pushes the plug" in a rickety barrel over Niagara Falls in the pilot's opening sequence. Anyway, Cooper and Truman spell out their stealthy disguise for the evening: they will be traveling as "high rollers from the Tri-Cities. Oral surgeons. Big spenders vacationing among the firs." They leave, and right behind them Audrey walks into the room, as if searching for someone. And who could it be? She picks up a courtesy phone and asks if Agent Cooper has returned yet. He has not. She needs to leave another message. She does.
Filler up, as they say when a scene is filled with a whole lotta filler. Over at the mill, Katherine accompanies a tall, official-looking gentleman into one of the dozen wood and stone rooms featured every time we're back in this house. He is asking for signatures on her own life insurance policy that, well, she just plain can't remember taking out. How odd. Or at least it is until the official man helpfully volunteers, "I have to admit, I thought it a little unusual. Life insurance and the client is too busy to be involved. I mean, you did know about this policy, didn't you?" Katherine wonders if Mr. Official thinks something is amiss. He responds, "I certainly never got that idea from Mrs. Packard, no. Or Mr. Horne, for that matter, either. When he offered to collect your signatures, I thought it was fine. Just with a new account, I like to be certain to cross every 'T.'" She fakes to sign and then thinks twice, telling Mr. Official that there are some changes her lawyer was supposed to make. Like the part about her business associate and her estranged sister-in-law joining together in a plot to kill her and then collect on a life insurance policy they themselves took out on her, perhaps? Does that qualify as one of the small so-called changes she'd like to make? Mr. Official leaves, and Katherine actually experiences a brief instant of the maniacal delusions that have so far characterized pretty much every character on this show with the exception of her. She closes her eyes and repeatedly mouths the word "think" while inhaling and exhaling so vehemently that the furniture in the room moves closer and further away depending on which part of the breathing cycle she's undergoing. Finally, she rises and runs into the room containing the hidden ledger that "no one" knows about but her and Ben, and she flips up the secret panel to find the ledger missing. Katherine gasps at the plot thickness of it all.
Audrey, apparently unable to track down Cooper, walks past his room at the Great Northern and slips a note under his door. She looks sad.
It's raining, so something really dramatic is bound to happen now. Over at the Sheriff's Station, Hawk fits Cooper with a small surveillance microphone while Ed looks in horror at his own disguise of, as Cooper describes it, "a curly-haired wig" and "one of those moustaches." Oh, my, how I can't wait to see that ensemble in action. Cooper tests the microphone, which feeds back horribly. Over in Waldo's private suite in the conference room, the thunder rumbles and the rain pounds against the window over a tracking shot of the conference table filled with a tray of donuts. This sequence could have been horribly and pretentiously over-directed (as many scenes from here on in were known to be, when non-Lynch types who had spent their fledgling directing careers cutting their teeth on Starburst commercials began to try to groove to the Twin Peaks style and ended up inadvertently making fun of it), but it's ridiculously straightforward and I really respect that. The tracking shot tracks on up to Waldo sitting on his perch, the red light from the voice-activated tape recorder lights up, and the bird chillingly begins to repeat, "Laura. Laura." The shot hangs for a moment on a framed picture on the conference room's wall; a gunshot rings out; the glass frame shatters; blood from the poor, chatty, martyred Waldo starts dripping down onto the newly-flavored bird's-entrail donuts. Outside, a figure runs toward a pick-up truck carrying a Daisy Air Rifle strong enough to down a helpless animal with hollow bones weighing less than a pound but couldn't even knock a picture off a wall. Hey, it's Leo! He jumps into his truck and drives away. And with the "Who killed Waldo the Bird" conundrum now solved, the greater part of the North American viewing audience can finally achieve closure in something on this show and tune out for the rest of time. Amen. Guns drawn, Cooper and Hawk enter the room with Truman and Big Ed not far behind. Ed asks what happened, and Truman bravely surmises that "they shot Waldo," though the completely unnecessary nature of that exchange is rendered valid when, to the great appreciation of me, Cooper rewinds the voice-activated recorder just a wee bit and it plays back that very exchange. Nicely done. Now all we have to do is work out the vastly shifting matrix of the waxing and waning moon, and this episode might even get close to being well-directed. Good thing it's raining and the moon indicator has been temporarily rendered null. Cooper continues to rewind. They hear Lucy trying to feed Waldo. And then, finally, in that same creepy-as-all-hell falsetto, the bird: "Laura? Laura? Don't hurt her. Hurting me. Hurting me. Stop it. Stop it. Stop it. Leo, no. Leo, no." Leo, then! Leo's the perp! Ah...ha?
On international assignment at One-Eyed Jacks, the Bookhouse Boys enter the casino and have a stroll around. Cooper has accessorized with only glasses to complete his oral surgeon get-up, and Ed wears said curly-haired wig and moustache in a Halloween costume labeled "Freddie Mercury's Orthodontically Inclined Doppelganger" at the Ye Olde Twin Peaks Costume Shoppe. Which makes some cyclical sense. For an oral surgeon costume. They are approached by a woman in a black dress who introduces herself as "Blackie," who asks if tonight is their first night at Jacks, and Cooper smarms, "Yeah, it's our rookie season." She continues the baseball metaphor, and the stylized goodness of it all sets me right into direct transcription mode. Verbatim? Not verboten!
Blackie [to Ed]: You look like a cop.
Cooper: I'm the cop.
Blackie: You look like Cary Grant. Got a name?
Cooper: Barney and Fred. Just in from the Tri-Cities.
Blackie [to Ed]: Fred, what's your lot?
Ed: Own a gas station. ["I'm the president of the Land of Idiots" pause] Um, I'm an oral surgeon.
Blackie: I've got a Chevy parked out back with a serious root canal problem. Wanna take a look?
Ed: Well, I was hopin' you might need a little gum work, because I'd sure like to get a look under your hood.
Bwa ha ha ha! And he does look a bit like Cary Grant, really. Blackie leaves.
Cooper and Ed move to a higher plane for a more scoping perspective of the room, and Cooper reports on the gambling status quo of the casino into his tiny microphone. Outside in a van, Hawk monitors the goings-on. Cooper reports that Ed will be playing some craps, and that he is going to head over to the blackjack table. "Ed, let's gamble." Ed, let's drive home the fifteen billionth gambling/cunning/games-of-chance metaphor in the last ten TV minutes.
Back in the Palmer house, Maddy very, very, very silently walks down the steps from her bedroom and toward the front door. She slides out and believes this ruse to have gone undetected, but we pan to the living room couch and find Leland sitting alone. He looks toward the door with as sinister a glare as a non-animated villain could achieve, and then slides back into silhouette. I totally forgot that shot was in there. Very good shot. Oh, very good. Better than any of the billion or so fetus-containing shots of the couple of scenes. Back at the mysterious Jacoby Gazebo, Maddy exits the passenger side of Donna's car (didn't she used to very detrimentally not have a car?) wearing what I can only in the most ironic of ways describe as "a blonde wig." Yeah, she looks just like Laura. She is Laura. Let's all stare, mesmerized. Now let's stop.
I'm happy to report that Ben Horne has finally given himself over to the endless quantities of recreation and diversion which comes from the imbibing of several dozen frosty mugs of Aryan Nation Lager with the suddenly resurgent Scandinavians. Listening to them carry their drunken selves through the Arctic Circle rendition of "Ninety-Nine Bottles of Beer" inside his office, Ben finally loses patience with the frivolity and sends them to the dining room, detaining Jerry for some future conversation. But first he says this: "You simply have got to teach me some of these incredible songs," and I have no idea what happens because I giggle helplessly through the descending numbers of seventy-four through sixty-eight büttles der bier on the vall. And so they go. Jerry again reminds Ben of how much the Nords love the land at the Ghostwood site, but all Ben wants to know is when they plan to sign the contracts already. Jerry responds that "they're poised, with their pens in their hands," but that "they want to finalize the deal at One-Eyed Jacks." Annoyed, Ben asks just how they found out about Jacks. Er, because it was your idea to take them there to, as I believe you put it, "seal the deal"? Ben relents and tells Jerry to "get 'em back on the van." Jerry stumbles out, bellowing something about a "road trip." Meanwhile, Ben, back to business, picks up the phone and dials. Josie answers, and Ben asks, "Is she there?" He tells her that "it" is set for tonight and that "she" needs to be "at the mill." They hang up, and Hank Jennings enters the frame behind Josie and silently nods his approval. And why? Because where static, ambiguous evil goes, so goes the static and ambiguous evil of one Hank Jennings.
You've all seen this one before. Audrey (who introduces herself as Hester of Scarlet Letter fame), decked out in almost the same cut of black dress as one Blackie herself, enters Blackie's red-curtained (get it? Hmmm?) office looking porcelain-doll radiant. Blackie gives the once-over to Audrey's completely fabricated whore résumé, and she crumples it up when she sees that Audrey has no experience in the field of male-hosting whatsoever. And so the challenge is put forth: "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't air-mail your bottom back to civilization." At which point, Audrey reaches into Blackie's bright red cocktail (okay, that is so reason numbers two through a million in the "why she SHOULD mail your bottom back to civilization" argument. I mean, really), removes the maraschino cherry, breaks off the stem, and puts it in her mouth. And in just a few seconds, she removes the stem, and places it on the napkin, fully tied. Which is, I believe, a signal that she's really good at kissing or fellatio or tying cherry stems in her mouth or some such thing. And with that scene, the last real moment of Twin Peaks pop-cultural importance comes to a Shirley Templed and completely unwarranted close. Blackie welcomes "Hester" to One-Eyed Jacks.
Over at the blackjack table, Cooper continues on what we are to assume is a long winning streak. Ed comes over and asks sheepishly if he has to pay Cooper back for what we are to assume is an even longer losing streak. No. The dealer departs, and when Cooper turns back around from his conversation, he comes face to barely-reigned-in-belly with the card-dealing, drug-smuggling, girl-killing (?) acumen of one tux-clad Jacques Renault. And lemme tell you, he doesn't wear that tux nearly as well as the Cary Grant-ish figure right across the table.
Jacoby, too, is watching Invitation to Love. Gee, the characters sure seem to enjoy this show and consequent discussion thereof. The phone rings in his office and he answers ("Aloha," by the way), only to hear, and I couldn't have written this one better myself, "What's up, Doc?" Maddy repeats a few phrases from the tape she found in Laura's room, and then improvs her way to the developing of said plot, informing him, "First thing you have to do is go to the door." And God bless him. The man can't remember that a necktie is the correct finishing accessory for a collared shirt and not a turtleneck (as is the case now), but he's savvy enough to grab a gun from a nearby drawer before approaching the door to his office. He puts the phone down, walks to the door, and opens it to find a manila envelope with a videotape inside. Puts it in, presses play. Maddy in her Laura wig, holding a copy of today's paper. Ooooh, creepy. She tells him to meet her at the corner of Sparkwood and 21 in twenty minutes. She hangs up and looks mournful. But from another corner of the woods, Bobby is just happening by and sees this ruse in action, James's motorcycle pulling away and leaving behind a girl who looks more than a bit like his estranged-by-death girlfriend, Laura Palmer. Man, those folks who tuned out forever after the cherry-stem sequence have no idea what they're collectively missing. Back in his office, Jacoby continues to stare at the television screen, almost as intently as he did when that epic bit of programming history, Invitation to Love, was gracing his small wood-paneled screen just a few seconds before.
Fetus and Donna hide outside of Jacoby's office, watching his car pull away. Once it has traveled a safe distance, they discreetly run up a flight of outdoor steps and crack open a door. But motives remain ulterior in the shot as Bobby runs up to James's motorcycle, opens the gas tank with a gloved hand, and slips in a plastic bag stuffed with an unambiguously white powder. Back at the gazebo, a heavy-breathing Jacoby stares from far-off at a blonde-wigged stranger of some kind, just as Mom gets a little too eager with the old stop button and we cut to the middle of a promo for the "Growin' Up Is Hard To Do" ABC Wednesday night line-up of The Wonder Years, Growing Pains, and Doogie Howser, which pretty much makes up for the sadness I feel at missing the last five or so seconds of this episode. I want to watch them all. For the first time. But Back to School is the late movie, so I'd better finish up with Doogie and just go to bed STAT.