I'm not exactly sure how one defines the expression "ominous beeping," but nevertheless that is the soundtrack accompanying screams, repeated childlike cries of "Daddy," and a slowly spinning camera which we join in progress inside of what appears to be a dark tunnel. How relieved I am by the show's crystal-clear decision not to abandon its now entrenched faux-artsy, decidedly "Glatter-esque" visual principles this week, so successful they have been in maintaining the overall aesthetic of the series thus far. Spinning, spinning, spinning. The camera spins out of the tunnel, and we can now see that the hole is just one of many, many holes on a whitish-gray surface which join together to form what appears to be the centerpiece in the Smithsonian's much-heralded exhibit of The World's Most Vintage Slices Of Swiss Cheese I've been hearing so much about. Spinning, spinning, spinning. Metaphor for "spiraling creative direction," anyone? Truman's voice begins to repeat "Leland," as the camera abandons its faux-artsy flourishes (temporarily, so don't get used to it) and the dots are revealed to be small holes in the ceiling tiles, which seem to captivate a similarly spinning Leland. Leland ain't looking so good, neither. He is sitting in a conference room of some kind deep, deep within the architectural curiosity that is the rapidly expanding sheriff's station. His tie is loosened and the top button on his shirt is open and askew. His white hair is so mussed that it has fallen into an inadvertent pompadour kind of thing, so that he looks like an old guy trying desperately to recapture those lost 1950s glory years in a way that totally screams, "I'm on my way to play an extra in the courtroom sequence of Billy Joel's 'Keeping the Faith' video. But first I have to answer for this whole murder thing, I guess."
Leland finally snaps to, and Truman makes with the interrogation. Did you go to the hospital? Why did you go to the hospital? Who were you looking for at the hospital? Leland responds glassily that he did go to the hospital, and he was there because he was "looking for someone." Who? "The man who killed my daughter." Hmmmmmm. Truman wants to know why Leland thought Jacques was the murderer, and Leland responds, "You arrested him." Truman looks down with a sorrowful look that begs, "Thanks for the back-up, Casey McCracken, but perhaps you haven't noticed that the people in this department have no collective idea what we're doing." And with that, Truman has nowhere to go but deadpan as he asks, "Leland, did you kill Jacques Renault?" And as Badalamenti's Sad Strings theme is reimagined on a delicate combination of -- actually, it just sounds exactly the same as it always freakin' does -- Leland confesses to the murder of Jacques Renault and begins to cry. Truman looks sad. Cooper looks sad. Doc Hayward looks…hey, it's Doc Hayward! Where in the holy living hell did he come from? Nice work with the spinning tunnelly cheese holes, This Week's Director (that's the good and great phenom "Todd Holland," who eventually rose to post-Peaks fame as the esteemed director of the shockingly Oscar-shunned Krippendorf's Tribe. Holland will be heard from again, I am sure, this time doubtlessly tearing up the celluloid on an upcoming episode of the Judith Light hosted skin-care infomercial Thank You, Doctor Zizmor, coming soon to your local UPN affiliate at a time so late at night I'm not actually sure it exists), but it might benefit us all to actually see some of the actual characters every once in a while if we're supposed to keep caring about just what it is those characters are doing. Or you could just point the camera at the ceiling and spin it around. Y'know, whatever's easiest for you. Incidentally, typing in "Todd Holland" on IMDb (as I did to uncover this particular "Krippendorfian" directorial skeleton) results in a list of other screen personalities with similar names, and asks me if perhaps "Todd Solondz" was the person I was looking for. And allow me to take this opportunity to say: If. Only.
Cooper and Hayward walk down the hallway out of Ambiguous Conference Room #?, Cooper commenting that Leland "will plead temporary insanity." Er, "temporary"? The good doctor sympathizes that "parents should not bury their children, and anyone who has been through what Leland has --" but a testy Cooper cuts him off with, "Do you approve of murder, Doctor Hayward?" Then he storms off without another word. My, someone woke up on the wrong side of the quirk bed this morning, eh? I guess quickly unraveling third-season contract negotiations can take its toll on even the most even-keeled person's constitution. Hayward stands by himself in the hallway for just a moment, but just then Andy notices him and calls him over to talk about something "kind of personal." It's his sperm test. He wants to take it over again. Hayward reaches into his black medical bag and pulls out a vial, telling Andy, "I'll need to take a sample with me." He too walks away sullenly without another word. Why is this The Hallway Of Never-Ending Ennui all of a sudden?
And so further Andy/Lucy-inspired hijinks erupt anew. Andy skulks around corners carrying the vial and a poorly concealed copy of Flesh World (hey, should "People's Exhibit A" really be used for such tainted purposes?) and trying vainly to remain stealthy and incognito, but as he makes for the bathroom, he walks right into Lucy, who of course is carrying a large box filled with some kind of individually-wrapped snack bags. They crash into each other. The box goes flying. Hey, your chocolate got in my porno mag! Hey, your porno mag got in my chocolate! Lucy attempts damage control, and as she places the snack bags back in her cardboard box, she uncovers the copy of Flesh World Andy had been carrying. She looks up and notes the "Rest Rooms" sign, adds it all up that he was on his way to the bathroom with this naughty nudie mag, and perpetrates further heinous Crimes Against Plot Development in standing self-righteously and harrumphing off, much as she has done to Andy in every single episode thus far.
Back at her desk, Lucy slams around some more as Cooper and Truman sit nearby and discuss the cavalcade of pointless extras currently boarding their busses to spend a week or two at "Tanking Series Fantasy Camp" even as I type these words. Truman: "Our judge arrives this afternoon. Clinton Sternwood. Travels the circuit in a Winnebago." Judge for what? Leland's bail hearing? Um, no, actually, because we then learn that today will feature Leland's bail hearing and Leo's competency exam. Truman wonders if Leland will get bail, and Cooper humorlessly (I don't like where that's going AT ALL) responds, "That's up to your state prosecutor." Whose name is "Daryl Lodwick." Or, as he was known on the production slate for Episode 11, "Jack Squat Nobodygivesadamn." For lack of a more interesting, better-thought-out nickname. Sorry. In other news, no one by the name of "Robertson" ever lived door to the Palmers on Pearl Lakes. The last known residents of the house were a "Kalispell" clan. They're so on it. I'm so in a coma. But just at this moment, Andy returns from the bathroom (Wow. It's like nine TV seconds later. I guess his gun isn't the only thing to go off prematurely. Ba-dum), looking down again, walking into someone again, and panicking when the (ostensibly filled) vial rolls underneath a chair near where Truman and Cooper sit. Andy runs over and bends down to retrieve the vial, and Cooper spots the bottom of his boots and stops him in his tracks to ask where he got them. For they are the Circle Brand, the very same kind they found under the floorboards at Leo's. He bought them from the One-Armed Man. Of course he did. Cooper references My Giant again and determines ambiguously that there must be a clue in all this somewhere. Andy nervously asks for permission to go, claiming, "I don't know how much time I have." Cooper grants him his leave. Cooper asks Truman what's wrong with Lucy, and we cut over to Lucy's desk where she looks angrily down and arbitrarily tosses away a pencil she had been holding. Damn, that Holland is a master of the subtly comedic touch. Like, y'all remember that part in Krippendorf's Tribe when hilarious comic genius Richard Dreyfuss…oh, you don't? That's funny. Because neither does the rest of America. Neither does Richard Dreyfuss, whose only recollection of the existence of that film is "pick up check, buy new boat. Lather, rinse, repeat." Stupid Richard Dreyfuss.
Great Northern. A still-fun-to-watch Ben Horne barely avoids the subplot-overload quagmire as a concierge of dangerously little repute informs him that she has received top-secret information on good authority that an incognito travel writer named "M.T. Wentz" is arriving in Twin Peaks at some point in the near future. He tells her to be on the lookout and compliments her on a job well done before Sylvia Horning her right back onto the cold and thankless streets of LA. Don't get too cocky about it though, Richard Beymer. You'll be seeing this disenfranchised concierge again soon enough on an unemployment line near you, I have my suspicions. Ben enters his office to find French Canada's less expensive, non-union William Shatner counterpart Jean Renault sitting in his office. Le Shatner "haw haw haws" the place up as usual, letting Ben figure out who he is before sitting him down and showing him the videotape of a bound and gagged Audrey. Ben freaks, rising and calling Jean a bastard. Jean lays it out plain in his dicey and just plain bad native accent of Franc-o-blown: "Mek no mees-take, Meester Orne! Ahm joost'a may-ssenger. Dey re-quayst a lahge summov moh-nee. Ah reequire some-ting else entirely." Oh, yeah, Canuck? And just what might that some-ting be? Jean wants a partnership at Jacks. And one more thing. Fast forward the Audrey follies to a shot of the surveillance video of Cooper in his tuxedo at Jacks. Jean wants Cooper to bring him the ransom money. Ben doth protest too much, for Jean cuts him off: "Doo yoo wahnt your doh-ter beck?" Of course Ben wahnts his doh-ter beck. And so Jean leaves, telling Ben to expect a call "toe-mee-roh aht nuun." Paging this guy's dialect coach. Then killing him. I've eaten lunchtime snacks of La Yogurt more authentically French than this guy's accent. Jean au revoirs, and Ben throws a chair and makes a call to the front desk, telling his Sylvia Horne-y front-desk-watching ingenue to get Cooper on the phone right away.
Hey, um, you guys? Is it me, or is Donna losing weight? BWAH HA HA HA. Ahem. Sorry. Over at the Double R, Our Lady Of The Perpetual Non-Political Fast chats it up obligatorily (is that even a word? All of my MS Word red squiggles were used up in my recapping of botched French phonetics, so I'm pretty much proofreading on the fly here) chats it up with Hank while waiting for her meals (not for her. Oh, no, they're not) for the route. She tells Hank she's having lunch with someone on her route. He replies in an ambiguously evil fashion (and I bother to qualify that WHY, exactly?), asking me to agree with him -- and succeeding -- for the first time ever: "With bedpans and shut-ins, who's to meet?" And while I wasn't entirely aware that "bedpans" was a character description (that IS what he means, right?), I still have to agree with him on the rest of it. But Donna tells him that he wouldn't understand and huffs off. Sucker. But just at this moment, Norma hangs up the phone behind the counter and excitedly informs Hank, "M.T. Wentz is coming to Twin Peaks!" Hank makes like the dumb hillbilly he's so clearly not in his confounded reply, "Empty who?" Norma tut-tuts Hank's lack of knowledge about this man, "the most powerful restaurant critic in the state." Hank in turn tells her that they still have time to pretty the place up before this contrived waste of a forgettable plot arc -- er, I mean "restaurant critic" -- arrives at the diner. Because I so know that the most famous food critic in the state (and even to begin with, what the hell does that mean?) is landing at the Great Northern and heading to the first rusticated, hash-slinging greasy spoon on the map and jotting down comments on last year's copy of his Zagat's Guide: Middle Of Freakin' Nowhere such as "they serve coffee. They do not serve no coffee," just as the case was when my childhood neighborhood was turned upside-down by the arrival of a famous restaurant reviewer who spent an afternoon lingering over the "La Hamburger Avec Fromage Et Pommes Frites" with a tall, cool glass of "La Coca" at the Nautilus Diner in Massapequa, Long Island. Oh, the times we had. Hank runs out of the diner, telling Norma he's going to buy candles and flowers and tablecloths, hilariously (ahem) telling her that they're going to "trip this place out like Christmas on the Fourth of July." And then, ambiguously, evilly, he tells her to call Big Ed and let him know that any strangers coming though town for gas should be pointed in the direction of the Double R. She tells him she will do so. I kind of forgot they even knew each other, but Norma's dour aspect suggests otherwise.
Donna "Faster Than Fast" Hayward and Ed "Grimmer Than" Grimley sip wine at his house in the hills. They decide to drink to Laura, and toast accordingly. And then, because the conversational tactic that is the "segue" has not made its way into the lexicon of the socially bereft shut-in (I don't even know how I can be making fun of him. Toss a PC and a television set into Harold Smith's house and his daily social interactions mirror mine pretty much identically), Harold turns and retrieves a red-covered book (can you see what's coming here?) and comments, "Her diary. Did I tell you I had it?" For those of you in the not know, I quote to you thusly on the origins of this literary masterpiece, and I do so from the most trusted secondary source material I know: my own recaps. And now, ladies and gentlemen, a new low in shameless self-promotion, Djb's musings on The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer, as written in my recap of the pilot episode: "[The book was] written by David Lynch's daughter and sold during the show's brief but unfortunate marketing blitz. It was available at Genovese or your nearest international airport, to be found to all the soft-core Harlequin novels featuring a pre-I-Can't-Believe-It's-Not-Butter-commercial Fabio on the cover and containing sentences like 'And Rick was sucking on my nipples and making noises like he was hungry and getting fed, or like he was eating an ice cream that was delicious' (J. Lynch 39).'" Anyway, that's what I wrote. Damn, I'm clever. Harold reads a clip from the book that is not nearly as cool or creepy as the one I picked. Donna suggests that they turn this book over to the police. He does not believe this to be a very good idea. Damn, he's creepy. Drunken mullety hermetic creepy freak. Except for the part just above where I called him "identical" to myself.
Back in Ben Horne's office, Ben pretend apologizes for his refusal to trust Cooper when he first came to him with news of Audrey's disappearance. Now he's one-eightying the day away, promising, "You and Audrey have a special relationship. You, of all people, understand her value to me," while the propaganda of the videotape flickers in the background. Ben continues, "They want to make the exchange tomorrow. Audrey for a hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars. Cash. But I must ask you. Will you take it there?" Don't do it, Coop. These are dark forces, far too boring and French for you to ever fully comprehend.
The door cracks open a smidge at the Packard house, and through said door are revealed the smallish hands of a youngish, pubescent boy carrying armfuls of gifts that are simply too bulky and awkward for the carny-ish hands to…oh, crap, it's Josie Packard, just off of an ambiguous "business trip" long enough to have allowed her to do many devious things, but just short enough to have been the aborted-due-to-lack-of-exhibitors'-interest press tour for Autumn in New York. She's been shopping. For a second X chromosome and a growth spurt, I had hoped. But clearly, this was not to be the case. Pete enters the room, and she dumps her parcels and hugs him vigorously. Then, no stranger to conversational awkwardness herself, she unsegues, "Y'know, I keep thinking about Andrew. What he would have done about the fire. Thank goodness Katherine was here to handle everything." Uh-oh. Looks like our little boy still has a lot of growing up to do. Pete tells her that Katherine died in the fire, which we already knew and, quite frankly, so did she. They hug and hug. Pete tells her tearfully that they are planning a service, but that they haven't found the body, so they don't really know what they'll be burying. Well, if you're just looking for a warm body to fill the coffin, I can suggest numerous possibilities. Hey, Xiu Xiu? Mind getting "sent down" for the greater good of the show, or what?
Moodily blowing trees (tm Holland! Yeah, whatever!) dissolve to the interior of One-Eyed Jacks, where Emory Battis, with whom I have just about had it, escorts Audrey into Blackie's office, which contains Jean Renault (with whom I never had…oh, forget it). Audrey is dazed and black and blue, and she tells Jean, "he hit me." Emory begins to blather on about acting in a "professional manner," and his little homily is ended by another small conversational impediment, this one called "death," when Jean unearths a gun and takes Battis down with one silenced shot. Yay! More! More! Audrey starts to cry, and Jean Humbert Humberts over to her and hugs her too vigorously for reasonable etiquette to knowingly allow.
Did Kyle MacLachlan have a head cold when they filmed this episode? 'Cause I'm not jiving with his Humorless Cooper character he's been cultivating this episode so far. And so it continues: Cooper interrupts the identical non-argument between Andy and Lucy this evening at the sheriff's station, and he sends Andy out of the room and the station to finally ask for Lucy's side of the story. All of which would have been very cute and quirky. If it had happened ten episodes ago. Here's some of it: she and Andy used to go out but now they don't anymore, because after a year and a half of their relationship, she began to "notice things" about him, things like "he never exercises, he never washes his car, and he doesn't even own a sports coat!" And then the cute part that redeems the whole sequence. If it had happened ten episodes ago. "After I watched this TV show, I decided I needed some 'Me Time,' during which we didn't see each other, during which period I met Dick Tremaine." Andy lingers just outside the station door, pacing. She continues on about Dick: "He had lots of coats, and keeps himself and his car in great shape. Most of his behavior was asinine, but at least he was different." Don't it just melt your heart? C'mon, folks, sing along with me if you know the words: Awwwwww. Cooper lightens things up considerably by phrasing his response ever so subtly: "Are you still seeing this ['I'm in on the joke here, but who isn't, really' pause] Dick?" She's not. She cries and walks away, crossing Truman on his way into the kitchen. Cooper apologizes for not being able to help, and Truman expresses sympathy. And then, without warning, the second-season subplot clearance rack drops its prices yet again and allows for Cooper's in a series of generally non-fun character developments that would pretty much serve to undo his character in short order. Yawn along if you know the words: "Harry, I've got a dangerous situation. I've examined every possible angle and I believe there's only one way to proceed." He needs a Bookhouse Boy. And he can't tell Truman why. Ooooh, intriguing. If it had happened…oh, never mind.
Back at the Double R, Hank and Norma stand aside as an extremely large man in a black cowboy hat walks into the near-empty diner (no doubt empty on account of numerous countrified folks entering, sneering, "Hey, this cheesy diner has been virtually transformed into…a cheesy diner with tablecloths! I can't abide that!" and taking their leave straightaway) and requests a booth. Norma launches into a list of specials, but the stranger interrupts her and orders a burger and fries. She balks. Hank and Norma think it must be a "food critic trick." But nothing so tricky as Hank's decision to get to the bottom of this stranger's identity by stealing his wallet as soon as he goes to the bathroom. Ha ha…ha? Wow, if the jinks got any higher, this episode would have taken place in space.
Meanwhile, over in the Double R's cordoned off "Smoking Gun" section, Donna tells an increasingly estranged Maddy about the secret diary hiding out in Harold's house. Maddy asserts that the police have Laura's diary. It sounds dumb when Donna states it this way, but she does so anyway: "Harold said that Laura kept a second diary that I didn't know about, and he's got it." Maddy strikes surprisingly close to my good side when she looks around confused before uttering an incredulous, "God." Donna says she's going to get her hands on it, even though Harold is reading it to her verbatim. Meanwhile, Hank identifies the mystery man as a "Daryl Lodwick," and I actually have to scroll up in my own recap, every word of which I have written TODAY, to figure out who that person is. State prosecutor. Check. As in "check, please," and get me the hell out of this diner before I start tossing fancy-schmancy crème brulet on the floor and using those twee candleholders on the writers' asses like some latter day Clue weapon. I'm just tired, is all.
Yes, yes, YES! It's Josie! In scanty clothing, vamping around for the sheriff's delight and delivering long passages of ill-conceived and dangerously delivered dialogue! Has somebody been reading MY secret diary? Even though the moon was glowing in a perfectly cloudless sky during a scene going on pretty much simultaneously with this one (in a shot before we entered the Double R), we join Josie and Harry mid-lightning-storm in the pouring rain just across town. I guess what they say is true: if you don't like the weather in Holland, wait five minutes. Or something. Josie tries to ravish Harry's concerns about their relationship away, but he's not having it. He can't trust her. Did she really go to Seattle? Why didn't she tell him? She tells him that she was afraid. Of Ben and Katherine? Yes. "And now," Harry lobs, "Katherine's dead." And then: "It was insurance money." Josie starts to cry and walks out of the room. Nice! She's losing it, much to my perverse and non-subsiding glee. We'll call that The First Nail In The Coffin. Or The First Knob On The Dresser, for those truly in the know. Spoiler? Is anyone reading this who actually doesn't know what that means? Tell me, honestly. I would really like to know. Oh, but this informal poll is not open to MBTV employees or their families, so, sorry Sars. ["I have long since lost any insight I may once have had as to what you're talking about." -- Sars] Harry follows her into the living room and apologizes, and she grabs him and repeats, as if her trip to Seattle included acting lessons with Vicki the Talking Robot: "Take me. I want you to take me." She tells Harry to "tear it." He rips her dress. Let the "taking" begin. Through the window, the lightning from "Stormwatch 8:04-8:06" illuminates a shady character looking in the window at this shameful display. Man, the ever-concerned folks at Child Protective Services never take a moment to rest, do they?
Commercial! Listen to this rock-out ABC Tuesday night line-up, won't you just: Who's the Boss! Head of the Class! Roseanne! And…oh, drat. It's Coach, isn't it? Ah, well. I guess if the trend of Craig T. Nelson being the only truly painful thing to watch on an otherwise rising network only repeats itself every ten years, we'll be okay through 2010, right? I'm talking to you, production team of The District. Sure, there isn't much time. But there still is time. Oh, God, wait. I went and completely forgot all about Bette again, didn't I?
And so continues the rain, because everyone's in a really, really, really bad mood. It's raining pretty steadily outside of my own apartment right now too, and I refuse to think there's nothing but coincidence behind this meteorological development. Lucy enjoys a beverage out of a mug and stands with her back to the front door of the sheriff's station as the lights flicker on and off. Through the door walks a Judge Sternwood, a grandfatherly figure with yet another string tie who loudly announces, "To even process my arrival would undercut the importance of everything else that has ever happened on this show!" Actually, he doesn't say that at all. But I mean, c'mon. He hugs Lucy and tells her he's happy to see her, just as Harry walks in, the harsh driving rain doing nothing to wipe away the reeking stench of young-boy-sex Truman just can't seem to scrub off him. Truman apologizes for being late, and Sternwood (there I was, scrolling up again), absolves him on the basis that he himself just arrived. And then Sternwood does that little parlor trick thing Cooper used to do way back in the day when he was really fun -- like, say, last week -- in asking Truman, "What's her name, Harry?" Harry does register a genuine look of surprise in asking "What?" Which, translated, means, "Girl?" Cooper enters and the scene goes full-tilt introductory. Whee.
Lucy starts back into her office, but is soon to be waylaid by the arrival of a certain Richard Tremaine. She turns to face him: "Dick." Sigh of contentment. That just NEVER gets old. He apologizes for his abhorrent behavior, telling her that he finally came to the realization that it was up to him to "do the right thing." Oh, God. He's going to offer her abortion money. He does. She shrieks in anger and runs away. Poor Lucy. I just think that's bad. And not because of how I feel about abortion. I just believe that it is important for a woman to be able to make her own decisions about what to do with her body. So much for a male recapper writing about ten-year-old show not being a cutting-edge observer of contemporary feminism, eh? EH? Take that.
Andy escorts Leland past the door behind which Lucy weeps and into the recognizable conference room atop of which all of those other random offices have been miraculously constructed in the two chronological weeks since the pilot. String-Tie Sternwood (oh, like he even deserves a nickname) sits at the head of the table, while Cooper and Truman flank him on either side. Andy stands behind a non-handcuffed Leland and offers a pithy speech about how sad it is that Leland, who has appeared before the judge many times as a lawyer, is now in this precarious position. String-Tie II: Electric Boogaloo has been notified that Leland intends to act as his own defense in the murder of Jacques Renault. The prosecutor, Lodwick, failed to show. And so bail will have to wait for tomorrow morning. Andy removes Leland from the room, and shortly thereafter a young woman named "Sid" enters, and she and Sternwood take their leave for the Great Northern. What's going on? She's his law clerk, we learn from Truman. This would be an excellent opportunity for Cooper to utter some brilliant and dry pearl of snarky goodness above and beyond the "man, oh, man" on which he aggravatingly settles, but he instead turns the topic to tonight and his meeting with the top Bookhouse Boy at the Roadhouse for his special op. Everything is set. Harry assures, "He'll be there." Oh, good. I mean "yawn."
And again to the Great Northern, where Ben spots a very very very very very very very short "Asian" "man" at the front desk wearing a black suit, his face covered by a long moustache and dark sunglasses. Ben bows The Deep Bow Of The Quasi-Liberated White Man and approaches this "man." He walks right by, just as The Concierge of Very Little Repute returns to the front desk and asks how this "Mr. Tojamura" will be paying for "his" stay. "He" offers cash, and The Concierge Of Very Little Repute takes this to mean that she is in the presence of the great M.T. "Running Theme" Wentz. She's not.
Packard house. Josie introduces her cousin "Jonathan" to Pete, who turns out to be the Asian man who has been sitting in the Great Northern looking very, very ominous for the last four weeks. She botches her English in the form of asking Pete if he will fetch Jonathan some "joe," for after a long flight, "it will help him reset his biographical clock." AH! Stop them. Pete leaves. Jonathan judges: "Don't know how you lasted six years. Nothing but hayseeds and manual laborers." Hey, Ponytail? Step off it, okay? Or I'll be forced to return the cultural-stereotype favor and comment on how the collective townspeople of Twin Peaks are still waiting for the stamps and packing material to be removed completely from Andrew's once-and-future mail-order bride. Don't make me say that, okay? 'Cause it will stir up all sorts of trouble. Anyway, Jonathan and Josie leap right into their collective teachings out of the Guide To Fourth-Grade-Play Acting, From 'Our Town' To, Well, 'Our Town', as Josie backstories, "Signing the contract soon. I. Need. Pete's. Signature. He's. Katherine's. Heir." Josie worries that "there might be a problem with Hank." One problem? Jonathan promises to "deal with Hank." Then he says something about a "Mr. Eckhardt" wanting to see her. Jonathan asks about "the sheriff." Josie slips: "He means nothing to me." Is it getting late enough in the series yet that there's hilarious comic potential in starting to refer to Josie's acting as "wooden"? Get it? GET IT? You will.
And, back at the Roadhouse, Cooper waits for his Bookhouse Boy, and Truman sidles up at what I guess must be nine-thirty and proudly states: "Nine-thirty. Right on the tick." It dawns on Cooper: Truman sent himself. Awww.
And finally, to the Double R we go, where the place is closed and Hank is pissed as hell to be answering a knock on the door at this late hour. The knocking stops. Hank fetches a flashlight from behind the counter and shines it on the aforementioned Cousin Jonathan, who is now bedecked in a black hat and trench coat, looking very Bond villain-esque. Somehow, he's inside the diner. He kicks Hank's ass to within an inch of his ambiguously evil life, then stands above him, squeezing their fingers together and somehow producing blood. He announces, "Blood brother. time I take your head off." Then he raises the flashlight and smashes it right into something ambiguous, be it the ground or Hank's face. But we won't know for another week, as the shot cuts abruptly to the closing credits. Holland-tastic, indeed.