And now, a brief glimpse into life here at the private, cloistered, concealed-by-mountains-and-mean-scary-dogs Recapping Oxygen Chamber in which I spend my days, as we play another round of MBTV Fantasy Camp, with your celebrity guest recapper, Djb. Pay attention, folks. We're through the looking glass here.
Usually what happens when I turn on my computer in the morning is this: I swig some stale coffee, mutter an even staler comment about hating Mondays that opens me up to a "why, I didn't realize that we had signed on to live with wacky cartoon fat cat Garfield" type of scorn from the bustling roommates with whom I share space, curse Bill Gates, and open up Microsoft Word, saving a new document that will one day become a finished recap -- this one, say, would be called "Episode 28 -- Miss Twin Peaks" in a folder named "Twin Peaks" (follow path "C drive, My MBTV, Gulf War/Death Of Grunge, 35-64 Demo, Twin Peaks"). The blank screen and blinking cursor stare back at me all patronizing, and I have to type something, anything, just to mar the screen with what will soon be my dozens of witty bon mots about early-'90s television programming, many to all of which possessing the fallback punch line "…and then he switched over to Major Dad," depending on how groundbreaking I'm feeling on a given day. But the first thing I write is usually intended to break the ice, just to get something up there, not intended to be shared with the rest of the world. Said quote usually takes the form of a reference to the show I'm about to recap, with a "Lo, pity my exhausted self with the stale coffee and the bantering roommates" twist thrown in. Examples that leap to mind include the likes of "Who killed Laura Blah Blah Blah-mer" and "The trees blow moodily again outside of the Great NOT!thern." Today, however, I stared at the blank screen for several minutes and finally, Carrie Bradshaw-style, got around to typing that sentence around which the comic sensibility for this recap was to be based. And the sentence I wrote was this: "I now hate this show." Sad? I know. Clever? Not. But remarkably accurate nonetheless. Not an "Evil lurks inside the Crap Lodge" or a "This show is Julee Cruisin' for a quick cancellation" pun anywhere to be seen. I now hate this show. Two hours from the end, intrepid readers. Thanks for sticking with it.
Slatted, wood-planked darkness looms inside the cabin in the woods. Leo "Damage To The Cerebral Bore-tex" Johnson lies in a stupor, his right wrist secured to a chain affixed to the ceiling. to him lies the seemingly unconscious Garland "In The Corner Pocket" Briggs, whose right hand has been handcuffed to Leo's left. Many labored TV moments after the director's fifth infuriated wail of "I SAID ACTION," Leo stirs from his stupor and manages to lean just enough forward to open a nearby drawer and dig out what looks like a key. Breathing hard, he unlatches Briggs's arm clamps, and as Briggs stirs, Leo whispers an impassioned "Save Shelley!" Briggs, in a stupor, is for once unable to slow the action down with a sentiment of his usual "I have dreamed of a Shelley of whom I am the requirement of saving, for such is the map! The map! Government. Blue book. Sale on owls, one day only" nature that one tends to zoom right through in lieu of shots of his underexposed (in, literally, every way available) son, anyway. Briggs stumbles to his feet, woozy-like, and out of the frame (though, oddly enough, not out of the door). Leo, still tied to the ceiling, turns his head toward the wall behind him and focuses on the "Queen" playing card with Shelley's tiny black-and-white face on it. Briggs, apparently, is still in the house. I guess he just wandered into the room with all of Earle's "Tandy Computers" product placements to regain consciousness in front of another relaxing (and hilarious!) episode of Major Dad. Because, well, see what I did there?
Fade out. Fade back! Ooooh, looky how many buttons this camera has on it! The door to the cabin opens and in walks Windom "Still Crazy After All These Jeers" Earle, all ready for his close-up with the introductory, "Why, who let Major Briggs loose, Leo?" I know! I know! I know! I -- ack! Then we do cut to Earle's close-up to discover that he has applied a generous helping of white pressed powder to the entire surface area of his face. For no other reason than to be scaaaaaaary, I guess. And also because Kenneth Walsh has probably learned recently enough from his television compatriot Ted Danson that turning up in any kind of decorative facial coloring other than your own can hurt your career almost as much as what hurt Kenneth Walsh's: that being, never acting in public again. And there's that early-'90s humor I promised. But really, it is almost as scaaaaaaary as it's intended to be for once. Earle leans in toward Leo and takes out the scary buzzer, stopping himself just in time and smiling, "No, no. No punishment, Leo. It's too late for that to do us any harm. But I have a new game for you." Earle holds up a small burlap bag, filled to the brim and bursting with that terror-inducing tool of horror and mass destruction known the world over as "something that looks kinda heavy." Kinda. He dangles the bag and smiles, displaying what looks like gnarled, blackened teeth. Again, no reason. Again, scaaaaaaary.
Pies. Pies everywhere. We're over at the Double R, Norma "The Not Squad" Jennings carrying a tray of three pies to the counter and announcing to Shelley "Central Park Career Gone South" Johnson and Annie "Yoko" Blackburn, "Well, here's our contribution to the Miss Twin Peaks gala buffet. And I fully expect to see one of you up there in the winner's circle." Yoko monotones, "Dream on, Norma," and Norma shoots back, "This is the biggest day of the year for us [it is?], and we have to have somebody up there who really deserves this title. Especially this year." Annie non-sequiturs for the sake of circularity because they just found out that this is practically last episode OF ANYTHING they'd ever film, asking, "You mean Laura Palmer?" Does Yoko mean that Laura was the last, lamented winner, or was that question a quiet celebration of the fact that the judges will consider a participant who is featured repeatedly in the opening credits but who never transcends the acting level of "dead once the camera rolls." Shelley reminds Norma that this is the twentieth anniversary of Norma's victory in the pageant, and she tosses back, "Look at you! You're already working on the judge!" That's right. Norma's a judge, too! Who is she going to pick? One of the many deserving, talent-filled women of the neighborhood? Or one of her two employees, one of whom she just told "has to win"? She'd better hope Charles Van Doren looks dynamite in his swimsuit competition. Because the fix has never been so in.
Ben "I Ain't Afraid Of No Ghostwood" Horne walks into his office, a stack of books in each hand, to find Audrey "In-Zane In The Membrane" Horne sitting in front of the fire wearing a bright red, entirely chastity-free fuck-me-oh-wait-you-already-did dress and looking very, very mournful. Ben greets her by calling her "the most intelligent face that I have seen all day. You make the rest of us look like primates." Actually, that would be the carrots, but my father never said anything that nice to me, so we'll just celebrate this darling familial companionship and move on. Audrey asks about the books, so Ben sits down to her and shows her several religious texts including the Koran and the Old Testament and informs her, "I hold in my hands those holy books which constitute the fundamental framework of humanity's philosophy of good. Somewhere in here are the answers that I seek, and intend to read them cover to cover until…" Audrey cares like we care and Audrey does not care, so Ben catches himself mid-espousal and sympathizes, "Look at me, prattling on. It's Jack, isn't it?" It is. It is. Audrey hopes that she'll feel better soon, and Ben offers the ageless advice that "time heals all wounds." Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't realize that between the Kabala and the Haggadah he had a copy of 14,000 Things To Be Happy About wedged in there somewhere. He continues on, "I know how it feels. Believe me." Eileen Hayward reference? The far more likely "hasn't seen his own wife in the hallways of the house they share for over two months" reference?
Audrey wants to talk about something else now. She stands up and paces, because that's what women businessmen do, and lets him know, "I actually came here to update you on my trip to Seattle." Ben insists that she "update away." And so she does: "The Packards are using Twin Peaks Savings & Loan to funnel cash to the Ghostwood project. But the bank is keeping a very low profile. It seems they don't want any bad publicity." Ben digs this news, and promises that "bad publicity is exactly what they're gonna get." He thinks that -- natch -- the Miss Twin Peaks pageant is the very venue for Audrey to publicize this information, but she leans down before him and tells him all over again, "From the bottom of my heart, I don't want to be the town's bathing beauty." Ben responds that Miss Twin Peaks is such a great local forum and blah, nailing it home: "It would truly be inspirational to have a winner with a political sensibility that extends beyond make-up strategies and recipes for cherry pie." He reminds us that each contestant gives a speech to the town, but Audrey knows that "there's another way to do this." Too late to do anything about it now, dear. But I think there were about ten zillion other ways to do this.
Police station. Harry "Dewey Defeats" Truman stands in a conference room while Cooper and Deputy Andy stand nearby, surveying the map/invitation/puzzle/petroglyph/cave drawing/scribbling/collect 'em trade 'em rendering on the blackboard. Cooper asks Truman, "Has he taken his eyes off it yet?" Truman says "he" has not, and reminds us that they have people out looking for Briggs. Cooper reiterates for an eavesdropping Earle, "Harry, considering their mutual connection on Project Blue Book, I believe that Windom Earle has targeted the Major." Andy mutters a distracted "interesting" while continuing to stare at the drawing. Cooper continues on, "Harry, Windom Earle has been seeking access to the Black Lodge as far back as 1965." Cooper also drops the bomb on Truman that when Josie died, "She was trembling with fear. I would go as far as to say quaking like an animal. I might venture a guess to say it was the fear that killed her. At the moment of her death, I saw BOB. As if he had slipped in through some crevice in time. Upon reflection, I believe there's a connection between his appearance and Josie's fear, as if he was attracted to it. Feeding off it, somehow." Wow! Got it. Earle actually licks his lips with the subtlety of a masked villain at the haunted carnival in one of the less textured episode of Scooby Doo as Cooper continues, "I think that the Black Lodge is what you've referred to in the past as 'the evil in these woods.'" Which is why Earle wants to find his way in. And now, apparently, they've just told him how.
Windom slams his surveillance briefcase shut and screams, "Eureka!" Wha? "Dale, I could kiss your pointy little head!" WHA? "It's fear, Leo! It's fear. My favorite emotional state!" He rants on about the perfectness of nature and fear, screaming, "We know where the entrance is, we know when the lock appears, and now we hold the key in our hands!" He grabs the suitcase and prances some more, white pancake make-up and threat of actual imposing nature completely evaporated as he exposits further, "Forgive my hasty departure, dear one. But the time has come to gather my beloved queen and embark upon our dark honeymoon." Pause. Pause. Pause. "I haven't been this excited since I punctured Caroline's aorta!" Ooooooooooh…? I guess he killed her. Well, then, that was quite the bomb. He leans in to Leo and bids him a fond farewell, telling him that he had the most wonderful time with him, even though he was a little "miffed" at Leo's "release of Major Briggs." But no fear: "You'll have plenty of time to reflect upon that, won't you? Goodbye, Leo. And good luck." And we cut to Leo, lying on the ground, a piece of twine apparently tied around one of his teeth. The twine extends up toward the ceiling and then turns, rigged as it is to some complex lever/pulley system thing that carries water to unirrigated desert towns at its best and tortures mentally crippled manservants at its worst. The latter represented here. At the end of the string is a glass box, which holds what looks like six or seven black widow spiders. The spiders that will die in the cage long before the twine gives out? I'm not sure I follow this particular line of badness. Maybe he's trying to torture the spiders?
Because even the most one-horse town needs a flagrantly gay choreographer, we cut over to the Roadhouse, where rehearsal for the rousing opening group number for the Miss Twin Peaks pageant is in full swing. Even though the pageant is tonight. Feh. Corky St. Clair, dance instructor, informs them that the dance is a "celebration of nature," and Lucy, ostensibly pregnant, a little too compromised, asks doubtfully, "What exactly are we celebrating with us all bending over like this?" Corky rails that they should never question the artistic vision of their choreographer, and we cut from that line to the judges -- the Mayor, Norma, and Dick -- discussing what qualities they think best exemplify Miss Twin Peaks. The Mayor observes that he gets his jones on for "beauty and power" (otherwise known as "pre-Viagra Teen Witch mojo"), while Norma thinks it's all about "originality" (giving the award to the one person that everyone unanimously detests) and Dick thinks the contest is all about "poise and, God help us, sophistication and breeding" (men). Robyn Lively walks off the stage then and approaches Dick, asking, "Would you mind helping me find something in the storage room?" He assents, his voice climbing even higher and twee-er than before. They enter the dark storeroom together, Dick asking what she needs to find. She gets all up in him and turns off the flashlight, telling him, "This might be it!" Dick actually shudders and responds all sexed up, "By George, I think you've got it!" Dignify that with a response? I'm sorry. I just can't.
Cooper's room. His eyes open and he flips on the tape recorder, offering, "Diane, it's 1:17 P.M. I have just concluded my second meditation of the day in lieu of sleep, and I feel completely refreshed and struck again by the realization that all of us on the great big planet Earth work at only a fraction of our potential." He reminds us again that they're working on the petroglyph drawing, and that Earle is searching "for the same exact thing as we are, for diametrically opposite reasons. If I am correct in my assumptions about the power of this unholy place, God help us if he gets there first." Cooper then turns the topic to Annie, telling Diane that Yoko's reactions to the unfamiliar world around her are "like a child's," and I love Coop and all, but that's a turn-on to him and that's not okay. Coop is interrupted by a knock on the door. It's her. Diane doesn't have to hear an earful just at the moment, but it sucks that Coop's on the brink of adding her to the list of cool-ass women he's taken the time to completely alienate from his life because of…this. Annie tells him that she's come because she needs to give a speech in six hours, and that she hasn't written a word. Cooper asks after the topic, and she tells him about the blah forests blah save them blah: "I just don’t want to stand up there like some deranged Barbie doll saying things like, 'Make sure your campfires are out, kind of like my brain.'" Good one. Awww, Annie, you're not a Barbie doll! Sometimes Barbies are actually animated enough to convince you that they could be real little girls, after all. And unless there's a Fall Convent Barbie out on the toy circuit with a dowdy sweater and glassily staring doe eyes, you just don't have the clothes for the plastic life. Cooper smiles all lovingly and coos, "You're terrified of public speaking." Just like a child. Cooper goes silent, considering if he should dress up as a cowboy who makes funny balloon animals for her birthday party. And then Yoko develops a sound bite from the speech that remains to be written -- "trees aren't the same as people" -- and I feel bad that she's handing over the jokes so easily. And then they make out a lot.
A slide projector has somehow found its way into "Cap'n" Nadine "And Crunchberries" Hurley's living room, where the assembled crowd of Ed, Norma, Mullet Mike, and Dr. Jacoby sits silently through a pictorial history of her wrestling victories. Polite applause. Jacoby takes center stage and reports, "I have learned that when a couple is contemplating divor…uh, breaking up, well, sometimes it's easier to talk about our feelings when we're around other people." Nadine, holding Mike's hands, reports, "Well, I guess it all started when I noticed Mike's buns in the hall at school." Heh. But I mean, c'mon, she's been in high school for months now. Toss her in the booby hatch or get her marriage annulled, one or the other. It's kind of enough already. Nadine tells us that her relationship with Mike is "hot," and wants us to know one more time that "Miss Twin Peaks is tonight. And Mr. Pinkel thinks I'm a show-business natural!" Pinkel, for those of you playing at home, is Corky St. Clair, I'm guessing. And he thinks she's a show-business natural. Too bad his other name isn't "anyone living or working in Hollywood at any point in the last twelve years." Nadine worries that she's so happy and Ed is so sad, so Ed responds, "Norma and I plan on getting married." Something snaps. But not all the way. Nadine screams right at the top of her voice, "That's great, Eddie! 'Cause Mike and me are getting married, too!" She squeezes her Mullet Lover's hand so hard that we hear cracking, and Mullet Mike screams us right on into the scene.
Hawk drives along a road in the woods, and he happily stumbles across a dazed and wandering Briggs. Hawk gets out of the cruiser to help him, and Briggs falls into his arms, mumbling, "Which way is the castle?" Cut to back inside the police station, where an all sorts of out-of-sorts Briggs "checks out okay physically," according to Truman. Gee. That was doubtlessly a rigorous set of tests. I wonder if they included the "ask if he's okay" test and the "find out from another hick cop if that guy over there looks okay to you" test. Cooper takes a glance at him and concludes, "He's been shot full of haloperidol." Truman, to my endless amusement, conclusively observes, "Right!" Cooper could have noted, "He's been swallowed whole by a hippopotamus" or "By gum, that's Zsa Zsa Gabor you've pulled out of the woods!" and Truman would have tossed back pretty much the identical response. Right! Whatever. Cooper leans in real close to the shaking, blanket-swathed mess of a former Major and yells, "Garland?" Briggs pauses a moment before having an actual, non-syntactically-cloudy moment of introspection: "Garland? An odd name. Judy Garland?" Yes. Judy Garland. Briggs vamps on about being taken to "the woods," but that, sadly, "the King of Romania was not able to attend." Which sucks, because he rules at a party. You haven't lived until you've seen that guy do the limbo. Cooper takes Truman across the room, warning him, "Harry, we're in trouble. If the door to the Black Lodge does exist, it probably exists at a point in time. Now, an object such as a door normally exists at a point in time and space." Truman is soon to tell Cooper, "You lost me." Cooper clarifies, "If we're not at the right place at exactly the right time, we won't be able to find our way in." Andy, from the board, asks, "Sheriff? Could the 4-H Club have anything to do with all of this?"
Maison de Martell. After last week's epic (to me…and, well, me) celebration of Eckhardt's birthday, this scene can't help but disappoint slightly. Katherine sits at the kitchen table reading a newspaper, while Pete and Brother Andrew struggle with a vice and grunt, "This has to be the last box. Look at it!" Katherine notes that "whatever is in there had better be worth a fortune." Brother Andrew thinks that it might just be a block of stainless steel, "Eckhardt's last little joke." Because he was always such a cut-up with his Bond impersonation and his six-dollar sunglasses. After another failed turn of the vice, Brother Andrew loses his patience completely and rears back, removes a gun from his jacket, and shoots with such precision that the floor shows no damage at all and the carpet doesn't even appear to budge. But! Brother Andrew picks up the box (correction…there are two bullet holes in the counter…God, I feel better) and removes a key, which Katherine takes quickly. They decide that it should be kept "in plain sight," and Katherine tosses it on a cake plate, Katherine really overwroughtly bellowing, "How about here! In the cake saver!" Cake saver? You guys? Get a cake.
Donna "Skickey Mouse's Girlfriend, Skinnie Mouse" Hayward snaps her legs in half by making the dangerous and ill-informed decision to actually walk down steps. She's decked out in her Miss Twin Peaks dress that makes the 1986 prom-going class of Massapequa High School stand up and ask, "Could giant red bows and ruffles and shoulder pads BE any more in, or what?" Her parents are standing (well, and sitting) in the dining room, and after her father tells her unconvincingly how beautiful she looks, Eileen (for that is her name) begs, "Read us your speech!" Donna's got her barb at the ready: "I'd rather talk about the truth right now." Because saving trees is nothing but a lie! Eileen is inquisitive, so Donna spells it out again: "I know something's going on with you and Benjamin Horne and I want to know what it is." She's tired of being treated like a child, and she tells her parents that if they don't tell her what's what, she'll "find out from Benjamin Horne." Silence. "This is your choice. Not mine." Donna steams out the front door. Blah blah cranky when she doesn't eat blah blah blah.
Andy returns to the chalkboard, just in time for Cooper to stand up, totally stilted, and exclaim "by heavens!" By heavens? Uh…I know Buffy and Roswell have popularized the scheduling unheard of in the last year, but I guess we all forgot about that time in 1991 when Twin Peaks was brought back from the brink of cancellation when the rights to Cooper's character were sold from ABC to PBS and they made him into a jaunty British investigator. Get him some of that deep black tea he loves so well! And an entire box of cherry crumpets! Ye Olde Cooper carries a small book over to the chalkboard and tells Andy that the "4" and the "H" the deputy noted a few scenes back is a pictorial representation of "Jupiter and Saturn in conjunction." Meaning that "there are enormous shifts in power and fortune" for both good and bad. Truman asks when the time it is they'll be seeing this, um, conjunctiveness, and Cooper consults a conveniently-appearing map and tells us it's due "January to June. My God, Harry. The door to the Lodge. That's when it's open. That's what the puzzle is telling us." Six months? The door to the representation of all evil dwelling within the human soul is open for six months of the year? Why is it easier to get an in-season reservation there than it is at most ski lodges? And why the big push for specificity? Everyone just relax. Cooper surmises that if the map is telling them when, it's also telling them "where." Briggs wigs, "Protect the queen!" Cooper knows then that "the queen, the crown, Miss Twin Peaks," and makes out of the office in a hurry. Andy tries to call them back, but as he's running after them, he finally sets the bonsai subplot to rest when he knocks it off the table and they find Earle's bug. Andy never tells them what Andy was trying to tell them.
And now, Drop Dead Gorgeous, a hilarious tale of a beauty pageant gone horribly, horribly wrong and nobody cared. The Miss Twin Peaks brouhaha that has arrested the airwaves, I'll go ahead and explain, takes place in real time from this moment forward. Words cannot describe it. Wait, this word can: FILLER. I've never seen anything like it. It was like Badalamenti was all, "I can write more than three songs, you know!" And then Lynch was like, "Can you write fifty?" And then Badalamenti was like, "Um, no. Do I look like I know how to compose for any instrument other than the vibes and a Casio that samples really lush orchestras?" But Lynch was gone. He was already gone.
Opening dance number. In elaborate plastic rain gear and clear umbrellas, what I'll guesstimate is in the range of twelve women dance humorlessly and parade before the not-really-that-crowded Roadhouse. The judges glow with misguided self-importance. Corky St. Clair hugs the Log Lady's arm for some reason, and she pushes him away with great force. The dance concludes to great fanfare, and Doc Hayward ambles out on stage and begins the night's festivities, "in which one of these lovely and talented young citizens will soon be crowned Miss Twin Peaks." And I totally believe him, until the "soon" part. He introduces the first contestant in the talent competition, "Miss Lucy Moran!" To a wacky vaudeville tune, Lucy dances out in a little black number with sequins and tails and does a dance that has never befitted a pregnant woman, ever. It even ends with a sternum-crashing (for a thing in its first trimester, I'm saying) split that leaves the audience breathless and the developing chromosomes a mumbly-jumbly mess. Backstage, Bobby looks out at the Log Lady and mutters, "Small town, man," then turns to find said lady (in a completely different outfit) standing by the stage door. Bobby walks up to her and asks, "So, what'd you bring, your whole family?" The "Log" "Lady" lifts up "her" log and brings it down hardcore on Bobby's pretty, pretty head, and we note -- I understand so much now -- that that's a man, baby. No wonder Corky was so darn interested.
As Lucy's dance winds down, Truman bursts in the door with Cooper close behind. He tells Cooper that deputies are being pulled in from neighboring towns to surround the place, and Cooper deadpans, "Harry, it is essential that whoever wins this contest receive twenty-four-hour guard, house security, I want the works." Check. Hayward introduces Robyn Lively , who will be performing "a dance of contortionistic jazz exotica." Or, as we laymen in the field call it, wearing black scarves and walking. Nevertheless, the menfolk are stunned into silence for another five minutes. At its merciful completion and a standing ovation, we cut to Cooper watching Audrey wrapping up her speech about saving the environment. Black on black with her white skin and red lipstick. She looks hot, and not even just in a 1991 kind of way. It's not too late to start your long day's journey back to cool, Coop. Go for it! Meanwhile, Drag Queen Donna skulks around backstage, finally finding Ben and marching right up, asking about the unsigned birth certificate and what have you. Trying to do oh-so-good, Ben can't help but handle the truth: "Donna, your mother and I…" Donna doesn't need anymore: "You're my father?" She takes off, miserable in the knowledge that she has a birth father who would have condoned her diet of one-carrot-per-one-cigar-per-day, whereas the first eighteen years of her life were wasted on parents who actually made her eat square meals. Curse them! Curse them all!
Annie Blackburn delivers a meandering speech that seems to wow them all. Forest, shores, spirits, nature. Windom Log Lady skulks about in the wings like the phantom of the not!ra. Hayward returns to tell us that "balloting will now commence, and then we will announce our winner!" Lucy tells Andy that she wants him to be the father of her child, and Dick skips off in glee while Andy celebrates for one tiny moment before telling Lucy that he has to find Cooper. My. That was wrapped up nicely. And not a moment too soon.
The women stand together on the Roadhouse stage in great anticipation as Doc Hayward announces Annie as the winner. Much happy screaming. Robyn Lively looks out in horror, but Dick tells the mayor that he was swayed by the speech from hell. The mayor thinks that it's "an outrage!" The good doctor hands Annie a bouquet of flowers, and the lights go out and the early-'90s TV panic lighting of a strobe kicks in. Nadine runs into the frame just in time to get knocked unconscious by a falling sandbag, and Hayward grabs Annie's arm but loses her just seconds later. Cooper spots the Log Earle across the crowded room, just as an explosion fells him momentarily, and just as Earle grabs Yoko and takes off. The lights flip back on, and the place empties. Truman runs out and promises to apprehend Annie, but Andy runs up to Cooper at the final second and informs him, vis-à-vis the blackboard drawing, "It's not a puzzle! It's a map!" Tell me we didn't already know that. Tell me Cooper didn't know that. Tell me the remaining national audience, confused as all get out that the series finale starts in only five minutes rather than ending right now, doesn't lunge for the dial, sending pre-Cool-Ranch crumbs to the floor, and switch over to Major Dad.