It's breakfast time at the Great Northern again, and we join an increasingly refreshed Cooper chatting away merrily, despite Albert's dour presence, while enjoying a hearty breakfast of eggs, toast, bacon, and the usual heaping bowl of Kellogg's Cinnamon Toast Quirkitude, part of your complete Twin Peaks breakfast and supplying the USDA recommended dosage of Lynch-directed fun times ahoy. He is smack-dab in the middle of a word (the experience of the first-run viewer may have differed slightly, including less "smack-dabbery" and more "first syllable," as it is clear once more that my mom was deep in the process of deciding whether or not to allow my brother and me to go see Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles alone -- 'cause remember, it's 1990 -- and neglected her divine mandate to press "play" at nine o'clock) which comes smack-dab (see above parenthetical for more on this fascinating topic) in the middle of a speech about his knowledge concerning an ancient group of kings who ruled during a fertile period called "The Happy Generation." Taking a sip of his coffee, Albert takes to his usual chore of usurping my every last recapping duty with his testy-as-a-slots-poor-recapper snark, "Agent Cooper, I am thrilled to pieces that the dharma came to King Ho Ho Ho, I really am, but right now I'm trying hard to focus on the more immediate problems of our century right here in Twin Peaks." So Cooper swerves the convo back to business, informing Albert that "Ronette Pulaski has woken from her coma." All the while, incidentally, an extravagantly out-of-context barbershop quartet, a total visual and aural non-sequitur imagined by a self-proclaimed idiosyncratic director still eager to be sure and toss his trademark bizarre aesthetic into every scene he touches, stands at a nearby table humming a Badalamenti-composed ditty doubtlessly entitled "David Lynch Directed Episode Nine (And He Wanted You to Know)."
Anyway, Ronette's official medical condition has been officially upgraded to "non-dead," but she still lacks the ability to speak, so Cooper briefly outlines his plan to show Ronette sketches of Leo and BOB, eliciting Albert's inquiry, "Has anyone seen BOB on Earth in the last few weeks?" Negative, you misguided realist bastard, you. So Albert turns back to the tangibles, indicating a manila folder that hold Jacques Renault's autopsy findings. "Stomach contents revealed, let's see: Beer cans, a Maryland license plate, half a bicycle tire, a goat, and a small wooden puppet. Goes by the name of Pinocchio." Cooper smiles and recognizes the joke, and Albert shoots back, "I like to think of myself as one of the Happy Generations." And allow me to drop the subjective viewer pretense for a moment here and admiringly observe: "Bwah ha ha ha ha!" Seriously, I sincerely hope that my legion of fans out there keeps a list of favorite quotes from the run of the series. And I hope that's on it. Hilarity. Anyway, Albert continues on that Jacques was suffocated, and all the tools to do so, from the pillow to the tape used to secure Jacques' wrists to the bed, were borrowed from the hospital supply closet. Albert proposes that if Jacques had any secrets, "he'll be taking them underground." Albert also believes Leo is responsible for the mill's untimely blaze. Pausing for a protracted moment of dramatic effect meant to indicate that people who dispense sarcasm and cynicism as part of their everyday work routine subsequently cannot express genuine emotion (whatever. Apparently the writer of this episode has never been in town for the jubilant cry of "GROUP HUG!" that rings through the MBTV corporate office in Dayton daily at 2 pm sharp), Albert asks how Cooper is feeling. Cooper thanks him for his interest, and Albert warns him not to "get sentimental," which is exactly what Sars advised at 2 pm last Thursday when my eyes moistened during Group Hug when I worried aloud that my forums weren't moving enough traffic. For my insubordination, I was sent to the little room with no windows and ventilation to "think about what [I'd] done" while being smacked repeatedly in the behind with the "Official MBTV Paddywhacker 2000 (tm)." Because there is no talking during Group Hug. And there is no hugging, either. Oh, wait. Did I write that out loud?
Albert offers Cooper a round-up on the "Who Shot Cooper" investigation, informing him that interviews with "the usual bumper crop of rural know-nothings and drunken fly fishermen" have thus far revealed a whole lotta nothing. The Elderly Room Service Waiter remembers nothing about the evening in question -- probably not even the fact that it occurred -- which poses no real surprise to Albert, considering the fact that "Señor Drool Cup has, shall we say, a mind that wanders." See? "Señor Drool Cup." Now that's a nickname worthy of MBTV. Cooper shows Albert the finger with the missing ring again, then thanks him for sticking around Twin Peaks for the investigation. But, Albert segues, "dedication to duty wasn't the only thing that brought me back here." So there's something else. Hey, uh, what's that shark doing on the high diving board? Somebody better get him down via the ladder which brought him up, lest he decide to -- uh-oh, looks like he's inching closer to the edge! Somebody stops him before he decides to -- "Windom Earl." Splash. Actually, as many of y'all know, I rather enjoyed some of the W.E. stuff, but his arrival does signal a certain shift in direction as the show began feeling out story arcs meant to be as significant and scoping as the Laura Palmer arc it was in the process of leaving behind. Oooooh! I'm a Twin Peaks critical master! Thanks again for the book, Strega. Anyway, Cooper hears the creepy minor chord that drowns out the barbershop fun times, indicating that it is now time for him to furrow his brow and become extremely concerned. He observes, "He's retired." Yeah, Albert volleys, "To a nice comfy chair with wrist restraints at the local Laughing Academy." So what about him? And who is he? Let's see if we can backstory our way out of this in one sentence. Albert: "Your former partner flew the coop, Coop." Heh. Cooper worriedly observes, "That's not good," a sentiment with which much of the steadily declining audience will soon come to agree. And, to heighten the dramatic tension even further, we pan away from the law-enforcing two and across the Great Northern's dining room. The camera comes to rest on the Asian man with the pony tail who called the Martell home in the season premiere looking for an absent Josie, a man whose name I would bet contains neither the name "Windom" nor Earl." And I am, by nature, not a betting man. Well, nickel slots. But only when everyone else is doing it. He shoots endless sinister glances in Cooper's general direction. Fear and sadness are everywhere. A little comfort is all I need. My kingdom for 2 pm! Come, group hug! COME!
Donna "When Calories Attack!" Hayward walks down a path into an unfamiliar front yard of a house we've never seen, holding what appears to be a tray of food that Donna looks angrily down at while doubtlessly musing "but skinny tastes better, but skinny tastes better, but skinny tastes better" all the while. She knocks on the door of said house, repeatedly demanding, "Hello? Mrs. Tremond? Meals on Wheels." Inside, an old woman in a bed (one with a history of playing the role "vulnerable infirmed gramma," having last been seen as the object of Adam Sandler's strangely Freudian love in the simultaneously underrated and overrated Happy Gilmore) and a young boy wearing a tuxedo and sitting across the room in a plush chair thing of some kind (played by David Lynch's son) sit stolid for a moment, until the old lady demands that Donna enter. She does, and approaches Grandma Gilmore's bed, and as Donna lifts the cover from the tray of food, the old woman starts hacking up internal organs which I'm sure she doesn't even need, seeing as how they haven't operated correctly or at all since the Grant administration. Donna looks away with a glare of what Lara Flynn would like us to believe is an expression of pretending not to express disgust, a none-too-subtle indication that both Donna and the actress who plays her are about as interested in being around the process of food coming up as they are in being around the food going down. From his chair, the tuxedoed L'il Lynch calls for Donna's attention, informing her that "sometimes things can happen just like this." He snaps his fingers. Because it's not TV. It's art! Grandma Gilmore looks at the food in horror and utters, "Creamed corn. Do you see creamed corn on that plate?" Donna, unsure of any manifestations of this so-called "food" thing everyone keeps talking about beyond her daily dose of Dexatrim and a strategically placed feather, looks quizzically at Grandma Gilmore and hazards a brave and correct, "Yes?" Grandma Gilmore informs Donna that she requested no creamed corn. Cue another shot of the plate. There is no creamed corn. Shot of L'il Lynch, who is now holding the creamed corn in his cupped palms. Why? So people would talk about it ten years later is why. Grandma Gilmore tells Donna that L'il Lynch is studying magic. Yeah, well, his father had better start studying the classified ads if he expects the network audience of everyone in mainstream America to stick around after this display. Donna informs Grandma Gilmore that she "is taking over Laura Palmer's place on the Meals on Wheels." Grandma Gilmore helpfully recaps that Laura Palmer is, in fact, "dead." Do shut-ins have their own television network or what? Shot of Grandma Gilmore. Shot of L'il Lynch. Glacial pause in dialogue. Donna stands to leave, and Grandma Gilmore tells Donna to talk to "Mr. Smith, door. He was Laura's friend." He "does not leave his house." Wow. Do all the
shut-ins live to each other on the same street in this town or what? No wonder Laura was the only person involved in the entire Meals on the Wheels program. Donna saunters door and knocks. No answer. So she extracts a paper and pen and scribes a note that begins "Dear Mr. Smith," but we don't see the rest. Ooooh. How tribal-council-cutaway of them. She begins to walk away, but turns around just in time to spot an unseen presence staring at her through the closed Venetians. She turns and leaves, just happy and relieved to finally be away from all that so-called "food."And now, yet again, an example of the paced cultish fun times that inspired the in a series of frustrated memoranda from ABC execs faxed over in all great haste to Lynch/Frost for the hundredth time. In this episode. Cooper and Truman enter the hospital room in which Ronette Pulaski has been doing time since the pilot, and the two locate black stools which they wheel over to her bed. They are not locked in place, though, and Truman's endless attempt to spin the top part around really quickly to make it travel in either direction yields no results of any kind. Cooper sheepishly excuses himself to Ronette. So Truman kneels down to seek instructions, which read, "Stop. Read operating instructions of this seat before using." Cooper observes that he cannot stand or stoop down due to his obvious injuries, and Truman's recitation of the operating procedures answer his plea: "Do not remain seated." Stupid chair. The girl who has just come out of a coma gazes up at the ceiling while the two bungling detectives finally work it out, all the while Cooper sheepishly apologizing anew. They sit. The end. Kind of. Cooper and Ronette lock eyes, and though she isn't speaking he can tell he has her attention. He tells her that he will be showing her sketches, and he needs to know if either of the men in these sketches represents "the man that hurt [her]." Leo's picture is first. Her eyes focus, and she shakes her head. up, BOB! Want to guess if her reaction is NOT a wide-eyed look of post-comatose horror followed by tranquilizer-necessitating shrieks? Wrong! Ronette screams "Train, train, train" like a latter day Long Duck Dong with alternate transportational intentions. Truman calls for a nurse and, for reasons of what I only imagine concern directorial excess of some extensive variety, the lights go out with the pop of an exploding bulb. Automobile?
Over in Ben's office, the Brothers Horne sit on the floor in front of a roaring fire. The two Packard Sawmill ledgers stand before them, and Jerry is in the process of taking a sharp cutting knife to what appears to be the backside of -- what is that actually? Is that, um, a large hunk of cheese in the shape of a pig? Let's go see! Jerry: "Brother Ben, we've got two ledgers and one smoked cheese pig. What one are we gonna burn? And it ain't gonna be my pig." So there you go. He takes a bite out of the top and looks real satisfied. That pig's good eatin', I guess. Ben stays on business, as usual: "The real ledger shows the mill slowly sinking into bankruptcy, masterminded by Katherine. The one she faked for public consumption shows the mill turning a healthy profit." It would be easy, then, to procure the Packard land for Ghostwood if they burn the real ledger, for which they could snag a better price if it looks as if the land had always been a profitable lot. On the other hand, Ben observes that the real ledger would hold up under any scrutiny that may come its way. Jerry's eyes glaze over with the contented look of the crazy, and I wish someone would take that knife away from his as quickly as is possible, as he responds with self-inflicted hilarity in reporting, "It looks like we're a hundred percent certain that we're not sure!" Ben stands (and displays that his white polka-dotted socks match his tie perfectly) and observes that they have to burn something. So he opens a desk drawer and takes out a bag of marshmallows. Ben expresses unequivocal glee. That click-click-clacking sound you hear is the executive board at ABC, in conjunction with the entire programming department, employing the latest in Smith-Corona Word Processor technology (remember, it's 1990) to prepare yet another memo.
Over at the Double R, Major Briggs sits alone at the counter watching Andy wrestle with 3M's entire yearly production of scotch tape as he fumbles with a large ball of it in attempting to tape up signs sporting BOB's picture and reading, "Have you seen this man?" Through the door walks the Log Lady, whose fifteen minutes of cultural viability ended with a resounding oven timer's "ding" fifteen minutes before the director yelled "action!" She sits to the major and informs him that the log has something to tell her. I guess she and log are out of mourning for the hundreds of relatives the poor insane person's crutch obviously lost in the mill fire. The log has this to say: "Deliver the message." She asks if he understands, and he responds, "Yes, ma'am. As a matter of fact, I do." Yay. Now, um, Log Lady? Why don't you make like the tree your log once was and...oh, never mind.
Meanwhile, over at the police station, Lucy sits at her desk as the sound effect of a pestering fly -- that would be a lot more realistic if the scene called for a sound effect of a pestering fly to pester Lucy -- flies around Lucy's head and, well, it pesters her is what it does. Wow, Djb. You know what the best thing about sentence construction is? Learning it. Or so I am told by friends in the know. Andy, who had been pacing back and forth past the front door of the station, finally enters and approaches Lucy's desk. Of course, to wacky comic effect, he still has a piece of tape affixed to his forehead. Sliding back the glass door that separates her from the rest of the non-bulletproof world (because "Shoot to kill...the secretary" is so often the rallying cry of any great battle), Lucy tries to snark that there are no messages for "Deputy Brennan," but this time he gets angry right on back. He informs her that he tried to donate sperm, but found out that he was sterile ("Sure, I thought it meant I didn't have to take a bath, but the doctors told me the truth!") So, he's curious to know just exactly how Lucy plans to have a baby if Andy was unable to provide his necessary half of the genetic material to do so. Not that a woman can't have a baby without a man in her life, of course. Wouldn't want to be anti-feminist, now would I? WOULD I? Er, anyway. Lucy slowly stands up from her chair and leans in to Andy. I think we're supposed to be unsure as to whether she's going to plant one or kick his ass, but she chooses the all-important "Quirky Clause," instead reaching out and ripping the piece of tape off his forehead. She slams the glass shut and sits down quietly. Hmmm...a Lucy/Andy love triangle? Doesn't that sound like fun? Or would it make any room with the three of them too close for comfort? Where, after all, would they put the shark? How would it procure the necessary room it requires to jump?
Truman's office, where, in actuality, I'm not sure we've ever been. A large animal head sits proudly mounted on the wall with a sign affixed underneath reading, "The buck stopped here." Yuck yuck yuck. What was it Albert said about "the usual bumper crop of rural know-nothings and drunken fly fishermen"? Oops, sorry. I think I'm supposed to side with them. But Albert is so FUNNY. What to do, what to do? But there is someone I am not siding with from the perspective of character necessity or overall plot relevance, as we cut to Hank, standing alone in Harry's office looking evil, ambiguous, and ambiguously evil. He wears that costume well. And often! Apparently, he has just come into the station as part of his parole agreement, by which he needs to "sign in" each week. He does. He leaves. Cooper asks how long Harry and Hank had been friends, and we learn that the two grew up together and that Hank used to be a Bookhouse Boy. Until, that is, the dark force of evil and the far darker force of vague characterization crept stealthily in to slowly transform Hank into the sort-of-evil, sort-of-bad guy he has emerged into today. But these musings are presently interrupted by Lucy delivering a message via intercom: "Sheriff Truman, I have Ben Horne on the phone for you. Would you like me to transfer him to you? Well, not him, but his phone call?" Heh. Echoes of the pilot. Yay, pilot. Lucy picks up Ben's line and slowly informs him that she'll be transferring the call into Truman, and then shoots back to Truman to tell him, "I have transferred Ben Horne to you. It's the line with the light that's blinking." I can't help thinking that Audrey's danger is only increasing during these wacky phone hijinks. Maybe Sylvia Horne should be brought back from her administrative assistant-hood at numerous temp agencies around the Hollywood area and show Lucy how to use the phone system with all great alacrity. Lives are in danger here. Truman picks up. Ben, still wearing those awesome polka-dot socks and sipping a glass of wine, informs Truman that he just figured out Audrey is missing. Truman informs Cooper. Cooper's concerned glare informs Badalamenti, and the Drama Chord kicks up anew.
Some actors can deliver any line, really. Thus the dizzying thrill and subsequent chuckle when Jerry Horne enters Ben's office with the health insurance policy Ben took out on Katherine, "unsigned." Ben looks on in incredulous horror and utters the pearl, "Un?" Nice. They quickly mastermind their necessary move, which is to contact the Icelanders as quickly as possible and soothe their fears about a fire on their land: "Let's get those pickled Icemen on the blower." And if Jerry didn't walk to Ben's desk and pick up the phone with all great haste, I'd probably think that statement meant something very, very naughty indeed. As Jerry dials, Leland finally hits pause on his perpetually blasting soundtrack of Jerome Robbins' Broadway (I was going to say Fosse, but, well, it's 1990) and enters the office with a spoken message. And so he speaks, with all great authority: "This mill fire will no doubt put contract signing on hold for a moment, so we must insure that the moment, our moment, does not pass us by. I therefore recommend that we make a quick but cordial follow-up phone call to Iceland." Jerry puts down a shushing finger in time to let Leland know that they're on it. Iceland picks up the phone. Turns out they've already heard about the fire. From Leland Palmer. To great comic hilarity, Leland indicates himself proudly when the Brothers Horne look up in horror. As the brothers lapse into damage control mode and swear for the productive future of their development plans, Leland notices a BOB flyer on a side table in front of the fireplace. Scary music (you've heard the theme before. Trust me) kicks up even as Ben remains in pre-scary-music-mode, informing his Lawyer of the Damned, "Let's take you off of damage control and let you concentrate on something you can handle. Like my tax return." Which is a pretty funny line, but would have been a heckuva lot funnier if Leland were actually, y'know, an accountant. No matter now, as Leland stares into the picture of BOB and observes, "I know him." Oh, you sure do. Leland finally takes a visit to his good friend, Plotsy McFunTimes, monotoning, "My grandfather's summer house on Pearl Lakes. He lived right door. I was just a little boy. But I know him." Creepy. Leland dashes off to tell the Sheriff, and as soon as he departs, Ben slowly delivers what might just be the best nugget yet: "Jerry. Please kill Leland." Ah, if only the scene had ended there. But, for some as-yet-undetermined reason meant to imbue this scene with more drama than ultimately necessary, Jerry doesn't even believe himself when he asks, "Is this real, Ben, or some strange and twisted dream?" Hey, Jerry? This scene isn't in black and white, you're not shirtless on a beach, and I don't get a complimentary gift pack for sitting and listening to your faux-deep musing. So, with no voice-over whispering "Obsession" following your infinite poetic wisdom, I'm sayin' get thee to the cutting room floor nearest you. Too bad, though, because otherwise that scene was perfect. Where's the eleventh hour VCR fuck-up when I actually need it?
Pathos for the sake of pathos follows itself into the scene, where Shelley stands in Leo's hospital room listening to Doc Hayward fill her in on the kick-ass stir fry she could probably make from the big vegetable her husband has become. We learn that the surgeons were able to remove the bullet from Leo's spine, but that he lost so much blood it induced a coma they're not sure he'll be coming out of. Basically, they don't know anything. The good doctor attempts to comfort her, telling her that they can "maintain his current state. Offer nutrition, life support. Beyond that, the only ally we have is time. I'm sorry, Shelley." She says she's sorry, too, but I think mos
t of her sadness and sorrow is that Leo is just not dead enough for her. She asks if he will go to prison, and again the good doctor offers no answers. So Shelley feels forced to pull a Jerry-Horne-in-the-last-scene cheesy-line dispensation, cheesily dispensing, "I guess, at the moment, he's kind of in prison anyway." How "on a very special" of you, Shelley. Tormented that the dialogue has taken such a dire turn from back in the crackling first scene, Shelley begins to cry. Hayward escorts her out, and we zoom to a close-up of Leo's sleeping face, reflected in a mirror. Ooh, the moral complexity! Ooh, the directorial indulgence! Ooh, how the bulk of the audience sleeps right along with him!Meanwhile, back at the police station, Lucy receives a call from, well, a caller, who wants to speak with the Sheriff but refuses to identify him/herself. Lucy's sorry to tell him/her that she can't connect said caller with said Sheriff if s/he does not identify him/herself. Caller does not. Lucy hangs up. Wow, call screening! I guess switchboard goddess Sylvia Horne decided to show up after all.
Jacks. Over the sound of what we will discover to be a running vacuum cleaner, a shot of man's hands bound in rope cuts to similarly bound feet with red polish on the nails and cotton balls placed between each toe. Out in the red curtained hallway, Audrey looks like the only hooker in the whole of the Pacific coast who doesn't score her Aquanet wholesale or sport outfits with more bells and whistles than a gosh damn Vegas slot machine, as she, sporting the cutest of cute little black nighties, approaches a gloved whore carrying a bucket of ice and offers to "take it from here." Whore II begrudgingly agrees, handing her the bucket and warning Audrey to "watch out for this one." She enters the room and sets the ice on a table, noticing Whore III vacuuming while the bound man lies face up with his hand and feet at the wrong ends of a yellow chaise of some kind. He is bald, he is bound (as previously explored), and he is blinded by a black mask over his eyes. Audrey bargains through gestures for Whore III to take off, and when she does Audrey unplugs the vacuum. Bald Man doesn't like that so much. Audrey leans down to where the man's head falls on the chaise, and uses the very vacuum cleaner cord she has just unplugged as a suffocating agent as she rips the mask off his eyes. Hey! It's bad bad man Emory Battis, Human Resource agent to the whores from Horne's. He seems to be choking. She wants to know everything, she says, about everything, including "the perfume counter, Laura Palmer, Ronette Pulaski, and One-Eyed Jacks." Emory pronounces Audrey "insane" (insane, I muse? Look whose toe polish doesn't even come close to matching the stripes on his robe. Who's insane now?), and she makes sure to maintain that "one clunker line per scene" quota this episode seems to be setting up for itself with the liberating -- but with a kind of Charlie's Angels faux-feminist (hey, what's THAT word mean?) kind of liberation borne of both the surrounding context of dominant male paradigms in which women must live their lives, as well as the scourge of increasingly inane dialogue -- "I'm insane? Well I'm Audrey Horne, and I get what I want!" Oy. He tells her that he works for the owner of One-Eyed Jacks, who Audrey guesses is her father. Emory recruited Laura and Ronette through the perfume counter (knew that), and Laura came to Jacks only once before being thrown out for using drugs (didn't know that. Also didn't know that high-class Canadian brothels had more stringent drug-testing policies than Major League Baseball, but I digress). Ben knew she was there, as he has a habit of "entertaining" all the new girls when they arrive. Through the shackles, Emory finishes, "Laura always got her way. Just like you."
A slow-jams version of Sassy Shuffle serves as the first non-subtle "time for some new material" reminder from David Lynch to Angelo Badalamenti, as Shelley and Bobby sit in a car listening to the music, when Shelley suggests that they "change the station." She does, Sassy Shuffle cuts out abruptly, and some hot jazzy number kicks into gear. Ouch! Extra-diagetic dis from the man in hot! And I thought he was just a pretty face. Turns out he can also see -- and deconstruct -- the fourth wall at his own will. Bobby kicks the plot into red: "I made the call. I told them I was Leo's cousin. Leo gets his disability as long as he stays out of prison. That's a lot of money, Shelley, over five thousand a month. But you only get it if he stays at home." Shelley protests, telling Bobby that she does not want Leo at the house ever again, but Bobby slowly lures her to his way of thinking with promises of all the pretty things they could get in their "new way of life." She's convinced: "Together." Smacky kisses ahoy.
Back in his room at the Great Northern, the undiscovered note Audrey left for Cooper lies untouched underneath the bed while Cooper summarizes the whole of the newest yeah-get-on-with-it-already subplots for a doubtlessly sleeping Diane. Windom Earl has (yawn) escaped! Audrey is (still) missing! A knock on the door reveals Major Briggs to the now-wary agent (at least this time he remembered to ask who it was), who enters the room with "a message" for Cooper. From whom? Well, that's classified, the major responds in four billion words or more, "but I may reveal this much. Among my many tasks is the maintenance of deep space monitors aimed at galaxies beyond our own. We routinely receive various communications -- 'space garbage' -- to decode and examine. They look something like this." What they look like is millions of sets of alternating letters and numbers separated by slashes and printed out landscape on many, many sheets of paper. Ever try and open an attachment file on an iMac? From anywhere, of anything? time you do, while you're screaming the words, "Well then what the fuck is MIME format anyway?" take a closer look of said forward translated into plain text. 'Cause it looks a hell of a lot like that. The major would very much like for us to know more: "Radio waves and gibberish, Agent Cooper. Until Thursday night. Friday morning, to be exact." Cooper muses that this was at the very time he was shot. And so Briggs shows Cooper the readout. And right there, in the middle of it all, from God or the dead or the aliens still trying to collect their downed kin and haul ass back to Roswell, "THE/OWLS/ARE/NOT/WHAT/THEY/SEEM." Just like My Giant told him. Cooper wants to know why Major Briggs would have brought this classified information to him. The answer comes farther down the Mac attachment readout page: "COOPER/COOPER/COOPER/COOPER/COOPER." Hey, thanks a bunch, governmentally sanctioned space program. Was this expense the exact reason that the state had to cut funding to the music program in my junior high school? And, most importantly, have my inherent karaoke skills suffered as a result of not being fostered properly in an academic setting?
Weirdest. Scene. Ever. And bad, too! But when the opening shot of said scene features a really sincere looking Slater Fetus clutching a guitar, well, is nothing self-evident anymore? Okay, picture this: inside of the Hayward house, James sits on the floor across from Donna and Maddy, holding a guitar; the girls sit before a 1950s-esque microphone. Oh, Lord, he's on one knee, isn't he? James: "That was really good. Let's try again." And then he begins to play an equally 1950s-esque love song riff reminiscent of every group that was already so over by the time they appeared on Ed Sullivan for having so egregiously ripped off Buddy Holly to begin with. And then he begins to sing. And though I don't think he travels too far above an E-flat (actually, they didn't cut the music program at my junior high school at all. Karaoke skills like mine can't be TAUGHT, per se, but proper training is really of the essence, such as the mentoring only available in secondary public school music programs. There are, of course, specialized karaoke finishing schools around the country -- "Puttin' on the Hitz" is one that jumps to mind -- but my parents were simple country folk who lacked the funds to send me away to one. I do what I can with what I have, though. Anyway) at any point on this rendition of his song "Just You," but his falsetto sound evokes a truly shrill vocal timbre I haven't heard since the Bee-Gees were big. But Slater Fetus isn't real cool like the Bee-Gees. He's, like, their retarded cousin. He's Gomer Gibb. The Vienna Boys Fetuses. "Unsmokey Robinson," if you will.
Anyway, the song goes like this:
Just you and I
Just you and I
Together, forever
In love
Just you (girls repeat into 1950s mic) and I (girls repeat into 1950s mic)
Just you (girls repeat into 1950s mic) and I (girls repeat into 1950s mic)
Together (girls "ah" for a long, long time), forever
In love
[Bridge]
In love
We go strolling together
In love
We go strolling forever
Oh, oh, oh
Just you and I
Just you and I
Together, forever
In love
[All three]
Just you and I
Just you and I
Just you and I
Just you and I
Just you and I
Um, wow? James is clearly making the best possible use of the guitar lessons he has taken since birth, which means, as the careful reader will recognize, he has been in formal training for his instrument since, oh, negative some months now. Donna, who has been watching Maddy make bedroom eyes at James (I knew she shouldn't have thrown away those glasses), finally becomes frustrated with the entirety of the proceedings and storms off in a teary huff. James abruptly stops playing, which I guess also serves as a pretty clear signal for the accompanying bass and drums that have reaaaaally mysteriously snuck into the accompaniment to take five as well. James chases after her and asks just what the holy hell is wrong with her, and she kisses him (yeah, that's what's wrong with her). But their smacky badness is presently interrupted by Doc Hayward calling down from upstairs that Donna has a phone call from a "Harold Smith." James looks on suspiciously as Donna and Harold make plans to meet. His already too-protruded forehead furrows so extensively that it knocks a vase off a nearby table as James gives the stink-eye through a lid so sensitive it's barely done forming. Stupid Fetus.
And if you thought the sight of a lovesick singing fetus was the scariest thing ever about this scene, well, you're right. But then something else happens that's kind of scary, too. Back in the living room, Maddy stares at the Hayward's couch for a moment, when from behind it BOB appears, walks toward said couch, climbs over said couch, and heads directly into the camera in what is, the most sustaining image of the entire run of the show. There is no way to describe it. It's just plain terrifying. But I will say this: for someone with big horrible SJLP glasses, Maddy was obviously a candidate for astigmatism, so I'm not sure that she should have just discarded them wholesale when Lenscrafters had doubtlessly already been invented in the Pacific Northwest. I mean, Jesus, get a tortoiseshell frame and get on with it. So when someone decides that her approach to vision correction is "I'm too cool for glasses," I can't be all that mondo-sympathetic when images of the walking dead start climbing over suburban couches and infecting her every waking nightmare until she finds herself in the direct path of such abject nefariousness. It's just this little policy I have.
Cooper is having a big ol' nightmare about scary doings about town. BOB walking, Sarah Palmer running down the steps, the ceiling fan fanning, My Giant and the major intoning, "The owls are not what they seem," BOB behind the bed, BOB with an owl's face transposed on his own face. This Cutting Room Floor Footage Of The Damned is currently interrupted by a ringing phone, and Cooper answers to find a tearful and terrified Audrey on the other end. She offers, "I saw you in your tuxedo. You looked like a movie star." She listens to him for a moment and then continues, "I am in trouble, but I'm gonna come home now." The camera pans dramatically down the length of the phone cord in Lynch's blatant directorial rip-off of, well, himself actually, and a hand presses down the receiver button and hangs the thing up. It's Blackie, with Emory Battis appearing behind her. "Trouble, Miss Horne?" she asks. "You don't even know what trouble is. Not by a long shot." Those of us plagued with a lifetime full of "Just You" stuck in our collective consciousness until the day we die know exactly what she means.
Karaoke, dude. It just plain rocks.