A wailing saxophone and moody-as-Seattle-in-January-four-seconds-before-the-cancellation-of-your-moody-show-about-Seattle-in-January-and-surrounding-environs snare drum kick up on the soundtrack. The ditty is a Badalamenti-penned so-called "jazz" so-called "riff," which I'm sure even Kenny G dismissed as being "a bit on the generic side," drop-kicking it right back to the dreary television ghetto that is a late-series episode of Twin Peaks. An extreme close-up of a scruffy and despondent-looking Harry "The No-Joy No-Luck Club" Truman is intercut with flashback shots of his current interior monologue: gauzy shots of Harry with his lost (or is she?) lady (or IS SHE?) love, Josie "Hooker With A Heart Of Bad Acting" Packard. In his memory, she smiles at him. She winks at him. She appears shy and submissive and young, a coquettish lover like the Greeks used to fancy. Because of the part where she's a little boy. That's right, folks. Pedophile humor. Drink it up, America. Drink it up like Harry drinks up yet another shot (extraneous segue alert!) of some hard-core beverage dispensed out of a glass bottle which might as well be a jug with three x's tattooed across the side. Wow. That's some strong poison, cowboy. Who even mass-markets moonshine anymore? Oh, Lord, look what he's done. The poor man has depressed himself right into Prohibition times.
The Massapequa High School Jazz Band, under the direction of Deafly McSmoothJazz, concludes its scorchingly watered down "selections from Broadway's City of Angels" medley just as Truman glances up to spot a concerned Hawk staring down at him. Speak, oh stock character wise native man. But speak slowly. And gravelly. And with the deep meaning of nature and of Earth and of birds punctuating every pearl of ill-constructed dialogue. And so Hawk speaks: "One of Norma's breakfasts. Made special." Hawk places the plate he'd been carrying in front of Harry. The Sheriff Of Krazy Kounty glances at the breakfast ephemera of eggs, toast, and bacon -- all greased in copious amounts of high-fat pity -- and laughs a loud, hearty laugh which, in that niche genre known as Breakfast Food Humor, is most often reserved for times when the food is configured into a human smiley face, with the two fried eggs as the eyes and the bacon as the grinning mouth. That's when it cracks me up, anyway. Though that's not what's happening at the moment. But the Sheriff Of Krazy Kounty wants to laugh at life's folly right now, and so he shall. He squares off with the food, which I believe multi-tasked by also writing all of the dialogue for this scene. And here's some of it now: "God bless Norma! Maybe later. Maybe later." Crazy men say everything twice. Crazy men say everything twice. Truman, sitting deep in the shadows because ABC has pulled the plug on this lot's power supply in an apparent attempt to force the cast and crew to give themselves up voluntarily rather than taking the time to cancel the show outright, points things plotwards: "How's things [sic] at the station?" Hawk offers Truman a deep-tissue backstory massage, filling him and us and the hiatus-plagued audience in: "Earl's chess game is the big concern. The man has a poor sense of recreation." Truman tells Hawk that he and Cooper can handle everything. And why? "It's a pretty simple town." Except for all of those times that we've learned that this was never a simple town, even before Laura's (who? Exactly.) murder. But it sets up the following pathos, which is why this line was written by those homefries to begin with: "Well, it used to be. I guess the world's just caught up to us." It caught up to you, passed you at ninety on the Entertainment Highway, and is now across the street watching Women in Prison on that newfangled FOX network. Move. It. Along. Hawk salutes Truman with one finger of his right hand, the Native American international symbol for "Shave it off, Bar Mitzvah boy. Even Buffalo Bill took time off from his craziness to track down a Mach 3." Hawk leaves, and Harry pours himself another one. God. The jazz. It is the most never-ending. Wait. Is this the theme song to Designing Women?
Augh! I didn't see "Utter Lack of Talent" on the menu at the Double R. Oh, wait. Actually, there it is. Right to Hank's name. But they'll need to add another one to the list of specials, because here comes the most utter lack of acting talent this show could ever have hoped to display. Through the front door of the Double R walks an eighteen-year-old Heather "Say It Isn't So" Graham, her Crystal Gale-length hair so blonde and so teased that a late-eighties junior prom threatens to break out of nowhere by virtue of that hair's very existence. Carrying a suitcase and indicating by official order of the prop department's Foreshadowing Specialist that she might just be staying a while, she makes her way around the counter and stops when she sees Norma walk out of the kitchen and not too pleasantly exclaim, "Annie." They hug. Norma introduces Shelley, who smiles and welcomes her, adding, "Norma's told me all about you." She walks away, and Heather Graham (I’m still settling on a nickname. And while "Rollergirl" has a certain ring, that's also the only time she's put in a good performance ever, so I wouldn't want to sully her one moment of artistic success by referring it back to this I'm-reading-my-lines-off-my-palm monotone performance) looks back at Norma: "All about me?" Norma brushes it off: "Shelley's like family." And it's just an expression. Used in every hackneyed script ever written to hastily develop hastily invented characters. But Heather Graham wants to explore this notion further: "Withourfamilythat'snotexactlyacharacterreference." Hoo ha wha? I think that might have been some simulation of the sentence, "With our family, that's not exactly a character reference," but Heather Graham apparently forgot to pack her Stella Adler manual and her ability to breathe or deliver her lines to any other character besides that which most evokes her own acting style. By which I mean "the floor.” They sit down on two barstools, and Norma tells Annie she's happy she's there. Annie looks around all wide-eyed and remarks, "Feels a little strange. The real world. Little things like I'd almost forgotten how to use money. The closest we came in the convent was Bingo chips." Convent. Check. Backstory made easy. It's almost like her character has been around since the beginning of time, stealing roles from good actresses who can't smoke those last five pounds off and land a job on a network show. Heather Graham: living, breathing, organic proof that only the hot turn heads in Hollywood. Well. If you can call this living. If only someone would explain just what the hell "littlethingslikeI'dalmostforgottenhowtousemoney" means. Anyway, Heather Graham changes tone from "dead asleep" to "other strains of catatonic" in suddenly going all serious: "No charity, Norma. Promise." Norma promises she's going to work Heather Graham "until [she] drop[s]." Please take it easy on her for a while. Can't you see she's straining already?
Over at the other side of the counter, Major Briggs watches as Shelley writes his bill out. He stares her down and utters the single word "compelling." Shelley, late as she is for her Central Park West audition, smiles wanly, slaps the check down in front of the Major, and walks away. From behind him, two fingers reach out and place themselves on Briggs's neck. Pan back. It's the Log Lady. She sits to him at the counter. She touches her log. Uh, you guys? Don't you have auditions you should be getting to as well?
Sheriff's Station. Cooper sits behind a desk, reading a file marked "Interpol" across the top. Oooh, how Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego of them. All this time, who knew that Windom Earl was nothing more than a particularly crafty V.I.L.E. Henchman? Coop shouldn't just be sitting there when he has airline reservations to make. To Oslo. Which is in Norway. Where the chief export is "textiles." Hawk enters and tells Cooper that Truman is about to "hit bottom." Cooper asks if he's eating, which we already know the answer to. The food! It's just too funny to consume! Hawk asks Cooper if he could use some help, and Cooper turns it around: "That's a question I should be asking you." Gravelly, with the wisdom of many generations of harvesting and birdsong, Hawk volleys back, "You're the senior lawman, Cooper. Let's just let the rain fall as it has been." Fall as it has been? Oh wait, there's a wacky punchline on the horizon. "Besides, I hate paperwork." Cooper bemoans the fact that the "international documentation" of this case makes it a trickier case than some he dealt with in his kick-ass, man-in-black routine with the FBI. He unearths a copy of Josie's autopsy and tells Hawk that Doc Hayward was unable to discover the cause of her death. Well, whatever. He's a nice guy and all, but I don't think anyone ever said he was the greatest doctor in the world. Further mystery comes from the fact that "the body only weighed sixty-five pounds." Fine. Done. Cause of death: Actually being a second-grader. I'm so hired. Hawk wants to know how that's possible, and Cooper posits that perhaps it had something to do with what he saw in the room the night Josie died. Hawk responds, "Maybe we'd better just whistle on our way past the graveyard." So mystical. So natural. So dancing with wolves. And I have absolutely no idea what the hell it meant. Hawk then asks if they've gotten "anything on Earl," and Cooper promises that the trail is "stone cold. Still waiting for his response."
Wait no more. The Pan Flute Of Psycho/Nature Bonding carries us out to the cabin in the woods where Windom sits in a chair, holding a large flower (who knew he had the fashion instincts of such a pre-Carrie-Bradshaw Carrie Bradshaw?) and breathing in an unusually heavy fashion. Leo, still in the red robe, tromps around in deep focus, occasionally walking to Windom's chair and announcing things like, "Slippers." Then later, "Pipe." Windom blathers straight on till morn about the "healing tonic" of country life. Shut up, Windom Earl. Leo hands Windom a newspaper, and the crazy old bastard reminds us for neither the first nor the last time, "Let's see what move our poor Cooper has come up with this time." Leo leans in as Windom refolds the newspaper (and now, chess-playing with the anal-retentive psychopath!) and moves Cooper's piece into position. Uh-oh. Somebody's mad, or something. "This isn't a move. This is a trick. He's playing a stalemate game. Cooper doesn't know the meaning of stalemate. He's getting help." Gee, thanks for dropping by with a little quick script-doctoring, Mr. Hemingway. Those sentences. They are short. They are declarative. The chess board contains pieces. Chess is chess. Windom loses his temper and screams that he doesn't like people who don't "play by the rules," using his best friend, Pan Flute, to flog Leo across the chest twice. Some people go to camp in the woods; Windom instead chose to spend this summer at campy. He notes, "Many people are going to regret this," before picking up the pan flute and playing himself a little tune to calm himself down. From my recorder days, I was actually under the impression that "Hot Cross Buns" and "Oh Susannah" were, by law, the only two songs permitted on this genre of instrument. Cut to a close-up of Windom's wedding ring, his symbol of lost love for his darling, unforgettable Carolyn or Caroline, depending on the scene and speaker of her name. Enough with the lilting, reedy soundtrack, people. Cram it, Windom. Cooper is going to regret "this." I think by "this," he means that we're going to regret his excessive playing of the pan flute. What the hell else could he be talking about?
Great Northern. Audrey "Don't Your Palms Ever Itch Anymore?" Horne makes her slo-mo way down a hallway and into a large banquet room of some kind and asks no one in particular, "Got it?" Eh? Across the room, Dick "Johnny" Tremayne approaches two busty women and exclaims, "Ladies, may I say that you both delightfully represent the sanctity of nature." He offers them a cigarette, and the taller, blonder of them jabs back, "I prefer to keep my chest…clear!" Who in the living name of Gary Hershberger are these people? No matter. They walk away in some protracted kind of disgust, just as Audrey marches up to Dick and inquires, "Have you spoken with Pinkel?" Tremayne would like to know just what a "Pinkel" is (though with the constant calling into question of what and who really represents the sanctity of nature to the refined, fashion-loving aesthete, I suspect he already knows just exactly what a "Pinkel" is, and also how to use it), just as said Pinkel marches up. He's an expert on the pine weasel, the ferret they're going to make their crusade to save in order to stop Katherine Martell from building land on Ghostwood Estate. Whew. Caught up? It's a little tricky. Audrey takes a break from the merely ambiguously annoying to take a crack at kowtowing to the quantifiably annoying: John. Justice. Wheeler. He's wearing some kind of wide-brimmed black hat. Is he in Blues Traveler, maybe? They begin talking quickly and simultaneously, apologizing for their conversation at dinner the night before. They stop. Audrey asks, "What are we talking about, anyway?" They have no idea. They'll have to get in line to figure it out. He asks her if she would like to go with him on a picnic. She accepts. Dick banters with Pinkel. Oh, you just bet he does.
Dark and stormy Truman. He's sounding even more grizzled than this morning. Cooper walks into Truman's house and launches right in: "We got Josie's dossier in from Interpol." Interpol. Have I mentioned yet how much I love that word? Truman doesn't so much like that word, and he tells Cooper that he's "not interested." Cooper doesn't so much care: "In addition to killing Eckhardt, trying to kill me, and killing Jonathan in Seattle, she's also wanted for a variety of felonies in Hong Kong." Harry pours himself another one, refutes the obvious need for a spot of Norelco product-placement, and repeats that he doesn't want to hear it. Cooper doesn't want to hear him not hearing: "She's also had two prostitution arrests, Harry." Yay! Now that it's been made explicit by the show, it isn't just a random swipe at her character for us to cry out what we've really thought of her all along. Sing it if you know the words, people: "WHORE!" And she is. Cooper says so. And so she is. Slam those nails deeper into the coffin, Coop: "Harry, eventually it’s gonna help you to know she was a hardened criminal. A killer." Truman whispers repeatedly for Cooper to "get out," until he too loses his temper, rising with all his Wolfman Jack superpowers and bellowing, "Get outta here! Go!" Thankfully, he never took third-grade music, and so he is forced to calm himself not with a pensive pan flute solo, but with a welcome and encouraged commercial break.
Katherine "Piper Bore-y" Martell sits at a table inside of her house, flipping though a whole lotta blueprints. At the door appears a woman whom we vaguely recognize as the woman who traveled everywhere with Eckhardt and somehow managed to achieve the unachievable feat of wearing sunglasses even cheesier than the late Mr. Eckhardt's questionable eyewear. The woman -- tall, dressed in black, and she's also quite tall -- excuses herself for barging in with a simple, "The door was open." Katherine overenunciates each word of, "It's a country habit. We're all so trusting." Because they're not all so trusting, you see. The woman, who introduces herself simply as "Jones," sits down across from Katherine and tells her, "I've come to expedite the transport of his body back to Hong Kong. Tragic what happened. You know, he really did love Josie." Katherine's got her fightin' words at the ready with, "Didn't we all?" See, because she didn't, you see, so…right. Katherine, her outfit an unfortunate red and orange blend that renders her skin and hair and clothes all exactly the same color (what Sars might explain as the deadly "Conrad Bain Syndrome"), puts her hand under the table and points a small pistol in the direction of this Jones, asking, "Now why did you really come to see me?" Jones smiles and says that she's come to bring a gift. She reaches slowly into her bag and pulls out a black box, which is somewhere between the size of a shoebox and the size of the gigantic plot hole this box is about to create. Jones tells her, "It's from Thomas." Rather than Santa Claus, or maybe a little something lovely from the Bruce Bolind catalogue. Because we really needed that explained again. So, thanks for that. Jones stands, wishes Katherine "good luck," and makes for the Seattle airport's duty-free shop for another crate of those plastic sunglasses you can only find here in America. Well, she can, apparently.
Donna "If She Were A Girl Scout Cookie, She'd Be Thin Mints. Then She'd Eat A Whole Box. Then She'd Get A Feather And A Basin And Throw Them Up" Hayward opens the front door of her house. She comes face-to-face with a short, older man with a gray moustache wearing a plaid fedora. He looks just a little like a thirty-year-old deciding to go trick-or-treating as Jack Nance. Ah, fuck it. It's Windom. And everyone knows it. He's in disguise, and he's stalking his Miss Twin Peaks contestants, starting with Thin Lizzie herself. He takes off the hat and launches in: "I'm Doctor Gerald Craig, an old friend of Will's from medical school. And I have a convention in Spokane, so I thought I'd swing by and surprise them. Which daughter are you?" She tells him, and then invites him into the house with a big smile on her face. Old people. Awwwwww. They stand together in front of the couch for a moment that was either meant to be tense or someone forgot a line or something, until Donna continues the verbal brilliance: "Can I get you something to drink, Doctor Craig? A pop or something?" A "pop." Heh. Maybe he can use his "pop" to wash down his "hoagie" and then follow it up with a delicious dessert of some kind of ice cream, perhaps topped with delightful "jimmies." Bumpkins. He refuses the drink and picks up a copy of the "local paper," exclaiming that small towns are where it's at and that it seems like "Will has found himself a little slice of heaven here." Donna will hear nothing about it. Even hearing about a "little slice" of anything will keep her on the treadmill for another hour or five. Windom -- er, "Doctor Craig" -- sits down and asks if Donna's two sisters are "as beautiful" as her. She laughs -- "They certainly are fatter!" she thinks -- before being just charmed enough to sit down on the couch to him. They banter about high school. Windom certainly is one of the more Lon Chaney-ish, vaudevillian psychopaths out there. Then, he pulls a smaller black box out of his pocket, and tells Donna it's a "small remembrance" for Doc Hayward, seeing as they graduated from medical school thirty years ago. He leaves. I think we've all learned a valuable lesson today, the essence of which many of us suspected already: Never, ever, ever trust old people.
Police station. Pete Martell sits at a chess board, bemoaning to Cooper that there's no stalemate game in the history of chess that doesn't involve losing at least a few essential pieces. Cooper reassures him, "Windom Earl's genius carries with it the vice of impatience. He doesn't want pawns. He wants royalty. Protect those, particularly the queen, and we can frustrate him." Again, inconsistent characterization, but even the musical of Chess didn't cram the game down my throat this much, so we're just gonna put that down and step away. From the other side of the room comes a cry of "You can't do that!" It's Lucy, inside her office. What I think is that she's talking to Pete and Cooper, maintaining a moral objection in settling for a course of action that insures people will lose their lives. Because that's something I could totally imagine her doing in the early days of the show. Instead, the contractual obligation of how many appearances she and Andy are supposed to make during the course of the average episode is fulfilled, as we see them mired in the middle of a spirited chess game, Lucy arguing, "Andy moved his knight without doing the little hook thing." Pete tells Andy that the knight has to "do the little hook thing." Pete and Cooper force a smile, but the levity is quashed moments later when Briggs and the Log Lady walk into the police station. Cut to a conference room, where the three-triangle insignia on the back of Briggs's neck matches a two-triangle pattern on the back of Margaret's leg. Cooper draws it on the board while we hear a story about Margaret disappearing for an entire day back when she was seven years old. That makes all three of them witnesses to the flash of light and the call of the owl that precedes disappearance. Margaret adds, "The only other time I saw that sight and heard that sound was right before my husband died. In a fire." Cooper stares pensively at the board as Briggs attests, "I'm connecting with something." Cooper asks what. The Log Lady responds, "I don't know." Ooooh.
What is it with the cheesy-ass singing on this show, anyway? I mean, at least it's not "Just You," and at least it's not James or Maddy or Donna or ten thousand episodes ago, when I still had ninety recaps to finish writing rather than my current six, but -- hi. Shut up, everyone. Crooner and inveterate ugly-hat-wearer John Justice Popper lies on a blanket at the aforementioned picnic, singing to Audrey, "Oh, bury me not, on the old prairie, where the coyotes howl, and wind blows free." Billy Zane has band face on and is singing with his overly-plucked eyebrows right through my television set and ow, my head just exploded. Audrey giggles and tells him that no one has ever serenaded her before. That's because James only dates ugly girls, and he's been the only one allowed to sing until now. Popper Wheeler asks, "What do you want to do now?" Banter about picnics and prairie songs as the wild call of nature begins to increase, as the animals return to the woods in the hopes that the mating call of the americanus billy zanus will for the time being go dormant.
Mom and Pop Hayward reenter the house, and Donna stands at the door to the living room and lets them know, "You had a visitor." The good doctor puts down a bag of groceries and inquires who that might have been, and Donna tells him about Doctor Craig and Spokane and here's his number. Donna, incidentally, is drinking a pop throughout this scene. Hayward becomes very grave: "Gerald Craig was my roommate. He drowned on a rafting trip on the Snake River. I was there, Donna. I tried to save him." Mrs. Hayward dials the number and whispers, "The cemetery," as the doctor opens the box to find a rook from a chessboard with the instruction "KNKB3" on a small piece of paper. Is that an early-nineties boy band? Doc tells Donna that he's "very dangerous," and instructs her not to let him in again. Because he's so coming back. Nice work with the retrospective parenting, negligent grocery shopper.
Big Pimpin' Hurley House. Doctor Jacoby sits on a chair regarding "I Wanna Be" Big Ed Hurley and Nadine "Eye Eye, Cap'n" Hurley, sitting side by side on the couch. Ed speaks slowly: "Nadine, what I'm here to say to you is…seeing you're with Mike now…" Nadine giggles that Ed is cute when he's embarrassed. He ignores her completely and plows on, "Since I have found someone else…Nadine, I'm not sure you're gonna understand this." The bad doctor leans in and asks if Nadine knows what Ed is suggesting. She does: "Major, final break-up." Ed thinks it's a little more than that, but Nadine tells him he's being a little overly serious: "These are the dating years." That's just what we called them when I was in high school. Except we called them the "puberty years." And there was embarrassment and pimples and fumbling in the dark. And no dating at all. I guess that's because I wasn't forty when I went to high school, like Nadine. And also because I wasn't thirty-three when I went to high school, like Donna. Ed leans in to Jacoby, pleading for psychological advice, which would roughly be like crawling into Death Valley and begging for water. But Jacoby actually fakes his way through knowing what he's talking about: "It's like the dissolving of scar tissue around a wound. She'll start to see reality again when her mind feels safe." Which makes almost no sense, but I hate when they try and legitimize him as a professional therapist. I'm sayin', put on those dual-colored 3-D glasses from 7-11 and go about your business of being a whacked-out freak like everyone else on this show is supposed to be. God. Jacoby drops the word "divorce," at which Nadine puts her hand up to her eye patch and looks around in horror. Pause. "I think I've gone blind in my left eye!" Heh. That's right, Nadine. Fly that freak flag high.
Ding-dong. We establish the Hayward living room with the shot used for BOB to jump over the couch way back in the "Just You" days, but this time the great drama is a shot of Eileen Hayward answering the door. I know. Be still, my normal, measured heart. Donna, on her way down the steps to screen for more potential psychopaths on her list of "don't let in," pauses near the top for a little Three's Company mis-overhearing of her mom answering the door and letting Ben Horne (!) in the front door. Apparently, he heard that this so-called "suburbia" had come to his town. He leans down, takes her hand, and whispers something in her ear with much dramatic flourish. I think it's, "When I saw this plot twist, I thought they were fucking with us. I didn't even remember you were ON THE SHOW!" Or so he might have said.
Double R. Norma sits at the counter, calling Shelley over and asking, "Have you seen this?" Shelley looks at the flyer for Miss Twin Peaks, figures out what Norma's going on about, and laughs, "You have gotta be kidding me." But Norma thinks it's a great plot contrivance and a great idea, goading her, "There's a cash prize and scholarship. And I bet you could walk out with it." Shelley laughs again, leaning over to pick up a spoon, and ties on her best announcer voice in bellowing through the near-empty diner, "Miss Double R Diner, what would you do to bring about world peace?" Then she totally changes her posture and takes on a high-voiced beauty pageant voice, responding all doe-eyed to her own question, "Well, I would bring all the world leaders together, and make them form a circle and join hands. 'Cause you can't make a fist holding hands!" Ha! Norma tells her she's a "shoo-in," and I have to tell you, she's damn right. I know I've said it before, but this girl can actually act. It's uncanny. Meanwhile, the spy who shagged me is taking home $6 million dollars to wear a skintight Union Jack suit, and she's currently just off-camera, forgetting her one line and mindlessly bumping into furniture and stationary sets. Shut up, Heather Graham. Sometimes showbiz just ain't fair. Maybe the more talented among them shouldn't have called herself "Madchen." ["No kidding. She rocked the house as La Filmette and I still miss her." -- Sars] Anyway, Shelley takes an order from the kitchen and carries it, down-the-runway style, to some hippie Deadhead guy with a long beard and a bandanna who looks like Harvey Keitel by way of the long-lost Allman Brother. That long-lost brother, by the way, is named Windom Allman. Because once again, we damn well know it's him. He puts on a low drawl and asks, "What's with the dance?" Shelley tells him that her boss wants her to be in the pageant, and he tells her that she's very pretty. He's right. She returns the compliment: "Well, you're very Windom, Windom." She doesn't say that. But that's how she feels.
Across the counter, Cooper sits down and flips open a book. Annie approaches and asks him what he wants. Cooper looks up and is smitten immediately. The couple meets, and the shark jumps over the moon. He shakes her hand and introduces himself as "Dale Cooper, local law enforcement." She supposes "thatmustkeepyouprettybusy." Is she about to miss a train? Sing, Johnny One-Note! SING!!! Cooper asks her if she'll be in town for a while (please for the love of God please God no no no no no), and she monotones, "I might be here quite a while." He tells her that's what happened to him. She smiles, "It looks like it's grown on you." Shut up, Yoko. As she fetches the coffee, Windom Allman stares at Cooper from across the counter. Just as a look of concern starts to cross Cooper's face, the opiate of Yoko Blackburn puts the smile back on his face, insuring that she'll get in the way of his important police work and ruin his and all of our lives. So ha. As she pours the coffee, he notes that her wrists have been slashed in a suicide-implied fashion. He tastes the coffee and tells her, "You made it just right." Yeah, that's what the casting director said. And I don't want to have a damned clue what he was talking about when he was referring to whatever "it" modified. Oh, and Hawk enters and tells Cooper about "a problem." Yeah. Put it at the end of the queue.
Bookhouse. Andy stands outside of The Worst Backlit Room In Hollywood, warning Cooper, "The Sheriff's gone off. He's broken every piece of furniture not nailed down." Cooper enters and finds a very drunk Truman waving his gun around (ew, not like that). Cooper asks Truman to hand him the gun, and Truman laughs and screams and just generally ACTS, "I don't believe I've ever handed my gun over to anybody in my ENTIRE LIFE!" Oh, the yelling, which I cannot stand. Rule Of Crazy #b: inability to control the volume of one's voice. But then pathos kicks in: "You know something else I've never done? I've never crossed the ocean. I never got to China." Oh, man. Is he gonna start singing "I've Never Been To Me"? He continues, "She came to me. And she made everything better. Everything so much better." Now, tears. Cooper advances slowly and tries to comfort Truman, who again bellows, "I should have taken her away from here! I loved her. She didn't have to die." Oh, my God. She so had to die. Cooper hugs Truman as men hug. That being, "in a slightly gay fashion."
Later. Bookhouse under the stars. Cooper and Hawk tuck Truman in, Hawk feeling the Earth coursing through his blood: "I've never seen him like this. It was like taking a hike to your favorite spot and finding a hole where the lake used to be." I don't think I need to even comment on that one. Cooper volleys back, "The man who doesn't love easily loves too much." Uh-oh. When Truman wakes up, he's going to be awfully disappointed to find out that Cooper went to China without him. Because that entire scene was written by those delicious fortune cookies Cooper seems to have brought back with him in copious supply.
I. Don't. Understand. This. Scene. Nadine hangs off the arm of The Mike Formerly Known As Mullet Mike. He's wearing a trench coat and a huge gray hat and calling them "Mr. and Mrs. Hinkman." Just like Gary Hershberger has changed his name to "Garrison Hershberger" in a vain attempt to legitimize away his last ten years now that he's back on the cult-radar-of-cool-shows-not-that-many-people watch, starring in Six Feet Under as the corporate guy trying to buy the family mortuary. And it took me three episodes to recognize him. And even then, the whole Gary/Garrison thing threw me. And now he's Hinkman/Mike. He's very Three Faces of Eve. But at least he's more of a master of disguise than Windom Earl. Who is more of a pupil of disguise. Or a bachelor of disguise. Or…oh, all right. Mike and Nadine stand at the reception desk of the Great Northern, Mike telling the concierge, "We're from Bozeman originally. But my wife thought that it would be nice to see the countryside." But then -- oh, hijinks -- two school-aged girls appear behind Mike in the lobby, blowing Mike's whole charade. I don't know why there was a charade. Nadine slams the desk and demands the room, and after the couple turns and leaves, the concierge looks down to note that the little bell has been smashed. Because she's strong.
Ben Horne stands before a banquet hall of people in fancy clothes, speeching about how proud he is that his Stop Ghostwood Campaign is drumming up so much support. He hands the microphone over to Dick Tremayne, who fills a bit of time with a fashion show starring, among others, Lucy and Andy. The Filler Fashion Show cuts over to the back of the room, where Katherine approaches Ben and asks, "Who are you kidding with all this?" He takes a big ol' swig of milk (he's wholesome now) and asks her, "Have you ever had an experience that's truly changed you?" She tells him not to expect that this will actually stop Ghostwood, but he promises that he's doing this for his own conscience, and not to stop the project out of spite. Katherine offers the same "God help you" I still scream every time I watch this scene, and he almost saves himself when he tilts things full-scale evangelical, asking, "Why don't you take this opportunity to transcend a lifetime of megalomania and egocentricity and write us a big, fat check to help stop Ghostwood?" She laughs her man laugh as Ben walks away, cutting back to Dick introducing Pinkel. He walks on stage carrying a cage with the storied pine weasel inside of it. And wouldn't you know it, the little bugger gets loose from the cage and the place goes pandemonic. But…but that's the same adorable animal they're trying to save! Geddit? Do ya do ya do ya? We even get Pine Weasel Cam, a jerky tracking shot of the thing running across the floor. Audrey almost gets knocked over in the mayhem, but John Justice Popper sweeps her off her feet. She asks if he was there for the fashion show. "No. I was here for you." They kiss. Good God.
And finally, we're back at the Bookhouse, where the resurgent Mrs. Jones enters Harry's room, slaps his bodyguard in the head with a gun, strips down to a black negligee, and crawls right on into bed to him. Now Truman…that's a woman. No. I mean it. Because it seems like you really, really didn't know.