Crazy mad props to the forum regulars for redefining the term "grass-roots effort."
Fade up on the unappealing, non-waterfall-facing, pick-up-trucks-in-a-near-empty-parking-lot, servants' entrance back side of the Great Northern Hotel. It's a shot I might ordinarily refer to as an "establishing shot," but seeing as this façade has never appeared on camera at any point in the first eleven episodes of the series, it doesn't go real far in "establishing" us anywhere in particular. Suffice it to say, it's not pretty. Suffice it also to say that perhaps the FBI has been alerted to the fact that their special agent has become a just little too "special" for this whole crime-solving game, what with the throwing of rocks at far-off bottles and the experiencing of delusional visions of murder-cracking sidekicks of all shapes and sizes. Perhaps they then realized that the whole "Who Killed Laura Palmer" plot arc has spun so wildly out of control that even the murderer has no idea that he (or, um, she) killed her, and transferred their lame duck agent to a less ritzy locale on the other side of the tracks, say "The Mediocre Northern" or "The It'll-Do-For-Large-Families-Traveling-On-A-Budget-Who-Need-One-Night-Out-Of-The-Winnebago Northern." "Great," indeed. If by "Great," you mean "HoJo's."
Cut to inside of Cooper's room, where a ringing alarm clock is clearly and perpetually programmed to the morning broadcast on "Radio Badalamenti," so soon after the alarm goes off do the familiar jives of Sassy Strings begin to play. A hand reaches into the frame, turns the alarm clock off, and fumbles with its trusty tape recorder. Cooper sits up in bed. To great hilarious effect, the left half of his hair is a big, cowlicky mess, and I miss the first few seconds of Cooper's morning address to Diane, drowned out as it is by the deafening and pervasive tearing sound of this show's visual style once again ripping itself off. Joined in progress, Cooper very badly wants Diane to know the following: "I dreamt I was eating a large, tasteless gumdrop. I awoke to realize I was aggressively munching on one of my air pillow silicone earplugs. Hence: the tastelessness. Perhaps I should keep a closer eye on my after-dinner coffee consumption." Heh. Welcome back, Funny Deadpan Cooper. I'm glad you seem to have put Unfunny Just-Plain-Dead Cooper to rest this week. He continues, grabbing his pillow and walking across the room: "Persistent soreness in the rib area, which I am treating each morning with fifteen extra minutes of yogic discipline. After which, thankfully, the pain retreats to a cul-de-sac in a distant suburb of my conscious mind." Realizing he has nowhere left to go with this already tenuous "brain as urban landscape" metaphor he seems so keen on cultivating ("...the pain then stops into the Dairy Queen near this suburban cul-de-sac, hassles the neighbors into lending it a cup of flour, and tells those darned varmint kids to stop playing Frisbee so near its crocus garden and get offa my lawn et cetera..."), Cooper drops the pillow near a wall by the bed and announces, "I am going to begin today with a headstand." And hence, Cooper goes all sorts of gymnastic on us (I guess "agile athleticism" was listed right before "can disappear effortlessly from cultural barometer for well over a decade until figuring out foolproof way to blackmail Darren Star" in the "special skills" section of Kyle MacLachlan's acting dossier), displaying great calisthenic prowess as he hoists himself up on his head, barely using the wall for support. "Diane. I am now upside-down." Hee hee hee. He is, you know.
Zen-like hippie yoga rhetoric ensues: "Mind becoming porous. The day's tasks coming into focus. Objects growing clearer." As such, a blurry shot of an indeterminate object underneath Cooper's bed shifts into focus. Hey, he said "coming into focus" and the object came into focus. Quite the straightforward and intuitive directorial non-flourish for the genius who directed Gleaming the Cube (I love you, IMDb). Cooper returns to his erect stance (ew, not like that) and retrieves the object. He tells Diane: "The Giant was right. I did forget something." That he's been shot, perhaps? Really, Coop. This catlike dexterity in the wake of such a physical trauma is really making me nervous. Remember Lucille Ball's declining years, when she was in her, like, thousands, and she would appear on Carson or a Bob Hope special and be doing her 1950s shtick and climbing on ladders and throwing pies and you were like, "Dude, don't you just want a warm bath and a pot of chamomile tea? Because that's really all I ever want, and I've never been ninety OR shot. Everyone just calm down." Anyway, that's just exactly how I feel right now. Just like that. Because you asked.
Meanwhile, back in oh-wait-there's-a-plot-in-here-somewheresville, where this recap has not yet come to rest, Cooper regards the object he has retrieved from under the bed. It is Audrey's note from so many episodes ago. The envelope reads, in a rightward-tilting slant that Cooper once told Audrey was the part-and-parcel penmanship of the generally insane, "My Special Agent." He opens the note and whispers aloud for our benefit: "Trapped in subplot hell of own making. Be back around Ep 20. Tell the world my story. But leave out all the boring parts." Okay, that's not really what it says. Here's really what it says: "I've gone North. Jack may have the answer. Love, Audrey." Cooper looks around, genuinely concerned, before darting out of the frame in a real hurry. Hey, Coop, when I want to calm down, I know there's nothing like a hot bath and some chamomile tea to...oh, never mind.
Police station. Hawk drives up in the station car and leaps out. Barreling through the front door, he runs into Truman and lets him know that his trip to Pearl Lakes yielded the following incredibly unhelpful facts about the Palmers' neighbors in the woods: "Two retired female schoolteachers live in that house to the Palmers. They have no memory of a gray-haired man." Darn. Hawk writhes uncomfortably and continues, "I had to drink three pots of chamomile tea to find that out." Hey, has someone been reading my recaps, or what? He excuses himself in a big hurry because thinly shrouded bathroom humor isn't just for lowbrow, sitcom-premised, Married with Children-esque fare anymore ('cause remember, it's 1990), and disappears. Truman, standing near the kitchen with coffee and doughnut in hand, continues to let the action come to him. Lucy approaches , putting on her coat and telling Truman that she'll see him when she gets back from her two-day trip to visit her sister and brother-in-law. She seems apprehensive about leaving the office at all, worrying that the "Can-Do Temp" girl hasn't arrived and won't know how to operate the phones and make the coffee when she does. Truman tells her that the situation is firmly under his control, essentially pushing her right out the door as she hilariously pouts, "Sometimes a Can-Do girl can't!" Hey, lay off the temp, why don't you just? And read my upcoming Hissyfit, coming this Monday, October 2, on this very exciting topic. It's filled with short, simple, declarative sentences such as this one: "Temping rules!" Not. But read it anyway. You won't be sorry. End shameless self-promotion here. Until I write something new. Anyway, Cooper passes Lucy on her way out the front door, bids her a fond adieu, and gets down to business with Truman: "I know where Audrey is." And so do we. Still. Every day. For six months. On a brief reconnaissance mission at a brothel, north of the border, being courted by her father for a spell, alone. Temping, as it were.
Establishing shot of Chez Johnson (which side of the house we're seeing is irrelevant, as "shithouse" is a recognizable architectural style from any angle), where...hey, it's Bobby! Sigh. Hi, Bobby. Tee hee. Bobby is sitting suspended from a one-person leather chair harness hanging from the ceiling, like a swing in a rec room in the day-care wing of an S&M parlor, reading a gun enthusiast magazine actually called Shooting, which carries with it more instant phallic imagery than a lifetime subscription to Flesh World. Oh, goody. Bobby + excessive phallic imagery = me excusing myself for a moment. Break time. Okay, I'm back. Meanwhile, an unctuous, cheap-suited "Mr. Pinkle" explains to Bobby (and Shelley, glamming in a corner of the room with a cigarette and a make-up base that's vying for "modish" and taking a wrong turn at "Kabuki") that the so-called "Port-o-Patient" (ha!) allows "the unfortunate Mr. Johnson" to experience life with this flying, transportable chair, and we immediately have to take for granted the Twin Peaks-generated cliché of "crooked used-hospital-equipment salesmen." Okay, show. You got it. Bobby tells Pinkle that he wants the best for his "cousin," once again driving home the essential plot point that Leo is moving back into the house with his "family" so Bobby and Shelley can pocket the insurance money and have sex in the room. Got it. Thanks for that. So Pinkle continues to quirk the place up a bit, to my amusement, actually, answering Shelley's legitimate request for "a ramp" with the halting response, "Well, er, sure, um, of course, I, um, as a matter of fact, I already have some, uh, plywood, uh, ramp, um, pinewood ramp boards, that I'll, uh, install tomorrow." So Pinkle attempts a demonstration of the S&M chair's transport capabilities. He hits the switch and nothing happens. Hits the switch and nothing happens. Hits. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Hey, this is starting to look like the last couple of episodes, particularly in regard to the "nothing happens" aspects. But Pinkle excuses the chair's mind of its own with the rationale that "sometimes you gotta be tough with these things. Sometimes you gotta hit it hard. A machine is like a woman, we always say at the machine shop." Oh, so true. And so, on the slam of the plug, the machine kicks furiously into gear, sending Bobby flying awkwardly into the air like an unwitting Peter Pan (don't ever grow up, Bobby) and then crashing him back down to earth. Bobby wrestles free of the confounded contraption, pins Pinkle against the wall, and reasserts the reason for this incredibly random scene's existence to begin with: "Pinkle, Pinkle, Pinkle, this thing is a deathtrap. I told you we have to keep him alive." Pinkle foreshadows that once the insurance companies pay out, there's really very little money to support the growth of such vegetable life in the home. Shelley leads Bobby out of the room while Pinkle tinkers further, and Shelley tells him she has to leave for a "hearing" of some kind. They kiss and I love them. Meanwhile, Pinkle's chair takes off and he sails around the room bumping into walls, the scene fades to black, and we never see or hear anything from Pinkle ever, ever again. And THIS, ladies and gentlemen, is how to be a successful subplot. Breeze in, make 'em laugh, and disappear back into "guest appearance on Special Victims Unit" obscurity, got that? I'm looking in your direction, String Tie Sternwood. And there's you, Sternwood, sitting all officiously right there in the scene, not even writing this excellent advice down.
Inside of a bar whose exterior façade is a red neon gun shooting at the alternating red neon words "Bang, Bang," a pre-trial hearing for Leland's first-degree murder charge is occurring, and no one is at all curious as to why it should be taking place there. String Tie Sternwood sits behind a table on a raised platform, and two bar tables on opposite sides of the floor below it make up the sides for the plaintiff (fat, non-food-critic throwaway from last week) and the defense (Leland, looking white-haired and craaaaaaazy). A peanut gallery's worth of the usual suspects sits behind them. The gavel hits the table, and String Tie Sternwood tells us that this pre-trial non-trial thingy is to decide if Leland will be granted bail. Fat non-food-critic prosecutor guy stands and walks across the sawdust-covered floor (I think Sars and I have gone drinking at this place. Y'all, try the poppers. They kick all of my ass ["no, that's the place with the rockin' fries; the poppers place doesn't have sawdust" -- Sars]) and speeches the room about why bail should not be granted for Leland. Wanna listen in? Good then: "We, the people of the state of Washington [ooooh, how that legalese rhetoric bullshit gets me in knots. How does he purport to speak for the entire state of Washington? Did he eat them all, is how? Hey, did I just make a fat joke? That seems excessive. Sorry. I'll try and remember to make fun of skinny people later] move the defendant be denied bail" unti
l the murder trial of Jacques Renault begins. He cites his reasons: the seriousness of the crime, the premeditated nature of it, and "the oft-witnessed instability of Mr. Palmer during the period following the death of his daughter." Truman has been asked to speak for the defense, even though Leland intends to defend himself come trial time and Truman is not a lawyer. Or well-spoken. And he's sleeping with a manipulative skank destined to become the centerpiece sales item on the cover of month's Ethan Allen catalogue. Not loving Truman so much these days, I'm afraid.And so he makes his case: "Your honor, Leland Palmer is a well-known, well-respected member of this community." Blah blah blah civic-cakes. Ben sits alone at the bar, tossing beernuts into his mouth. Yay, Ben. Truman thinks we cannot understand what it would be like to lose a daughter the way Leland did. String Tie Sternwood thinks on it for a moment and begins to deliver his decision on the matter, but the speech must have been deemed so superfluous or poorly written or both that we cut to a clearly tacked-on moment of Andy sitting to Truman, showing him an artist's rendering of Leland he'd been working on. They talk about it. The world lacks clarity on why. You guys, quiet. Meanwhile, Leland is being released on his own recognizance. Not that that's of any consequence, clearly.
Following that old familiar shot of Harold Smith peering through the slats of his cheesy Venetians, a hand goes to the doorknob and Donna "Ain't She Nutra Sweet?" Hayward bonily clangs right in. Harold takes the tray and sets it town on a table by the door (thank you, set designers, for considering the internal logic of placing a side table right to the door of a person who never goes outside. Am I nitpicky, much? Yeah, I thought so), continues to clutch his omnipresent glass of wine, and apropos-of-nothing, "So, what's behind those deep blue eyes today?" Awwww. He could charm a snake, he could. Donna replies that she has decided to tell Harold her life story ("and then I decided that eating was for the weak and misguided. And then I turned three."), which I guess is something he wants for some reason, but in exchange she wants to read Laura's diary. Don't waste your time! It's dime-store pulp! Harold calls her proposition "intriguing" (this from a man who would describe finding out what day of the week it is every so often "intriguing," but why throw stones at completely barred-in houses?), and compromises: "I'll read it to you. But it mustn't physically leave this room." Kill me if I ever use the word "mustn't" in a recap, okay? I'm amazed I never have, but really, I hate that word. ["Don't use 'shan't,' either." -- Sars] Anyway, she agrees to the terms. She sits down on the couch, and he fumbles with a secret hutch area behind a bookshelf (this place becomes more and more like the Clue house every second) which she pretends -- badly -- not to see him open. He grabs the diary and a blank marble notebook. He sits at a nearby table and writes Donna's name on it, in which I'm fairly convinced is the same production assistant's handwriting that inscribed Audrey's note to Cooper over at the Mediocre Northern.
And so they get to work. He tells her to "begin," and she launches into her fairly rote life story: "I'm from Twin Peaks. Actually, I was born here. My father delivered me. He's a doctor." Somebody want to let me know what that "actually" is doing there? "I'm from Twin Peaks. Actually, I'm from Twin Peaks." Shut up, Gangly. Anyway. But Donna soon upsets the delicate balance of their conversation by turning the Shut-In Cam back on its operator: "So, where are you from?" Harold falters, before collecting himself and delivering the really, really, REALLY awkward line, "I grew up in Boston. Actually, I grew up in books." Eh? She volunteers, "There's things [sic] you can't get in books." Yeah, well, there's things [sic] you can't get in a Slim Fast shake either, but that doesn't keep you from skipping the sensible meal for dinner, now does it, Donna? DOES IT? So Donna brilliantly reasons that she will find things in books, grabbing Laura's secret-except-for-its-hundred-thousand-copy-print-run diary and playfully threatening, "Maybe I'll read it on the lawn. Why don't you come with me? What's there to be afraid of?" He follows her to the door, begging, "Please, give that back to me." Then he swipes for it and steps outside. And falls down to the ground, apoplectic. Nice one, Donna. See? Skinny people suck, too!
More hearings at the Bang Bang Bar. And -- my lands, more string ties! Did New Mexico have a going-out-of-business sale in the Portland International Airport duty-free shop? Even one woman is wearing one. And may I say, for the record, that I do not find that style to be the least bit becoming. The time the plaintiff for Leo Johnson's case sits at the table for a pre-trial to determine whether Leo is fit to stand trial for, what, arson? Murder? Jeez, I don't even know. The plaintiff's lawyer (oooh, yellow string tie! How festive) shows charts of Leo's brain activity, which is, like, zero. He approaches String Tie Sternwood and strangely becomes the scientist guy from The Simpsons, nasally asserting his belief that Leo "doesn't even have the perspicacity to take the standard CST Competency Test." Oh, the CST. Well, I'm convinced. Let us now all go home. Fat non-food-critic prosecutor guy argues that while "Leo Johnson isn't in very good shape," trying and convicting him of "the murder of Laura Palmer" (thanks for that) and "other crimes" (no thanks for that) is the only way to bring closure to a torn-apart community. String Tie Sternwood tells the room that he has to "deliberate," and calls Cooper and Truman to the bar to "deliberate" (if by "deliberate," you mean "drink socially in the middle of a workday") over something called a "Black Yukon Sucker Punch." Sounds delightful. For an alcoholic, drinking between cases three feet from the stand. String Tie Sternwood asks Cooper if they think Leo is guilty of Laura's murder, and Cooper puts it to him straight, bereft of the giants and midgets and bright paper packages tied up with string he seems to be throwing at just about everyone else lately with the refreshing, "No, sir, I don't believe he is." Sternwood calls Leo "a heavy cabbage," and tells the two men that he will declare Leo "medically incompetent to stand trial" and send him home to the bondage death chair on the other side of town. Truman takes his leave to offer Shelley the (ahem) good news, and String Tie Sternwood turns to Cooper and asks the agent how long he's been in town. Cooper doesn't take the time to count, because he already knows the answer: "Twelve days." Oh my GOD. I feel like this SCENE has been twelve days. And so String Tie Sternwood throws out some advice for the newbie: "I'll advise you to keep your eye on the woods. The woods are wondrous here. But strange." And all I really want is for Cooper to gaze back at him for a pregnant pause, crack up maniacally, and wail, "What woods? Because if there's one thing I've been meaning to find around here, it's a faux-artsy shot or two of MOODILY BLOWING TREES." Thanks, String Tie. Those clandestine so-called "woods" of yours sure have been hard to track down. Meanwhile, Truman has let Shelley know that "Leo is coming home," and Shelley smiles that smile people smile when they are, in fact, very, very sad.
Coma survivor and high-school cheerleader extraordinaire Nadine "Gimme a C!R!A!Z!Y!" Hurley walks into her house for the first time since "drape runners" signified important plot development, followed by poor, poor Ed. Slater Fetus comes running to the front door, looking all concerned and genetically predisposed to eventually become a huge dork-o-la, though we won't know for sure until that special day. He asks Nadine if he can get her anything. She regards him curiously. She asks, "Who are you?" And in an unprecedented synergistic moment between MBTV and the shows we recap, Nadine has no idea who James is, because, in her delusional vision of herself as seventeen years old, James really hasn't been born yet! HA HA HA HA HA! My life's work is complete.
Nadine hops toward the kitchen, humming her "Steeplejacks" cheer, until she gets near the door and turns around worriedly: "Where're mom and dad?" Ed improvs that they're "out of town." Nice save, Ed. Slater Fetus utters an almost Keanu-like "Whoa," which is kind of satisfying, considering "Keanu Fetus" was on my shortlist of discarded nicknames for the zygotal mishap we have come to know. But really, it's much more Slater than Keanu. Hey, there's a sentence I never thought I'd be needing for a Twin Peaks recap. Or, for that matter, ever. Ed tells Slater Fetus that Doc Hayward told him to "roll with the punches," and Slater Fetus' request that Ed take her to Dr. Jacoby is shot down because the town's one psychiatrist is "in Hawaii, recovering from that heart attack." Oh, how that "abiding interests lying to the east" line still burns me up all these weeks later. Suddenly, a crash from the kitchen silences them both, and Nadine returns to the room carrying the refrigerator door and claiming, "It just came right off!" Because she. Is. Very. Very. Strong. No, really, she is.
Hey, it's the front of the Great Northern! Establish away, ye shot! Inside Ben's office, his secretary pages him to let him know that "a Mr. Tojamura is here." Um, who? I'm sorry, can I really recap the several episodes knowing exactly who that is? I mean, we've all only watched this series, like, four billion times in a row, no? Y'know what, though, never mind. I'm not going to get spoilerrific just in case there's a quiet newbie out there following along. It wouldn't be fair. It's like when you saw The Crying Game on opening night and three months later when it was playing at the $4 theater on 50th Street you thought everybody already knew that it was a guy, it was a guy, and so you announced this at a party in a crowded room full of people and watched the air get sucked out of the room and everyone getting really mad at you? Oh, er, this, um, happened to a friend of mine. So I'm not going to say anything more at the moment concerning the good and great mythology swirling around this "new" character named "Mr." Tojamura. Except for one thing: can somebody please tell me what on earth Jaye Davidson has been up to lately? And has anyone noticed he's practically the male Hollywood doppelganger of Rae Dawn Chong? Ever notice that? Notice that. Notice THAT, Sars. ["Noticed. Also noticed: a note of, er, soulful desperation attending to that last reference." -- Sars]
Anyway, Ben turns around to notice Tojamura is now sitting in his office. Tojamura speaks with a raspy Asian accent, and tells Ben, "I have superior offer for Ghostwood project. I have commitment letter from Tokyo banks. I am prepared to move immediately." But see, Ben is right smack in the middle of getting his daughter back and his FBI agent offed, so he begins to tell this Tojamura character that he just doesn't have time for this meeting right now. The persuasive Asian man throws down a book, waits for the conclusive "thwack" of it hitting the desk, and announces, "I have prospectus." He then slides an envelope across the desk containing a check for five million dollars. Ben is intrigued.
Cut real fast to Hank walking down the hallway to Ben's office, followed by Bobby (why?) sneaking into another room, followed by Cooper, blowing a duck horn. Hank starts to enter Ben's office through an ambiguously (as all things are with Hank) concealed back door, and stops to see him showing Tojamura the door. Once Ka -- I mean "Tojamura" takes his leave, Hank enters and tells Ben that Cooper is on his way in. The phone rings. Cooper walks in. The call is taken. It's Jean Renault: "Ehr yoo rah-dee tow plah-ee?" What? WHAT? Jean gives them instructions on where to meet them (I'm not glossing, I promise. I just have no idea what he's saying). Ben gives Cooper a briefcase full of cash, drops in a note I can't read (anyone?), and takes off. Hank enters through the door again, and Ben tells Hank to "make sure that he and the money are neatly delivered. Bring Audrey back." Hank asks Ben why Cooper isn't bringing Audrey back. Argh! How dumb is it possible for one mindless henchman to be? Ben continues, "Cooper isn't coming back. If you can manage it, bring back Audrey and the briefcase." Hank leaves. Ben returns to his desk and again regards the check from Tojamura: "Five million dollars. Now that's a good day's work." He's right. He also knows all there is to know about the crying game. Well, he will.
I can hardly see this sequence through all of the obscuring filler. Where are we? Oh, the Palmer house. Or maybe the Hayward house. I don't know. Maddy and Donna are doing that "girl detective" thing they do so (not) well. Donna describes where the diary is. Maddy is caught by a moment of conscience and turns to Donna: "I thought you liked this guy." Ooooh, slippery moral quandary! I'll make sure to care when this scene is over.
Jacks. Dude, I could have lobbied to have prostitution legalized, moved to Nevada, built my own brothel, and staged a far more interesting series of events in the time its taken this subplot to unfold. Blackie (if you had asked me, before I started recapping this show, how many episodes Blackie appears in during the entire series, I would have guessed "three," and I would have been wrong) and Jean "I'm So Evil I Don't Even Laugh At Jerry Lewis" Renault talk about killing Cooper. Jean has a Bond-weapon-esque knife attached to his shirtsleeve. Blackie wants to know how they're going to do Audrey in, and he indicates a tray of ambiguous (Hank and his ambiguous evil must be in the vicinity) medical supplies on the desk. They talk about wresting control of Jacks from Ben after they kill his daughter. Blackie eats a piece of fruit. Ah, I have become riveted. Blackie leaves and is replaced in the room by a character who I believe was identified in the last episode as "Blackie's sister." Strangely, she also possesses a rather stunning similarity to Rae Dawn Chong, who suddenly I am unable to get out of my head for some unbelievably strange reason. It's the hair, anyway. Anyway, Rae Dawn wants something, too. Yeah, sister, we all want something.
Nighttime at the police station. Andy is sitting in for Lucy, and we are to understand by the ten million Post-It notes that litter the room that he is clearly overwhelmed by the secretarial experience. He picks up the phone and a female voice answers, telling us that we've called "Laboratory Services." He is asking about his semen analysis. Apparently, he was afflicted with a case of something called "Oligospermia." Long "o" sound. Both times. At least, that's how the close-captioning spells it. He asks the woman what that means, exactly, and jots it all down as she tells him that he had "too few sperms." He repeats that and she celebrates, "Very good, sir!" talking to Andy like the real big idiot he really, really is. But he's cured. The woman on the line volunteers, "Doctor says they're not just three men on a fishing trip, they're a whole damn town." Andy hangs up the phone and yells, "I'm a whole damn town!" Then he yells it again. Harry happens through the room and continues on, even less convinced of the importance of this subplot than I am.
Truman walks into yet another new room of the police station (we'll call this one "Moody Backlit Memorial," in the rare happenstance we should ever see it again) to find Cooper poring over a blueprint of Jacks. Game plan: enter, save Audrey, leave. Hawk walks in and they conceal the stuff. It's a Bookhouse Boys project, remember, and it's tip-top secret. Hawk (who it really seems is doing all the work around here lately, to tell the truth) has discovered that the One-Armed Man is staying at a "Robin's Nest Motel," but he hasn't turned up in a day. But Hawk did uncover a substance that he also turned up at some ambiguous "last time," a drug that awaits Albert's analysis at the lab in D.C. Truman tells Hawk to leave. Once alone, Truman takes a moment to look dramatic while the pre-save-the-girl music swells and he intones, "Let's go get her." They walk out. Um, you guys are SO about to run into Hawk in the parking lot. Good thing you needed to be alone with your big fancy blueprints for so long. They walk past Andy, who is looking for his one precious Post-It with his medical information on it, and he comes across a concealed piece of paper that advertises "Gwen and Larry," the names of the sister and sister's husband she is assumed to be visiting. And so he dials. The phone rings: "Adams Abortion Clinic." Because abortion clinics always call themselves "Abortion Clinic." Andy works his mouth to produce the sentiment, "Oh, my God," and hangs up. Ooh, hot button political issues everywhere! This is so groundbreaking. This is so Maude.
Over at the Double R, Maddy enters in a hurry while Slater Fetus (somebody get him that number from Andy, would you?) sits poutily at the counter wishing he were old enough to drink coffee like a big boy and go out alone like a big boy and breathe and eat without the help of a tube connected to a lady. Y'know, like a big boy. Maddy regards him only barely while ordering a cup of coffee. He asks if she has seen Donna. She lies. Like the rest of the cast and the world, she cannot even pretend that she's happy to see him. She grabs her coffee and tells him, "I need to go." He pouts poutily in a pouty fashion for another second before throwing down some cash and taking off after her. Stop by the police station on your way to being someone's totally uninvited pain in the ass for a minute and get that number from Andy. Yes, it's a tasteless reference. But gosh darn it, man. You're a fetus -- A FETUS -- and you always will be. Rights of the unborn, my toe.
And we're back in Harold's house, where we learn that it is "March 7th" and that this is their "second session." Donna begins to tell a story about a time she and Laura were thirteen or fourteen and they went to the Roadhouse to meet boys. It is a boring story. Why not just take the requisite fifty hours it would have taken you to read about it to do something more constructive with your time. Like, say, playing a rousing game of "Anagrams I can make out of the name 'Angelo Badalamanti'" with someone you love. Need me to go first? Oh, okay. "Negotiable anal dam." Your turn. Anyway, it's kind of a sexy story, and while it does nothing for me personally, Harold has to ambiguously excuse himself, the way I did before during a Bobby moment. So I understand where he's coming from, just not where he goes. Or why.
Hey, look! Moodily blowing trees! Thank you, director of Gleaming the Cube! I thought I was to be left high and dry this week! Not so. Cooper and Truman are bedecked entirely in black as they skulk in the bushes (though if they really wanted to blend, perhaps swathing themselves in red velvet would have been the better way to go about it). A tuxedoed man guards a door and smokes a cigarette, and after Cooper has a requisite faux-artsy moment with an owl-who-is-not-what-it-seems, Truman slams the man in the stomach, duct-tapes his mouth, slams his head into the door, and walks away. Nice.
Inside, the two men silently consult the blueprint of the building. There's a hoedown kind of party going on, and they skulk conspicuously in the corner while the party swirls just a few feet away. Every single person is wearing at least some red in his or her outfits, a contrived directorial flourish that was begging to be noticed. They walk down the maze of hallways into the naked brothel section. Truman spots Blackie and Jean chatting behind a glass door, and Cooper whisperingly suggests that Truman keep watch of the two of them while he takes off to snag Audrey.
Man, even the chirping crickets sound listless. Maddy watches Harold's house; inside, Harold takes Donna on a horticultural tour through hell. She calls an orchid "delicate." He calls it "the landing platform for pollinating and sex," which she mistakenly decides is "romantic" rather than "vomit-inducing, like ipecac." Then they actually start to kiss and I have to excuse myself to the bathroom for an entirely different set of reasons. Yuck, yuck, and thrice I say yuck. He excuses himself again. Man, you live alone long enough…
Cooper skulks down the hallway looking guilty. He comes across Rae Dawn, and hoodwinks her into shaking his hand so he can Tiger Schulmann her ass to the floor and demand to be taken to Audrey. Go, Coop! They enter Audrey's room, where a bound Audrey lies still on the bed. She stirs and looks at him, and I'm disappointed as always in my expectation that there's going to be some great damsel-in-distress line here such as, "What took you so long?" There's not. Instead, there's Rae Dawn Chong. Rae Dawn attempts to absolve herself of any wrongdoing, telling Cooper, "It wasn't my idea, okay? I'm nothing but meat on a hook to these people." He tells Rae Dawn to "shut up" and attempts to rouse Audrey. Seconds later, he spots Rae Dawn removing a knife from her stocking. She lowers it over his head for a painfully long Hitchcockian rip-off moment, and he grabs her arm and spins her around without even turning away from his charge. He then wheels around, punches her comically in the stomach in a way that should encourage the screen to read "Biff!" and "Pow!" in a cartoonish Spiderman-esque fashion. Rae Dead Chong goes down like most of her movies, and yet another brilliant nickname fails to live on.
Truman keeps watching as Jean and Blackie continue right on talking in a long-dead strain of Esperanto I'm sure I've never heard before. Suddenly, Blackie is shot in the back and Jean falls down on top of her. He grabs a gun and leaves the room. Cooper carries Audrey out of her room over his shoulder. He and Truman are practically to the door when a gun-toting man (wearing a red bow tie with his tuxedo) who looks like a nondescript Bond villain stops them. Truman drops his gun. Is it the end of the line for our intrepid heroes? No! Because suddenly Bond Villain gets a knife in the back and goes down like so many of Rae Dawn Chong's movies. Yeah, I know I made that joke twice. An hour is a long time, okay? It's Hawk. "Good thing you guys can't keep a secret!" Oh, man. I can't believe he just said that. Worrying that I'll catch the same violent strain of the cheesebola virus that this scene has clearly contracted, I turn it off in a real big hurry.
Outside, Hank talks on a cordless phone of some kind (has cellular technology even been invented at this point? ["Gekko uses one in Wall Street, which came out in 1985 or something, so, yes" -- Sars]) and tells who I can only imagine to be Ben, "There's been gunfire. Truman and Cooper are leaving with your daughter." Jean comes up behind him and holds a gun to his throat. He pulls the badge reading "Ludwig" from his hand that Hank stole last week from the fat non-food-critic prosecutor. Wha?
And finally, Harold has not yet returned from beyond. Donna gestures madly from the flowery room to Maddy, who has entered the house and is toying madly with the not-so-secret hiding place behind the bookshelf. Harold approaches Donna from behind (ew, not like that. Ew, he wishes) and scares the crap out of her already jumpy-ass self. She tries to distract him with further talk of flowers, but just then the secret hiding place falls from the wall and Harold turns around. He grabs a non-threatening garden tool of some kind and runs into the living room. Donna and Maddy cower, and Harold isn't going to need a Meals on Wheels delivery for a while, considering how much scenery he's chewing here: "Are you looking for secrets? Is that what all this is about? Well, maybe I can help you! Do you know what the ultimate secret is? Do you want to know? Laura did. The secret of knowing who killed you." He rakes (though it is not a rake) said garden tool down his face, and the red stage make-up marked "Unconvincing Blood" mars his face in a bad, fake bloody way. Because nothing in his former behavior would have indicated what a huge and total freak he is.