Zen, Or The Skill To Catch A Killer

In a Lynch-directed scene with Lynch-driven dialogue beginning a Lynch-inspired episode (in a show created by, and I had to look this one up, none other than feature film director and television visionary David Lynch), we fade up on complete (can silence be stylized? If it can, or if it couldn't, then it can, and is, right now) silence in the Horne's private dining room inside of The Great Northern. Ben, Audrey, Headdress Johnny, and Poor, Poor, Disappearing Sylvia cut their food and sip their beverages, actions so icy and emotionless they are practically drowned out by the clamor of the opening credits. Which, incidentally, are also silent. Silence and brooding, silence and brooding. Pretty much the only other sound to be heard is the deafening buzz of WASPs that comprise this unbelievably detached lot, and so it goes for an unprecedented minute of screen time. No, sir, you'd just better believe I don't give any credence to those rumors propagated by unreliable Internet sources that this episode was the love child of an uncredited Joe Eszterhas screenplay and the directorial flair of a young Paul Verhoeven. This is Lynch tone and style all the way, and I will not sit around and listen to specious arguments to the contrary.

So right on out of nowhere, the closed swinging door to the dining room bursts open in a contrast so heart-stoppingly severe it sounds suddenly like a jumbo jet has flown into the building and come to rest mere feet from the jarred and unsuspecting family (maybe we'll need Verhoeven on this after all) whose dining tranquility, stilted as it may have been, has been unceremoniously compromised. Through the door walks a silly, silly looking short man wearing sunglasses and a button-down shirt accessorized with suspenders and a bow tie that do nothing to offset the previously established silliness of said man's every silly gesture. Ben character-develops, "Jerry, back from Paris." Silly Man is yelling at several uniformed porters that "I've got a sandwich in there, I want all those bags open, we're looking 'til we find it." He prances over to Audrey and excitedly reports, "Uncle Jerry's back!" She barely turns her head. No one's more excited to see Uncle Jerry than Uncle Jerry is, it soon becomes clear. He turns a few degrees toward the other woman in the room and attempts an unctuously sincere, "Sylvia," a salutation met with a disgusted, "Benjamin!" Ben (yes, in fact, their names are Ben and Jerry. You got a problem with that?) barely raises an eyebrow and takes a sip of wine, a pretty apt protective method for a husband who would define his own best attribute in this marriage as, "Well, I may not have spoken out in your defense against this freak, but at least I'm not out sleeping with dozens of other women. At the moment." Jerry soon finds what he is looking for, and he unwraps a bread-based food product from its protective wax paper and informs Ben, "This is the best damned sandwich I ever ate." It's a French concoction featuring tons of cheese and butter, and Ben forgoes his entire dinner to take several large bites and scream his enthusiasm for its manifold yumminess. Through his gorged mouth, Ben enthusiastically chokes out what the sandwich reminds him of: "Ginny and Jenny down by the river," some unexplained and doubtlessly prurient memory inappropriate for further reference in front of his put-upon mother and two silent children. So Ben suggests that the two retire outside, and as he stands up to go, he shoots his wife that patented "see you in twenty-seven episodes, sucka" glance and bids the rest of his family the brilliant nugget, "Always a pleasure." Sylvia Horne puts her head in her hand woefully in a gesture that communicates "I can't believe this man is my husband" just as much as it does "Oh, please God, don't make me go back to temping," as the scene ends and her character is retired to that great and holy One Hour Drama in the Sky known as late-night infomercials and part-time secretarial work. Poor, poor Sylvia Horne.

Out in the rustic hallway, Ben and the genetically recessive and diminutive version of Ben discuss developments in Twin Peaks since the latter has been in Paris: "Leland's daughter was murdered and the Norwegians left." Jerry wants to know if "they signed," and Ben tells him that the deal is off:

Jerry: We had those Vikings by the horns! What happened?
Ben: We're not a hundred percent sure. They took their translator with them.

Yes, if you're wondering, this sequence is played for high camp. And yes, it works marvelously. Continuing in the same vein, Jerry slowly comes to a realization of Ben's first statement and asks, "Did you say Leland's daughter was murdered?" Ben confirms that it is so, and Jerry observes, "I'm depressed." Why? I would have a difficult time imagining that Jerry's concern over a dead girl would stem in any way from humanitarian causes considering the way his slimy character has been drawn thus far, so it is of little surprise when Ben again plot-develops the day away with the healing promise that "there's a new girl at One-Eyed Jacks, freshly scented, from the perfume counter. And you, brother Jer, have a fifty/fifty chance of being first in line." Jerry observes that "all work and no play make Ben and Jerry dull boys," and it immediately becomes clear that bad-girl Laura's bad-girl qualities may have run even deeper than we'd anticipated over the course of the episodes. Jerry's mood drastically improves as Ben suggests they "jump in the boat." And so the "depressed" feelings brought on by Laura's death recede, and Jerry's character gets fleshed out enough for us to know that his mood at any given time centers entirely around the prospect of his getting laid as quickly as humanly possible.

Dissolve to the two of them under the cover of darkness, actually in a boat. This is surprising to me, because I thought "jump in the boat" was a veiled sexual innuendo of some kind, particularly considering the fact that I cannot entirely divorce myself from my pre-gained knowledge of One-Eyed Jacks and what goes on there. But then again, no scene should have more than its fair share of winking sexual nods, and the introduction of the phrase "One-Eyed Jacks" is, in reality, more than enough cloaked phallic allusion for an entire episode.

Cut to the far more wholesome dining experience of that found at the Hayward house, where a shot of a roaring fire cuts to James "Amniotic Sac of Crap" Hurley, sitting on the couch as far as possible from Donna "I Can't Believe I Ate the Whole Tater Tot" Hayward while her protective parents hover ever close. Doc tells the two that he and his wife are going to say good night, and Eileen delivers her one line as adequately as possible and takes leave soon after, perhaps concerned that a sub-par performance might cause her to be ungraciously "Sylvia Horned" from the show as well, marginal as her wifely character seems destined to become.

morning (the first time the show has seen the dawning of a new day in the middle of an episode), Ed Hurley's grease-covered hands gingerly open the front door of his house. As he attempts to sneak past Nadine, who is exercising on a rowing machine in a corner of the room, he trips over her drape runners and snaps one of them in half. He also spills some of the oil from his hands onto the cotton balls she bought in last week's episode. She turns her head and squeals incredulously, and Ed apologizes until she bellows further and he feels forced to defend himself, "Well, honey, it was right out in the middle of the floor." She retreads her wish to invent the world's first silent drape runner, and trumps his attempt to speak his mind with her opinion on the matter: "Ed, you make me sick!" Ed retreats quickly, and Nadine takes out her fury on the rowing machine, which she bends all the way back until the metal gives out in foreshadow number one of Nadine's superhuman strength. Ship-shape, that woman's health is.

Back in the woods but this time under broad daylight, Lucy holds one end of a tape measure while Truman and Hawk measure, apparently according to Cooper's orders, sixty feet and six inches, precisely the distance between the pitcher's mound and the plate, according to major league baseball guidelines. Panning past a table filled with donuts, the camera comes to rest briefly on Cooper standing at a chalkboard on which is written the names of several familiar players in the Twin Peaks world. At the end of the tape measure, Truman and Hawk have rested a glass bottle on top of a tree stump. Hawk asks Truman, "What do you think he's up to?" Truman expresses uncertainty.

Over in the Johnson house, Shelley watches a television show called Invitation to Love, a hilariously melodramatic soap opera containing the tag line, "Each day brings a new beginning, and every hour holds the promise of an invitation to love." Considering the Leo-inflicted wounds Shelley sports, her eye-rolling cynicism is sadly understandable when she comments, "Right," and shuts off the television. A knock at the door reveals Bobby, who Shelley initially won't let in for fear of Leo discovering them. Upon entering, he takes one look at her marred face and asks, "What the hell happened to you?" And so she answers, "Leo Johnson happened to me." Shelley warns that Leo will kill them both if he ever finds out of the affair, and Bobby lashes out that if Leo ever does anything like this again, Bobby is going to be the one doing the killing around here from now on. Meanwhile, over at the Double R, my other favorite illicit cutie couple with the unceasingly dysfunctional spouses, Norma and Ed, share a brief moment of making me love them all the more than I had even two minutes before.

And so this entire episode thus far has been merely a prelude to the sheer greatness of the rest of the episode. Back in the woods, Lucy offers the assembled group of Cooper, Truman, Hawk, and Andy a coffee refill, and they all gladly accept. Cooper takes a quick sip, spits it right out onto the ground, and breaks into the smiley Cooper thing he's been doing so much of this week, commenting, "Damn good coffee! And HOT!" Lucy, Andy, Truman, and Hawk sit on four conveniently placed bridge chairs facing the chalkboard. Cooper extracts a retractable pointer from seeming nowhere and extends it to its full length before commenting, "By way of explaining what we're about to do, I am first going to tell you a little bit about the country called Tibet." As the four attendees lean forward in perfect unison, Cooper flips over the chalkboard to display a full-sized map of the country. He offers a quick background of the political system of the nation, solidifies the Dalai Lama's place within its social and religious contexts, and retracts the pointer. And so to the point: "Following a dream I had three years ago, I have become deeply moved by the plight of the Tibetan people and filled with a desire to help them. I also awoke from the same dream realizing that I had subconsciously gained knowledge of a deductive technique involving mind/body coordination operating hand-in-hand with the deepest level of intuition." And these are connected how? Who cares, really, because we're in the middle of one of the coolest, most Twin Peaks kinds of sequences, so just shut up and watch, you.

So Cooper's plan is as follows: on the non-Tibetan side of the chalkboard are written the names of the usual suspects whose first or last names begin with the letter J, as this concerns Laura's last diary entry reading "Nervous about meeting J tonight." Today, Cooper proposes, "we're going to concentrate on the Js." To accentuate this point further, he circles the letter J on the chalkboard. Hee. Everyone is given a different job concerning their role in this caper, as Andy is instructed to stand near (but not too near) the bottle, Hawk holds a bucket filled with rocks, and Truman reads aloud each of the names on the board and briefly outlines each person's relationship to Laura Palmer. Cooper is going to throw a rock at the bottle each time Truman reads a name, and Lucy is given a piece of chalk and the order to mark on the board those times Cooper hits the bottle. Just like they teach in FBI school. Not. But really, that's what makes it good. Incidentally, after each name is spoken, we quickly cut to a picture of the person being described. This is helpful both as a refresher as well as a satisfying reminder that Joan Chen has procured so little screen time this week. And the results of the FBI's First Annual Inter-Bureau Baseball Game are as follows:

The Hayward clan (now down to its three basic members) enjoys a post-church breakfast at the Double R when Audrey Horne walks into the diner by herself. She strolls to the jukebox and hits the button marked "Badalamenti," at which time Snare Drum Shuffle kicks up in the diner while also forming the soundtrack for the sequence, and I remember a very informative lesson my brother taught me after his first film class about diagetic and non-diagetic music. It was really interesting. She strolls to the bar and orders coffee from Norma, at which point Donna stands and approaches the bar where Audrey is sitting. Donna tells Audrey that Mom and Pop Hayward saw her at church, and Audrey responds, "Yeah, I came by because of Laura." But why, Audrey? Did you even like Laura? "There were things about Laura I didn't like. But she did help to take care of my brother, Johnny. Guess I sort of loved her for that." Big ol' pause. "You like coffee?" Donna says she does, with cream and sugar. Audrey leans right in to Donna and volunteers that "Agent Cooper loves coffee." She loves Agent Cooper. Loooooooooooves him, I mean. Girlish giggling ensues, and Audrey stops laughing long enough to add, "But Agent Cooper likes his coffee black." More out of habit than out of appropriateness to this scene, I react by reflex with that memorized Airplane classic line, "Like my men," and when I look up again, Audrey returns me to plot development with the line, "Did Laura ever talk about my father?" Donna has no idea what she means by that, and when pressed, Audrey offers up only, "He used to sing to her," before embarking on her all-too-believable "when in doubt act crazy" crusade and spontaneously standing up on the line "God, I love this music." And so she dances, hypnotized. Donna looks on, just happy all that ill-intentioned "food" her parents keep threatening her with is all the way back at the table.

Cooper and Truman sit in the interrogation room, taking a look at a blood-soaked towel Hawk uncovered at the crime site. Cut to the front door of the station, where a rather imposing cadre of men in black enters rather forcefully, toting dark sunglasses and metal briefcases. The front man marches up to Lucy's desk and immediately starts barking, "Tell Agent Cooper that Albert and His Team are here." Lucy puts down her book (it's about Tibet!) and inquires, "Albert?" Said "Albert" character, already resolutely out of patience with Lucy's laggard treatment of his arrival, spells his first name condescendingly. Pause. Spells his last name. More condescendingly. Lucy finally makes for the intercom, and Cooper guesses that Albert and His Team are here, telling Lucy, "We're on our way." Lucy attempts to recapture some of her secretarial decorum in relaying that very message to Albert, who sends the cast and crew running for warmer climates with his icy-as-hell, "Yeah, I can hear perfectly well, Curly." He unearths a cigarette from somewhere and turns around to light it, and Lucy takes this opportunity to stick her tongue out at the back of his head. So ha ha to him. Back in the interrogation room, Cooper fills in the blanks that Albert is the best forensics guy, like, ever, but that "he's lacking in some of the social niceties." Truman responds that "nobody's perfect," and Cooper agrees before playing a quick round of "got your nose" with Truman and making a funny little "got your nose" noise. Hee hee and more hee. You're wrong, Cooper. Nobody is perfect. Except for you.

Cooper's wide grin remains as Albert meets Truman, and Albert endears himself further to the natives with his patented charm: "What the hell kind of a two-bit operation are they running out of this treehouse, Cooper?" Truman stands stunned, and Albert digs deeper: "I have seen some slipshod, backwater burbs, but this place takes the cake." And then Albert . . . hell, I'm going to have to just quote his entire role verbatim. Half the time I'm convinced that his lines are written first, and then the rest of the script is created around his biting words, a refined level of pure snark I can only dream about possessing myself one day. Cooper hands off the pathology report, and Albert takes barely a glance before announcing, "Welcome to amateur hour." And as Cooper looks on in the unfocused background, Truman requests a private audience with Albert. He escorts him a few steps beyond and they go toe to toe, Truman coercively intoning, "I hear that you're real good at what you do . . . 'cause normally if a stranger walked into my station talking this kind of crap, he'd be looking for his teeth two blocks up on Queer Street." Whoo! A very liberating "Arnold and Willis finally stand up to the Gooch" laugh-track whoop needs to be inserted into this moment, as Albert skulks off and His Team follow. Er, I'm sorry, did he just say "Queer Street"? The close-captioning tells me it is so. I never noticed that before. Huge thumbs-up from Cooper.

Over at the Hurley place, Ed arrives home to a shriek from the bedroom of "Ed? Is that you?" It is him, and yet his return call does not satisfy the voice. So she screams again, and louder, "ED!!!" More downcast even than usual at the domestic horror that is his every waking moment, Ed looks practically into the camera and bemoans, "Oh my God." Nadine comes bursting out of the room and makes a beeline for her husband, quite surprisingly running into his open arms and screaming, "I'm so happy, sweetheart, I have to thank you." Er? As it turns out, Ed did her the great service of spilling some grease on the cotton balls of her drape runner experiment. The grease, would you believe, assisted greatly in the gliding process of the drapes on the runners, and now the process, as Nadine demonstrates, is "completely silent." More celebration as Nadine tells an almost frightened Ed, "We're gonna be so rich!" If by "rich," you mean "crazy," of course.

Over at the Packard Saw Mill, Katherine and Pete are in a bedroom of the house. After bitching that "everything smells like fish around here," Katherine unsegues into the conversation topic at hand: "What did that FBI man want up here today?" Today? Say, there, do I spy the smallest of continuity errors cooking? No biggie, but listen to this, 'cause I really want to be right and thus outsmart this show smack in the middle of what is arguably its greatest episode: Cooper and Truman came to visit the mill during the last episode, when Pete served them the Chock Full o' Carp brand coffee. They then left and went about their business, and night fell on that day at the beginning of this episode at dinner in the Horne residence. Night scenes ahoy followed accordingly, hookers and cocaine playing their appointed roles, until day broke for the first time when Ed arrived home with his grease-caked hands earlier in this episode. Day happened and Cooper threw rocks. Night fell again when Ed arrived home once more in the scene. No visit from Cooper to the Packard Mill today. I am the most brilliant. Let choirs of children sing songs of praise in my minutiae-obsessed honor.