Rest In Pain

Hi. This episode is plot-driven as hell and even more dialogue-heavy than usual. Sit back and get comfortable, folks. We're all gonna be here a while.

This week on Twin Peaks: Rejoice! Mom fell asleep at the wheel and accidentally documented a slice of Americana at the turn of the last decade by not pausing out the commercials this week. This poses quite the interesting sociological experiment, and we inhabitants of the future have quite a bit to learn from these artifacts: How did people in that prehistoric eon that was the early 90s live? What were their ways, the language, their customs? Let's take a trip back to the Spring of 1990 and find out!

As the first commercial after the theme song indicates, natives indigenous to urban areas during this period often ate at some kind of local Irish bistro apparently named after its founder, a Mr. McDonald. This restaurant apparently focused on the preparation of hamburgers, french fries, and chicken-like products not actually made of chicken. As the commercial for this "McDonalds" indicates, their clientele was diverse, indeed! A man in a business suit walks down a city street wheeling a baby carriage (how radical!) and yakking importantly on a cell phone approximately the size of cable car. Across town, a woman in an office building conducts herself some wheelin' and dealin' corporate business of her own (even more radical!) while holding yet another baby in her other arm. I guess this was during that period in the very early 90s when McDonalds was mixing fertility drugs in with the beaks and salt of their McNuggets and what-have-you. How else to explain this fast food induced babyfest taking over the streets of this bustling, impersonal urban center? And more importantly, dear viewer, where, oh where, could those beleaguered city-dwellers go to seek sanctuary from the sheer, brow-beating affliction that was everyday life? And how 'bout if you were hungry, to boot? A cloyingly sincere, Randy Newman-discovers-the-joys-of-helium voice thinks it's time for us to find out:

There's a newfangled daddy, comin' down the street
A modern mamma, movin' to the beat
In a high-tech world, you need an oasis
A place where you can get you get back to basics
[cue the jaunty dancers and other assorted circus folk performing some all-get-out high-wire trickery in their Jerome Robbins choreography and their "Yeah, like I'd put that crap in my body" physical contours.]
Food, folks, and fun
Food, folks, and fun
Food, folks, and fun
You're the one, McDonalds
La la la la la la la
Food, folks, and fun!

"In a high-tech world, you need an oasis." From what? The daily rigors of playing Lemonade Stand on your Apple IIE? Sitting around waiting for Q-Bert to be invented for a personal computing interface so you don't have to hang around the arcade to get your fix? Tough times, technology wise. Tough times. And who told "oasis" and "basics" they were allowed to rhyme? Anyway.