Fade up on a lingering, stationary, and wholly unexplained shot of a woodsy open road, a road lacking the necessary yellow warning sign reading "Runaway Plot Ramp" and containing a drawing of a wayward black arrow, which zigzags madly but ultimately points directly toward the Lynch/Frost production offices somewhere deep within ABC Studios. We cut over to The Palmer House Of Rapidly Declining Population, where a pan across the Memorial Mantel displays that a framed photograph of Leland has been added to Laura's ballyhooed prom queen picture. Man. Tough gig when the only way to get a picture of yourself shown in your own house is to actually go and die. Sarah had better steer clear of sharp knives and fatty foods for a while, or that house is going to need a second fireplace. She should probably also be wary of the Glamour Shots place down at Twin Peaks Mall, lest there be a photo representation of her lying around somewhere with which to tempt the fates.
Panning, panning, panning. As our tour de mantel draws to a slowly-panned conclusion, the green opening-credits font fades up on the screen and we learn that it is now "Three Days Later." Ow. That popping sound you just heard was the time-space continuum exploding, seeing as we've never jumped ahead more than, say, four seconds from the end of the episode, have we? Over on the couch sit Doc Hayward and Sarah "And White Horses Couldn't Drag Me Away" Palmer, each dressed in their gender's best representation of dour, funereal black. The good doctor pulls Sarah's sleeve back and holds up a hypodermic needle, telling her, "Sarah, I'd like you to take this." But Sarah, usually so attuned to the latest advances in better living through chemistry, pulls the sleeve back down and tells Hayward, "I don't want it. I want to be there. Every part of me needs to be there, for both of them." Cooper, who I didn't even know was there, sits in a chair looking entirely spliced into the scene, Jar Jar-style, with CGI technology barely in the early stages of research and development. Sarah continues with the speechy pathos: "Today I bury my husband to my only child. Her grave is still so new. There's only a little bit of grass on it." Cut back to Stock Footage Cooper, who has still not appeared in a shot with the other two actors in this scene and who responds via satellite, "There are things dark and heinous in this world, things too horrible to tell our children. Your husband fell victim to one of these long ago, when he was innocent and trusting. Leland did not do these things, not the Leland that you knew." Sarah stares nervously into space -- where is that voice coming from? -- and takes Hayward's hand as she confirms that Leland was not "that man I sawlong, dirty, disgusting hair." Hank killed her? Cooper responds that this man "is gone forever," and a close-up on Sarah's face accentuates her chronic Afro-Mullet hair insanity (which, I just noticed, is a pretty good indicator of Sarah's comparative levels of crazy at any given timemood hair, as it were) as she lapses back into a Sally Field-directed Lifetime movie with her musing, "So is everything I loved." Teary sadness. Orchestral swell. Demons of the Soul, starring Judith Light as Sarah Palmer and Tom Berenger as Dale Cooper, will be back in a moment. And then stay tuned for Ellen.
Cooper continues his re-shoots from afar: "I think it might help to tell you what happened just before Leland died. It's hard to realize here" -- a non-Cooper hand reaches into the frame and touches Sarah's forehead -- "and here" -- a non-Cooper hand reaches into the frame and touches her heart area -- "what has transpired. Your husband went so far as to drug you to keep his actions secret." Cop-out! Way to rationalize all the mystery out of Lynch's equine imagery, people. I'm just sayin', put the script for that episode in this director's hands (or maybe notI'm sorry, did she, like, die or something?) and see how well those five minutes of skipping phonograph work out. More: "Before he died, Leland confronted the horror of what he had done to Laura, and agonized over the pain he had caused you. Leland died at peace." Cooper continues on that Dead BOB Walking saw Laura in his final moments, and that she welcomed him and forgave him. This intense visual impact of Cooper's entire speech cannot be adequately quantified in mere words, but I'll do my best to render it for you nice folks at home: it's a still close-up on Sarah's face. Because Cooper isn't really there, is why. Cut to Cooper, who stands up and tells Sarah, "It's time. Mrs. Palmer, I would be honored to drive you." That's gonna be a pretty tough task, considering he's not evenoh, never mind. Sarah smoothes her hair (well, it's just an expression) and looks up at Cooper's stand-in. She notices her earring is missing, and begins to cry: "Leland always found the other earring." Sarah looks up past un-Cooper and into the spinning ceiling fan at the top of the staircase, for no apparent reason. Cooper never appeared in the frame with either of the other actors in this scene. Seriously, what was he so busy with when they first shot this scene anyway, the extensive press junket for Don't Tell Her it's Me? Cancel. This. Show. Before I do something drastic and MY picture ends up on that mantel. Kidding. Kinda.
It's later at the Palmer house, where the post-funeral blitz warrants another lengthy pan of a table with trays of food on it. Really. Eventually, a new Badalamenti (hey, there's a phrase I've never needed before) strings dirge gives way to Sassy Shuffle, as we cut back to reveal a living room full of the usual Twin Peaks personnel. Into the room walks Nadine "Blind As A Brat" Hurley, decked out in a doily-happy navy ensemble and black patent leather shoes. At an excruciating pace, she looks at the shoes, bends down and cleans them with her hands, stares at her reflection in said shoes, and leans back against a column in the middle of the room. That sequence unfolded over the course of almost a full minute. It is, in fact, quite riveting. Rosie called. She wants her riveter back.
Over at the buffet, Hank falls over the rest of the funeral attendees and grunts something about "Waldorf Salad." He steps away from the table with two plates, and interrupts Norma and Ed to inform Norma of his all-around altruistic greatness now that his laundry list of ambiguous nemeses have been killed, driven out of town, or ambiguously forgotten: "I got that for Sarah." Norma couldn't be more pleased, except that she probably could. Hank carries the tray to Sarah, who is sitting on the couch with Audrey (wha?) and engaged in conversation with, of all people, Mrs. Hayward, who has clearly wheeled herself out of her parents' basement in West Hollywood where she's been staying between acting jobs, called to duty as "the woman who warbles annoyingly" now that Maddy is no longer able to fill that position, on account of her overall deadness. Not like that stopped her before, but whatever. Meanwhile, somewhere at a temp assignment on the outskirts of Pasadena, Sylvia Horne looks up from a big stack of filing and reminds herself not to give up hope. Hank hands Sarah the plate, looks satisfied with himself, and walks away. Sarah hands the plate off to Audrey, who laughs and asks, "Do they invite people to these things or do they just show up?" Mrs. Hayward warbles something about funerals being a time when people naturally reach out. "I remember when Mother died, there must have been a hundred people." Even the gaffers and a dozing key grip shoot each other that "Yeah, because I so asked for your life story" look across the Cooper-free set, and the camera makes a mad dash for anything else in the room.
Donna "The Cellulite Closet" Hayward steps out of a Kabuki improv rehearsal and onto the Twin Peaks set without taking her make-up off this week, as The Most Sallow Woman In Show Business walks into the Palmer house. She spots Big Ed, due for a screen-time resurgence any time now, and launches in without the formality of a hello: "Seems like the whole town has fallen apart. Somehow James thinks it's his fault. First Laura, then Maddy. Maybe he blames me, I don't know. Two people in love couldn't have caused all this, could they?" Well, if the two lovebirds are the town's unborn bad-luck charm and his lady fair, who's gone so long without putting a thing in her mouth besides a cigarette or drivelous dialogue such as the aforementioned and who is so quickly taking on the contours of a fourteen year-old gymnast and who hasn't menstruated in over a year in her perpetual attempt to truly understand her dour boyfriend's psychological needs by regressing to the point where they actually become the same age, then yes. Considering that pattern of destructive behavior, I'd venture a guess that the deaths of three people might as well be tacked on as riders. But I digress. Like I need to tell you nice people that. Big Ed promises that "everything's gonna get better," having no inkling of what a terrible, terrible lie that really is. up is Major Briggs, who enters the house and welcomes Dr. Jacoby back to town. Truman and a cardboard cutout of Cooper sad aside.
Oh, lord. Back over at the buffet, two older-than-old men shovel food onto plates, as the shorter, more tuxedoed of these two men bellows like a Boca grandfather who's Early Bird Special arrived after five, "What's the matter? Doesn't she feed you? Meeeeh! Ha! Meeeh! Ha ha ha." The taller man, in the maroon chapeau and unmatching taupe sports jacket, responds that Shorty McAncient is "just jealous," and Shorty replies, "Jealous? Well, I wouldn't spend my time changing diapers." Pretty much the only significant element of that scene is that Donna stands across the buffet table putting food onto a plate, ostensibly for her own consumption. Is that an inside joke with the audience?
Back in the circle of Cooper, Truman, Jacoby, and Briggs, the Major asks Cooper what he's going to do now that everything but the actual series itself seems to be in wrap-up mode. Cooper doesn't know, explaining, "I've stockpiled a few weeks of vacation time. Now might be the time to cash them in." Briggs responds by asking if Cooper would like to join him for "an incredibly pleasant evening of night fishing?" Cooper thinks that would be "aces." Meanwhile, Nadine interrupts Ed and Donna across the room and asks Ed if he can see her underpants in the reflection of her shoes. Yes, folks, that's really what's going on right now.
Back on the couch, Sarah tells Audrey and No Name Hayward that Donna came over once and made popcorn with Laura, and that the two girls "made this very serious promise to be best friends forever. I think it was a kind of bond against" She then starts to cry again. Audrey, realistically still only about thirty-six hours off of her last heroine fix, looks warmly on like she and Sarah Palmer have been mahjongg partners since their college days. That's some odd-ass blocking, right there.