Djb gave this episode a grade of
C-
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C+
Mad, mad props (not angry. Just, y'know, mad) to Strega, for looking after the place during my non-summer non-vacation. Three months between recaps isn't that long, is it? If by "time between recaps," I mean "gestating an elephant." Well then, no. No, it sure ain't that long at all.
The shark this show jumped somewhere around Episode 12 has already packed up its dorsal fin and moved on to dismantle the later seasons of Moonlighting and the entire cursed run of Major Dad, leaving us to join the inaction already in progress with Bobby "I'm Over Him" Briggs entering Ben Horne's office while Sassy Shuffle pesters us on the soundtrack with its persistently sassy shuffle. Disarray looms. Ben's desk has been pushed into the center of the office, and in the space it once occupied now sits a shrine to Put-Upon Set Designers With Recently Thrown Out Backs Everywhere, as all of the furniture has been piled atop each other reaching practically to the ceiling. On top of the two leather couches lie several tables, Ben's desk lamp, and the wooden nameplate indicating that the desk -- and now this new Totem Pole Of The Criminally Freaking Insane -- belongs, in fact, to "Ben." Acting as the star or the angel atop this tree, this centerpiece for the Very Special Twin Peaks Bipolar Christmas Spectacular, is the taxidermed white fox that Leland once used to try and frame Ben for the murder of Laura Palmer. Oh, I know. I can't believe this is the same show either.
Bobby surveys the situation and calls Ben's name. He circles the Shrine Of Insanity and discovers the same ol' natty Ben from last week, crouched in the corner. Young Briggs introduces himself (though I have a sneaking suspicion Ben would already know who Bobby is) and indicates that Ben's secretary told Bobby he could go right in. Very discreet secretary. Stupid temps. It's probably the actress playing Sylvia Horne, out for revenge. Ben wastes no time overenunciating his way to high drama, speaking from the crouching position, "Bobby, you know what you have to have in this life? Hmmm? Balance. Distance. Symmetry." He stands and climbs onto his office shrine, moving the "Ben" nameplate onto the top shelf. Meanwhile, Bobby attempts to act the swarthy manipulative businessman he showed up to play, asking, "Did you listen to that tape that I sent you?" Ben, from on high, gives linear conversational exchange its due, responding, "Yes, I listened to your tape, Bobby. Frankly, I am surprised that Leo could master the technology." They both laugh because the stage directions indicate that Ben's retort was, in fact, a hilarious quip (it wasn't bad, really), and Ben asks Bobby why he has come. Bobby says that he has "great admiration" for Ben, prompting Ben's response, "admiration is for poets and dairy cows." Bobby doesn't know what he means. Neither do I, at all, but I have a feeling that if I had graduated from high school in 1991, that would have been my yearbook quote all the same. Because it kicks ass of anything from Dead Poets Society, and the Billy Joel song "This is the Time" had yet to be invented for exactly that purpose. So really, what was the world left with? Either way, Ben leaps down from the shrine and stands to Bobby. The two regard the office furnishings monolith, and Ben smokes his cigar and informs his ingenue, "You're standing in front of a mammoth skyscraper. A leviathan that rips a hole in the clouds. Now, what's the first question that comes to your mind?" Mine is, "Has the Fox Network been invented yet, and if so, what's on it right now and can we watch that instead, please?" so it's probably a good thing Ben didn't decide to ask me. Bobby's eyes glaze over because he's not savvy to Ben's wily business tactics. Ben tells him that the first question he must ask is, "What's on the top floor? Who's in the penthouse and why?" Bobby confirms that that's just exactly what he was thinking, and Ben smiles and hugs him. He then walks three steps and picks up a gigantic camera, telling Bobby to "follow Hank Jennings. I want you to chronicle his existence. Show me something I don't already know." Oh, yawn. That is entry-level stuff, isn't it? Besides, there's already a place we can go to be bored into a coma watching the constant and perhaps evil actions of a ploddingly unengaging Hank Jennings for more marathon hours than we could ever hope to sanely stand. And that place, dear readers, is a little show called Twin Peaks.
As Bobby exits Ben's office, he is nearly thrown back against the door by the sound of a woman screaming and the sudden appearance of the Mayor's brother's new wife rounding the corner in some lacy lingerie and screaming, screaming, screaming. Bobby regards her briefly, makes that "you don't have to be crazy to work here but it sure helps" face (tm Daniel), and turns to leave. He walks right into the closed door to Ben's office, and the leather man-bag which should contain Ben's camera (which is on Bobby's other shoulder) slides off and hits the floor with a thud. Because this show = rich and unparalleled slapstick heritage. As history has adequately proven.
Sheriff's Station. A flannel-clad Cooper (this outfit is strongly reminiscent of the one he wore in a buried Saturday Night Live skit which involved him performing a lilting countrified ditty on an Ol' West kind of set, and ends with him staring directly into the camera and deadpanning, "Hi. I'm k.d. lang." Because he really does look quite a bit like her when he's not in that suit) regards two photographs of woodsy-looking cabins and informs a stout female of no future repute whatsoever, the first superfluous extra of the new year, ever, at all, bored already, kill me, "I'd like to see both." No Repute 2001 asks which one he would like to see first, prompting Cooper to place both photos on the table in the interrogation room and extract a quarter from the pocket of his Emily-Saliers-at-Lillith-'98 pleated khakis. He flips it. The quarter leaps off his thumb as a slo-mo shot from the director's training manual Gratuitous Shots of American Currency in Flight (not since the briefcase hit the bed in Indecent Proposal has this all-important directorial notion been rendered with such drama) follows the path of the quarter from the air back to the table. It bounces off a plate of donuts (run, running theme, run!) and lands on a slightly concealed photo of a small white ranch house that Cooper picks up. What is this? No Repute 2001 has an answer at the ready: "That property is called Dead Dog Farm. And it's worse than it sounds." She continues on that "no one ever really stays there long," and Cooper creases the brow and insists on seeing it right away. Quirky? I think he will.
Subplot Roulette's deadly spin lands us in the front room of the station, where Dick "Britwit" Tremayne walks through the front door wearing a wool-lined denim jacket with the cuffs folded up over a denim shirt buttoned to the top over a black turtleneck, cargo shorts, and chunky gray socks with ankle-high beige hiking boots. I know I rarely make a big deal out of what people are wearing on this show, but the man looks like one of those damn tri-fold flipbooks where the head, body, and feet hail from three completely separate bodies. He approaches an assembled group of Lucy, Andy, and -- holy crap, is that Molly Shannon, looking to the second the exact same age as she has on SNL for the last six years? Why yes. I do believe it is. Andy introduces her as "Judy Swain," Little Nicky's caseworker. And don't get me wrong, the lady's a hoot, but she introduces herself to Dick with every bit the same amount of please-don't-take-me-seriously arch detachment she brings to every one of her SNL characters and Will & Grace guest spots and Lorne Michaels vanity project failed feature length films I simply haven't gotten around to seeing just yet or ever. And speaking of toxic costuming, our Mary Katherine is wearing a black-and-red plaid jacket with a polka-dot shirt and a black bow, all of which lends the appearance that she is the head stewardess of Sardonic Air, the official airline of Molly Shannon. She informs the other three folks that throughout Nicky's brief life, he has been plagued by "a persistent random misfortune." Molly continues that Nicky is an orphan, prompting thick Andy to hilariously clarify, "Did his parents die?" and droll Dick to guffawingly retort, "Nicely deduced, Andrew." She further expositions something about his parents being killed under "mysterious circumstances." But before we learn any more about this most sub of all subplots, Truman bursts out of his office and informs Andy that there is "an emergency up at the Great Northern." Uh-oh. Emergency? Bad Dialogue has broken out its cage, you see, and it's already freed Undercooked Theme as well as Subplot I Wouldn't Care About Even If It Were Happening To Me In Real Life to roam freely around the halls of the hotel, unencumbered by any viewers around to wish something else were going on.
The Mayor's brother! He's dead! In lieu of flowers, send excess exclamation points! A four billion year-old man dies and it constitutes an "emergency"? I'd like to see how the TPPD would respond to news of a seventeen year-old prom queen washing up on the rocky shores of town, all wrapped in plastic and stuff. As if anything ultra-cool like that would ever happen on a show this boring. Blah. Duh. Sorry. Cut to a close-up of Dead Mayor's Brother's open eyes gazing upwards from his bed at The Great Northern. Doc Hayward (a familiar face. Yay) closes the man's eyes and pronounces Brother Doug dead from a heart attack. Truman surveys the scene and notes that "Dougie went out with his boots on" indicated by the paraphernalia scattered around the bed, including, Love poems of Lord Byron and The Kama Sutra. Ew. He's naked under there, isn't he? The Mayor enters then, already clad in black, and garbles senile-ishly in the general direction of his dead brother, "I hate to say it. But I told you so." He picks up a book from Dougie's bed entitled The Secret Life, handing it to Truman and pronouncing it "the murder weaponshe might as well have blown his brains out with a rifle." Andy escorts the Mayor out of the room, and he spies Dead Doug's frizzy-haired widow sitting in a chair talking to Hawk. The Mayor erupts that she'll "burn in Hell for this," seeing as she murdered his brother and, oh yeah, "she's a witch!" After he is led away by law-enforcing personnel, the widow begins to cry that the Mayor is right about her being a bad luck charm. Hawk tells her not to "be silly," but she continues: "It all started in high school. Prom night. My date went to kiss me. It was his first day with his new braces." At the prom? Damn, that's unfortunate. And then something happened with his jaw snapping and the Emergency Room. Hawk responds that "a curse needs a cure," adding, "I know a bit about these things." She asks if he is "the Sheriff," and I discard my ten billionth comment about Native spirituality and tokenism before he gets around to his response, "Let's just say that when something really big goes down, I'm the man." He leans against the door to the ex-brother's room, just as Andy pulls the door open from the inside and Hawk goes sailing in and disappears from the frame, crashing to the floor. Because this show = rich and unparalleled slapstick heritage. Yessir.
“ Coach slinks off to The Sylvia Horne Temp Agency to collate legal briefs while contemplating his lack of Molly-Shannon-esque post-Twin Peaks media exposure. ”
High School. A close-up on the face of a large man who happens to be black. Happens To Be Black delivers the following speech: "Boys, there's a story about a great football coach, whose name escapes me at this time, who was dead set against having any black players on his team." At the end of his pithy "The More You Know -- And In Fact Already Knew" segment, professional sports are surprisingly desegregated, and the man draws a parallel between his tale of triumph and "this young girl's right to compete. In addition to it being her moral and Constitutional right." We pan back to find ourselves in the TPHS gymnasium. Happens To Be Black is the coach of the wrestling team, and the girl in question with the moral right to compete is Nadine Hurley. The coach calls The Mullet Formerly Known As Mike's Mullet (don't worry, though. There are still plenty o' mullets left in the room to fulfill the rural, early 90s quotient of mullets-per-capita) out of the group of assembled high school wrestlers to the front of the room. We learn that "Nadine has chosen to prove herself by taking on our very best. District Champion, Mike Nelson." The wrestling team mutters their support for Mike. Coach blows the whistle and Nadine begins the match asking Mike if she'll go out with him tonight. Careful, sister. You can possess all the strength and wrestling acumen in the world, but propositioning a fellow wrestler during a scrimmage match will get you thrown off the team in a big ol' hurry. Trust me on this. It, um, happened to a friend of mine. Anyway, she takes him down and pins him while the Wrestling Extras register their carefully choreographed "that chick's got balls" looks from the bleachers. Coach pronounces Nadine the winner, and she stands up and asks Mike, "Now will you go out with me?" He lifts up his head for a moment before collapsing back onto the mat. Because this show = rich and unparalleled slapstickwell, you know by now. Don't you? Yeah. You do. Coach slinks off to The Sylvia Horne Temp Agency to collate legal briefs while contemplating his lack of Molly-Shannon-esque post-Twin Peaks media exposure. Yeah. Like I ever, ever wrestled.
God, what is he doing back on this show, anyway? Cut to Mike Of A Thousand Hairdon'ts limping up to Donna "Hey, Can I Have A Bite Of ThatHee Hee, Just Kidding" Hayward at her locker. She asks what happened to him, and he backstories us all the way to the pre-commercial-break past with his retort, "I got beat up by a girl." He begs Donna for some kind of "help," claiming, "It's one thing getting stomped on in front of the whole team. But she likes me." Donna turns her back and takes off, suggesting that an older woman is just what Mike needs. He begs her, for some reason, to talk to Nadine, and pretend she's still his girlfriend. Lara Flynn flashes the moxie: "Sorry, Mike. I'm not that good of an actress." Oh, hand me the punch line, why don't you?
And while you're at it, hand him one too. Cut to The Marshlands, where we join James "What Child Isn't This" Hurley's stillborn subplot in the process of me picketing in front of my local congressman's office for the unconditional legalization of fifty-fourth trimester terminations. Again. It's the woman's right, you know. And in case you're wondering, yes, I do have a template for writing these recaps, and it is with great pleasure that I check off the "James As Fetus" box under the "Character Nicknames" section. I've also conquered the "Bobby Is Hot" line and the "Donna Is Skeletal" jibe, and I've even danced around the "Dick Tremayne Is Gayer Than A Fire Island Drag Queen" references, but only obliquely this time around. Which means if I can only get around to sullying the director's good name, whomever it may be, we might be able to punch out sometime around the third segment today. Happy New Year, me.