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Binge-A-Thon: Gypsy (Season One)

Look, Gypsy isn’t a bad show. It’s just unfortunately not a particularly good one.

There’s a lot there that I liked. Naomi Watts is great. Billy Crudup is good (why isn’t he in more things? Or am I just not noticing?) The premise clicked with me. And it’s kind of a surprise to a see a woman Watts’ age getting the opportunity to be sultry and sexy and control her own erotic destiny. In so many ways, this felt like a story that, written by anyone else, would have starred a man, and I think it’s great to see that flipped on its head. Naomi Watts is an attractive woman. No reason she can’t be fucking around.

So the show worked in its broad strokes. Where it faltered was in the details. When you actually get into specifics, you discovered that your lead character -- Watts’ Jean / Diane -- was kind of an idiot.

Jean is a therapist living a double life as Diane who is a journalist. Diane exists, in part, so she can interact with the lives of the people she sees in therapy in a kind of undercover way. For example, she’ll scope out (and eventually fall for) one of her patient’s sexy exes who he’s obsessed with, or the daughter of a woman who Jean suspects may not be telling her the whole truth in their therapy sessions.

Sometimes it seems like these lies are coming from a place of goodness -- as if she’s really trying to help these people -- but things very quickly get out of hand, and Diane digs herself deeper and deeper into her own grave. Worst of all, while some of these choices she makes could be seen as accidents if you’re being generous, most of them are just plain dumb, with consequences that should be obvious to someone smart enough to be a therapist.

In the end, though, with so many lies and false identities swirling around her, not much comes of it, at least until the final episode. And even then, things only heat up in service of a cliffhanger that will ultimately never be resolved thanks to Netflix’ cancellation. And with no resolution coming, and most of the journey not worth the trip, Gypsy is a show best ignored.

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Questions in a World of Blue: What’s to come in Twin Peaks?

We’re i the final stretch of Twin Peaks: The Return, though you wouldn’t know from watching the show. According to most rules of narrative structure, we would have just passed the second act mark and are now inside of the third act, but that’s only for narratives that follow those sorts of rules. And even though Lynch described the Peaks script as being a 400 page movie, this isn’t a move that appears to break down easily into “acts”.

I’ll be honest, I’ve enjoyed more of this ride than not. It hasn’t been perfect, though I’m reluctant to complain about any particular part until I’ve seen it all, on the off chance that moments to come might put earlier moments in a new light. I was both a huge fan of Twin Peaks specifically and David Lynch in general, so this return has been a pretty great opportunity to visit both of those things.

But with only five episodes left in front of us, I’m concerned about what might be to come. Concerned because I know I’d like to see certain storylines wrapped up, certain things resolved, and I also know that Lynch is a filmmaker who doesn’t give a damn what I, or anyone else, might want.

I recently read an article that sort of implies that we might not ever get good ol’ Dale Cooper back, but if there’s one thing I feel fairly confident about, it’s that that’ll happen. It might not happen until Episode 18, but I stand by my prediction from months ago that The Return is as much a reference to Dale Cooper as to the show itself, and if there is a central narrative in this season, it is his return.

I’m less sure we’ll be getting any answers about those mysterious woodsmen, what the woodsman’s poem was about, what the hell that was that Gordon Cole experienced in South Dakota, what was up with that vomiting person in the car, and what the hell that bugfrog thing was that crawled into a girls mouth in 1950-something.

Do we need those answers? Well, that’s a whole other question, and one that can’t be answered until we come to the end of The Return. Sure, we all survived 25 years all those unanswered questions left at the end of season two, but it’s different now. Season two was cut off abruptly. This is moving towards what, I assume, is a planned and very intentional ending, which will contain all the information that David Lynch wants us to have.

Will it be enough?

For now I’m confident that it will be. Confident if a little nervous.

Any thoughts on what might be waiting for us in these final episodes?

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Look, Hollywood, I don’t want to tell you how to do your job (haha, I’m kidding, that’s exactly what I want to do), but I’m pretty sure we’ve already had a Texas Chainsaw Massacre prequel and it wasn’t very fucking good. I also feel fairly confident saying that the reason that previous Chainsaw movies were successful didn’t have much to do with the complex character of Leatherface or the rich mythology that character hinted at, just waiting to be uncovered.

Look, what I’m saying is, WTF, Hollywood?

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Questions In A World of Blue: Twin Peaks The Return Part 9

So we’ve come from one of the most amazingly surreal episodes ever aired on TV (Episode 8) to one of the more straightforward infodumps that I’ve seen so far in this season of Twin Peaks, and I have to admit it’s a little bit of a jarring tonal shift. Not to say that this wasn’t a good episode, or that it wasn’t refreshing to get some answers to some questions, but holy cow did it almost feel like a whole different show.

In fact, there was so much info dropped -- much of it, in fact, stuff we already knew, refreshing viewers on certain plot points that hadn’t been in seen in weeks -- that I almost think there was originally going to be a longer break between the parts of this season. This episode feels very much like a way to get everyone back up to speed after a mid-season break, and it makes me think that when Lynch and Co. were originally negotiating for the longer season with Showtime, that there was the possibility for more than just a one week break mid-season.

Whatever the reason for it, it’s nice to get some progress on stories that were started in the first handful of episodes and then not mentioned in the weeks since.

For example, we get more information about Bill Hastings, Ruth Davenport, and exactly how her head ended up sitting next to the body of Major Garland Briggs. It turns out that Bill and Ruth had a shared interest in other-dimensional travel, and on the night she died, managed to cross into another world (which we can assume is either the black lodge or the white lodge). There they found Major Briggs, who sent them to uncover certain coordinates for him.

We can also safely assume that those coordinates are the same ones that Dopple-Coop wanted to get from Hastings’ secretary.

Bill also talks about how at a certain point Briggs floated into the air, and then his head disappeared, which I assume is meant to explain the floating head that drifts through space and mutters the words, “Blue Rose” earlier in the season.

Speaking of coordinates, I wonder if they’re the same, or related to, the coordinates that Briggs left for his son Bobby. Because it turns out that on the night that Cooper met with Briggs 25 years ago, before Briggs supposedly died in the fire at his station, he told his wife that one day Hawk, Bobby, and Sheriff Truman would come to her to ask about Dale Cooper, and on that day she was to give them an object -- a mysterious metal cylinder that apparently only Bobby knew how to open. Specifically by tossing it on the ground and attempting to get the metal to ring at a particular frequency.

(Interestingly, Bill Hastings web site at http://thesearchforthezone.com/ seems to have some links to articles about how frequencies are the key to dimensional and time travel).

Anywhoo, inside the cylinder are a couple of small pieces of paper. One seems to have directions to a particular location, as well as specific dates and times, AS WELL AS A PICTURE THAT MATCHES THE SYMBOL ON DOPPLE-COOP’S CARD FROM THE FIRST EPISODE, which makes this all look pretty relevant. Also, there’s a clipping from Briggs’ of signals from the woods of Twin Peaks, the ones that contained the words “COOPER / COOPER” from way back in season two. Hawk takes this to mean he’s referencing two different Coopers, and from what we know of the season so far, that doesn’t seem to be too far from the truth.

And all of this without even talking about Dougie Cooper, the Horne brothers, Ike the Spike, or anything else that happens this episode. And while there’s a whole lot that happens in these other areas, there are two distinct things that stand out to me.

1. The three brother cops manage to snag a copy of Dougie Coop’s fingerprints after realizing that there is no record of him prior to 1997. The think he’s maybe in the witness protection plan, and one of the cop’s is going to check in with a friend he has in Justice to find out more. But I’m guessing, if they run those fingerprints, they’re going to end up flagging something in the FBI and Gordon Cole will soon be taking a trip to Las Vegas.

2. There’s a weird scene where Dougie is in the police station. For a moment, he becomes transfixed on the flag, he hears the star-spangled banner, and it’s clear that he’s beginning to remember, again, elements of the FBI. Then a woman in red heels walks by and grabs his attention. He follows the heels until they disappear behind a corner, at which point his gaze seems to drift back to an electrical outlet.

Now, in the couple of recaps I’ve read of this episode so far, most people seem to be pointing at the red shoes as an indicator of Audrey, who famously switched from her saddles shoes to a pair of bright red heels at her school locker during one of her first scenes in Twin Peaks. 

But because of the connection between the shoes and the electrical socket -- much like the electrical socket that Dale Cooper exited the lodge through, leaving his shoes behind -- I think this might actually be connected to another theory that I’ve been kind of dismissive of so far because it’s seemed to ... well, weird.

The theory is that the reason that Dale Cooper is acting like he is is because he isn’t whole, and the reason he isn’t whole is because he left his shoes behind in the lodge. Now at first I dismissed the idea as silly, that the shoes failing to travel through the socket was just a bit of a joke, but this scene, with his apparent attempt to link a pair of shoes to an electrical outlet makes me wonder.

If that is what it’s about, though, how the heck is he going to get the shoes back? Dougie Coop sure doesn’t seem to have enough wits about him to make it to, much less traverse, the Black Lodge. Is this maybe what Bobby, Hawk, and Truman need to discover at their coordinates? An access point to the lodge, and then an attempt to retrace Coops steps right to his shoes? Weirder things have happened, I guess.

Lastly, this has got to be one of the funniest episodes of Twin Peaks I’ve ever seen, with at least three scenes that made me laugh out loud for three entirely different reasons.

First off, Albert’s line, “What happens in season two?” after hearing all the pertinent details surround the Bill Hastings / Ruth Davenport / Major Briggs situation. It’s funny on the surface, obviously, but it’s also an incredibly funny callback to Twin Peaks’ own season one finale and season two opener, which featured a shitload of bordering-on-crazy cliff-hangers.

Second, Jerry Horne’s apparent drugged-out delusion that his foot was talking to him, and declaring that it wasn’t his foot (I didn’t take notes, so if memory serves, he said, “I am not your foot.”) made me laugh out loud at its absurdity before I realized that its voice sounded eerily familiar to the baby evolution-of-the-arm that commanded Dougie Coop to squeeze Ike The Spike’s hand off. Maybe Jerry is experiencing more than he realizes?

Lastly, the amazingly awkward scene between Diane, Gordon, and Tammy, as Diane finishes a cigarette, and Gordon and Tammy almost entirely fail to comfortably hang out with her while Albert is indisposed. Tammy’s attempt to seen perfectly casual in any number of incredibly non-casual positions was maybe the highlight, but Gordon silently waiting for Diane to acknowledge was a close second.

All in all, these last two episodes have each had something completely different to offer viewers, and I have to admit, that makes me wonder what might be in store for episode 10. I know everyone’s been expecting to see Audrey, but could this finally be the episode it happens? If Johnny Horne’s injury / death is any indicator, maybe so. Maybe so.

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Rush of content to the head

So I haven’t posted much lately, so here’s a sudden rush of reviews of all the movies I’ve seen so far this month. Also, a Twin Peaks commentary should be coming in the next day or two, if anyone at all cares.

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Questions In A World of Blue: TP The Return - Part 6

I’m not sure why it is that I’m having such a hard time bringing myself to write about these new episodes of Twin Peaks. It’s not that I don’t want to. I do want to, and quite often, I find myself thinking about all the things that I want to say. And maybe that’s the problem -- either I’ve already thought it out all out in my head, so writing it down seems redundant, or maybe it’s just that there’s so much that I want to say that the thought of sitting down to write it seems kind of overwhelming.

Whatever the reason, I promised myself that I was going to write something about this episode, because at six hours into this series, we should not be at about the end of the first act. And while it’s hard to say for sure if that’s the case until we can actually see the overall shape of the story, I have to admit it does kind of feel that way.

Particularly in the sense that all the balls of the story seem to be in the air at this point. And while it’s still difficult to see how everything might fit together, at least there’s the sense that we can see everything.

And in seeing everything, it seems that there are three primary storylines playing out here -- Dougie Cooper, Bad Cooper, and the town of Twin Peaks. So let’s break those down.

“Okay, Dougie, you’re acting weird as shit.”

We’ll start with Dougie Cooper, because that’s really the story we’ve spent the most time with in the last few weeks. So what’s the deal with Dougie Cooper? Well, it seems that when Dale Cooper exited the Black Lodge, he swapped places with a fellow named Dougie Jones, who may have been an artificial being created by Bad Cooper for that very purpose -- forcing Dale to swap with Dougie instead of Bad Cooper.

Since emerging from the lodge and taking over Dougie’s life, Cooper has had a hard time integrating, as his ability to communicate and interact with the world is severely limited. Dougie Cooper mostly communicates by repeating words and phrases that are said to him. Certain phrases seem to have more meaning to him, specifically those linked to his former life as an FBI Agent. For example, he reacts to words like “Agent”, “Case Files”, and a statue of what appears to be some kind of lawman.

So while it seems clear that Cooper is gradually awakening (something he should do quickly, as the one-armed man seems to be urging him to do in this most recent episode -- “Wake up!,” he says. “Don’t die.”), it’s not entirely clear why he’s in this infantile state. The general consensus seems to be that it’s a result of having spent the last 25 years in the Lodge and not as a part of reality, but I have an alternate theory that it might be a result of his swapping with Dougie rather than his doppleganger. Given that Dougie is an artificial creation, Cooper’s return might not have gone the way it was meant to.

Speaking of the words “Cooper” and “Return”, and also speaking of Dougie, I had another flash of inspiration during the last episode. I shared the idea on Twitter last Sunday, and while someone responded that the theory was well established, I actually haven’t seen it anywhere, so I’m going to go into it (briefly) here.

In all the discussion and promotion of this new season of Twin Peaks, Showtime has been really adamant about not referring to it as season three. Instead, they refer to it as Twin Peaks - The Return. I don’t think that’s a coincidence.

At first it looks like “The Return” is meant to describe the show returning to the air after 25 years, and that’s probably true to at least a certain extent. But I now think that’s actually a subtitle, in the same way that the feature film was called Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me. And I’m beginning to think that the reason it’s the subtitle is that it’s ultimately about Cooper coming out from the Lodge.

What this means to me is that, while I had first expected Dougie Cooper to be a brief detour, I wouldn’t be surprised if we didn’t see the real Cooper emerge until at least the end of Act 2, so another six episodes from now. And while I suspect that might frustrate some people, if it allows us to spend a bit more time pursuing some of the other storylines that have been neglected lately, like what Bad Cooper’s plans are.

“I missed you in New York.”

It seems like some of the biggest questions that emerged from the first episode of this new season -- the questions around what Bad Cooper was up to -- have kind of disappeared in the weeks since then. We’re no closer to knowing who he was talking to on his weird briefcase phone (Phillip Jeffries or not?) or what he had to do with the murder of the librarian that was pinned on the principal in South Dakota. But I’m confident that all those things are just bubbling under the surface ready to explode.

For example, Bad Coop is now being held in the very penitentiary that he was planning to travel to in order to find his former partner who, reportedly, had gained some information from the principal’s secretary -- coordinates of some kind -- that Bad Cooper wanted. It seems to me the fact that they’re now both in the same place would be fairly relevant but we have yet to see anything about it.

And now that we’re fairly certain that the male body that was found next to the librarian’s head was that of Garland Briggs, there’s the question of how the body got there 25 years after he supposedly died in a fire, and what Bad Coop might have done with it, and why the voice on Bad Coop’s briefcase phone that might have been Phillip Jeffries seemed so concerned that he had spoken with Briggs.

And then there were the words, “I missed you in New York,” that the same voice spoke to Bad Coop, which makes me wonder if Bad Coop and / or Jeffries might have something to do with the glass box from the first episode that we’ve heard almost nothing about since then. It’s pretty much the only story that’s occurred in New York. It would seem that there must be some connection there.

“Something is missing and you have to find it.”

And what does Twin Peaks have to do with all this? For a show with the town’s name right there in the name of the show, our visits to Twin Peaks seem to have little if anything to do with what’s going on everywhere else. I’d like to think that eventually things will connect back to the little community where this madness all began, but until more info is available, it’s damn near impossible to predict how it’s going to happen.

There is one thing worth mentioning though, and that is Hawk’s pursuit of something that is missing. Hawk received a message from the Log Lady in the very first episode, telling him that he was going to have to find something related to Agent Cooper, and that his heritage would help him find it.

After six episodes of Hawk, Andy, and occasionally Lucy flipping through case files relating to Cooper, it looks like he finally found something, and it wasn’t anything to do with the case files. In fact, it had something to do with the sherriff’s station’s bathroom.

Inside a stall door, which was labelled with a Nez Perce logo (which is the indigenous group that Hawk is related to) Hawk finds what appears to be a handful of papers that looks suspiciously like something torn out of a diary. Like, I don’t know, maybe Laura Palmer’s diary. Remember her?

Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me makes a pretty convincing argument of what could be contained in those pages. There’s a scene where Laura, in the midst of a dream or a vision, is visited by Annie Blackburn. Annie tells her, "My name is Annie, and I've been with Laura and Dale. The good Dale is in the Lodge, and he can't leave. Write it in your diary."

If we assume that Laura wrote it in her diary, and that Bad Coop, after emerging from the Lodge, tore those diary pages out and hid them in the bathroom stall, then we know how they got there. And Hawk, who knows the legend of the Lodge, and how one must confront their own shadow self there, might understand the message that the Cooper who emerged is not actually Cooper.

But assuming that happens, I’m still not sure how that’ll connect to what’s going on elsewhere. As far as anyone in Twin Peaks is concerned, Coop is still missing. Will his sudden appearance in South Dakota make its way back to town allowing Hawk to help the investigation? Or will the key to Cooper’s room at the Great Northern that has been dropped in the mail, and will be arriving back in Twin Peaks any day now, help steer someone from town towards investigating the situation with Dougie Cooper in Las Vegas?

Or will the goings on in Twin Peaks continue to be weirdly disconnected from everything else going on in the show?

For now, the questions outweigh the answers, but I guess that’s what keeps us coming back for more.

“Diane.”

Oh, also we finally met Diane. She’s played by Laura Dern, which is awesome beyond my ability to express. That is all.

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Questions in a World of Blue: TP The Return Parts 1 and 2

It’s been a couple of weeks since the Twin Peaks return’s first few episodes hit the screen, so I guess it’s about time I said something about them. I’m not sure why it’s taken me so long to put my thoughts together, or why, even now, I’m still somewhat reluctant to write. Part of it might be that it returned somewhat explosively, with four hours of material thrown at us all at once. Those four hours involved a lot of balls being thrown into the air, a lot of different and apparently disconnected plots being introduced. In a lot of ways those first four hours really felt like a single, over-long premiere. And if I had to guess, that’s part of why they were all released together.

But if I tried to write about those first four hours in one article, I’m not sure I could. There’s so much going on. Even though so much of it, as per David Lynch’s style, is slow and subtle. And even with only two episodes to write about here, I’m still a bit nervous that it’s going to get long, and I suppose that’s another reason I’ve been putting this off.

But we’re here now. So let’s do this.

1. Let’s start right at the beginning, with the giant speaking to Coop. I’m less concerned about what the giant says, because they’re pretty obvious just clues that will become apparent later, and more concerned about where they are. I missed it on my first viewing, but upon rewatching I realized they’re definitely not in the standard red room of the black lodge, not just because it’s in black and white, but also because the floor is missing the zig zag chiron pattern, and the background doesn’t look like curtains. Mysterious.

2. Everyone seems pretty intent to call out the glass box in the new york skyscraper as being some kind of metaphor for the Twin Peaks viewing audience, and I guess maybe that could have been in Lynch’s mind, but it honestly feels more like people wanting to reach to any kind of symbolic meaning. To me the intent of the box was clear from the moment it arrived -- it’s intended to capture something from the Black Lodge. That there’s a spot here in this apartment, similar to glastonbury grove, where one can gain entrance to the other side. And someone is trying to capture something. Though I am keenly interested in what that creature was that did finally arrive and chew the shit out of those kind young folks who should have been watching the box and not engaging in sexual shenanigans.

3. Wow, there’s a lot of material to cover involving this murder. First, the obvious stuff -- two bodies, with the librarian’s head and an unidentified male body, is pretty abnormal. But there’s more than that. It seems like Bad Coop is responsible for the murder, though he’s framed Principal Hastings so that he can get some information from Hastings’ secretary, Though for some reason he needs his criminal buddy to get that information for him. Specifically, he seems to be looking for some kind of coordinates. And why would Hastings know this? Well that’s anybody’s guess, obviously.

4. There’s also a lot to be thought about in regards to the Black Lodge. There are implications that certain scenes might be taking place at different times in history, with the one armed man’s line “Is it future or is it past?” being an indicator of that (and also a call back to a scene from The Missing Pieces). Of course there’s also Laura taking off her face to reveal she appears to be made of white light, Laura getting viciously evicted from the Lodge after whispering something to Cooper, the curtains of the Lodge rising to reveal an endless chevron floor (and a white horse), and the Lodge floor suddenly shaking and collapsing before evicting Cooper. This is all very weird, but it’s also painting a picture, to me, of a Lodge that may not be as stable as it once was, that may be falling apart in one way or another.

5. This might seem like a weird thing to mention, but I was incredibly distracted by Daria’s toes when she was in the hotel room with Bad Coop, because they were so perfectly pointed, and I couldn’t help but wonder if that was a direction from Lynch because he thought it was sexy, or if Daria was trying to keep Bad Coop relaxed because that was something that Bad Coop thought was sexy, and then questioning whether there was any real difference between those two points.

6. And while we’re in this hotel room with Bad Coop, there’s a whole shitload of mythology type info that gets dropped on us. After murdering Daria, Coop reaches out to who he think is Philip Jeffries, but who, if the conversation is any indicator, may in fact not be. The voice accuses Bad Coop of talking to Garland Briggs, and also tells him, “You are going back in tomorrow and I will deal with Bob again.” This seems to tie in to Bad Coop’s notion that tomorrow he’s supposed to be getting sucked back into the Black Lodge, but who is it on the phone that will be working with Bob again once Bad Coop is gone? Is it Jeffries, or is it someone else? And speaking of Jeffries, that’s a name we hear a little earlier in the scene when Daria is on the phone with the criminal dude who was supposed to get the info from Hastings secretary. Their conversation indicates that someone named Jeffries is involved in the hit they’re supposed to be making on Bad Coop. Could that be Philip Jeffries? Seems unlikely it’d be anyone else. 

There’s lots of little details I’ve missed throughout here, but I feel like this gets to what at least seems to be the biggest elements of the episode, and hits on the most relevant questions. Though part of the beauty of Twin Peaks, particularly this version of it, is that you never really know what questions are going to be relevant, and what questions are going to be red herrings, and, most frustratingly, what questions might never be answered at all. But frustrating or not, I’m very happy to be on this ride again, 25 years later.

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Questions in a World of Blue: Twin Peaks The Return

I’ve been really struggling with the question of whether I was going to write up my thoughts on the new season of Twin Peaks.

Part of the reason I’ve been struggling is that I really want to. That was part of why I had been writing my commentary on my rewatch of the original series, to eventually segue into commentary on this new season. But I’m also afraid, especially now that I’ve been watching the new season, that I might not be able to write about it quite as well as I did the earlier episodes. Those hopefully insightful comments that I made were built on the fact that this was the third time I’d watched the series, and had had more or less 25 years of reflecting on the show itself and on David Lynch as a director.

I’ve had no such time to do the same thing with this new season. And even a few days after watching these new episodes, I’m still feeling almost as baffled as I did last Sunday night. Not to mention that there are probably hundreds of other writers who are doing the same thing, with hotter takes, and quicker commentary turnarounds than I can manage. What place does some goober like me have in that mass of TV critique.

But then I had two kind of epiphanies.

The first one, maybe the most important one, was that I still wanted to write about Twin Peaks. And I realized that it didn’t matter if I didn’t have anything insightful to say, or if I was just some goober in the ocean of commentary. I’m doing this for me first. If other people happen to enjoy it along the way, that’s great, but first and foremost this is for me.

The second epiphany was the realization that, even as I read a bunch of different reviews and critiques, there were certain subjects that I just didn’t see being discussed. Things, for example, like Darya’s toes (which maybe seems like a weird thing to want to discuss, but trust me, when I get to actually writing my thoughts on the first two parts of The Return, it’ll make sense) or the lamps in that apartment in New York. Observations that I’ve made that maybe mean something, or maybe don’t, but do inspire me to want to talk about them.

So I’m going to.

I’m not going to claim to have any answers, and I’m not sure I’ll be wandering down the path of fan theories. I feel like mostly I’ll be asking questions and flailing about for answers, which is why I plan on calling this series Questions in a World of Blue, which I’m sure someone else is already using, but if he, or they, can’t share, then maybe they should go back to the playground to learn some manners.

Most importantly, I really am looking forward to getting my hands dirty and digging around in all the weird of Twin Peaks, and if the first four episodes are any indicator of the 14 still to come, there’s a lot of weird for us to dig around in. And that suits me just fine.

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TP Countdown Day 1: Beyond Life and Death

There are two very different components in this, the second season finale of Twin Peaks. The first is a fairly normal television episode -- or at least as normal as Twin Peaks could ever be -- which is mostly working to set up the cliffhanger moments that will bring you back for the third season that never happened.

This includes storylines like Doc Hayward’s attack on Ben Horne, who has now revealed that he is actually Donna’s father, which leaves Ben bloodied (in a way very similar to Leland’s death, actually) and at least unconscious on the ground. It also includes storylines like Nadine waking up from her brief fantasy of being a high school student, which of course throws Big Ed and Norma’s hope at a happy life into the shitter. Then there’s the bank explosion, which may have killed Audrey, Pete, and Andrew.

These are all fairly standard cliffhanger stories, and come from a pretty traditional place in TV storytelling.

The other part of this finale is a decent into full-on Lynchian nightmare fuel the likes had never been seen on TV before. Or, really, since.

Coop enters into the Black Lodge to try to save Annie, who has been kidnapped by Windom Earle following her win at the Miss Twin Peaks festival. Earle steals Pete Martell’s truck and head for Glastonbury Grove, a spot in forest of Ghostwood with a circle of 12 sycamore trees, surrounding a puddle of what seems to be scorched engine oil.

Speaking of the oil, this is a bit of a call back to much earlier episodes, and early scenes work to once again connect this story back to the original mystery that had people tuned in obsessively -- who killed Laura Palmer. As Cooper and Truman try to figure out where the Owl Cave map is telling them to go, the Log Lady arrives with a jar of oil that was given to her by her husband, who had told her that it was, “an opening to a gateway.” As Coop and Truman give the oil a whiff, they both agree that it smells like burnt engine oil, which reminds them of Dr. Jacoby who described that smell as being in the air when Jacques Renault was murdered by Leland Palmer. 

Moments later Ronette Pulaski arrives and Cooper asks her to smell the oil. She responds fearfully, saying that she smelled it the night that Laura was killed.

All of this, of course, is to tell us that the oil connected to the Black Lodge, maybe even specifically when denizens of the Lodge are nearby, or when the “gateway” between worlds opens. Which is exactly what happens next to the pool of oil in Glastonbury, which allows Coop access to the Lodge.

It’s hard to say what would have happened with Twin Peaks had it got a third season. As it stands, with this brain melting visit to the Black Lodge being one of the final moments of the show’s original run, I think it allowed our take on the show to shift gears, and see this sudden emergence of the Black Lodge mythology come to play a much larger part of the overall series. In fact, between this, and the Black Lodge elements in Fire Walk With Me, I’d go so far as to say that by the time we finished with Twin Peaks in the 1990s, it was really more about the Lodge, those that lived their, and humanity’s struggle with them over good and evil, than it was about a teen girls’ murder, or the town that murder took place in. That little man from another place isn’t just some weird side character. He’s at the very heart of what the show is.

Which I’m pretty sure viewers in 1990 weren’t quite ready for. I know I wasn’t. It’s taken me years to really get my head around what Twin Peaks is, and I’m fully prepared for the eventuality of that perspective shifting once this third season is upon us. Because Twin Peaks is something that has evolved almost from day one. Let’s remember that BOB’s presence wasn’t even planned when they started shooting. That character, who ultimately plays such a vital role to the overall mythology, was simply a happy accident.

Now I could talk about those final 20 minutes in the Black Lodge, but I think that would only result in one of two things: Either I just describe the physicality of what happens, and I don’t want to do that -- just watch the show, it’s a lot better -- or I’d end up trying to analyze what those 20 minutes mean, and I’m not sure I’m cut out for that, especially having already read some commentaries that are probably much better than anything I could come up with.

I will say that if there’s a single cliffhanger from this episode that I’m dying to find the answer to, it’s what will happen 25 years later when Laura Palmer finally sees Dale Cooper again, because I feel pretty confident that tease is going to play at least some part in the new season.

Twin Peaks, it’s 25 years later, and I can’t wait to see you again.

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TP Countdown Day 2: Miss Twin Peaks

After last episode’s return to form, this episode, I have to say, is kind of a disappointment, In fact, I’d go so far to say that it was actually kind of dumb. None of the usual names appear on the writing credits for this episode, so I feel safe in blaming that fact on giving the creative reigns to someone not quite up to the task of getting all the show’s proverbial ducks in a row before the finale.

There are moments in this episode which are literally cringe-worthy. Cooper’s attempt to explain his sudden understanding of Major Briggs’ mumbling is dismissed as something that just came to him, and that’s not just lazy writing, but also insulting. Sure, Coop has always had a unique way of doing things, and willingness to throw conventional techniques to the wind, but this sort of “Gee, I dunno, I just came to me,” moment is incredibly painful.

It’s followed by the equally painful moment of Andy trying to desperately to chase Coop down to tell him that he’s figured out the petroglyph is, in fact, a map. Except Coop somehow ignores Andy as he pursues him and Truman down the hall of the Sheriff’s station. A few moments later at the Miss Twin Peaks pageant, Andy seems perversely unable or unwilling to find Coop in the small space and tell him whatever it is he needs to tell him until the very end of the episode. This delay accomplishes nothing except to postpone the reveal until it could be used as the episode’s cliffhanger ending.

Even beyond those moments of stupidity, this a pretty weak episode. The pageant manages to be at the center of it, but honestly, its such a narrative dead-end as there was clearly no way that anyone but Annie could possibly end up Queen, because obviously it was going to be Coop’s love interest taken by Earle.

But still we have to sit through the shenanigans of Lana trying to seduce Dick in order to guarantee her winning spot, or watch the bizarre opening dance number (which, to their credit came off feeling like a legit small-town dance number, where it’s just barely good enough), or watch two different talent performances. I mean, as cool as Lucy’s was, and as kind of sexy as Lana’s was, why did we need to sit through those moments?

If there was a highlight in this episode, it had to be Windom Earle, dressed as the Log Lady, thwacking Bobby Briggs between the eyes with a log. Sorry Bobby, but you’ve probably had that coming for awhile.

[greygamer]

TP Countdown Day 3: The Path to the Black Lodge

I’ll admit, I’ve been kind of hard on these last few episodes -- maybe even harder than I was on the dreadful midseason ones. That’s partly because so many of the plots that are going on as the series draws to its season to close pertain to things that really won’t mean anything to the upcoming return of Twin Peaks, which can make sitting through some of it kind of a pain in the ass.

But I’ve got to give it to this episode. More than anything since maybe Maddie’s death, this episode feels like a real episode of Twin Peaks. Even though Lynch himself isn’t behind the camera, it sure feels like this was an episode that was touched by him. 

There’s a fantastic scene about halfway through where Cooper and Annie talk at the diner. It’s general flirtatious chitchat, but the way it’s shot, and the way it’s scored, gives it such a a feeling of dread. It’s such a simple scene, and based on the dialogue, it should be light and cheery, but it’s not. Instead, it’s doing some hella foreshadowing, and it’s great.

This is’t the only dark moment the two share. Later in the episode, Coop takes Annie dancing, and while the elderly Mayor Milford struggles endlessly with his microphone (old people taking way too long to accomplish simple tasks being another favorite image of Lynch’s), Coop suddenly has a vision of the giant, waving his arms and shaking his head, sending a very strong message to Coop: No.

What could this message be about? Well, maybe the fact that only moments before Cooper had suggested Annie should enter the Miss Twin Peaks contest. I get the feeling from both those scenes that something very bad may be about to happen to Miss Annie Blackburn.

And while we’re talking about Lynchian moments, how about that shaking hand?

At a number of different points in tonight’s episode, varying characters are afflicted by a strange shake in their right hands. First a random woman at the diner, the Cooper, and finally Pete Martell. Just as we think we might not get an answer to this mystery, we find ourselves at a circle of rocks in the forest. As a bright light flares up, we see BOB’s hand emerging from the shadows, shaking much like the hands of those earlier in the episode.

Okay, maybe this doesn’t exactly provide a literal explanation for the shaking hands, but if you’re looking for literal anything, you should probably stay away from Twin Peaks. Instead what is clear is that those shaking hands were evidence of BOB struggling to get into the world again.

Although maybe BOB is just getting ready to welcome Windom Earle into the Black Lodge, as it seems he’s on the verge of finally figuring out how to get inside. It would seem that the Owl Cave Petroglyph is not only indicating the right time to enter -- when Jupiter and Saturn align -- but is also a map showing the right where to enter, something which Cooper has apparently not figured out yet. Come on, Coop, you can keep up with this madman.

Oh, and speaking of Windom’s “madness” I can say I’ve grown pretty tired of “crazy” being defined almost entirely by “laughs way too goddamn much.”

By episode’s end, Major Briggs has been kidnapped by Earle, and it’s not looking good for either him or Leo, as they’re both writhing on the floor in some kind of seizure state, likely drug-induced. 

Less interesting news? Catherine gets the next level of her puzzle box open, only to find another level of the puzzle box. Audrey gets laid by John Justice Wheeler before he takes off to Brazil. Pete takes Audrey fishing. Donna’s dad is totally Ben Horne, even though Donna can’t seem to figure that out. And Bobby finally admits that he’s been kind of a Jerky McJerkypants lately, but it’s too late to erase my head canon that Shelly eventually falls madly in love with Gordon Cole. Bye Bobby!

[greygamer]

TP Countdown Day 3: Variations on Relations

I’ve only got three episode left after this one, and if there’s a single overwhelming sense I have at this point, it’s that I want to just get past all the bullshit and get into the Black Lodge.

Pieces continues to fall into place. Windom Earle’s messing around with the Owl Cave petroglyph last episode revealed a much larger picture, that Cooper tasks Andy with making a record of. When Major Briggs sees the image, he recognizes it, but can’t say from where -- maybe from a dream? Yeah, probably from a dream.

Cooper asks Briggs to help him by digging up any information he can on Windom Earle’s time working on Project Bluebook, the same military project that Briggs has been involved in, and the same project that was attempting to make contact with the White and / or Black Lodges. Because at this point, everything is converging on that one point.

Well, almost everything.

For example, the Miss Twin Peaks pageant gets ever closer, with the assumption that it will somehow play a role in Earle’s schemes. Just about every girl in town is lining up to enter, but we can all safely assume that it’s all going to come down to the contender’s we recognize.

Earle continues his chess game with Coop, taking a pawn, and leaving a corpse behind as a gift to the local lawmen at a gazebo (I’m guessing it’s the same gazebo where Maddie was once spotted doing dressup as Laura, but who knows, maybe Twin Peaks has gazebos out the whazoo).

Annie and Cooper continue their odd flirtations, and finally manage to touch lips during a nature excursion. This even is creepily watched by Earle, because of course Cooper can’t have nice things.

Also, Gordon Cole is the best. Is it wrong for me to kind of hope that he and Shelly ended up getting together sometime after the end of season two? Can I make that head canon?

Some other things happened, but the less said about those things the better. I want to get to the Black Lodge, as the next episode is literally titled The Path to the Black Lodge, I feel confident that we’re nearly there.