#what i'm saying is that mark frost and david lynch should hand me the script

[laurapalmerz]

rbing that post about james has got me thinking about just how much they butchered his character. he's an interesting case as the writing for and acting has been particularly bad since the beginning of the show. since many characters i adore eventually fell apart toward the end of s1 into s2 (josie is the biggest example, but you can also apply donna, cooper, audrey, nadine, the vast majority of the women of twin peaks in general, etc. to that list as well) it's not unusual to see a degradation of care toward plot lines and growth. however, it's just sadder in this instance since james never had a chance right from the jump. he's the biggest meme and most hated character that isn't a villain in the fandom by a long shot. hell, even when i first started watching the show i didn't like him for how he treated donna. reflecting on it now after my rewatch, yes i still hate how he treats her, but i can also see WHY he would be that way. because of the quality of his character portrayal, not a lot of people understand or care that his coping mechanism for trauma is running away. he stays with his uncle while his mom is out on benders so he doesn't have to sit in the silence of the home that his father ran out of and his mother drinks herself to death in, so it's only natural that he runs away from twin peaks to get away from the memory of laura that's been haunting him since her death. does that mean it's a good coping mechanism? absolutely not. it's just an explanation. should he have communicated that better to donna so they would work something out? absolutely! you can blame that on them being teenagers but can also point toward bad writing choices that purposefully wanted to push them away so that god awful grooming subplot could happen (i'm forever shaking my fist at whoever it was that made that decision in the writing room and approved that for filming). had he been written consistently and was given to an actor who could embody that personality, i truly believe we could've been given a more empathetic figure in james hurley; a boyfriend who loved laura with every fiber of his being and genuinely wanted to help her out of the hole she was in. who loved donna but couldn't give her what she wants because there's a wall standing between them that can't be torn down until the past is put to rest. a boy who runs away because he can't face thoughts that pervade his life, that he never learned to cope with. multifaceted and intriguing, one that could still be memed but appreciated still. we can't change the past, so we're stuck with the version we have now. one that will never get his flowers because we got pouting face instead.