TV Rewind: Twin Peaks
Episode 8
By Eric Hughes
August 30, 2011
BoxOfficeProphets.com
The season’s peculiarities, really, were relegated to the following: 1) some visions and dreams – which kept the supernatural at bay because dreams, at least, make it hard as an audience to distinguish the “real” from the “fake” – and 2) oddball personalities.
I mean, most of the fun was measured by Jacoby’s two-toned eyewear and which Hawaiian shirt he’d plastered his body with. Or, a crotchety townie – Log Lady – who developed a peculiar reputation for clutching (and talking to) a hunk of thick pine like it’s a small child.
So Twin Peaks was weird because of its characters, mostly. Not because of, you know, giants prophesying the future to a sleepy Cooper or Leland coming to with a confusing shock of white hair. (Both, and a few other mysteries, reared their heads in “Episode 8.”)
The season two premiere, then, changed Twin Peak’s game completely. So much so that season one’s playbook got thrown out the window. The show’s been revamped, folks, and I think for the better.
The weirdness started right away when an oversized visitor greets Cooper, who’s recovering in bed from gunshots to the belly. Materializing from nothing, the giant tells Cooper he’s got important things to share with him. And, that if what he tells him becomes truth, would Cooper believe him?
The items, spat as abbreviated morsels – like the giant doesn’t want to (or can’t) reveal his hand yet – are: a) there’s a man in a smiling bag, b) the owls are not what they seem and c) without chemicals, he points. He throws a bonus in the ring, too: “Leo’s locked inside a hungry horse.”
Before disappearing to the place he came from, the giant removes a ring from Cooper’s finger and says he’ll return it when Cooper “finds these things to be true.” And then he’s gone.
The ring bit was huge, because lo and behold the next morning, Cooper finds he no longer has it! The giant happened in the Twin Peaks universe because he took a tangible with him.
I’m really interested in who this dude is and why, at this time, he reached out to Cooper. Is it because Cooper was so near death - his wounds devastating - that the giant let slip bits of the show’s central mystery to ensure Cooper pushed on?
We know the giant isn’t acting alone because he told Cooper that we -- not I -- wanted to help him. That makes me wonder then, too, what group, or even what kind of group, the giant is working for.
Odder still is the fact that Cooper must “believe” in the giant and his messages before being granted access to a next level. Was the prophesying a one off, or will Cooper get successive visits for being an obedient investigator? I’d like to think we’ll be seeing more of the giant, especially if he’s gonna strut around Cooper’s bedroom like the omniscient man that he is.
Let’s keep aboard the crazy train a second, because there was plenty more otherworldly stuff going on that deserves some love in this post. As I said earlier, Leland - without explanation - is sportin’ bleach white hair now. (He claims he just woke up with it covering his head). He’s also got renewed personality, in that anything that comes out of his mouth anymore is sung.
A number he croons late in the episode is “Get Happy” by Judy Garland. Steeped in religion, the song’s got lyrics like “Shout hallelujah c'mon get happy,” “get ready for the judgment day” “the lord is waitin’ to take your hand” and “we're going to the promise land.” I so expected something to come out of it, and then Leland had a stroke of sorts -- or a stroke itself -- and collapsed to the floor.
The hair, the behavior, suggests radical transformation. And because Leland praises the lord before falling to the floor, the obvious cue is he’s made “a deal with the devil,” which, I know, is overdone. But the episode did air some 20-odd years ago.
If not the devil, then a pact between Leland and an evil entity seems appropriate.
Last season Leland, sharing the same space as amplified music, would lose himself in the beats -- as if without control. Now he’s making the tunes himself, and then enduring the regrettable after effects, too.
Speaking of radical transformations, Donna is undergoing one, too. As if keen on getting to know her former good friend in a creepy way, Donna is - I think - trying to be Laura Palmer. She specially requested Laura’s sunglasses from Maddy, and the pair now wraps around the bridge of Donna’s nose. As well, she’s requested from Norma her friend’s former Meals on Wheels route and, perhaps unintentional, mirrored exactly the way Maddy sat in a late scene. (Maddy, as you know, is a spitting image of Laura, but a brunette).
I didn’t pick up on these subtleties last season - were there any - so possible story here is rather new. I’ll be keeping my eyes peeled.
So Jacoby’s alive! I’ll admit I was excited to see him breathing. He was afforded no more than a minute or two of screen time, but managed to share some intriguing introspection.
As we’ve heard from several Twin Peaks townies, Laura started acting very strange in her final days. But then, as Jacoby says, she was overcome with a sense of peace and, maybe, allowed herself to be killed. Not a suicide per se, but something more along the lines of assisted death.
Bob’s name got mentioned several times this episode, and blame for Laura’s murder seems to rest on his shoulders. Funnily enough, we’ve yet to meet the guy in the flesh, but have seen quick shots of him through visions and other supernaturalities (it’s a word).
As Cooper deduced, Bob might be our guy. Jacques - now dead - is in the clear because he’s, well, dead, and he confessed that he blacked out the evening Laura died. When he came to, everyone had vacated the cabin. Leo - now in a coma - took Laura and Ronette with him when Jacques passed out, but apparently left the girls behind. That leaves a third man - Bob? - who sacrificed Laura and nearly killed Ronette, too. Might Bob be our man?
A night terror by Ronette, who finally awoke from her coma, seems to suggest it. The final minutes of “Episode 8” - framed as a memory of Ronette’s - were unsettling and horrific. Laura and Bob, bloody and gross, are a choir of groans and grumbles before Bob beats her with a blunt object or a pair of fists.
Ronette’s recall of Laura’s fatal evening might be crucial here, so long as she can keep herself alive. Between last season and now, Laura, Jacques and Waldo (the bird) are dead, and Leo (and Ronette) are in comas.