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“Episode 4” was oddly sluggish and disappointing for what I’ve come to expect from Twin Peaks.

Much of it, I think, was due to its reveals feeling anti-climatic or ho-hum. For instance, Leo Johnson is more or less the chief suspect in the murder of Laura Palmer – and has been since “Pilot.” And as I’ve said since that recap, any Leo involvement in Laura’s demise feels too obvious. So when his car – a red Corvette – matches the one Jacoby says he followed on the night Laura died, it’s like: “Oh - *yawn* – really?”

Remarkably, I’m two steps ahead of master David Lynch, or I’m not getting something. Or, maybe, Leo’s merely useful to the plot in diverting attention to him while other stuff is developed in the background. He’s a red herring.

But where I really want to start, I think, is with Laura’s cousin, Maddy. She’s in town visiting Sarah and Leland, and is essentially Laura Palmer with dark hair. In fact, a quick IMDb check will probably tell me that one actress plays both parts. Yet I’m afraid to do so because I don’t want to find out anything about Twin Peaks that I’ve yet to see. I also want to be mindful that IMDb didn’t exist as a resource for Twin Peaks devotees in 1990.

So we’ll go with, yes, the same actress.

If this is the case, then what is the point of Laura having relatives that creepily look a lot like her? For me, it goes back to Hawk’s analysis of souls, and how after we expire, our souls go undeterminably elsewhere. Has Laura’s soul moved to Maddy? Maybe. Then again, we run into problems with Leland’s reunion with her in “Episode 3.” If Maddy looks more like Laura than usual, then Leland would have said something. The thing is he didn’t; he was solely excited to see her.

What’s funny, though, is Cooper’s bizarre dream revealed a) that Laura has a female cousin and b) that she might look a lot like her, too. Only in the dream, Maddy was an exact match. Blonde hair and all. Hmm.

Moving on: We learned the answer to something I wondered aloud earlier about Sarah Palmer. That is: Did her visions come about after the death of her daughter, or did she have them earlier than that? Turns out she’s had the “gift” for some time, since Donna said she remembered Laura used to call her mom “spooky.”

According to Donna, Laura remembered her mom had “dreams” – Donna didn’t elaborate much more than that – and the same was true of Laura, too. And that, then, offers new questions: How did Laura’s supernatural abilities compare to her mother’s? Do they come from a family of women who have visions, or is the ability relegated only to them? And how about Leland? Does he have visions, too?

The whole thing came about, really, as Sarah was describing for investigators the man she “saw” in the room with her as Donna consoled her a few days ago. Leland told her to talk about a necklace, too, which Sarah “saw” in “Pilot” being rescued from the earth by mysterious hands.

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