TV Rewind: Twin Peaks

Episode 16

By Eric Hughes

October 26, 2011

Hedwig!

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There’s something undeniably delightful about moments in Twin Peaks like the one that ended “Episode 16.”

Finally, after nearly half a season’s worth of waiting, we’ve firmed up what the giant may have meant when he told Cooper that “the owls are not what they seem.” (Sheriff Truman asks candidly where Bob might be - apparently, he’s no longer inhabiting Leland - and a shot of one of the town’s many feathery fliers fills the screen… and “Episode 16” fades to black).

Don’t moments like these make your insides smile? Knowing that, in some writers meeting - make that meetings - at some point in time, it was decided that, yes, “Episode 16” would finish with a giant owl swooping into frame. It’s the big owl reveal! Wooo!

So, what can it mean? Well, as Truman points out, we don’t know where Bob might be now. Leland is operating normally again - he might actually be dead, come to think - so Bob is on the roam. A shot of the owls, then, might mean he transports from human to human through them? Something to that effect.




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“Episode 16” was a mythology-heavy episode. So much so that the continued saga of whether Andy fathered a newborn was the only throwaway storyline of the bunch. The rest was invested in Bob, Leland and law enforcement’s struggle to lock up the right guy.

What surprised me was how quickly Leland - or Bob, rather - acted after murdering Maddy an episode before. Halfway into “Episode 16,” and he’s already got his sights set on his next potential victim: Donna.

Donna hasn’t endangered herself so much since the series began - just that season one finale business at Jacoby’s and, maybe, running Laura Palmer’s Meals on Wheels rout - so it was a little unnerving to see her nearly succumb to Bob’s desires. Were it not for a ring of the doorbell, really, she’d probably be a goner.

I don’t know, though, how much Bob might discriminate if he survives on human fear. That’d be like telling a carnivore they’ll probably eat chicken next because they happen to eat a lot of chicken. Just because Audrey gets caught up in the heat of danger doesn’t mean she has to be the next one to go.

Though it must be said: Where was Audrey this episode? Granted, with so many characters to follow, it isn’t uncommon for them to take episodes-long breathers to give other Twin Peaksians a chance to catch up. Yet Audrey feels important, and we just haven’t seen her in awhile.

Moving on… there’s something irrefutably odd about the Great Northern bellhop, too. Perhaps he isn’t even a bellhop, as I’ve noticed there may be a significance in him being present when Cooper is confronted by the giant. Perhaps he summons him?

In the first instance, he tends to Cooper’s bulleted body at the Great Northern. A few episodes pass, and he’s tending tables when Cooper sees the giant at the dance hall. In “Episode 16,” bell hop joins the town council assembled by Cooper and then, poof, the giant appears to give Cooper his ring back. As if the ordeal wouldn’t happen without the bell hop’s presence.

To date, an appearance by the bellhop has precursed all giant sightings. Consider this a feather in my cap.


     


 
 

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