The Last Review Of “Star Wars : The Last Jedi” You’ll Ever Need To Read

It’s always a dicey proposition when you’re reviewing a new Star Wars flick. One way or another, you almost can’t win — I recall, for instance, my lukewarm review of Star Wars : The Force Awakens being met with a comment stating, I shit you not, that “I agree with all your criticisms, but you should have given it a positive review anyway.” When I asked, naturally, why the hell my review should have been more sunny even though all my criticisms were legit, said individual responded, I assume with a straight face, something to the effect of “well, it’s more difficult to write a positive review than a negative one, so you should challenge yourself more.”

If I had any sense, I would have just walked away at that point, perhaps with a quip like “it’s only ‘more difficult’ to write a positive review of a film when said film sucks,” but instead I pressed further, insisting that it takes no more effort to write a glowing review than it does to write a pissy one, which is obviously and inarguably true, and was met with a (very) poor man’s bit of philosophy about life in general, my internet sparring partner insisting that “it’s hard work to be positive about anything, and way too easy to be negative.” Uhhhmmm — okay, if you say so.

For the record, I am not “down on” life. Hell, I wasn’t even that “down on” The Force Awakens. I just thought it was a mediocre re-tread of shit we’d seen done earlier, and better. What was painfully obvious, not just in retrospect but at the time, was that this particular commenter knew that’s all the flick amounted to, as well, but he liked it anyway, and was bent out of shape that I was both decidedly more cool on it than he was, and was able to articulate in fairly cogent terms why the overflowing love it was getting at the time really didn’t make much sense.

Well, that was two years ago, and when the hype died down, sure enough, my opinion at the time rather solidified into something like the overall consensus view. The Force Awakens hit a number of nostalgic notes, it made people feel the right way, but it certainly didn’t break any new ground, and basically amounted to a couple hours of fan service. Clearly, then, it would be left to the second chapter of the new trilogy to actually move things forward in any kind of significant way.

As early reviews for writer/director Rian Johnson’s Star Wars : The Last Jedi first trickled, then flowed, in, I was feeling reasonably good about its prospects to do just that : critics seemed to like it, while hard-core fans seemed to hate it. Pretty good sign right there that the amount of “fan-wank” in this was going to be minimal. It even seemed like Johnson was taking some risks here, and let’s face it, when you move forward, you’re going to necessarily leave plenty of overly-protective sorts behind. Maybe now that the Star Wars “greatest hits” reel was out of the way, we could get down to business.

And to an extent, Johnson does exactly that. Picking up essentially right where the last film left off, we see the so-called “Resistance, ” Oscar Isaac’s Poe Dameron in particular, scoring a pyrrhic victory against the “Empire-Lite” that is the newly-labeled “First Order,” only to find their space armada surrounded and running low on fuel while, concurrently with all this, Daisy Ridley’s Rey attempts to lure the reclusive Luke Skywalker (played by an older, but no less wooden and whiny, Mark Hamill) out of retirement to come save the galaxy from Lord Snoke (Andy Serkis, who joins Frank Oz, Lupita Nyong’o and, after a fashion, Carrie Fisher, as CGI “cast members”) and his now-apprentice — and Luke’s former trainee — Kylo Ren (Adam Driver).

Those two plotlines take up most of the flick, and certainly Rey’s eventual training (no big surprise, but she’s the titular last Jedi, not Luke) in the ways of The Force is loaded with any number of call-backs to the Luke/Yoda scenes from The Empire Strikes Back, but beyond that, yeah, the “nostalgia factor” here is kept to a welcome minimum. A third major story strand involving John Boyega’s Finn and new sidekick/potential love interest Rose (Kelly Marie Tran) attempting to locate, and then secure the services of, a supposed “master code breaker” in order to disable an Imperial — sorry, First Order — blockade is a bit hackneyed on the whole and too dependent on a series of lucky coincidences to be overly interesting, but I’m willing, probably just because it’s the holiday season, to give Johnson props for trying with that one, even if it’s one big “twist” moment amounts to audiences saying to themselves “hey, whaddya know, I never thought I’d see Benicio Del Toro in a Star Wars movie.”

Surprise casting moves seem to be a running theme of The Last Jedi in a more general sense, though, too, truth be told, and since we’re on that subject Laura Dern should get some credit for her turn as Vice Admiral Holdo, who takes over the Reb — goddammit, I’m doing it again — Resistance fleet when Fisher’s Princess/General Leia is incapacitated for a good chunk of the runtime. In fact, of all the various competing subplots, the one she features in prominently is probably the most effective, as her motives — and, by extension, those of the Resistance leadership itself — come into question, throwing some shades of grey into what’s usually a fairly black-and-white Star Wars cinematic “universe.” Things work out alright in the end, of course — they always do in these movies — but at least there’s some genuine intrigue and tension along the way.

Speaking of ends, though, that’s where most of the trouble here comes in. Johnson has, by my count, two “red herring” endings that he toys with until we get to the actual big finale, and by then you’re sort of ready for the thing to be over. The conclusion, when it arrives, is every bit as spectacular as it needs/is expected to be, but there’s definitely a sense that it’s past due. So, yeah, if you’re getting the idea that this film’s third act is more than a bit herky-jerky, you’re absolutely right.

Probably the biggest knock against The Last Jedi, though, is one that plagued The Force Awakens, as well : simply put, this First Order outfit just never seems like an “A-list” threat. Kylo Ren is an even more unstable basket case in this flick than he was last time (ditching the mask only accentuates his status as a lame bad guy), “Boy General” Hux (Domhnall Gleeson) is about as intimidating as a frat boy incensed at getting to the liquor store ten minutes after closing time and banging on the door to get in, and when Lord Snoke is finally removed from the equation, these guys are even more decisively “Bush League” than they were before. We all know the Resistance is going to win the day in the final act of this trilogy (which will no doubt be J.J. Abrams doing an updated take on Return Of The Jedi), but damn, with this Keystone Kops crew as their adversaries, the outcome is never even momentarily in doubt.

Still, for all that, The Last Jedi has more on the “plus” side side of its ledger than the “minus.” It establishes Rey as the powerful central protagonist she needs to be, it actually gives Poe Dameron plenty to do, and Finn and Rose make a good team. In short, it’s far more concerned with the characters we’re supposed to care about now rather than those we cared about a quarter-century (or more) ago — even if Hamill gets top billing in the credits.  It steps out of the long shadow cast by the franchise’s past (hell, it’s unafraid to poke fun at its own mythology, although some of the humor comes off as a little bit forced on occasion), even if it does so in a wobbly and uneven manner, and makes a statement (albeit, again, a shaky one) about where the series is in the here and now, rather than taking all of its cues from the past.

Huh. Now that I think about it, I hope my quasi-antagonist from a couple years back reads this review, since my final verdict should be right up his alley : Star Wars : The Last Jedi has a lot of problems — some of them pretty large — but you know what? I liked it anyway.

This Week’s “Peaks” Addendum : Some Quick Additional Thoughts On The Finale

Yeah, it’s a holiday, but you’d never know it if you follow any number of Twin Peaks-related fan sites, or even any “entertainment” sites in general. The long-dormant wheels within any number of Lynch-nerd minds are spinning and churning, ganglionic gears grinding in a way not seen since Mulholland Drive first hit theaters. We want to know what we just watched, and since David Lynch isn’t exactly telling us, we’re doing the work for ourselves. In other words, the fun is just beginning.

So — that finale. Yup, it was a doozy. And many a wiser and more astute critic than I appears to have met their match when it comes to trying to decode what Lynch and Mark Frost were “getting at” not just with it, but with the entirety of Twin Peaks 2017/Twin Peaks : The Return/Twin Peaks season three. Hell, they’re even second-guessing what Twin Peaks : Fire Walk With Me was “really” all about. It’s too early to say that anything like a “consensus” reading of any/all of it has developed, but to the extent that a “popular” theory seems to be forming, it goes something like this —

Part eighteen? It’s a dream. Or, perhaps, everything from the point in part seventeen where Special Agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) says “we live inside a dream” onwards is a dream. The “saga” of Twin Peaks is wrapped up, Julee Cruise sang us out, and then we got a perplexing epilogue.

It’s a nice theory. I can definitely understand its appeal. On some level, I may even wish it were “true.” But I think it’s exactly wrong. So let me tell you what I think makes a hell of a lot more sense —

It all comes back to the words spoken by The Fireman (Carel Struycken) in part one : “Find Richard and Linda.” Part eighteen showed us that Richard was Coop/Kyle MacLachlan and that Linda was Diane/Laura Dern. Find yourself is what our giant friend was telling Cooper. Which means —

“We live inside a dream” is indeed a significant line. And so is the fact that Cooper’s omniscient, observing face is superimposed in the background of the entire climactic scene in the office of Sheriff Frank Truman (Robert Forster). He’s watching this whole thing unfold from inside the Black Lodge. He’s seeing his dream play out and starting to wake up from it. He’s coming back to himself. And that means — well, that means something that a lot of people aren’t going to like, and may even be resistant to.

It means that that everything we’ve seen between The Fireman’s instructions to Coop in part one and the “wake-up call” that begins in part seventeen and concludes with our guy Dale and his gal Diane “crossing over” in part eighteen was a dream. So, pretty much the whole show. When Cooper re-emerges into Glastonbury Grove and he and Diane both assure each other that they really are who they are, it’s a further realization that this re-emergence is occurring, and when he says they’ll be different after they “cross over,” that’s the big clue, at least to my mind, right there.

Think about it : they both act very differently after “crossing over,” don’t they? When Diane observes a second version of herself in the motel parking lot, that’s the “Diane” part exiting the scene and “Linda” fully taking over. It hits Coop/Richard later, when he reads the “Dear John” letter in the morning, but the bizarre coldness of their sex scene (where Diane spends most of her time trying to cover his face) in contrast to their enthusiastic make-out session in part seventeen is another good, solid hint that these folks are different people altogether. And now they’re in a different world, to boot.

The motel’s different. The car’s different. The badge Coop brandishes isn’t a typical FBI photo-identification, it’s some cheap rent-a-cop-looking thing. And then, of course, Sheryl Lee turns out not to be Laura Palmer but Carrie Paige. This is a new reality. And it’s not that great a place, form what I can tell.

Traces of the old remain, though. The white horse. Carrie/Laura’s recognition of her mother’s voice. Something’s happened, reality has been over-written, but the process is not entirely complete. We know who’s doing it — Chalfont, Tremond, Judy’s Diner, come on, it’s the Black Lodge that’s in the driver’s seat here — but this is all the waking world. A waking world where Dale Cooper saved Laura Palmer but lost to the Lodge. Where his fucking with the time-line may in fact have given them the foothold they needed to “take over,” since even if his rescuing of her took place at the tail end of his dream, their power to enter conscious reality via the dream-state is already well-established. Where his good intentions really did pave a road to hell.

Come on, admit it — this all makes sense. Lynch did an approximation (albeit a more obvious — a term I use loosely, I assure you —one) of the same thing with Mulholland Drive. All of which probably means that my earlier contention that Twin Peaks isn’t over would be wrong. It would also mean that those who view part seventeen as being the “real” ending and part eighteen as the “dream” have the running order exactly reversed.  And lastly, it means that if you view things in the manner I’ve just “prescribed,” you can  be somewhat (God, I hesitate to use this term,but) satisfied that this has all been seen through to a kind of “completion,” and that this entire season/revival was even more absolutely effing brilliant than it appeared to be.

I’m going to close with a very important caveat, though : I said that this reading “all makes sense.” And for my money, it does. But I didn’t say that it was necessarily right.

 

 

 

This Week’s “Peaks” : Parts Seventeen And Eighteen (Spoilers Abound)

At this very moment, every single brain in the Twin Peaks fan community is melting.

And, hey, why shouldn’t they be? For a minute there, it really did look like everything was going to come together, especially with roughly, I dunno, 15 minutes to go in part seventeen of David Lynch and Mark Frost’s Twin Peaks 2017/Twin Peaks : The Return/Twin Peaks season three — Kyle MacLachlan’s good cop/bad cop routine (the best ever seen, might I add) was over with and “Evil Coop” dispatched permanently; Freddie (played with heroic aplomb by Jake Wardle) had indeed met his destiny and used his rubber-gloved “super hand” to scatter BOB to the four winds; Kimmy Robertson’s Lucy got the chance to be more of a truly unexpected heroine; John Pirruccello’s Deputy Chad was thwarted in his lame jail-break attempt by his former co-worker, Andy (Harry Goaz); Lynch’s Gordon Cole, Miguel Ferrer’s Albert Rosenfield, and Chrysta Bell’s Tammy Preston got where they were needed — that being the office of Sheriff Frank Truman (Robert Forster) just in the nick of time; Jay Aaseng’s disfigured drunk-and-disorderly kept imitating everything he heard; Ben Horne (Richard Beymer) was preoccupied with getting his brother out of trouble yet again; Don Murray’s Bushnell Mullins delivered his message to Cole word for word; the eyes-wide-sorry-sewed-shut woman from “The Zone” played by Nae Yuuki turned out to be the “real” Diane Evans  and morphed into Laura Dern before our eyes; and Robert Knepper, Jim Belushi, Michael Horse, Dana Ashbrook, Amy Shiels and her “colleagues” — well, they pretty much just stood around and watched in disbelief, but at least there were plenty of sandwiches to be enjoyed by one and all as television history played out before their eyes. And as a large image of Cooper’s face remained superimposed in the background.

Not so fast, though —

Agent Cooper, ever the stand-up guy, informed everyone that the past shapes the future and then set about to prove it by going there — Diane seemed to have an inkling about what was to come as words about “the curtain call” were exchanged between the two of them, and then we learned that the convenience store needn’t actually exist anymore in order for Coop and Phillip Gerard (Al Strobel) to ascend the staircase above it, and that Philip Jeffries — who, according to Cole, “really doesn’t exist anymore” himself — and his numerical clues (speaking of which, every single one from earlier parts is resolved/comes into play) are guardians of a gateway of sorts, one that would take Coop to 1989, and specifically smack-dab into the middle of Twin Peaks : Fire Walk With Me.

William Hartnell famously said, in the truly classic early Doctor Who adventure “The Aztecs,” that “you can’t change history — not one line,” but it’s clear what Cooper is here to do : save Laura Palmer (no such consideration is given to Phoebe Augustine’s Ronette Pulaski, unfortunately). Hell, Leland Palmer (Ray Wise) even told him to do it. This sequence, it has to be said, is truly genius shit as we finally learn what Laura (Sheryl Lee) was reacting to in her scene with James Hurley (James Marshall) in the woods — and seeing all this vintage material from a decidedly different POV is amazing. The (uncredited, as far as I can tell) stand-in actress for the younger Laura in scenes where new material was required isn’t exactly convincing, but the overall gist of what Lynch and Frost are doing here, goddamn — I mean, it’s breathtaking. And for a minute there, as scenes from the original TV pilot with Joan Chen, Piper Laurie, and the late, great Jack Nance that occur prior to the discovery of Laura’s body play out, you really can be forgiven for thinking that Cooper was successful. Julee Cruise closes out part seventeen with a musical number at The Roadhouse, and it seems like we are well and truly headed home.

But, ya know — then things got wonky. As in, “even by Twin Peaks standards” wonky.

In regards to part eighteen, the only thing I got right occurs at the very outset : a “new” Dougie is “manufactured” from “the seed” and a lock of his hair, and sent “home” to Vegas to be “reunited” with Naomi Watts’ Janey-E and Pierce Gagnon’s Sonny Jim by Carel Struycken’s “Fireman” and — uhhmmm — the face of the departed Don S. Davis. Beyond that, hey, I’m not too proud to admit that I was as taken for a loop as anyone else by everything.

“Find Richard and Linda” is a call-back to part one, only it turns out, after locating the proper “coordinates” and driving through them under some seriously active power lines, followed by a night of some — interesting — sex in which Laura Dern covers Kyle MacLachlan’s face with her hands the whole time, that Coop and Diane are Richard and Linda. And that Richard/Cooper is in a different motel than the one the two of them checked into the previous evening and is driving a different car — not to mention generally acting halfway like the Coop we know, and halfway like his now-wiped-from-existence evil doppleganger. We learned earlier that the mysterious “Judy” is a force of pure evil even older and more powerful than BOB, and so a stop at Judy’s Diner in Odessa, Texas seems like the move Coop oughtta make. He gets into it with some local rednecks, but the waitress that he somehow knows he should be looking for isn’t there, so he gets her home address, goes to her dilapidated spread, and meets this Carrie Paige — only it’s Sheryl Lee. It’s Laura Palmer. Not that she knows it.

Coop informs her that he’s here to take her home, to Twin Peaks, to be reunited with her mother (Grace Zabriskie), but it all sounds pretty hare-brained to her — still, given that she’s just killed her old man and all, she’s down for the whole concept of getting the fuck outta Dodge. Their road trip is mostly uneventful apart from a short sequence where it seems someone might be tailing them (and who knows, maybe they were), but when they finally reach the Palmer household nothing’s ringing a bell with Laura at all — and somebody else altogether lives there. Somebody who’s a lot more forthcoming about answering questions from some stranger at the front door in the middle of the night than I would be. The bewildered homeowner informs Coop that she and her husband have lived there for some time, and that her name last name is Tremond. Before that, the house was owned by the Chalfonts.

Annnnnnnddd we’re firmly back into Fire Walk With Me territory, as those are names, not that Cooper knows it mind you, of people associated with The Black Lodge. Laura/Carrie hears Sarah Palmer call, almost inaudibly, “Laura” from within the house and a sudden and immediate sense of reognition seems to overcome her since she screams, a shrieking wail from the core of her being, while Coop asks himself what year it is, the presumption being that he did manage to save her, but that now they’re both stuck (damn, this always happens to poor Dale) in 1989.

Only thing is, that doesn’t add up, because in 1989 the Palmers were living in that house. And Laura wouldn’t be the grown woman she is “today.” My theory, then, to the extent that it’s formed, is that when Coop and Diane “crossed over” underneath those power lines, they truly did cross over — as in, this is another dimension and/or reality altogether. One we haven’t seen at all, perhaps because Cooper’s meddling with time is what created it in the first place. As the end credits  roll, we’re left with the image from part one of Laura whispering something into Cooper’s ear in the “Red Room” — and we still don’t know what she said.

And you know what? I’m not even going to venture a guess — because theories and, even worse, assumptions are proving to be a real son of a bitch as far as this show goes.

Which brings us to the biggest and best revelation of all, after an evening that contained several (even if they were, admittedly, completely overshadowed by mountains of new questions) — at least I’m hoping that it does. We all assumed (there’s that word again) that this Twin Peaks revival was a “one-and-done” deal. That one way or another, Lynch and Frost were ending the story. But we have precisely zero idea what’s going on with Cooper and Carrie/Laura. Ditto for whatever the deal is with Audrey Horne. “Judy” is still very much “at large.”  Sarah Palmer is still out there eating throats for dinner. And Carrie had a plastic white horse on the mantle in her Odessa shithole. Heck, let’s  throw in the previously-mentioned fact that the stand-in for a young Laura Palmer didn’t exactly “match up” all that well as another “loose end” while we’re at it, too, because there are no “accidents” in Lynch films — everything is designed to be noticed by the careful viewer, and it all means something. I know that, yes, it’s an assumption — and that I just said that I was through with those — but you wanna know what I’m thinking? I’m thinking that we’re not done with Twin Peaks. I’m thinking that we’re not done with it by a long shot.

And, crucially, I don’t think that David Lynch and Mark Frost are, either.

This Week’s “Peaks” : Part Sixteen (Spoilers Abound)

Pre-emptive separation anxiety — it’s a real thing.

I admit it : I’m not ready for David Lynch and Mark Frost’s Twin Peaks 2017/Twin Peaks : The Return/Twin Peaks season three to be over, and I’m sure the same is true for many of you (and there are a lot of “you”s if my WordPress readership statistics are to be believed — let me say thanks for that right now). This is only going to happen once, and that “once” ends just seven short days from now. Oh, sure, we’ll be discussing, debating, theorizing, even philosophizing about what it all meant for the next 25 years (at least), but the “event” (a term that really does apply in this case) itself is almost finished.

At least part sixteen gave us a chance to say some good-byes in advance, thus preparing us for the “big good-bye” next Sunday, and so : good-bye to Eamon Farren’s Richard Horne, set up for death by his own father (told you!!!!), “Evil Coop” (played with Emmy-worthy sneer n’ cringe by Kyle MacLachlan), while a fucked-up Jerry Horne (David Patrick Kelly) watches from a safe distance through the wrong end of his binoculars. Good-bye to Laura Dern’s Diane Evans, revealed, in a truly shocking (at least to me) sequence to be a “tulpa,” and one that tried to knock off Lynch’s Gordon Cole, Chrysta Bell’s Tammy Preston, and Miguel Ferrer’s Albert Rosenfield on her way out before undergoing — uhhhhmmm — “de-manufacturing” at the hands of The One-Armed Man (Al Strobel). Good-bye to Jennifer Jason Leigh and Tim Roth, who met the fate of all who attempt to harm Dougie Jones and his family, courtesy of a psychotic next-door neighbor, played by Johnny Coyne, who’s credited only (but entirely accurately) as a “Polish Accountant.” And a very big, sloppy, wet-kiss, heartfelt good-bye to Dougie himself, who starts out this evening’s installment comatose after his light-socket-and-fork number and ends it —-

Well, hello, Special Agent Dale Cooper! Yes, the real Special Agent Dale Cooper! “100%!” “I AM the FBI!” All that good stuff. Goddamn, but this sequence was amazing to watch, as Coop emerges, Angelo Badalamenti’s original version of the show’s theme swelling in the background, borrows a snub-nose revolver from Bushnell Mullins (Don Murray), and arranges for a private plane owned by Jim Belushi and Robert Knepper’s Mitchum Brothers to take him to —- Twin Peaks.  Oh, and the Mitchums, Candie (Amy Shiels), and her fellow side-kicks? Apparently they’re all coming along for the ride. That promises to be interesting!

Unfortunately, but wisely, Janey-E (Naomi Watts) and Sonny Jim (Pierce Gagnon) won’t be. Dougie/Coop’s farewell to his wife is another Lynchian nod to Old Hollywood, and while I have no doubt that his promise to return to “his” family is sincere, the fact that he asked for an extra “seed” from the One-Armed Man (who, by the way, passed the “Owl Cave Ring” onto him) and gave him a lock of his hair tells me that the Coop we know won’t be coming back to Vegas, but that another manufactured doppleganger will be. Cooper seems to have memories of Dougie’s life, though, so who knows? Maybe I’m wrong and he’ll get his happily-ever-after with a wife and son that at least part of him “knows.” At this point, as always, I have far more questions than answers.

Speaking of which — so, like, what the fuck happened at the Road House tonight? Audrey Horne (Sherilyn Fenn) and ostensible “husband” Charlie (Clark Middleton) finally made it — and just in time to see emcee J.R. Starr introduce none other than Eddie Vedder himself to the stage (great song, by the way) — but as soon as the Pearl Jam frontman wraps up and the house band plays “Audrey’s Dance” (complete with her original Badalamenti theme — we’ve got a theme going here tonight), you figure something’s gotta be up. And something is up. Specifically, this :

That’s one hell of a cliffhanger, ain’t it, though? Has everything she’s been seeing, doing — or, more accurately, not doing — these past few weeks been entirely in her head? Is she institutionalized? Is the man we know as “Charlie” possibly her doctor or something?  Again, only questions, no answers. I kinda figured the Renaud family couldn’t afford to pay Eddie Vedder to play their dive bar, though. They already blew their live music budget on “the” Nine Inch Nails — assuming they were ever really there themselves — oh dear God I’m lost.

And that’s where I want to be for a good long while yet, but like it or not, we’ve got one two-hour chunk left, and that’s it. There’s a symmetry of sorts to this — the original series ended with two episodes sandwiched together as a “TV Movie Of The Week,” shoved into a scheduling “suicide slot” on a Monday night in June back when summers were strictly “rerun season,” and the new series ends with the final two parts airing back-to-back on a holiday weekend, so that seems a bit poetic — but even if the circumstances are right, the stars are aligned, and what have you, I’m still not ready to let go. If you want a few hints as to what may be in store but want to avoid actual “spoilers,” the show’s cast listing on IMDB now has final stats for how many parts everyone appears in available, and some of the folks who will be coming back are very surprising indeed — and the same is true for some of the folks who won’t be. Beyond that, I’ll say no more, because I don’t want to know any more myself. What I do know is that I’m probably not ready to be done writing about Twin Peaks after the finale airs next Sunday. What form that additional writing will take I have yet to determine, but maybe that’ll be one more answer that we finally get next week, too.

 

This Week’s “Peaks” : Part Fourteen (Spoilers Abound)

Anybody else still reeling? ‘Cuz, I mean, part fourteen of David Lynch and Mark Frost’s Twin Peaks 2017/Twin Peaks : The Return/Twin Peaks season three was one “holy shit!” moment after another —

In fact, about the only thing that wasn’t surprising to find out tonight that Lynch’s Gordon Cole has Monica Bellucci dreams — but they’re considerably “cleaner” than yours or mine would most likely be, and Ms. Bellucci even offers cryptic hints as to the very nature of dreaming itself within them. Let us, then, turn our attention away from this and toward our catalogue of shocking instances —

Holy shit! It’s one of my favorite scenes from Twin Peaks : Fire Walk With Me — the one with David Bowie’s Phillip Jeffries — and this time it comes complete with something vaguely approximating explanations! Great to see Bowie again, and he needn’t worry about appearing only in flashback — that’s all Kyle MacLachlan gets this week, too.

Holy shit! Diane (a role that Laura Dern is now just straight-up inhabiting) just told Cole, Albert Rosenfeld (Miguel Ferrer) and Tammy Preston (Chrysta Bell) that Janey-E is her sister! I didn’t see this  coming at all — in fact, I’m not even sure I buy it, to be honest. We all know she’s in cahoots with “Evil Coop” — could she just be trying to steer all of them to Las Vegas in order to meet, one would assume, their potential doom? Gotta think more about this one. Let’s check in on things in the town of Twin Peaks proper —

Holy shit! John Pirruccello’s Deputy Chad is busted! Have fun going from working in a jail to living in it, asshole! A really nice moment showing Cole and Lucy (Kimmy Robertson) speaking on the phone for the first time in 25 years is followed by the long-anticipated trek to “Jack Rabbit’s Palace” by Sheriff Frank Truman (Robert Forster) and Deputies Andy Brennan (Harry Goaz), Hawk (Michael Horse), and Bobby Briggs (Dana Ashbrook). The pleasant reminiscences Bobby is experiencing don’t last long, though, because —

Holy shit! It’s Nae Yuuki, the woman from “The Zone” in part three with her eyes sewed shut — here? On our world? And holy shit! It’s another vortex! And holy shit! Andy’s been taken into it! And holy shit! He meets Carel Strucyken, whose “real” name isn’t “The Giant,” but “The Fireman’! And holy shit he shows Andy the two Coopers! And the Woodsmen! And the being from the atomic explosion that created Bob! And — hey, wait a minute : does Andy actually know more than we do now? That would be a first.

They bring the prone, strange-sound-emitting woman to jail in order to keep her safe — Andy informs us that “she’s very important and people are trying to kill her” — and there she gets to make the acquaintance of both Deputy Chad and a gruesomely injured local drunk (Jay Aaseng) who has the annoying habit of repeating everything he hears while blood drips from his mouth. I wouldn’t blame her for wanting to high-tail it off this sorry plane of existence already.

Holy shit! James Hurley (James Marshall) works as a “rent-a-cop” minimum wage security guard! Come to think of it, this one’s not too surprising either — but the story that his youthful co-worker, Freddy (Jake Wardle) tells him certainly is. One day poor Freddy got sucked up into a vortex and met a guy called “The Fireman,” who told him to go buy a single rubber glove at a particular hardware store near his then-home in London. The glove would give him super-strength in the hand he wore it on. Then he was to fly to a town in Washington state called Twin Peaks, and there he would meet his destiny. So, hey, now he’s just waiting for that to happen, I guess — and odds are that something big’s gonna go down, because when Freddy got to Heathrow to buy his plane ticket, he found that one was already waiting for him. James finds his friend’s tale both incredible and believable in equal measure, but now it’s time to have a look at the furnace — and something awe-inspiringly creepy is just around the corner with this whole routine maintenance check, believe you me.

Next up it’s back to Grace Zabriskie’s Sarah Palmer, who’s varying up her routine by drinking at a dive bar rather than at home. A redneck MAGA dickhead approaches her and when she declines his company, he immediately lays into some trip about her being a “cunt” and a “bull dyke” and a — well, you know the routine. She tried to warn him off. She really did. But then it’s holy shit Sarah Palmer holy shit Sarah Palmer holy shit Sarah Palmer holy shit Sarah Palmer!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

“False faces” apparently run in the Palmer family — remember, Laura pulled a similar “trick” earlier this season — and one torn-out throat later, Alex Jones and Mike Cernovich have one less YouTube subscriber.  Of all the “holy shit!” moments in part fourteen, this one was, for my money, the — errrrrmmmm — “holy shittiest!” of the bunch. Like I said, still reeling.

Before things end, though, we get one more conversation at the Road House referencing this missing “Billy” character (the one Audrey Horne seems so fixated on, as well), and then J.R. Starr gets a “holy shit!” moment all for himself when he introduces Lissie to the stage and makes is abundantly clear that he’s a big fan.

Holy shit this was some good stuff.

 

 

 

This Week’s “Peaks” : Part Twelve (Spoilers Abound)

When I was a kid, I had a massive crush on Sherilyn Fenn. Or, more specifically, on her character of Audrey Horne. And who wouldn’t? She was that alluring combination of cute, calculating, and maybe even a little  crazy (although the “crazy” was downplayed significantly as the original run of Twin Peaks progressed) that whispered “I’m gonna take you down the road to hell, and you’re gonna love every minute of it.” A true femme fatale for the “Generation X” set. So, yeah, the older version of me that shambles around, half-dazed, through the world of 2017? He was extremely curious to see what David Lynch and Mark Frost were going to do with her in Twin Peaks 2017/Twin Peaks:The Return/Twin Peaks season three — and, fully 2/3 of the way through, we finally have our answer.

We know all (or some) about her kid already, of course — Richard’s been rising holy hell for some time now, and in part twelve tonight, that finally comes back to bite his grandpa Ben (Richard Beymer — who seems to have cooled off his percolating “office romance” with Ahsley Judd a bit and gets a genuinely nice extended scene with Robert Forster’s Sheriff Frank Truman) in the ass. If Audrey knows about any of this, though, she seems completely unperturbed by it, and is far more concerned with the recent disappearance of a guy that she’s been stepping out on her perpetually-tired, workaholic husband (played by Clark Middleton) with. This appears to be an unconventional marriage, to put it mildly — the word “contract” is mentioned more than once — and, as such,  it makes for plenty of old-school “prime time soap” intrigue, but to have this all dropped on us this late in the game? Well, let’s just say I’m waiting to see how successfully Lynch and Frost are going to shoe-horn yet another subplot into the mix here on top of everything else (or maybe that should be subplots, plural, because at the tail end of part twelve we meet three new characters altogether and who they are and what they have to do with anything is anyone’s guess at this point).

Anyway, while Audrey’s long-awaited return may have been a highlight for me personally, there were plenty of other developments that merit a mention : Gordon Cole (Lynch) and Albert Rosenfield (Miguel Ferrer) officially induct Tammy Preston (Chrysta Bell) into the brotherhood — or maybe that should now be brother/sisterhood — of the Blue Rose (and we get our fullest explanation beyond the printed page of Frost’s “novel” as to what the Blue Rose is all about); Cole makes time with an exotic and alluring French mystery woman who sure knows how to take her time making an exit; Dr. Amp/Jacoby (Russ Tamblyn) continues his love-affair-via-the-airwaves with Nadine Hurley (Wendy Robie), whether he knows it or not; Harry Dean Stanton further reveals himself to be the guardian angel of Fat Trout Trailer Park, and perhaps of this entire series; Tim Roth and Jennifer Jason Leigh pop back into the picture to perform a sniper-rifle “hit” on poor Warden Murphy; Dougie (Kyle MacLachlan) and “his” boy, Sonny Jim (Pierce Gagnon) play a decidedly one-way game of catch in the backyard; Laura Dern’s Diane is discovered to be a double-dealer by Albert and cryptically exclaims “Let’s Rock” when officially deputized back into the FBI fold; Jerry Horne (David Patrick Kelly) finally makes it down off the mountain — plenty to mull over, indeed.

Tonight’s show-stealer, though, has gotta be Grace Zabriskie as the long-suffering Sarah Palmer. The years have been every bit as hard on her as one would expect given the compound tragedy that befell her family a quarter-century ago, and her breakdown at a grocery store checkout lane is downright painful to watch. There are even hints dropped that the Black Lodge hasn’t had the decency to leave her alone yet — her ceiling fan is still doing “that thing” (whatever it is), she talks as if there’s another entity taking up residence within her body and mind, and Deputy Hawk (Michael Horse) hears inexplicable noises in her kitchen when he drops by to check on her well-being (or lack thereof). She’s doing her best to hold it together — but is anyone’s “best” good enough under such circumstances?

Zabriskie’s acting is straight-up dynamite in this segment (who are we kidding? It always is), every raw nerve and strained-beyond-the-breaking-point thread on full display in a gripping and altogether unforgettable tour-de-force right up there with the best we’ve seen in this series. It’s not easy stuff to watch, by any means — but it’s downright impossible to look away from.

Wrap it all up with a return appearance from Chromatics at the Roadhouse and we’ve got yet another ridiculously compelling installment of the darkest and most irresistible siren call to ever play out on American TV screens under our collective belt. With six parts to go, the prospect of all of our myriad questions being answered seems remote, indeed, but I’m not really sure that’s the point — giving us a map and a methodology by which to find the answers ourselves (even if it takes another 25 years) is what Lynch and Frost are building towards, and in that respect, they’re succeding in a manner that’s equal parts harrowing and beautiful.

 

This Week’s “Peaks” : Part Eleven (Spoilers Abound)

The first ten minutes (or thereabouts) of part elven of David Lynch and Mark Frost’s Twin Peaks 2017/Twin Peaks : The Return/Twin Peaks season three were all about what I thought was going to happen : I thought that at least one of the kids out playing catch at the beginning, who make a very grisly discover indeed, was going to get hit by a speeding car coming out of nowhere; when the domestic drama that Amanda Seyfried’s Becky is currently (or maybe that should be always) enduring finally reaches a boiling point that sees her long-suffering mother, Shelly (played by Madchen Amick) going for a ride on the hood of her own vehicle, I thought something far worse than a skinned knee was going to happen to her when she was finally thrown from it; when Becky bursts into the motel where she thinks her  two-timing old man is to be found, I was absolutely sure that somebody was gonna get shot — maybe even several somebodies.

But no, the timely intervention of Harry Dean Stanton’s Carl (wait until you see how he hails a ride into town) and the wise advice of busybody Norma Jennings (Peggy Lipton) saw to it that disaster was averted — with no small assist coming from Deputy Bobby Briggs (Dana Ahsbrook), who really is our central figure of audience identification (as well as, officially, Becky’s dad — although I can’t see how that would come as a surprise to anyone) for what part eleven is all about, a point to which we will return momentarily.

First, though, it has to be said — some bad shit really does go down, it goes down in Buckhorn, South Dakota, and Matthew Lillard’s luckless high-school-principal-turned-paranormal-blogger Bill Hastings is on the business end of it. Our fivesome of Feds and their friends (Lynch’s Gordon Cole, Miguel Ferrer’s Albert Rosenfield, Chrysta Bell’s Tammy Preston, Laura Dern’s Diane Evans, and Brent Briscoe’s Detective Dave Mackley) have — uhhhmmm — “escorted” the hapless Mr. Hastings back to the scene of his supposed “crime,” only to discover a vortex portal to the Black Lodge, an uncharacteristically overweight (but characteristically ethereal) Woodsman, and the dead, headless body (I’m sorry, but Lynch’s “she’s dead” line is fucking priceless) of the woman he supposedly killed. Within moments, though, the aforementioned Woodsman sees to it that Hastings himself joins his former paramour on “the other side,” and his method of dispatch is — well, let’s just call it grisly in the extreme, shall we? Poor Bill — but then, we’ve been saying that about him from the outset.

Other stuff happens, too, and plenty of it — Dougie (Kyle MacLachlan)’s Mr. Bean routine and timely purchase of a cherry pie (a “damn good” one, at that) save his ass yet again after his boss, Bushnell Mullins (Don Murray) unknowingly sets him up for a date with death at the hands of Robert Knepper and Jim Belushi’s brothers Mitchum; Amy Shiels keeps on just plain killing it as Candy; Catherine E. Coulson’s Log Lady helps guide Michael Horse’s Deputy Hawk though an ancient Indian map that he, in turn, guides Robert Forster’s Sheriff Frank Truman through; Lynch gets to talk about “the policeman’s dream” (you’re looking at it in the photo above) — but while all that definitely matters, I really do want to get back to Bobby.

He’s obviously a guy who’s learned from his past mistakes. Once a low-level drug dealer and Ben Horne’s lackey, he’s now in the business of busting his former friends as a duly sworn officer of the law. Previous installments have shown the deep sense of regret with which he views his less-than-glorious past, and we also get more than an inkling that there was much he wanted to say to his father before the Major’s his untimely demise. He’s done his level best to perform what we’d call a radical course correction on his life — and for that reason, it rips his heart out to see that his ex-wife is still running around with stereotypical “bad boys” (specifically Balthazar Getty’s Red, as we learn tonight), and that his daughter seems to have a lot more of her mom in her than she does of him. Bad habits being passed down from generation to generation are never a pleasant thing to see play out before one’s own eyes, and how much of that comes down to nature vs. how much of it comes down to nurture is the central question Lynch and Frost are asking in this segment — a point driven home when what first appears to be a (yes, you’re reading this correctly) drive-by shooting at the Double R turns out to be the accidental discharge of a carelessly-placed firearm from a vehicle stopped at a red light outside. Bobby quickly goes into heroic deputy mode, only to find that the kid who may have been handling the gun is wearing the same redneck-ass camouflage hunting garb — and has the same flat, distant, emotional affect — as his idiot, peckerwood, MAGA father. Are we then, in fact, doomed to become carbon-copy clones of our parents — or are they doing their level best to ensure that’s all we become, because it’s all that they themselves know how to teach us?

The incessant honking of a car horn and a child with a grotesque mystery illness stomp all over this reverie before we (and Bobby) have too much time to ponder it, but the question lingers in the back of the mind long after the credits (accompanied this time out by a piano-playing Vegas lounge lizard) roll, and it’s among the most profound — and perhaps ultimately impossible to answer — that Lynch and Frost have asked in this series to date.

 

This Week’s “Peaks” : Part Nine (Spoilers Abound)

Can you ever really go back home again?

Two weeks ago, David Lynch and Mark Frost detonated what we thought television was capable of — perhaps even what reality itself was all about, depending on who you ask — in part eight of Twin Peaks 2017/Twin Peaks : The Return/Twin Peaks season three with as much undeniable and unalterable (fuck, is that a word?) force as the atomic explosion they took us so deeply into the heart of. I was bummed we didn’t get a new segment last week, but actually appreciated having the extra time to process all we had witnessed, and now the question becomes one of whether or not you can put the genie back in the bottle. We don’t want or need every part to have the sheer nuclear impact of that last one, of course — much of its power lies in its singularity — but now that we’ve seen the “other side,” so to speak, what’s to be made of this one?

As luck — or, okay, fair enough, Lynch’s skill — would have it, quite a lot, thankfully, for while part nine is punctuated throughout with any number of small and slow “character moments” of the sort to which we’re becoming accustomed to, if not outright spoiled by (Lynch’s Gordon Cole longingly eyeing the cigarette being enjoyed by Laura Dern’s Diane Evans being a particular favorite), we’re also treated to so much sheer plot progression (executed with a kind of quiet grace that only looks and feels laconic while actually bearing down with the force of a goddamn locomotive) that, once again, a couple of viewings, at the least, are going to be necessary in order to take it all in.

In short order, then : Evil Coop (portrayed, as ever, by soon-to-be-Emmy-winner-if-there’s-any-justice-in-this-world Kyle MacLachlan) is up and running again and makes his way to “The Farm,” where we meet Tim Roth for the first time and Jennifer Jason Leigh for the second. He’s got business that needs attending to with Duncan Todd (Patrick Fischler) back at the Silver Mustang Casino in Vegas, so we’ll see what that’s all about, and speaking of Sin City, Dougie (MacLachlan again) and Janey-E Jones (Naomi Watts) are still in the process of being cut loose from police questioning after Dougie’s attempted assassination at the hands of the diminutive Ike “The Spike” (Christophe Zajac-Denek). There’s some terrific interaction between Dougie’s boss, Bushnell Mullins (Don Murray) and the trio of Detectives Fusco (David Koechner, Eric Edelstein, and Larry Clarke), and not too long after they, and the rest of Las Vegas Metro, get to play heroes by finally bringing Ike to justice in a fleabag North Strip (by the look of it) motel room.

Concurrent with all this, Cole, Agents Tammy Preston (Chrysta Bell) and Albert Rosenfield (Miguel Ferrer), along with Diane and Cole, find their return flight to Philadelphia interrupted by a spur-of-the-moment course change to, no shock here, Buckhorn, South Dakota, where we learn that mild-mannered high school principal Bill Hastings (Matthew Lillard) , still under lock, key, and the watchful eyes of Detective Dave Macklay (Brent Briscoe) and the Pentagon’s Lt. Knox (Adele Rene) is actually a blogger (poor sap) with a keen interest in what he calls “The Zone,” which seems to be shorthand for the “world between worlds” that we’ve explored in parts three and eight. He knows Major Garland Briggs — hell, he’s met the man — and what that all means is surely going to be one of the key mysteries explored in the nine short weeks we have left with this, the most remarkable piece of work ever crafted for American television screens, but for now it looks very much like Lynch and Frost have pulled another of their trademark “you didn’t think this shit was connected, but check this out!” twists, and I’ll bet you anything that the glass box in New York ties right into this particular plot thread, as well.

Meanwhile, in the town of Twin Peaks proper, while Lucy (Kimmy Robertson) and Andy (Harry Goaz) shop for furniture online, Sheriff Frank Truman (Robert Forster), Deputy Hawk (Michael Horse) and Deputy (it still sounds weird to say this) Bobby Briggs (Dana Ashbrook) are bestowed with a gift from the aforementioned late (any way you slice it) Major, and when they’re given both it and as much of an explanation as she can muster from Bobby’s mom, Betty (Charlotte Stewart), we witness arguably the most powerful and affecting performance we’ve seen in this series so far, with the possible exception of Catherine E. Coulson’s as-brief-as-it-was-brave reprisal of her role as the Log Lady. Stewart’s straight-up incredible in her few moments of screen time here, Lynch directs the scene with superb humanistic understatement that really allows her to shine, and when she breaks her soliloquy with “should we have that coffee now?,” well — everyone feels both relieved and, somehow, not to sound too grandiose, transported. It’s beautiful stuff, and manages to outdo even Lillard’s harrowing breakdown under questioning that comes later in the epis — shit, there I go again, part.

Oh, and while all that’s going, Ben Horne (Richard Beymer) and his assistant, Beverly (Ashley Judd) still can’t find the source of the mysterious “hum” in the corner of her office (but its power definitely seems to be drawing them inexorably closer together), and brother Jerry (David Patrick Kelly) is just plain out of his gourd on weed that absolutely has to be laced with something stronger. After all, I’ve been pretty damn high in my time, but I’ve never had my foot talk to me, much less tell me it wasn’t my foot at all.

Further questions abound (why is Johnny Horne running head-first into a wall? Who are the two — sorry to use the term, but — meth skanks hanging out in the Roadhouse at the end?), but between the transcendent moments from Stewart and Lillard and the usual beyond-stong work from MacLachlan, Dern, and company, it has to be said that Lynch did the one thing he could, indeed the one thing he absolutely needed to do, in order to get all of our heads “back in the game” this week : trusted his cast to hit it out of the park. And they did.

So, to return to our question from the outset : can you ever really go home again? It seems you can. Our eyes are open wider, the scope of our vision expanded, our expectations amped up to a degree that no TV show has ever even attempted, much less actually been able, to follow through on, but yes. This is familiar territory. We know the world of Twin Peaks as well as we ever have.

Which is to say, of course, not at all.

 

This Week’s “Peaks” : Part Seven (Spoilers Abound)

Right off the top of my head : what’s Andy doing wearing a Rolex?

Oh, sure, there are many larger and more important things to ponder after watching part seven of Daid Lynch and Mark Frost’s Twin Peaks 2017/Twin Peaks : The Return/Twin Peaks season three than Harry Goaz’ timepiece, but when you see a small-town deputy who probably earns 40 grand a year if he’s lucky riding around with $10,000 on his wrist, it sticks out.

Although, in fairness, so does the following : Laura Dern’s Diane telling everyone she comes into contact with “fuck you” at least once (and is it just me or does she have a special level of enmity for Chrysta Bell’s Tammy Preston?); Jerry Horne (David Patrick Kelly) getting so stoned he can’t find his car; Janey-E (Naomi Watts) dealing with the cops every bit as effectively as she dealt with the crooks last week; Tom Sizemore going from a threating manner of lurking to a sulking one; Albert Rosenfield (Miguel Ferrer) getting one up on his boss, Gordon Cole (Lynch) by making him say “please”; that mysterious figure from the Buckhorn, South Dakota jail cell waaaaaayyy back in week one graduating to the role of the “Man Behind Winkie’s” figure from Mulholland Drive; Ernie Hudson making a return appearance as the mystery surrounding the dead body of probably-Major-Garland-Briggs deepens; the “lost” pages of Laura Palmer’s diary that Deputy Hawk (Michael Horse) found in part six directly quoting Heather Graham’s lines from Twin Peaks : Fire Walk With Me; the diminutive assassin we met seven short days ago coming after Dougie/Coop (Kyle MacLachlan) with a gun and being dealt with pretty easily (and, it’s gotta be said, roughly) thanks to some timely intervention from the “evolved” Arm; Walter Olkewicz playing yet another member of the apparently-endless Renault clan — I could go on like this for some time, because this episode was packed to the goddamn rafters.

Instead, I’d like to take a minute to talk about some of the truly sublime moments on offer tonight : the Skype call between Sheriff Frank Truman (Robert Forster) and Doc Hayward (the late Warren Frost); Ben Horne (Richard Beymer) obviously plotting when he’s going to make his move on his new assistant, Beverly (Ashely Judd, who you knew we would be seeing more of — and we might even be seeing more than that, given that she’s hiding a few secrets of her own); some poor schmuck sweeping the floor at the Roadhouse for nearly two minutes while “Green Onions” plays overhead; Lynch himself getting the first “damn good cup of coffee” line of the series; Norma (Peggy Lipton) holding court at the Double R as the end credits roll. If Twin Peaks fandom could send a video love letter to itself, would it look much different than any of that? Are scenes like this not exactly what we’d all been hoping for — only maybe with Michael Ontkean in there somewhere?

The best thing about it all, though, is that we’re getting so much more than just a rose-tinted serving of nostalgia with this new series — instances like those just quickly catalogued are lovely, to be sure, but they’re the heart of the show, not the backbone. The backbone is the dirt “Evil Coop” is holding over the warden that’s juicy enough to get him sprung; the fourth, still-missing, page from Laura’s diary; the investigative legwork going on in Twin Peaks, Buckhorn, and Washington, D.C.; the “spiritual finger”; the house in Argentina now owned by, literally, a girl from Ipanema; “It wasn’t Bob — I know who it was.”

The questions, the mysteries, the unknown and perhaps unknowable — that’s what Twin Peaks has always been about, and still is. More than ever, I’d venture to say. And for this viewer, at any rate, one of those big mysteries is still what the hell Andy is doing with such a fancy watch.

 

This Week’s “Peaks” : Part Six (Spoilers Abound)

There are those who claim that in today’s visually-saturated, sonically-bombarded, information-overloaded world, good, old-fashioned words have lost not only, in many cases, their meaning, but also their power — and yet, with nothing more than one word, David Lynch and Mark Frost stopped Twin Peaks fandom as a whole dead in its tracks tonight.

That word? “Diane.”

And here’s the damndest thing of all : it wasn’t uttered into a micro-cassette recorder by Kyle MacLachlan’s Dale Cooper, it came from the mouth of Miguel Ferrer’s Albert Rosenfied, and it was addressed to an actual, living, breathing human being — specifically, Laura Dern. But now we know. Now we know who Coop was talking to for all those years, and all those years ago. And something tells me — and I’m telling you in turn — that’s going to have big repercussions.

Oh, and other things happened in part six of Twin Peaks 2017/Twin Peaks : The Return/ Twin Peaks season three, as well — in fact, it was an uncharacteristically brisk, dense, and harrowing segment, punctuated by the unspeakable tragedy of a child mowed down by a speeding truck and the hyper-violent outburst of a maniacal contract-killer midget. It re-introduced beloved figures like Carl from the Fat Trout Trailer Park (Harry Dean Stanton only gets more awesome with each passing year, doesn’t he?), dropped Patrick Fischler and Tom Sizemore back into the mix for no apparent (as yet) reason, shed an all-too-human light on the nature of the relationship between Sheriff Frank Truman (Robert Forster) and his wife, Doris (Candy Clark) that perfectly explains both of their demeanors, offered up a genuinely touching moment between Dougie/Dale and his boy, Sonny Jim (Pierce Gagnon), showcased Deputy Hawk (Michaeal Horse) doing his best detective work to date, took a minute to breathe a bit more character depth into Shelly Johnson (Madchen Amick), proved that Norma must offer way better wages and benefits than the average cafe owner since the Double R has apparently kept the exact same staff in place for 25 years, and gave Naomi Watts’ Janey-E Jones a hitehrto-undisclosed backbone that was definitely worth the price of admission alone. Yup, a whole lot went down tonight — and in the best Twin Peaks fashion, not all of it was entirely explicable.

Take, for isntance, Dougie’s idiot-savant abilities manifesting themselves in the form of child-like scrawling all over his “case files.” I couldn’t make head or tail of any of it, but it sure seemed to impress the hell out of his boss. And where Harry Dean Stanton (who gets the best line of the night with “I’ve been smoking for 75 years — every fuckin’ day”) goes, mysterious power lines seem to follow, as the departure of the dead child’s soul/spirit/essence into the electrical grid perfectly recalls a similar “cut-away” shot from Carl in Twin Peaks : Fire Walk With Me. And I’m thinking those numbers on the telephone pole probably mean something, too.

And since we’re on the subject of speculation, I think this is as good a point as any for me to officially advance a theory I first floated on facebook a few days back : Eamon Farren’s drug-fueled psychopath? Who can now add “kid-killer” to his resume? The minute I heard he was part of the Horne clan, it hit me : he’s the child of Audrey and “Evil Coop.” And he’s got a lot of his daddy in him. Come on — you know it makes sense.

Fuck me, but there’s a lot to process after this one, isn’t there? We’re officially 1/3 of the way through at this point, and the only thing I can say I know with absolute, lead-pipe-cinch certainty is that John Pirruccello’s Deputy Chad is the biggest d-bag on the planet — but in my experience, that’s almost always the case with grown men named “Chad,” anyway.

At any rate, his is not the name we’re going to keep coming back to again and again as we re-play this episode — sorry, “part” — through our minds, is it? Nope. We finally know who you are, Diane — now, who are you?