TWIN PEAKS, Episode 7: Here Comes Mom with Milk and Cookies

Episode 7, aka “The Last Evening” – Season 1, Episode 7, Story 8 – Written by Mark Frost – Original Broadcast: May 23, 1990 – Agent Cooper closes the net on Jacques Renault. Jacques spills all kinds of beans. Leo burns down the Mill. Audrey finds out her dad owns One Eyed Jacks. Leland kills Jacques. Agent Cooper gets shot.

Hey, look, James and Donna do something useful!

Well, sort of. At Jacoby’s office, Donna discovers his fake coconut, and inside the coconut is the other half of Laura’s love pendant that she gave to James, as well as the missing audio tape from Laura’s secret stash. It’s not a huge revelation since we heard Jacoby listening to it earlier in the season but it’s important for James to hear that Laura thinks he’s sweet and dumb, and it establishes the presence and danger of the “mystery man” that Laura admits could kill her. It also brings to a conclusion (or a semi-conclusion, at least) the only really tedious plot in TWIN PEAKS: James and Donna’s ill-conceived “we knew Laura better than anyone” routine.

For James and Donna to truly be effective characters in an effective plot, I think they needed to be confronted with the very worst of Laura and they just never come face-to-face with this reality. Even after listening to the tape, they’re still only touching the edges of Laura’s wickedness. What do they learn that’s actually new? That Laura thought James was sweet but dumb? James is the guy who told his uncle Ed that Laura was “the one” a few short hours before making out with Donna in the woods and like a day or two before going over to Donna’s house for dinner with her folks. Did they learn that Laura was in to rough sex? Okay, that’s probably new but doesn’t exactly register as earth shattering news. Did they learn that Laura thought someone had maybe tried to kill her? Well, I mean, she’s dead, so no kidding. We can give them credit for finding the other half of Laura and James’ heart necklace, but that doesn’t force them to confront Laura’s darker nature.

For James and Donna’s subplot to have been worth it, I think we needed to see them discover something like Laura’s advertisement in Flesh World, or uncover that it was Laura who wanted Bobby to sell drugs, or that she was working at One Eyed Jacks. They needed to be confronted with the very worst of Laura, and then have to ask themselves whether they wanted to protect Laura’s memory or find her killer.

Watching the James and Donna relationship/investigation plot sputter like it has makes me wonder if Lynch and Frost had intended these characters to play a larger role in the show, but then changed their minds mid-stream when they realized there were other secondary characters (Audrey, Shelly, Dr. Jacoby) who emerged as more interesting options in the writing and filming stages of production.

By the end of this final episode of Season 1, Donna has been pushed to the side and James is confronted by an angry Cooper and a disappointed Harry. Bobby pretends to be Leo and phones the police station to tell them James has drugs in the tank of his bike. James arrives at the station to hand over Laura’s cassette tape and Cooper tells him in plain terms that he’s been too easy on James and he’s going to start expecting more of the young man. As he’s saying this, Harry comes in with the planted cocaine, and James looks very much the pretend tough guy he is; for me, this scene has the feel of an abrupt turn, as if the writers decided they needed to do something different with James and decided it was going to start right now.

I always remember James and Donna as being more integral to this show than they actually are, and I think they’re the one real misstep in David Lynch and Mark Frost’s plan for season one. They’re borderline parodies, akin to something like a romance comic come to life, and for all of their self-induced pathos, they really add very little to the show.

Episode 7 marks the end of the first season of TWIN PEAKS and David Lynch and Mark Frost do their best to let some plot threads come to a conclusion, while launching others in their place.

The center of the episode is the capture of Jacques Renault (played by Walter Olkewicz, who was on Wizards and Warriors, a show I remember fondly, even though I don’t remember much of it – I just remember liking it when I was a kid). As last episode ended, Cooper was playing blackjack and when the dealers switched off, Jacques became Cooper’s dealer. Here, Cooper buys the French-Canadian a drink and tells him that he’s the money man behind Leo’s operation. Jacques falls for it and agrees to mule something over the border for Cooper. When he gets to the American side to make the drop, Harry and his cops arrest him. Jacques gets one of the officers’ guns, and Andy shoots him in the shoulder, saving Harry’s life.

At the hospital, Cooper and Harry interrogate Jacques and he admits that he, Leo, Ronnette, and Laura were at the cabin and that Leo let the bird out of its cage when Laura was tied up. The bird, according to Jacques, had an unnatural love thing for Laura. Lest the mystery end right here, Jacques can’t tell the cops anything about the train car because he was knocked unconscious and awoke only after they were gone. Nor can he tell them anything of the mystery man.

Unfortunately, it’s the end of the line for Jacques because Leland Palmer finally does something other than cry and dance.

He sneaks into the hospital and suffocates Jacques to death, thinking he’s killing his daughter’s killer.

It’s nice to see Leland grow and pair and take some action, and action is the name of the game in Episode 7. Elsewhere, the whole “burn the Mill down” plot actually comes to a head as Leo carries out Ben Horne’s plan – and throws in a bonus for himself by tying up Shelly in the Mill in the hopes she gets killed in the process. It’s not a very smart plan, but then, Leo isn’t a very smart guy.

The most important character in this episode in many regards is Hank. Back from prison and re-establishing his place in town, Hank spends his days playing nice with Norma and his off-work time beating up Leo and scheming with Josie. We learn that Hank went to jail for killing Josie’s husband on her orders, and now he’s banking $90,000 for going to jail and not ratting her out. He lets her know that they’re partners for life, going so far as to form a blood pact with her.

Marriage is all over Episode 7, as well. Josie had her husband killed. Ben Horne cares so little for marriage his wife is barely a character in the show. Catherine is in so much trouble she asks Pete for help, and he’s only too happy to give it. Hank pretends to be one thing to Norma and an opposite thing in reality. Leo ties Shelly up so he can burn her alive.

Clearly, the message of TWIN PEAKS is that marriage is something sacred that we should all rush into because it promises nothing but happiness.

With some of these plots coming to an end – or at least some kind of resolution – new mysteries are laid out, including the mystery man that Laura mentions, the masked attacker that puts Jacoby in the hospital, and the identity of the person who shoots Cooper.

Oh, yeah, Cooper gets shot. Did I mention that?

And I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Audrey Horne all dolled up at One Eyed Jacks. It’s her first night on the job and she’s stuck waiting in a bedroom to spend some time with the club’s owner, because Blackie tells her the owner likes to spend time with all the new girls. So she waits and waits and waits, even though she’s seen Cooper out in the casino on a security camera, and as the episode nears it’s conclusion, the owner enters her room …

And it’s her dad.

But we’ll have to wait until next season for that conflict to come to a head.

All told, Episode 7 delivers plenty of action, plenty of folks getting shot (Jacques, Leo, Cooper), and plenty of new, or altered, mysteries. It’s a fitting end to a fantastic first season.

Previous TWIN PEAKS reactions: Pilot. Episode 1. Episode 2. Episode 3. Episode 4. Episode 5. Episode 6.

TWIN PEAKS, Episode 6: I Went to Reno Once, But I Never Felt Too Lucky

Episode 6, aka “Realization Time” – Season 1, Episode 6, Story 7 – Written by Harley Peyton – Original Broadcast: May 17, 1990 – Agent Cooper does not take advantage of Audrey. Maddy pretends to be Laura. Leo kills the bird. Catherine learns Benjamin and Josie are scheming her. Cooper and Big Ed go undercover at One Eyed Jacks. Audrey ties a cherry stem into a knot.

After the jam-packed, intense Episode 5, Episode 6 cools things down a bit, giving us a quirkier vibe to help lighten the mood.

The episode starts where the previous episode ends, with Agent Cooper returning to his room at the Great Northern to find a naked Audrey Horne waiting in his bed. Cooper, of course, doesn’t take advantage of the young Miss Horne, but he doesn’t deny his interest in her, either, telling her that what one wants to do isn’t the same as what one needs to do. He tells her that they can be friends, which brightens Audrey’s outlook. “I’ll get the malts and fries,” he tells her, “and you get dressed.” He agrees to listen to all her troubles, but the episode doesn’t give us this scene.

While it may be a stretch to call this a misstep, it’s certainly a shame that we don’t get to see Cooper and Audrey sitting and chatting, because I could listen to them chat for an hour without complaint. The malts and fries would have made it an irresistible ode to Lynch’s 1950s.

At the police station, they’ve got Jacques’ bird (a myna, I believe). It won’t say anything because it’s hungry and thirsty and maybe a little freaked out. Cooper sets up his tape recorder and they leave for other duties. The bird eventually starts to talk, but Leo shows up and shoots the poor guy through the window, its blood dripping down onto Lucy’s carefully arranged table of doughnuts. The killing of the bird is awful (who wants to see a caged bird shot?) but it’s a wonderful TWIN PEAKS moment. Harry uncovered the bird at Jacques’ cabin, Hawk discovered an undeveloped picture in the camera which turns out to be the bird on Laura’s shoulder (explaining the animal scratches), and now Cooper leaves his tape recorder, set to activate when it hears a sound, in the room so they can continue investigating.

In another part of town, Leo has his rifle trained on his house, ready to kill Bobby for screwing his wife (Shelly shot him in the arm). While he’s preparing his murder, he’s also listening to the police scanner behind him, and when he hears Lucy mention the bird, he immediately drops all thoughts of revenge to go after the bird. Now, this is kinda funny since Leo was about to kill Bobby with that rifle. Read that again. What could the bird know that comes with a worse penalty than whatever Washington state gets for murder? (Washington state had the death penalty in 1989, unless the Never Wrong is lying to us.) But maybe hearing that the bird is in cop custody knocks some sense into Leo and he realizes killing Bobby is not in his best long-term interests since, well, you know, having your death officially sanctioned by the state and all. After Leo (we know it’s him, but the cops don’t) shoots the bird, Cooper listens to the tape recorder and hears the bird mimicking Laura’s voice: “Hurting me,” it says. “Hurting me.”

It’s a wonderful display of both the show’s commitment to their oddity (it’s not just there to be odd, but there as an integral part of the plot), as well as the teamwork that takes place between the cops. That teamwork is all over Episode 6. Cooper wants to investigate One Eyed Jacks, but Harry tells him it’s out of their jurisdiction, so Cooper suggests it’s a mission for the Bookhouse Boys. Later still, Harry tells Cooper that Josie is worried that Catherine and Ben are going to try and burn down the mill and kill her in the process. Cooper wants to know how well Harry knows her, which Harry bristles at, and wants to know what Cooper’s doing. “My job,” Cooper replies, but when Harry tells Cooper that he loves Josie, Cooper’s response is a very non-professional, “Good enough for me. Let’s look into it,” which relieves Harry.

It’s the personal imposing on the professional. Cooper is here to investigate Laura’s death and almost nothing in his investigation has pointed towards the mill. (Josie was one of the “J” suspects, at first, but was quickly dismissed as an actual suspect.) Further, there’s nothing about this arson/murder possibility that points to Laura’s death. Harry doesn’t need Cooper’s permission to check into Josie’s suspicions, but he could certainly use the help, which Cooper is glad to give.

There’s an extended plot in Episode 6 involving Maddy helping James and Donna do their own investigation into Laura’s death. They get Maddy dress up like Laura so they can convince Dr. Jacoby that Laura is still alive. Then they get her to call the shrink in the hopes of luring him out of his office, so they can break in and look for a missing audio tape Laura made for him. (This is what was hidden in Laura’s room – a box of tapes.) For reasons known only to James and Donna, they keep Maddy in her Laura costume after they leave her behind to go ransack Jacoby’s office.

Oh, and they leave her behind.

Dressed as Laura.

Outside at a pay phone.

What makes this moment bearable is that Jacoby isn’t an idiot, so when “Laura” tells him to meet her at an intersection, he re-watches the video tape they sent him and notices the gazebo in the background, so instead of taking off for where “Laura” wants him to go, he sets off to find her. Also, when James and Donna head into Jacoby’s, Bobby loads some drugs into James’ bike.

I think I’m kinda rooting for Bobby in that regard.

I’m also rooting for Bobby in his quest to help Shelly get out from under Leo’s abusive control, though it’s to TWIN PEAKS’ credit that he can both set out to blackmail the least interesting character in the film and save a woman from domestic violence, and still be a complete dick. And all this after last episode, when he actually seemed sympathetic while in therapy with Jacoby.

Unfortunately, James and Donna’s search of Jacoby’s office, Jacoby’s hunt for “Laura,” Bobby’s framing of James, and the revelation of whomever the creep staring at “Laura” from the woods might be all has to wait for another episode to play out.

The episode leads us to One Eyed Jacks. Cooper and Ed go undercover as “Barney and Fred” and Blackie (OEJ’s madam) tells Ed he looks like a cop, to which Cooper replies, “I’m the cop” and Ed engages in some really cheesy pick-up lines that win Blackie over. Cooper plays some blackjack and when the dealer changes, he finally comes face-to-face with Jacques Renault, though we’ll have to wait until next episode for that to play out.

The same goes for Audrey. She’s also trying to infiltrate One Eyed Jacks. She spies on a co-worker who’s being recruited by their boss for “hostess” duties, and bluffs her way into an interview with Blackie. It’s a great scene between the “seen-it-all” madam and the “trying-to-be-mature” high school girl. Audrey lists her name as “Hester Prynne” on her application, and Blackie sees right through it. “Give me one reason why I shouldn’t toss you out?” the madam asks. Audrey’s response? She takes the maraschino cherry out of Blackie’s drink, pops the stem in her mouth, and ties it into a knot.

Good enough for Blackie.

Good enough for me.

(Although, since I can do the knot-tying trick, too, maybe it’s not as impressive as the episode makes it look.)

Episode 6 is more set-up than pay-off, but then, there’s only one episode left in Season One, so it’s not surprising. It also does a good job of setting up all kinds of plots to be resolved (in one degree or another) in the season-ender.

Previous TWIN PEAKS reactions: Pilot. Episode 1. Episode 2. Episode 3. Episode 4. Episode 5.

TWIN PEAKS, Episode 5: People Try to be Good but They’re Really Sick and Rotten

Episode 5, aka “Cooper’s Dreams” – Season 1, Episode 5, Story 6 – Written by Mark Frost – Original Broadcast: May 10, 1990 – Audrey lets Agent Cooper know she’s 18. Bobby cries in session with Dr. Jacoby. The Log Lad speaks for her log. Agent Cooper and the local cops find Jacques Renault’s cabin in the woods. Shelly shoots Leo. Maybe.

Episode 5 stops playing around with Laura’s private vs. public persona. In case there was any doubt that Laura was into bad things with bad people, this episode clears that up for you. More importantly, Episode 5 also firmly recasts Laura as primarily being her private persona, and extends that private persona away from just being about this nice girl who happens to be into some bad things, and into an actual bad person who likes to control and manipulate.

While not forgetting that Laura has been the victim of a terrible crime, it’s no longer possible to consider her a victim in totality. She was an active agent in her descent into Bad Things, and her murder is now seen as the unfortunate, but inevitable outcome of a girl with dark secrets to spare.

The centerpiece of this shift comes in a devastating scene between Dr. Jacoby and Bobby Briggs. Bobby is there for family counseling with his mom and the Major. The session is going nowhere. The rigid Major sits in the middle. His passive, speak-about-no-evil-and-it-doesn’t-exist wife is on his left on the couch, and the-world-is-stupid Bobby is lounging on his left. Jacoby can’t break through to them, so he asks to speak with Bobby alone. The Major doesn’t want to do this, as it’s “family counseling,” but Jacoby assures him they’ll all get some private time. When the Major and his wife leave, Jacoby gets right to the point, quizzing Bobby on Laura.

“What happened the first time you and Laura made love?” Jacoby asks, putting the psychological screws to the high school student. “Did you cry? And what did Laura do? Did she laugh at you, Bobby?” This is obviously what happened, and Jacoby knows this from his sessions with Laura. It’s a fantastically manipulative moment and it gets through to Bobby, affecting him as nothing else in the series has, so far.

“Laura wanted to die,” Bobby tells him after Jacoby has started to break him down.

“Did she tell you there was no goodness in the world?” Jacoby asks, pressing Bobby hard.

“She said people try to be good,” Bobby says, emotions pouring out of him, “but they’re really sick and rotten. Her most of all.”

Jacoby then becomes the fulcrum for the shifting perception of Laura, pushing Bobby even further, wanting him to confirm that Laura preys on people’s weaknesses and got them to do things for her. He wants to know if Bobby thought she had an awful secret that caused her to “consciously try to find people’s weaknesses and prey on them, tempt them, break them down and make them do terrible, degrading things? Laura wanted to degrade people.” Bobby, now in full-on cry mode, admits that Laura wanted him to sell drugs so she could have them.

It’s a brilliantly executed scene. At first, I was rooting for Jacoby to tear Bobby apart because Bobby is such a constant dick, but by the end I actually started to feel sorry for him, which was something I was pretty sure was impossible. If helping Shelly get rid of her abusive husband wasn’t winning me over to his side, I didn’t think anything would.

The best part of the this episode, however, is the continued growth of Audrey Horne. Whereas most characters in TWIN PEAKS are interesting because we’re seeing layers of their personality and history revealed, Audrey is one of the very few characters who are interesting because they’re growing. Serving as the backbone of this episode, Audrey starts her day with her typical doe-eyed visit to Agent Cooper’s table for breakfast. She wants to tell him that she’s taken a job at her father’s department store (where Laura and Ronnette both worked) and that she can help him with his investigation, but he politely cuts her off because he’s got to get going. She offers to come with him to help.

“Wednesdays were traditionally a school day when I was your age,” he tells her, which brings out one of Audrey’s light-up-the room smiles.

Moving closer to him, she half-whispers, “I can’t believe you were ever my age,” but Coop insists he has the pictures to prove it.

They stare at one another. “How old are you, Audrey?” he asks.

“Eighteen.”

Cooper’s expression never changes, but he does assure her, “I’ll see you later, Audrey.”

When next we see Audrey, she’s interviewing with the manager of Horne’s Department Store. He tells her that her father wants her wrapping gifts, but Audrey has her heart set on that perfume counter where Laura and Ronnette worked, so she threatens the manager, telling him that he’s going to tell her father she’s doing what he wants, but he’s really going to put her on at the perfume counter. And if he doesn’t, “I’ll rip my dress and scream and tell my father you made a pass at me.” Poor Emory relents, of course. It’s fantastic acting by Sherilyn Fenn, going from doe-eyed and innocent to doe-eyed and manipulative and then back again. She’s like the most manipulative and complicated Disney princess ever.

In her third and final act of the episode, Audrey goes through another dramatic shift. Her father is throwing a party for his potential new investors and Audrey uses one of the secret passageways at the Great Northern to spy on her dad and Catherine Martell. She thinks their machinations are mostly silly (which perhaps says something about her immaturity, given that they’re discussing burning the mill down), but then when she comes out to the party, she sees Leland Palmer doing to his dancing/crying routine and she becomes completely shattered, bursting out in tears. It’s a truly heartbreaking moment taking place in the middle of this huge scene, but only Audrey recognizes it as sad because everyone else is so busy looking out for their own interests.

Audrey’s response to all of this isn’t seen until the final scene of the episode, when Agent Cooper returns to his room at the Great Northern to find his door ajar. Gun out, he enters the room to find a naked Audrey waiting in his bed, in tears and looking frightened. “Don’t make me leave,” she begs. “Please, don’t make me leave.”

And Cooper – seemingly unflappable Cooper – looks completely stunned and just a little bit frightened of a naked Audrey Horne waiting in bed for him, too.

For his part, Cooper has spent the day tracking Jacques Renault. At his apartment they find some clues related to Laura and Ronnette in an issue of Flesh World magazine. Cooper notices that the picture of Laura (which is just her body) has the same red curtains in the background as in a picture in Leo’s apartment of a log cabin in the woods. These are the same red curtains Cooper saw in his dream with the Man from Another Place.

For a show that sometimes gives the allusion of progress more than actual progress, Episode 5 truly advances the murder investigation, as Cooper, Harry, Hawk, and Dr. Hayward actually go and find that cabin – with a detour at the Log Lady’s cabin first. Her log tells them what it saw the night Laura killed – voices in the woods relating to two women and three men. They know the women were Laura and Ronnette, they know one of the men was Jacques, and surmise the other was Leo, but have no idea who the third man could be.

At Jacques’ cabin, they find a record player continuously playing (“There’s always music in the air,” Cooper recounts from his dream), yarn, blood, a camera with film in it, and a broken poker chip from One Eyed Jacks, missing the “J.”

Plenty of other plots are advanced. James and Donna continue to prove they’re walking in the liminal space between reality and the cheese ball soap opera, Invitation to Love. As annoying as they are, they do rope Laura’s cousin Maddy into helping them investigate Laura’s murder. Hank is out on parole and it’s clear the new Bad Ass is in town: he listens in on James, Donna, and Maddy’s chat about Laura possibly having some piece of mystery evidence, and he shows up at Leo’s to take the former Bad Ass apart: “I told you to mind the store,” he says after knocking him to the ground, “not open your own franchise.”

Elsewhere, Norma decides her and Ed need to take a break after Ed falters on telling Nadine he wants a divorce. They’re a tragic couple – they both clearly love each other but you can see that they’re trapped by their niceness. Norma calls Ed on it, telling him that maybe their problem is they never take what they want, that they’re always too unwilling to hurt anybody else.

And in the big plot twist of the episode, it’s revealed that Josie and Ben Horne are partners, and that he’s using Catherine instead of being in league with her.

Oh, and Shelly shoots Leo after he shoves her to ground. We don’t see the result of the shot, but we do hear Leo screaming.

Episode 5 is a darn full episode that moves the investigation forward and relies heavily on one of its best assets, the lovely and complicated Miss Horne. Television does not get any better than Episode 5.

Previous TWIN PEAKS reactions: Pilot. Episode 1. Episode 2. Episode 3. Episode 4.