Jake

Twin Peaks Rewatch 8: The Last Evening

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The problem with shows that use mystery as their central driving force (Twin PeaksLostThe X-FilesTrue DetectiveThe Killing) is that the ending is rarely satisfying to the audience. Viewers spend so much time piecing together clues and coming up with theories for the meaning of every single object on screen and are disappointed when the finale fails to live up to that obsession. So I think it's harmful to try and solve this kind of story before the episodes have run its course because either you come up with the correct solution and the ending is boring, or you come up with an insane solution and the ending is still boring. This crowdsourced sleuthing has gotten worse as the Internet has grown in popularity to the point where it feels like showrunners are purposefully filling their shots with little references and clues that they know fans will take the time to puzzle out. Twin Peaks just missed this phenomenon (or maybe it helped usher it in) and it will be interesting to see how the third season of this show is received.

 

All of this is just a really long-winded way to say that if you don't know who the killer is, don't try to figure it out before the show tells you.  

 

The murder mystery really is the least interesting aspect of the show. I know season 2 is typically derided, but I think there is so much interesting stuff that happens coming up soon!

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The murder mystery really is the least interesting aspect of the show. I know season 2 is typically derided, but I think there is so much interesting stuff that happens coming up soon!

 

If by "murder mystery" you simply mean the particularity of the whodunit I guess I can see your point (though I still very much disagree), but if you mean the investigation into Laura's life and secrets, I would very strongly argue otherwise. The various subplots all feel like tangents of that central axis. Even the mill burning plot contains several possible suspects. We get the sense from James' speech to Donna in the woods that Laura was involved in something bigger than herself and we know that she was at least somewhat close to both Ben and Josie. Laura's our ticket into town, and not just in the typical "MacGuffin" way of giving the characters narrative purpose. The Laura mystery also underscores all the themes present in the show: the idea that there is a darkness under the surface, that beauty and ugliness co-exist, that people know but avoid hard truths. She is the link between all the different characters who otherwise would just disperse into their separate corners of town and she also encapsulates a quintessentially American myth about corrupted innocence. Not to pun, but Laura Palmer is definitely the linchpin of the show. Lynch called her mystery the goose that laid the golden eggs, and I would agree with that. That said, I disagree about whether or not it was better for Twin Peaks to reveal the killer or keep that initial question open, but that's another can of worms...

 

As for season two,

I agree more interesting stuff is coming up, but almost all of it has to do with the Laura mystery. Personally, even before her arc ends I already start to disengage from the other subplots. Not only is their link to a central mystery severed (primarily, it seems, because Frost worried that Who Killed Laura Palmer? distracted viewers from the series' long-term potential) but they themselves lose a lot of tension and suspense. For example, Bobby-Shelly-Leo goes from being a potentially deadly love triangle to a sitcom-y setup. Josie's intriguing clues get increasingly tangled and wearisome and it's clear even the writers don't really get where her story is going. Audrey at One Eyed Jack's has potential but it feels lame because the sense of danger is forced: we know she'll be fine, and that Jean certainly isn't going to kill Cooper. Even all the crazy cool mythological stuff initially grows out of the Laura mystery or at least seems related to it, much like the season one subplots did. I love season two, more than season one even, but it's for the high points (which are mostly mystery-related). I do think season one is more consistent, partly because it keeps relations tight between its 3 primary elements: Cooper, the town, and Laura.

 

Just my 2 cents, obviously! Out of curiosity, though, what are the non-mystery parts of season 2 you find more interesting?

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There is a scene where Hank is trying to squeeze Josie for more money and the camera shows him  behind her, almost looking down on her. And the shot is blocked in such a way that the antlers from the deer head on the wall behind him look as if they are horns coming out of Hank's head! It is really weird and cool and I have to believe was intentional. Also, the episode doesn't explicitly say what Josie is paying $90,000 to Hank for, but it seems to imply she paid him to murder her late husband Andrew in the boating accident. And that the vagrant Hank ran over which sent him to prison in the first place was just a ruse to give him an alibi for the larger crime. Now that's dedication!

When Hank cuts Josie's thumb, she starts smearing it across her lips in a very Lynchian moment, even though I don't know to what extent Lynch was involved with this episode. Red lips is one of Lynch's little obsessions. It kind of echoes a much more disturbing scene in his film Wild At Heart where Marietta smears lipstick all over her face. It's also interesting to note  that in the original script for the Pilot, Josie was going to be an Italian woman named Giovanna, played by his girlfriend at the time, Isabella Rosselini. There was also an initial idea for her to be a potential love interest for Agent Cooper, undoubtedly creating friction betwen him and Harry, which is kind of hinted at with the line where Agent Cooper first asks Truman, "Who's the babe?" in relation to his first sight of Josie. She ended up not doing the role, and Joan Chen was cast instead (Reflections by Brad Dukes).

If you've seen NBC's Hannibal, the imagery of the antler-man has it's own whole set of implications and baggage.

 

Also, while we've discussed Josie's racial portrayal before, it's interesting to think of how different Josie's portrayal would have been with an Italian woman rather than a Chinese one. Many of the exact same scenes and even lines could have been re-used, but it's difficult to imagine that the performances would have been the same.

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Just discovered this video online and I think people here will get a kick out of it. If you've seen the season 1 finale, you can watch it because it aired in May 1990, right after the season ended:

 

 

It's a pretty amusing & informative look at how people responded to the show at the time. Lots of corny anchor jokes and early 90s hair. Also, the vice president comments on Gorbachev's interest in the series!

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LostIntheMovies - yeah I literally mean the show as a whodunit is its least interesting aspect. If the murderer was spoiled for someone in advance of seeing the show I really don't think that person is worse off. I agree that learning about Laura is extremely interesting, and I'm a big fan of Fire Walk With Me. Broadly speaking, I think of season 2 as a philosophical investigation into what is the nature of evil, and I find it extremely compelling for reasons I'm sure I'll get into more after rewatching stuff and having a fresher perspective. I think Windom Earle is like the most interesting character in the show.

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LostIntheMovies - yeah I literally mean the show as a whodunit is its least interesting aspect. If that was spoiled for someone in advance of seeing the show I really disagree that the person is worse off watching the show. Learning about Laura is extremely interesting however, and I'm a big fan of Fire Walk With Me. Broadly speaking, I think of season 2 as a philosophical investigation into what is the nature of evil, and I find it extremely compelling for reasons I'm sure I'll get into more after rewatching stuff and having a fresher perspective. I think Windom Earle is like the most interesting character in the show.

 

Ah, I see. Yeah, I'm more on board with that although I will say the whodunit has a lot of competition for least interesting haha (at least as the show goes on).

 

Hm, interesting perspective on s2 - "philosophical investigation into what the is the nature of evil." I like that, and this is increasingly how I see it too. I'm actually working on a video this week (hoping to upload it by the weekend) which dives into the mythology's roots in Theosophy (which Frost has cited as the primary influence on the whole

Lodge plot) and that "nature of evil" really is what a lot of it comes down to: the Dweller on the Threshold seems particularly key to me, though it's only mentioned once. And the really fascinating thing I'm noticing, the deeper I dig into it, is how a lot of Lynch's changes to the material - both directly in the improvised Lodge sequence of the finale and more abstractly in Fire Walk With Me's differing take on the spirit world - actually follows the same thread that Frost introduced. For example, Cooper's encounter with his doppelganger in the Lodge and Laura's showdown with Bob (and the appearance of the angel) in FWWM are actually much better depictions of the Dweller theme than what Frost, Peyton, and Engels originally planned for ep. 29. Even though by most accounts Lynch was less interested in conscious ideas than visual motifs and moods. Go figure...

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Just discovered this video online and I think people here will get a kick out of it. If you've seen the season 1 finale, you can watch it because it aired in May 1990, right after the season ended:

 

 

It's a pretty amusing & informative look at how people responded to the show at the time. Lots of corny anchor jokes and early 90s hair. Also, the vice president comments on Gorbachev's interest in the series!

 

 

WOW. All of this is incredible. They called themselves Peakies???!!???

 

People in the early 90s were so much more innocent about spectacle television.

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Just discovered this video online and I think people here will get a kick out of it. If you've seen the season 1 finale, you can watch it because it aired in May 1990, right after the season ended:

 

 

It's a pretty amusing & informative look at how people responded to the show at the time. Lots of corny anchor jokes and early 90s hair. Also, the vice president comments on Gorbachev's interest in the series!

Amazing! That was an awesome watch, if for no other reason for seeing what the show looked like when it broadcasted. It's also hilarious to see people get upset over the fact the killer wasn't revealed. You can understand their disappointment, but in hindsight, it doesn't even seem like a cliffhanger.

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Amazing! That was an awesome watch, if for no other reason for seeing what the show looked like when it broadcasted. It's also hilarious to see people get upset over the fact the killer wasn't revealed. You can understand their disappointment, but in hindsight, it doesn't even seem like a cliffhanger.

 

Also, the host's "contrast" with The Fugitive made me chuckle: "we hung in there all those seasons..." but wait, he's saying 7 episodes is too long?! It seems like the real fear people had was that they would NEVER find out the killer.

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To be fair, TV is the medium where a lot of shows can operate in an arrested development of endlessly cycling through situations without actual progress on the 'main plot' and only having significant change when forced to for ratings or something like that.

 

I don't know what the early 90's TV landscape looked like, but if TP debuted this year made by some unknown names, I could believe it would get overly drawn out.

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I'm going through the show for the first time, and I've generally assumed the killer wouldn't be someone we've seen yet. That it's some unseen evil element of the town, especially after it's alluded to that there's a darkness or something in the woods surrounding the town. But like others have said, the "whodunnit" element of the show isn't the part I'm most interested in so I haven't really dwelt on it.

 

This may be from an episode or two back, but one thing that bothered me was that after Cooper found Audrey in his bed, he said he was going to get some coffee and then she could tell him all her secrets, but they never return to that right? What did she tell him? Anything about her plans for the perfume counter or her dad's scheming? I'm curious what Cooper knows.

 

One last thought...that hunchbacked seamstress is ridiculous right? She seems pretty ridiculous.

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Surreal yes, ridiculous might not be quite accurate. There isn't any attempt to further draw attention to the seamstress in the episode other than her existing.

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Surreal yes, ridiculous might not be quite accurate. There isn't any attempt to further draw attention to the seamstress in the episode other than her existing.

 

Fun fact (thanks again, Reflections): she is also played by Lesli Linka Glatter, director of the "Cooper's Dreams" episode!

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Hey the episode's out! This is no longer pre-discussion, it's just plain old discussion now.

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In my mind, Jacques' testimony points squarely at Leo as Laura's killer. Maybe accidental (erotic asphyxiation?), maybe he got pissed as he is wont (cf Shelly), hell maybe he just wanted to. I suppose this implicates him as Cooper's serial killer hinted at in the pilot as well.

 

But none of that squares with Cooper's dream. Who the hell are Mike and Bobby and what does the one-armed man have to do with Laura? He led them to the vet and the bird, but surely there's more to "fire walk with me" than pointing Coop to the cabin and bird. Still, even Cooper seems satisfied that Leo is the killer.

 

By the way it seems clear to me that the masked figure is Leland. There was a shot of him watching Maddy leave the house last episode, implying he would follow her. I guess he stopped Jacobi from messing with her. He was at the drug deal, probably spying on Bobby as a suspect in Laura's murder. However he didn't bother with the mask in the hospital, so I don't know, maybe that means it's someone else in the mask.

 

My own theory for the one shooting Cooper is Hank. Hank's basically cleaning up the loose ends tonight, although it doesn't make perfect sense. Cooper's the most likely to uncover all this stupid Mill/Andrew Packard business, I guess? Actually maybe Ben Horne decided to take care of this one himself, perhaps after seeing Cooper and Ed at his place. This part is speculation though.

 

Anyway, I'm surprised at the negative reaction. Sure the shooting at the end was a bit cheap, but the show heavily implied Leo is the killer, and there really are no other reasonable suspects at this point. Of course, the killer is probably someone not yet introduced, which will be pretty frustrating if so. However, from a first-time viewer perspective this episode seemed pretty conclusive to me. Curious to hear any other new viewer's thoughts.

 

edited to add: Oh yeah, about Catherine not knowing who Shelly is, I liked that as well! The sign in the opening credits shows Twin Peaks has a population of 51,000 some odd (though in the show it seems much smaller). Large enough to have a busy hospital and a full high school, not to mention a decent-sized hotel. We're only seeing a very tight-knit subset of characters within this town, apparently!

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Well the thing that occurred with me regarding Jacoby is that he would wear those ridiculous black and red glasses, and it fades into a roulette board which iconically is red and black.

And the mention of Jacques' enthusiasm for all things sleazy made me realize that he is a sort of opposite of Cooper, who is notedly in possession of boundless enthusiasm towards the genuine and pure. Which puts his reaction to Jacques gross recount of the events in the cabin in an interesting perspective. He looked like he barfed a bit in his mouth.

And man, Hank's psychic phone game is off the hook. Every damn time he calls at the right time, to the right place. Is this the supernatural element I hear talk about?

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Also, regarding the deer antlers, it certainly is a charmingly guile-less technique if presented sincerely. However, my referent for it is much worse than Blues Brothers:

 

2ch9uhe.png

 

There's a stuffed owl behind him.

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RE: "He's an Easy Rider"/"Who carries drugs in a fuel tank" 

 

This has to be an intentional reference TO Easy Rider, where they carry drug money in a plastic tube in the fuel tank. Also, fun fact - Canada to California drug runs, PNW to California drug smuggling were often aided in 60s-70s were in the fuel tanks, crankcases of motorcycles, with truckers as well. Hence why there's such things as "trucker speed"/crank as meth terminology. It's not coke, for sure, but it's not a far out concept. 

 

Citation: My dad

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One small thing (or lack thereof) that stood out to me in this episode for some reason is in the scene when james and donna and maddy are listening to laura's tape and laura says the line "James is so sweet, but so dumb" the camera isn't on james' face (I think it was on donna) so it doesn't show any reaction. I don't think a reaction like that would have been in character for the show anyway, but I was unconsciously expecting it, since thats what a lot of tv would do (mainly sitcoms I suppose). Not sure why that stood out to me, but I appreciated it. 

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On the topic of media about Twin Peaks while it was airing, there is a hilarious SNL sketch when Kyle MacLachlan guest hosted. It aired the night before the second season started, on September 29th, 1990. 

Link: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7o2ca_twin-peaks-parody-by-saturday-night_fun

 

I always enjoy watching it before watching the second season of the show. It's really weird knowing how the murder mystery ends vs. people's conclusions at the time it aired.

 

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