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Twin Peaks Rewatch 19: Masked Ball

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Twin Peaks Rewatch 19:

 

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Masked Ball

We've now solidly put the murder of Laura Palmer behind us, but the rest of Twin Peaks keeps ticking along—with the scene-stealing introduction of David Duchovny as DEA agent Denise Bryson.

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If you're talking about the giant Macintosh Portable used by internal affairs, then you're right it's pretty exciting!

 

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This is often classified as the worst episode of the show - I guess because it introduces Evelyn & Little Nicky - but I actually think it may be one of the better episodes of the mid-season (which admittedly isn't saying much). Basically because of three scenes (two of which are really the same scene):

- Ben's home movies. Just a nice reminder of the Twin Peaks mood that's hard to find in this stretch.

- Hawk's Lodge speech. Plays like a throwaway but it's actually the most cogent explanation of Twin Peaks' spiritual ethos we may ever get. I particularly like to dig into the "dweller on the threshold" concept which is often misunderstood. It's not about overcoming some cackling villain, it's about overcoming one's own shadow-self.

- Denise's debut. In theory this could have been such a one-note character but Duchovney just nails it.

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Denise is a great character although I think the show walks a really fine line between "is she the butt of jokes or is it the provincialism of Twin Peaks?" which I'll go ahead and call the Archie Bunker problem.

 

There are a lot of new subplots introduced this episode. Some of them are fantastic, and some of them are the show at its absolute worst, but they are all only introduced in this episode so there isn't a whole lot to say about any of them. I think this episode is probably better than the prior one if only because there's less goofy lore stuff.

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Denise is a great character although I think the show walks a really fine line between "is she the butt of jokes or is it the provincialism of Twin Peaks?" which I'll go ahead and call the Archie Bunker problem.

I think to the extent they pull it off, it's largely Duchovney's doing. Another actor could have easily taken the same dialogue and really vamped it up so that Denise was just a cartoonish drag queen (it's unclear from the writing if Denise was intended to be a transvestite or transgender, or if the writers even know the difference). But his performance is so low-key and charming that we end up laughing with Denise rather than at her. One of the few true gems of the mid-season.

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Oh I do actually want to talk about the scene with Ben Horne watching that old family film in a spoiler-y way.

 

When Ben appears to have lost his mind and act as if he is a Civil War general I had always assumed the writers of the show were very specifically referencing Hamlet. And in this scene Ben is quoting Shakespeare, but... he's quoting from Richard III! This is something I'm gonna have to mull over, but I find it super interesting!

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Ben's home movies. Just a nice reminder of the Twin Peaks mood that's hard to find in this stretch.

I liked that, too. I also liked the babysitter flashback earlier in the season. Ben's stuff is very goofy sometimes, but sometimes there's a real pathos as he reflects on how corrupt he's become.

 

As for Denise, I was pretty struck by how respectfully she was treated, especially for 1991 or whenever. Duchovney doesn't camp it up and while some of the reactions of the townsfolk aren't great, the character looked at as a sort of moral arbiter, Cooper, more or less rolls with it and seems more interested and in happy wonderment rather than weirded out.

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I'm watching for the first time, and I'm starting to see why people might drop the show around this point.  When I was growing up, my mom used to tape Days of Our Lives and then fast-forward through certain storylines.  I never really understood the mindset behind wanting to skip huge swaths of a story like that.  Watching this episode, though, there were a couple times where I got up to grab something from another room and thought "Should I pause it?  Who's in this scene?  Dick Tremayne? Nah, I won't miss anything."  There's still a lot that I want to continue to see, but with some of these storylines, I keep wondering what the point is.

 

I'm definitely going to stick with it because I know so many people mention that there's a lot of payoff at the end, but it's getting tough.  The Netflix description for the next episode mentions "concerns over little Nicky's past," which isn't exactly promising.

 

The James noir plot makes me want to throw my computer cross the room.

When the episode started with that 50's-style music and a motorcycle approaching from the distance, my heart sank.

 

 

As for Denise, I was pretty struck by how respectfully she was treated, especially for 1991 or whenever. Duchovney doesn't camp it up and while some of the reactions of the townsfolk aren't great, the character looked at as a sort of moral arbiter, Cooper, more or less rolls with it and seems more interested and in happy wonderment rather than weirded out.

I really loved the Denise stuff, and a huge part of it was the way Cooper was so on board with no hesitation.  He's just so pleased to learn that someone has found a way to be happy.  He's such a genuinely positive person, it's so endearing.

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The James noir plot makes me want to throw my computer cross the room.

 

The thing that's crazy is it starts off so bad, but if I recall in each episode the show manages to one up just how extraordinarily bad it is.

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I'm definitely going to stick with it because I know so many people mention that there's a lot of payoff at the end, but it's getting tough.

Hang in there! This is the worst stretch of the show, but it doesn't get worse than it is right now, if my memory serves. Just have a game of solitaire on your phone or something ready for whenever James's music starts up, and you'll be good to go. There's some good stuff in there, too, and the show gets on a better track in like three or four episodes.

 

Plus, now if you decide to rewatch it you know what parts you can fast-forward. B)

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The James plot is made worse by its connection to scenic Washington shots. As he's leaving town, you can see a sign that says 'Snoqualmie' -- the town where a lot of the location shots for Twin Peaks come from -- in the background. I love seeing all these scenes that feature the immediately recognizable Washington landscape but I hate, HATE that I also have to endure James' stupid face.

 

Christ, the way his voice cracks when he orders a beer at that bar. I hate this plot so much.

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Hang in there! This is the worst stretch of the show..

 

I don't know.. maybe I'm the only one but I may possible hate this even more than the James part:

 

MASSIVE SECOND HALF OF SEASON TWO SPOILERS WITHIN!

 

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I don't know.. maybe I'm the only one but I may possible hate this even more than the James part:

 

Yes.  I don't think any of us expected the James subplot to be good, but your screenshots represent something that needed to be good and failed.

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hen the episode started with that 50's-style music and a motorcycle approaching from the distance, my heart sank.

 

I love the fact that we just need the sound of a motorcycle to know that the next scene is gonna be terrible

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What kills me about the James plotline is that - does this even need a spoiler tag? -

beyond all the obviously bad things about this story (the dislocation from Twin Peaks, the soapiness, the lame get-ready-for-a-sendup-oh-never-mind-they're-playing-it-straight tone), they can't even get the basic noir setup right. The whole point of this premise is supposed to be that the femme fatale lures the dumb mechanic into killing her husband, yet this step is never taken (or if it is, it's handled in such a clumsy, offhand way that I still haven't picked up on it after several rewatches). Evelyn seduces James, she has the chauffeur plant the seeds that her husband is a bad guy, she has him working on the car and then...Evelyn and Malcolm kill him. James is "framed" but he basically witnesses the whole intrigue rather than participates. Noir 101...the fall-guy has to actually, you know, fall. It's like they didn't want to corrupt his character (beyond having him sleep with anyone who so much as winks at him). Lame.

On the plus side (if you can call it that), the character that the other Twin Peaks podcast calls "Exposition Malcolm" is hilariously awful. He basically walks into a room, James says something like "can I help you?" and he launches into an odd, rambling, unprompted info-dump loaded with non sequiturs. This happens several times and it only gets unintentionally funnier each time.

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James is terrible, but I have to admit when I was a impressionable youth in the nineties, I didn't see it. I often thought about "getting on a motorcycle and going away", though I have not, even now ever driven one. I also have to admit I had James Hair in my Senior Photo taken cira 1994. I think I was re-watching the VHS Box set back then and thinking, Man that hair rocks. It is not a proud moment for me.

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There are much worse 90s haircuts to contemplate. I'm looking at you mushroom cut (bowl with the head shaved below). I can't be proud of too much of my teenage fashion but I can thankfully say I never fell for that one...

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You guys ranting about how stupid the latest Mill Plot Twist was made me realize: In years of thinking about this show, I never bothered trying to parse that plot. I processed the whole thing only as flavorless intrigue spaghetti.

 

Struggling to come up with a reason this episode would be named "Masked Ball", I thought the idea might be that Denice can be construed as wearing a mask, and the wedding reception is basically a ball. Kind of a stretch to read this into the German title-writers' intentions, but the alternative is... they just gave the episode a random title?

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I am only now reading that this was the last episode of 1990, with nearly a full month's gap between this 12/15/90 episode and next episode's 1/12/91 premiere.

 

I guess because of Christmas/New Years/etc. there isn't a huge need to have a cliffhanger (Andrew Packard?), but there's nothing in this episode that would make me anticipate what next year's Twin Peaks had to offer.

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Regarding the confusion over Ben Horne losing One-Eyed Jack's, I take it to mean the illegal business run from there. Ben Horne still owns the property, but Renault is taking over his drug smuggling (and prostitution?) business. Ben doesn't have any way to stop him at this point, without basically admitting his own involvement. Owning the property doesn't mean anything.

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