Remember when Star Wars: The Force Awakens was first teased and how nerd culture exploded, well the same thing happened again with Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. So, it comes as no surprise that the same shit has happened yet again with Star Wars: The Last Jedi and this time we’ve been treated to an onslaught of video bloggers moaning about the title on Youtube.

Stupid wankers, did they forget that the best Star Wars movie; The Empire Strikes Back has one of the dumbest sounding movie names of all time? Who gives a fuck about the title of a Star Wars movie, you fucking nerds will still watch it anyway.

You come up with a better name?

Star Wars: Brunette English Girl Strikes Back.

Star Wars: How the death of Carrie Fisher has kinda fucked everything up from a narrative perspective.

Star Wars: Mark Hamill Does A Thing.

Star Wars: Harrison Ford doesn’t need to give a fuck anymore.



Yeah, I know… this tangent is supposed to lead somewhere and you’re right! The erm… title of episode 8 of Twin Peaks is called The Last Evening and what comes after “evening”, night of course and if you add a “k” to “night” then you have “knight” like, Jedi Knight.

You get the idea…

I should mention that when I first started reviewing this series four months ago, I certainly wasn’t a fan. I was exceptionally new to Twin Peaks. I had never seen an episode, only knew of its notoriety and high profile within pop culture history. After watching every single episode, watching the film; Fire Walk With Me and buying a T-Shirt off Amazon… I’m can certainly admit that I’m a fan.

So our episode begins with a slow camera pan across Dr. Jacoby’s office’ wall and the tacky wallpaper of a Hawaiian sunset. We’re treated to the opening credits until suddenly James and Donna burst in… we’re not even in season two yet and I’m already sick of these guys. Their unrelenting-love plot is just too saccharine for me and while both actors are good… I honestly don’t care. Anyway, Donna remembers something that Laura said in one of her tape recordings. It was to do with a coconut and lo and behold; Donna finds a coconut containing another tape wrapped with the necklace that she and James buried.

As James and Donna race away from Dr. Jacoby’s office on James’ 1975 Harley-Davidson Electra Glide… because of course, James would ride a fucking Harley. Fucking poser.

Anyway, Bobby was watching from the shadows. You may remember that he hid some cocaine in James’ petrol tank for nefarious reasons.

He points his fingers and figuratively blows them away… yeah, this is like, a motif for this episode. Deputy Andy does a similar thing later… basically, it’s “foreshadowing”.

Our next scene involves Dr. Jacoby as he spies on Maddy dressed as Laura if Laura dressed like a crazy cat lady. He gets attacked from behind and we, as the audience are left to assume he died. His eye fades into that of a roulette wheel and with this typical media studies film transition we find ourselves with our favourite Special Agent’ Dale Cooper… he’s not playing roulette, he’s playing Blackjack so the scene transition sucks even more!

This scene is a direct follow up from the previous episode.

We have Big Ed and Cooper, they’re undercover with the intention of ensnaring Jacques Renault – the drug trafficker who works with Leo Johnson. Cooper knows that Jacques was with Laura Palmer during the same night that she was murdered.

Our man’ Cooper throws the poker chip he found in Jacques cabin on to the Blackjack table, the two men talk while Sheriff Truman and Hawk listen to the whole thing in one of those awesome surveillance vans.

I’m totally convinced that the police don’t have these surveillance vans. I think it’s something that American television invented. A bit like those fucking TV license vans… just look at this bullshit;

When has anyone seen one of these vans prowling street? Answer: Never.

The only good thing to come out of the BBC is Dr. Who, Match of the Day, David Attenborough and then I dunno, Professor Brian Cox… at a stretch?… if I don’t pay my TV license, nobody is going to know. They’re not fucking Batman, driving around in their twat-mobiles trying to catch people out, seriously, who believes this shit?!

So, surveillance vans… do they actually exist outside the realms of the television? Probably not because the reality is so much more boring than fiction.

Want proof? Ask yourself this as you’re reading this blog; are you happy with your menial, boring existence? If you were being completely true to yourself then possibly, the answer is a resounding no and that’s shitty fucking reality dude. You’re fucked, just like the rest of us and that’s where fiction has reality by the proverbial balls.

Truman and Hawk are listening into the Agent Dale Cooper’s conversation with Jacques Renault. Cooper pretends to be Leo Johnson’s “bank”. Apparently. he’s the US distributor for all the cocaine that they’re hauling. Jacques falls for Cooper’s lies and Cooper is able to get the fat bastard to divulge details about that night and the details are pretty graphic.

We learn that Waldo the myna bird was pecking on Laura’s shoulder as she was tied up in a BDSM shindig while Leo Johnson forced the poker chip in her mouth and told her to “bite the bullet, baby”. The close up on Jacques fat face and lips makes the anecdote even more creepy.

But where’s Leo? Well, he’s only just captured Shelly as she is in the middle of washing her hair in the kitchen sink… judging from Leo’s home, a mod con is perpetually in the process of being constructed, judging from the crappy look of his home (this guy is a fucking big time drug peddler, apparently!)… so she’s washing her hair in the sink and he grabs hold of her.

Jump to the next scene where Jacques is arriving at the water processing plant. The cops intervene when he exits his vehicle and when Sheriff Truman reads him his charges, Jacques tussles with the retraining cop and grabs hold of his gun.

POW! Just before he’s able to blow Truman away, Deputy Andy had suddenly grown a pair of balls and instead of crying, he’s looking like an autistic version of Clint Eastwood.

This scene is a classic sting operation moment.

Everything is in place, just like a proper cliffhanger episode should be.

By the end, we have a pregnancy, a “whodunit”, a couple of red herrings and a sudden cut to black… yep, classic cliffhanger if I’ve ever seen one!

Oh fucking great, Donna and James are in this scene with Maddy. They’re listening to the tape they found in Dr. Jacoby’s office and we hear Laura Palmer as she sounds like a proper dirty bitch. Basically, she’s really into some kinky shit, or not… up to you and this leads our Scooby Gang to realise that Dr. Jacoby was trying to help Laura after all!

Also, Donna’s dad’ Dr. Hayward interrupts, he’s going to an emergency he has to attend to… this links to a scene later.

Interesting fact, when searching on Google images; “dr hayward” in order to check that I got the spelling right, I found this fucking guy! Check him out;

Holy-fucking-shit… that Doctor is staring into your fucking soul!

Oh look, Leo Johnson is being an absolute piece of shit. Though I do love his character, his domestic abuse mixed with the awful acting really adds some levity to the murder mystery… yet there’s no way he’s Laura’s killer. Instead, we’re treated to his best James Bond-villainy.

Shelly is tied up in the lumber mill and he has a bomb-thing and a load of gasoline.

She’s going to “think about what she’s done” and it’s totally justifiable in his misogynistic mindset.

Then we revisit Nadine who has dressed herself up in her wedding dress or prom dress and she’s about to swallow a load of pills in a suicide attempt.

It’s brief but poignant.

Then Hank and Josie have an exchange where Hank wants to extort more money out of Josie, since he was involved in Josie’s late husband’s boat accident/murder-thingy.

She blurts out her new catchphrase; “We had an agreement.”

But it doesn’t slide with dodgy-Hank. Instead, he makes them “blood brothers” by cutting his and her respective thumb and pressing both in an act of unsanitary union.

You know, real marriages should involve that level of sanguine-bullshit. If you’re going to get married, I think both parties should each transfuse blood with each other so that they’re bound… “by blood”.

Catherine and Pete have a scene, etc.

It’s about the Ghostwood Estate thing that I’m not overly fussed about but I actually am because I’ve watched all the other episodes. Anyway, Catherine has been royally screwed over by Ben Horne and so Catherine pleads with her husband’ Eraserhead for his help. She needs to find that ledger.

Eraserhead AKA Pete is just about, the nicest and most adorable character in this show next to Deputy Andy and the Bewick’s Wren from the opening title sequence. Pete offers to help his wife’ Catherine to find the lost ledger.

I’m going to splice this scene with a later one because… reasons.

So, Catherine and Pete are looking for the ledger and there’s a moment where Pete finds his old high school yearbook. He looks at the pages and you can’t help but feel for him as he’s lost in a nostalgiagasm.

He’s a guy who worked at the lumber mill and at some point, the bosses daughter fell for him, a younger and probably nicer Catherine and now he’s “lumbered” with her…

Yeah.

So Bobby calls the Sheriff’s Department and pretends to be Leo Johnson. His plan is to implicate James in the whole “cocaine-thing”… what’s the deal with cocaine anyway?

I’ve just looked at my notes and I totally missed out a scene. Where was I? “Big Ed & Hank tells other officers @ sheriffs station about how much of a badass Andy was”. Only joking, all my notes are in pitman shorthand… like a real pro.

Anyway, Big Ed and Hank are regaling’ Deputy Andy’s superb badassary, Lucy is busy watering the plastic flowers but she can’t help but overhear the amazing story of how Andy shot a man.

So after much egging, Deputy Andy decides to make amends with Lucy for the thing that she is upset by, they kiss and she tells him that she’s pregnant… he walks out on her. Much to the collective chagrin of his fellow law enforcement officers.

What the fuck is a “chagrin”?

Jacques Renault isn’t dead. In Twin Peaks, being shot is just a common cold… apparently. So, Cooper and Truman are interrogating Jacques and Dr. Hawyard also updates them on Dr. Jacoby’s condition… bit odd, he had a heart attack in some tall grass. Who found him? I’m sure there’s something called the “golden hour” when it comes to myocardial infarctions but maybe that’s the Aspergers talking? Anyway, Jacoby is alive and I’m sure he’ll be fully healed for the second season.

They arrive back to the Sheriff’s Department, Lucy informs them of Bobby’s call… though they assume it to be Leo Johnson. Lucy is ALSO A FUCKING DETECTIVE because she heard a sound and that sound can only be heard somewhere specific etc.

Anyway, James arrives with Laura’s tape but Cooper wants to speak to him because of Bobby’s call.

The awesome Ray Wise… I should mention that I’m a bit of a genre-fan and that Ray Wise has appeared in a lot of things that I love, namely Star Trek.

He’s also had a shit load of roles in horror films that I have seen and he’s just a great actor, in my opinion.

Anyway, here he is in The Next Generation;

And look, he also appeared in one of the best episodes of Voyager as a guy who tries to trick Captain Janeway but Janeway ain’t no fool… he ends up as (spoiler warning) Borg fodder;

So Leland Palmer now knows that Laura’s murder suspect is in the hospital and guess what, he only goes and murders the fat bastard. Who saw that coming? Probably. Every. One.

There are things that happen at One Eyed Jacks, namely’ Audrey is probably going to have to fuck her own father and all that jazz. Leo Johnson tries to kill Bobby but is shot and ends up watching his facsimile getting shot in that awful “Invitation To Love” soap opera that is on every-fucking-TV in Twin Peaks.

It’s a bit like in The Simpsons where something happens and so the same thing happens in Itchy and Scratchy… or something. Yeah, I’m sure Cracked on Youtube has covered that.

So Catherine rescues Shelly from the burning lumber mill, Audrey is going to have to fuck her father… seems unfair but, you know. Television and all that.

Leo is has been shot by Hank and we’re nowhere near finding out who killed Laura Palmer.

Then Agent Dale Cooper is shot… cliffhanger everybody, it’s a fucking cliffhanger.

And it is possibly one of the best cliffhangers in television history. You’ll probably see it listed in Top 10 lists. Many articles have probably been written about it and for good reason, Cooper getting shot is actually incredibly surprising even with the slight telegraphing throughout this episode.

Would this level of quality continue for the rest of this shows tenure? Unfortunately not but when I do get around to it… I’ll probably end up just as crazy as those that reside in the town of Twin Peaks.

I give this episode 10 Recycled Star Trek Plots out of 10.