In which we re-watch all of Twin Peaks and spout spurious nonsense about it.

Listen to this week’s Spotify playlist.

Ah, right. It appears that I’ve unwittingly stumbled on to a controversial topic. The good people at /r/twinpeaks (if you’ve not been over there then I recommend that you do, some great chat going on…) got a little bit agitated over the use of the episode ‘titles’. Apparently there’s quite a bit of strong feeling about them – I have to say, some of them are pretty goddamn awful – so I thought I’d put it to you guys and girls. What’s the consensus? Handy way to distinguish the numbering confusion or akin to scribbling on the Mona Lisa? Let me know in the comments.

Anyway, what’s going on in the sleepy North-West today then? Andy and Lucy have been fighting which is just upsetting, frankly. Is this a reflection of the wider malaise creeping in to the town? I once heard a theory about Peep Show which said that everyone thinks that they’re Mark and everyone else is Jeremy. Extending this to Twin Peaks, I’d say that everyone thinks they’re Andy and everyone else is Harry. I certainly do; his poor little puppy dog eyes, he seems too know as little as we do. He’s so upset he drops his gun, almost giving the game away as the Twin Peaks P.D. storm the motel room of the One-Armed Man.

There’s been a lot of misdirection around poor old Mike, eh? The only times we’ve seen him up until now is being all creepy in a hospital corridor and being all creepy in Coop’s subconscious so we’re fairly prejudiced against the three-limbed shoe salesman. When we do meet him, clearly shaken by Washington’s finest bursting in on him post-shower it’s hard not to think of him as a Bad Guy. He’s disarmingly sweet though, so gosh-darn torn up about his best friend Bob in the hospital and the loss of his tattooed arm. What did it say? We’re set up to think that this is going to be a great big Scooby Doo clue and then Mike tearfully tells us: “Mom…”.

Another lovely little misdirect follows straight after with Norma’s husband Hank – just last episode we were sold him as a deranged, violent criminal and yet he appears before us and the parole board as a contrite, philosophical and erudite man. The specifics of his crime are still a bit vague but he’s giving them a damn good show. Of course, much to Norma’s chagrin he is awarded his parole – and just when we’re starting to think that maybe we’ve misjudged the dude, he’s sending creepy ass charcoal sketches of dominoes (the game, not the foodstuff) to Josie.

Audrey’s at it too, playing the dutiful daughter talking about flowers cut down in their prime and nebulous notions of responsibility whilst twisting her old man to her will. Audrey gets what Audrey wants…

We also get a good bit more of Sarah tonight, rather than just screaming (which, let’s face it, she’s one of the best) we start to see her parapsychology as possibly useful – aunt Sarah is “kind of spooky” says Madeline, and Laura was as well. It’s interesting to note how skeptical and mocking Leland is of the whole endeavor – it just contributes to the feeling that the household is broken, reinforced by Maddie’s brief brush with love-struck James that she self-deprecates her way through. Every time I look at my episode notes there’s at least one “Sheryl is great”, usually followed closely by “Jack Nance is WONDERFUL”. Pete Martell just makes my heart swell every time he’s on screen…

Nice big chunks of plotty plot this episode too, but I figure you guys are all up to speed on that; Ben couldn’t give two hoots about Bernard, Jaques and Leo are up to something, there’s some jiggery-pokery with ledgers and Bobby makes that face. Someone should buy a copy of Excel ’91 for the Packard Sawmill…

Unsorted Observations:

“What do you get when you cross a Norwegian and a Swede?”

Leo drives a red Corvette

Is there a mastercut of Invitation to Love? That could be interesting…

The Palmer house makes me think of The Amityville Horror.

Andy is a surprisingly good recreation artist.

“A sweet tooth for the nose-candy” – Audrey is pure beatnik hepcat, daddio. A shape in a drape…

Gordon Cole! Even just on the phone he’s joyous…

Little Elvis.

“Isn’t that the western with Marlon Brando?”

Next Week – Coop gets personal with the Log Lady and Audrey joins the rat race.

Join The Great Twin Peaks Re-Watch here, or read last week’s post here.