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

Listen to this week’s Spotify playlist.

And we’re off. Episode one then, or is it? As always, nothing about this show is straightforward – including, it seems the numbering of the episodes. Was last week a pilot or the first episode? I certainly can’t imagine watching the series without it, although this is the first time most viewers would have encountered our sleepy little town in the Pacific Northwest. Anyway; it’s numbered as ep.1 on my dvds, so that’s what I’m going to go with. We’ll encounter more numbering fun when we get to the second series, no doubt.

So after the massive information dump of the pilot we’re ready to dig in a bit deeper. In tune with the set up, everyone is playing to type for now – Coop every inch the clean-cut 60’s g-man pondering Monroe/Kennedy conspiracies before his initial breakfast meeting with Audrey Horne at her most coquettish and some – excuse me – damn fine coffee. I love that little aside; it speaks volumes about Agent Cooper, as does his breakfast order. He is a man with the values and eating habits of the past, the white-hatted heroes of Lynch’s youth.

All of the etsy-poster clichés about Twin Peaks are about food, and for the first few minutes of this episode everyone seems to be stuffing something in their faces – “three for three” – as Agent Cooper says as encounters the third doughnut munching policeman. Is this a subversion of the ‘you never see people eating or going to the toilet in cop shows’ trope? Coop ends the conversation by expressing his need to ‘urinate’ which suggests to me that it might just be a wee dig at that.

We also see a little more of Laura alive tonight – albeit very briefly in flashback – but it’s enough to see a punctured innocence, an hint of darkness and a need for love. To communicate that in two sentences is pretty impressive and makes Doc Hayward’s litany of abuse that immediately precedes it all the more affecting.

There’s a fair amount of exposition to get through, although most of it is retreading the pilot – with the exception of Benjamin Horne and Catherine Martell’s sordid goings on. What we have are some great little character moments – Donna and her mother’s heart to heart in which they are almost exact mirror images of each other from the waist up (her mother being in a wheelchair I can only conclude that’s significant), Pete Martell and his fish in the percolator (I’m sure there are a million theories about this but I just enjoyed it for Jack Nance being wonderful.), Josie Packard (all in red) and her faltering English, Leo Johnson as the Zero Tolerance poster boy and The Log Lady being, eh… what ever it is the log lady is. Loggy?

There’s a couple of stand out scenes – Audrey shuffling round her father’s office in the dance that inspired a generation of gif-makers and their brief, acrimonious exchange. “I lost you years ago” he tells her. Is that just teenage angst or is there something deeper? Then of course there’s the very short but show-stealing appearance of Sarah Palmer destroyed by grief and the boogeyman at the end of her sofa… Look at Leyland though, how protective and sweet he is, bless his little bri-nylon pleated sta-prests. Definitely a good guy, that one.

James coming to the Hayward’s for dinner is just bloody frustrating though. Someone needs to tell that boy that teenage girls do not bring the just-out-the-jail biker home for him to be all polite and genial to her parents. You’re supposed to be James Dean, goddammit – she wants you tell her old man to go screw himself, stick your tongue down her throat and ride your hog off into the distance, not be all “I’ll have some fruit punch please Mrs. Hayward”. Honestly. Laura’s right about him, he is dumb.

“I just know I’m going to get lost in the woods tonight…” her recorded voice tells Dr. Jacoby before mentioning some mystery man and then… we don’t know what, but the good doc isn’t happy about whatever it is. He has a fish on his tie. Is that significant? Is it something to do with the percolator? Is the fish a metaphor? Is the tie a metaphor? Are you a metaphor?

Unsorted Observations

“Is it funny to you? It is not to me?” says the log lady.

Coop is upside down when talking about the case.

The light at Sparkwood & 21 – we saw this a few times in the last ep.

Bobby and Mike’s nicknames are “Bopper” and “Snake” which are names only teenage boys would self-apply.

First mention of The Bookhouse Boys.

Hawk follows the one armed man (in red) in the hospital. What do he see?

“to have his path made clear is the aspiration of every human being in this tempestuous existence…”

I would totally decorate my house like Dr Jacoby’s if I thought I’d get away with it…

Next week: – Agent Cooper has a mysterious dream, and the Horne brothers have a great baguette.

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