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The Veil of the Murderess
Jan. 13th, 2026 05:42 amOf course I've been watching Twin Peaks again and last night I came to the episode directed by Diane Keaton from February 9th, 1991. Diane Keaton died in October last year and, as I soon learned, Annette McCarthy died in 2023. McCarthy played Evelyn, the femme fatale character who tries to frame James for the murder of her husband. McCarthy was 64 when she died. Her birthday was April 12, one day after mine. She retired from acting in the early 2000s and became "an executive chef" specialising in Italian cuisine. This role on Twin Peaks was the highest profile role in her career.
And I feel relatively assured in saying it's the role most Twin Peaks fans hate the most. I certainly have always maintained this subplot was the lowest point of the lowest segment of Twin Peaks as a whole. After the groundbreaking first season and the resolution of Laura Palmer's murder, a film noir pastiche was certainly not an out of the way idea, but it was executed without any of the effective weirdness David Lynch is known for and generally feels like a cheap late night Showtime movie. Which is no surprise considering David Lynch was notoriously absent for most of season two, although McCarthy's Wikipedia page says that Lynch personally cast her.
All that considered, I have to retroactively admire how evidently Diane Keaton really tried to make something of Evelyn. Her segments of the episode suddenly feel very much anchored in her point of view beginning with an extreme closeup of her feet in black heels and fishnet stockings that slowly tracks up to an extreme closeup of her veiled face. And yes, as I said recently in another review, you can always tell when the director is an actor if there are lots and lots of closeups. There are lots of closeups of Evelyn, not just of her face but also of her body, particularly her legs. I wondered if they would seem more exploitative if I didn't know a woman had directed the episode. It's kind of impossible to know but in any case the shots successfully convey a sense of entrapment, like Evelyn is encased in her funeral garb much as she's trapped in the murder scheme. Keaton also likes to overlay slow motion footage on other footage, in Evelyn's case, footage of her distant, numb expression behind the funeral veil seems to dominate her in other scenes, as though she yearns to escape her own coldness.
The episode also features the conclusion of the plot about Ben Horne believing he was Robert E. Lee and Doctor Jacoby pretending to be Ulysses S. Grant in order to support the fantasy. That's something you couldn't do on television to-day. It's also interesting because, with the two original cast members of West Side Story, Richard Beymer and Russ Tamblyn, in the roles, it's the most Twin Peaks actually felt like a reunion for them.
Anyway, I expect to be tired of watching Twin Peaks at some point in the 2050s.
And I feel relatively assured in saying it's the role most Twin Peaks fans hate the most. I certainly have always maintained this subplot was the lowest point of the lowest segment of Twin Peaks as a whole. After the groundbreaking first season and the resolution of Laura Palmer's murder, a film noir pastiche was certainly not an out of the way idea, but it was executed without any of the effective weirdness David Lynch is known for and generally feels like a cheap late night Showtime movie. Which is no surprise considering David Lynch was notoriously absent for most of season two, although McCarthy's Wikipedia page says that Lynch personally cast her.
All that considered, I have to retroactively admire how evidently Diane Keaton really tried to make something of Evelyn. Her segments of the episode suddenly feel very much anchored in her point of view beginning with an extreme closeup of her feet in black heels and fishnet stockings that slowly tracks up to an extreme closeup of her veiled face. And yes, as I said recently in another review, you can always tell when the director is an actor if there are lots and lots of closeups. There are lots of closeups of Evelyn, not just of her face but also of her body, particularly her legs. I wondered if they would seem more exploitative if I didn't know a woman had directed the episode. It's kind of impossible to know but in any case the shots successfully convey a sense of entrapment, like Evelyn is encased in her funeral garb much as she's trapped in the murder scheme. Keaton also likes to overlay slow motion footage on other footage, in Evelyn's case, footage of her distant, numb expression behind the funeral veil seems to dominate her in other scenes, as though she yearns to escape her own coldness.
The episode also features the conclusion of the plot about Ben Horne believing he was Robert E. Lee and Doctor Jacoby pretending to be Ulysses S. Grant in order to support the fantasy. That's something you couldn't do on television to-day. It's also interesting because, with the two original cast members of West Side Story, Richard Beymer and Russ Tamblyn, in the roles, it's the most Twin Peaks actually felt like a reunion for them.
Anyway, I expect to be tired of watching Twin Peaks at some point in the 2050s.
