setsuled

Happy Fourth of July everyone. I chose a pretty much all American film to watch last night, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me. I actually just finished watching through the first two seasons of the series again and I'm looking forward to starting season three again next week. It's funny how the show that seemed so much about sweaters and misty, evergreen forests basically became an ideal summer series in its third season. But time had long since changed David Lynch from a director of small town Americana of the north to one who passionately loves desert landscapes and towns.

I wonder if all small towns are somewhat like Twin Peaks, not just American towns. It's not that the cheerful, graciously communal layer is an empty veneer but it seems inevitable that there would be a dark flipside to it as the leverage petty and competitive people apply to the secrets of their co-inhabitants mingles with the restlessless of dwelling within the scope of the small town. Would Nadine have gone mad in a big city where she might have been forced to meet an alternative to Ed? Certainly Ed and Norma wouldn't have to work so hard to keep their relationship secret. Would it be so easy for Leo to abuse Shelly in a densely populated neighbourhood? Obviously domestic abuse still occurs in cities but that Sherlock Holmes quote that comes to me so often comes to me again:

The pressure of public opinion can do in the town what the law cannot accomplish. There is no lane so vile that the scream of a tortured child, or the thud of a drunkard’s blow, does not beget sympathy and indignation among the neighbours, and then the whole machinery of justice is ever so close that a word of complaint can set it going, and there is but a step between the crime and the dock. But look at these lonely houses, each in its own fields, filled for the most part with poor ignorant folk who know little of the law. Think of the deeds of hellish cruelty, the hidden wickedness which may go on, year in, year out, in such places, and none the wiser.

So, er, Happy Independence Day. Here's to a country that can foster art that holds up a brutally honest mirror. Not every country is so lucky.

Happy Twin Peaks Day, everyone. Of course, I have been watching the series again. I wonder how many times I've watched it through since I first saw it in high school, just shy of thirty years ago. I dozed off watching the third episode (fourth, counting the pilot) a few nights ago, the one with Laura's funeral. I can slip in and out of consciousness and still enjoy the pleasant company of each familiar scene. Ben Horne standing between Albert and Doc Hayward. Shelly recounting Leland throwing himself on the coffin. Doctor Jacobi in a hat and velvet cloak at the cemetery after dark. It's not even a David Lynch episode, neither written by nor directed by him but I can still dig it at this point.

I wonder if there's any chance of another season. There was that rumour about a project at Netflix codenamed "Wisteria" years ago. Lynch made that short film for Netflix about interrogating a monkey. It seemed like he was testing the waters, seeing how amenable Netflix would be to his shooting style. Behind the scenes footage showed him frustrated with studio interference during the third season but I don't think Paramount's going to let him make Twin Peaks anywhere else. I've wondered if he thought he could make a spin-off about Carrie Page somewhere else, if he thought he could plausibly say it's not connected to the Twin Peaks IP even though it obviously would be. I wonder if he's working on anything now. He separated from his wife, Emily Stofle, late last year and I read she wants sole custody of their twelve year old daughter. That's gotta be time consuming.

He does have an installation coming up in Milan, something called "A Thinking Room". Sounds like it could be like visiting the Black Lodge. Man, I wish I was in Italy.

X Sonnet #1820

The blinking sabre cat absorbed the grass.
When timeless swords would rust the soldiers wait.
Without a glance, tempestuous ghosts'll pass.
So Fluffy sets a slimy, writhing bait.
The rolling drum would flatten trees and shrubs.
Titanic storms were smashing times in fields.
With all the gowns and pretty traffic hubs
Imagination often lightly yields.
Imagine mental strength divides a word.
With marriage thoughts, you jiggle likely brains.
Above, consult the cream and iv'ry bird.
You'll find the words were naught but choc'late stains.
And so the show concludes with "coming soon".
The flashing screen would please a lucky loon.

It's said David Lynch never intended to reveal Laura Palmer's killer on Twin Peaks and that he only did so when the network forced him. I can see how not revealing the killer may have made for a better show--though it seems like Lynch made up for it by tracing out a million insoluble mysteries within the one. But the episode in which the killer is revealed, episode seven of season two, really is a masterpiece.



I love the sense of disturbing disorientation Lynch achieves with the scene in the Great Northern where Mike tries to identify Bob. It starts with the familiar exterior of the waterfalls which dissolves into a little painting of the falls on a shelf. As the camera very slowly pulls back, we hear strange, percussive sounds along with Mike saying, "No" at intervals in a distressed, somewhat irritated tone. It's not until after the camera has pulled out a good a deal that we see the sounds are coming from people in military dress uniform practicing with tennis balls. Who are they? What are they doing? As is so often the case with Lynch, it's absurd yet credible. Hotels do get all manner of strange customers and a military band practicing some kind of routine with tennis balls in the lobby isn't very far fetched. But it adds to the general atmosphere of urgent, confused anxiety so perfectly.



I like how the killer is revealed to the viewer without anyone on the show but the new victim sharing in the discovery. I love how everyone at the roadhouse seems to sense something is wrong anyway. It's after the buildup that begins with the Log Lady telling Cooper something is happening, that there are owls at the roadhouse. There we see Donna crying for no apparent reason and Bobby looking faintly lost. Bobby's feeling can be explained by his recent fight with Shelly after his reaction to her financial trouble is impulsively to distance himself from her. He's a scared kid. Donna's distress is totally mysterious, like the girl running across the school yard in the pilot.

I notice Cooper touches his finger to see if the ring's there, the one the Giant took in the premiere. His hand is concealed by his mug so we can't quite see if he has the ring or not, so it's not implausible that it turns up a few episodes down the line. But why did Cooper reach for it? I suspect Lynch intended to convey that it had returned, and it's one of the things that makes me suspect the episodes not directed by Lynch or involving him are not part of the same timeline.

Twitter Sonnet #1483

The numbers add to five but minus two
A seven times an eight was half a cup.
In forty feet, a mile's width's the clue.
The twenty axis shifts a little up.
A cycle eye revisits towns for clouds.
Expensive bread was built of cheaper parts.
The flour coats the water's drizzling shrouds.
The seven cards have swooshed beyond the deck.
The cherry curtains push the eyes within.
The ticking vinyl cools the empty flame.
The standing horse betides what must begin.
The bloody cup contains a vagrant name.
Returning beats announced the whisp'ring hem.
The watching wind disturbs the hoary limb.

Is Kim turning into Dougie? I couldn't help thinking the moment where Kim, in last night's new Better Call Saul, spaced out staring at the weird cowboy office art was a lot like Kyle MacLachlan doing the same thing in last year's season of Twin Peaks.



Filming for this season of Better Call Saul started in January 2018 so it's entirely possible this was an intentional reference. It was a good episode, in any case, at least when it was focusing on Kim (Rhea Seehorn) or Jimmy (Bob Odenkirk). The stuff in the world of drug dealing tends to feel like pointless, unnecessary elaboration on back story established well enough in Breaking Bad.

Spoilers after the screenshot



Certainly a lot of effort went into making the first scene exciting with Nacho (Michael Mando) going the distance to make it look like he hadn't betrayed the Salamancas, including letting himself get shot in the shoulder and the gut. It's all very meticulously put together and you get the sense of the deep hole Nacho's getting into but he's . . . just so dull. I guess he's roughly the equivalent of Jesse on Breaking Bad and it's easy to imagine how much more interesting this scene would have been with Jesse in Mando's place. Jesse was a character established as someone with more layers; his ignorance was played for laughs sometimes but it could also be tragic. The intensity of Aaron Paul's performance went a long way, too. Mando is just Default Guy all the time.



Another Breaking Bad character is introduced, Gale (David Costabile), and it's kind of nice seeing him again. But the whole point of the scene introducing him just seems to be that he's being introduced. I didn't care.



I love Jimmy putting all his energy into getting some porcelain figurine and the guy having to sleep in his office because his wife kicked him out was a great funny but credible touch. Jimmy's idea to use a car alarm to distract him is one of those nice little practical ideas, somehow much more fascinating than the elaborate set up for Nacho at the beginning. It's in the fullness of the details, the idiosyncrasies of the characters.



I wonder what is happening with Kim. I remember last season had her building up into a hyper stressed state before ending with that car accident. Now seeing her wandering around those strange, ugly model houses, the keyboard music rising over the dialogue to help convey her disconnect; I guess she could be feeling a combination of burn out and depression. The final scene, where she finally starts to deal with the details of the meeting about Chuck, is almost the opposite of the scene from the end of the previous episode. Where that scene had led to a deeper connexion between Kim and Jimmy, now they seem divided. Jimmy's got his emotions walled off and she's feeling them more heavily. Of course, she still hasn't told him Chuck committed suicide so maybe she's tormented by what she instinctively thinks will occur when he finds out. Maybe it's healthier for him to think Chuck was secure in hating him right to the end.

I just finished watching through the third season of Twin Peaks again. I really loved how David Lynch kept information about episodes out of the media before they aired--the experience of allowing a story on screen to unfold on its own terms is increasingly becoming too rare. I'm really disturbed by a diminished appreciation people are beginning to display for sensory experience, something Twin Peaks excels at and one of the things that makes it so distinct from other television series now. But watching it again, my appreciation for the show has deepened for watching it with foreknowledge. Without anxiously waiting to see when Dougie is going to become Cooper again or waiting to find out what Mr. C is looking for I'm able to linger in moments even more. Since it was that beautifully, hauntingly enigmatic finale I watched last night it's the episode most on my mind right now.

Spoilers after the screenshot.



Incidentally, for those wondering what my opinion is on that final scene and what I think the answer is to Cooper's question, "What year is it?", I think the answer is no year at all. I think the reason Laura/Carrie looks confused when Cooper asks the question is that she realises she doesn't know either. This realisation starts a domino effect in her mind until she hears that ghostly echo of Sarah calling her for breakfast from the pilot episode. Then the lights in the house pop out, a malfunction as the show collapses.



Looking for clues as to the year throughout the last episode, there are several cars that can be no newer than 2000. The Valero gas station they stop at confirms it can be no earlier than 1980, when the company was founded, at which point Laura would already have been living in the Palmer household. But what strikes me more about that scene is its coldness, like the rest of the segment beginning with Cooper and Diane entering the alternate world, there's something lonely about it. I realised episode 18 of the third season is the first in the series that doesn't jump around to focus on a variety of story threads. Aside from the new Dougie coming home to Janey E and Sonny Jim, the episode entirely focuses on Cooper as the protagonist.



There's something oddly frail and vulnerable about it. As he and Carrie drive through darkness like a void it's like the horror of a world shed of complexity, the depressed obsessive person's focus on a single objective. The one moment Cooper starts thinking like a detective again, pulls that thread about the year, everything falls apart.



He shows Carrie his badge to establish his authority and when he talks to Diane and the people in the diner he always commands, he never requests--"Kiss me," "Turn off the light", "Leave her alone." It's interesting that his badge didn't come with him when he came back to the real world to replace Dougie. The only thing he had at that point was the Great Northern Hotel key--he'd even lost his lapel pin. We could guess that the reason is that the key was all he thought he needed--it had obviously been treated in the Black Lodge in some way to become an activator for the door in the boiler room to turn it into a portal. The strange sound Ben and Beverly hear begins when the key comes back to the hotel.



There's never the impression Cooper would do anything without any innocent person's consent but his role as an FBI agent has become important primarily for how it establishes him as an authority. I've read theories that say that Cooper's dream world begins when he and Diane drive to the end of those 430 miles but I think it begins in the Twin Peaks sheriff station when his face becomes superimposed on the action. The first thing that happens after that is that Candie comes in and says, "It's a good thing we made so many sandwiches." I think of Candie as sort of a canary in the coal mine, she's some kind of warning system that something is off. There's a pointed urgency in her tone and her line is implicitly about a large group of people--"so many sandwiches". When did they make those sandwiches? In the back of the car? On the plane? It seems like they rushed to the sheriff's station. Added to the absurdity of the moment Candie chooses to bring in snacks I think it's a warning to Cooper that reducing the world from its natural uncontrollable complexity in order for him to carry out a single minded pursuit is dangerous.



The Final Dossier talks about Cooper's preoccupation with saving women stemming from his childhood and his doomed relationship with Caroline. Caroline changing into Annie in the Black Lodge seems to confirm the place occupied in Cooper's mind by the women he cares for, though curiously he never seems to think of Annie once in the new series. In those twenty five years in the Black Lodge, the cosmic importance of Laura as a creation of the Fireman has been impressed upon him, something that combines with his lifelong preoccupation as either a very good or very bad coincidence.



The odd thing about episode 18 is how dreamlike it doesn't feel to me. Concentrating on a single protagonist, using new, realistic locations, and the use of the real life occupant of the Palmer house make reality something that seems to be encroaching on Cooper and Laura. The world threatening Cooper's increasingly fragile dream.

Before the new series, a lot of people wondered if Judy was going to be another character played by Sheryl Lee, like Madeleine Ferguson in the original series. This made sense to me because I knew Madeleine was named after Kim Novak's character in Vertigo--a character whose real name was Judy. Now I wonder if that connexion is still so far off. What if Judy is the reality that denies the shared dream? Like Scottie can't resurrect Novak's Madeleine with Novak's Judy, Cooper can't resurrect Lee's Laura with Lee's Carrie. The scene from Fire Walk with Me used in episode 17 tellingly has Laura explaining to James, "Your Laura disappeared. It's just me now."

Jeez, I could chew on this all day. Well, maybe I'll continue this in another entry in a few days.

I've only been to Las Vegas once, to visit the now closed Star Trek Experience. The former attraction, in one of the most dreamlike cities in the United States, no longer drew crowds to celebrate the optimistic future depicted on Star Trek and, indeed, as Adam Savage pointed out at Comic Con this year, that dream is starting to seem not only naive but cruel.

But despite the fact that I watched the decidedly more pessimistic version of the old dream last night, Star Trek: Discovery, it's not Star Trek I thought of when I woke up to find the deadliest shooting in modern history had just occurred in Las Vegas. Images of Las Vegas had been on my screen weekly throughout the summer on Twin Peaks, one of the most prominent episodes of which, episode eleven, featured a commentary on gun violence alongside images of the Las Vegas strip.

To-day The Onion is running the same headline it usually runs when there's a mass shooting: "‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens". The irony is sad and seemingly impossible to ignore and yet, as The Onion continues to run the headline, obviously it continues to be ignored again and again. Is it merely the machinery of bureaucracy and greed, is it the absurd grip of a childish dream, or is it some perfect combination of the two? How did this supposedly most pragmatic nation become the most deeply deluded?

We can say that shootings have gotten worse, much worse, in recent decades. Obviously (yes, it's obvious) stricter gun laws would alleviate part of the problem but there's a deeper problem. The old dream depends on the belief that the average American citizen has the wherewithal to own a gun responsibly--and the majority of gun owners don't go on killing sprees. Yet the typical argument from second amendment supporters, that looser gun laws allow for average citizens to save the day with their own guns, looks horribly naive in the obvious scenario of a sniper firing on a crowd. And even someone who opens fire without any cover is likely to deal too much damage before the fantasy average hero can act. It's a reality that's simply too plain for anyone not to see it so the perpetuation of this dream must rely on other factors, like the aforementioned greed and bureaucracy.

But the deeper problem is that so many people, many of them children, arrive at the decision to kill a lot of people. Even if they were prevented from killing people by stricter gun laws, there's a clear diminishing capacity for people to respect and love their fellow citizens. Adults are losing this and their kids aren't learning it.

One of the reasons Twin Peaks: The Return kept me glued to the screen is David Lynch's seeming ability to read my expectations and then exploit them to provide a striking experience. It's like he could read my mind and knew just how to pull the rug out from under me. So here's a list of ten times Twin Peaks: The Return went off the rails in a really wonderful, frightening, or funny way.



Chantal and Hutch

Casting Jennifer Jason Lee and Tim Roth as the two ultimate assassins hired by Mr. C to take out sleep walking Agent Cooper already sets them up as significant players. Their meandering conversations about Mormons and philosophising somehow implies they're even deadlier--in standard storytelling parlance it's this kind of thing that usually indicates someone is a particularly formidable killer. It's the main reason the two feel like they come out of a Quentin Tarantino movie, aside from the fact that both actors were in The Hateful 8. So when they meet their end at the hands of some random accountant with anger issues, it's kind of a shock even as it's perfectly in keeping with their story. They who live by the non-sequitor may die by the non-sequitor.



Billy

The unseen Billy was teased all season, not just by Audrey Horne but by a man looking for him in the RR and by some of the girls in the recurring vignettes of characters in the roadhouse booths who were never seen again. When one girl talks about Billy having a relationship with her mother her friend asks for her mother's name and Lynch intentionally holds the moment, knowing we're expecting her to say "Audrey". When she says "Tina" instead we start to sense the story about frustrated, diverted connexions perhaps infecting the community on some massive subconscious level.



Cops

The three cops investigating Dougie Jones aren't exactly incompetent and they're not exactly masters but their oddness causes us to expect one or the other. From their first scene in Dougie's office they show a capacity to arrest the viewer when one of them, who hadn't spoken for the whole scene, emits his strange, high pitched laugh for the first time. And then it turns out there's nothing really extraordinary about them aside from their very credible, extraordinarily normal weirdness.



The Turnip Joke

Who would have thought Gordon having some foreplay with a mysterious French beauty was a setup just for him to tell a hilariously dumb joke about turnip farming to Albert? But it's Albert's reaction that clenches this scene's play on expectations--somehow his complete lack of response, his completely blank expression, is both odd and yet, characteristic of Albert, impossibly down to earth.



Candie

From the early scene where she hunts an elusive fly Candie establishes herself as the fly in the ointment of otherwise smooth sailing. Right up to her final line about preparing so many sandwiches, Candie had a bizarre knack for making everyone stop and wonder just what the hell is really going on. From her over enthusiastic agreement with Cooper that the Mitchums have "hearts of gold" to her intense contemplation of traffic on the Strip, Candie was like a canary in the coal mine of reality, alerting us to some hidden danger that even now remains obscure.



Dougie Jones, coiled cobra

Another reason a showdown with Chantal and Hutch had such a buildup was because of the unexpected revelation that even sleep-walking Cooper could instantly marshal his legendary reflexes and coordination. The gentle, cow-like, grazing man suddenly sprang to life when Ike the Spike threatened him and Janey E. An appearance by the Arm cemented the strangeness of the lighting fury in the scene.



The Sound at the Great Northern

By the end of the series this sound seems to be related to a portal in the Great Northern's boiler room yet we also hear a similar sound when Cooper wakes in the hospital. But for most of the season it was a background noise to Ben and Beverly's sinister flirtations. So while the sound drew our minds to one mystery it really served as a way to inject a strange energy into the chemistry between the married Beverly and her boss. Were the two phenomena related? Given the way the supernatural is intimately connected to personal relationships, I'd say probably. But it's the uncertainty that keeps our attention.



The Walking Woodsman

We see him in the morgue, walking, unnoticed by Cynthia Knox who's busy talking on the phone about Major Briggs' body. The Woodsman just keeps getting closer and closer and finally . . . continues down the hall, not even breaking stride. Somehow this is more disturbing than him actually doing anything, the sight of his walking and the ominous sounds perfectly playing off the grisly mystery involving the body.



Janey E, Negotiator

Dougie's got a bad gambling debt so when Janey E confronts the lone sharks the history of such stories have taught us this can't go well for her or Dougie. But somehow she seems to get her and Dougie out of it by sheer willpower and the ferocity of Naomi Watts' performance. And we never see these schlubs again.



"This is the water . . ."

My list isn't in any particular order but this one is probably my favourite. Why is that chant uttered by the Woodsman on that fateful night so effective? The words he chooses and his tone are a crucial part of it--"This is," he starts out like he's going to give us any radio call sign, "This is TPKR in Chicago and you're listening to--" or whatever. Then he takes it to something primal; "This is the water and this is the well." It reflects the sense of reassurance meant to be intrinsic in such radio announcements and the promise meant to be in there that you're going to hear something that nourishes you spiritually in some way, either with good music or maybe some entertaining talk. Some reassuring human sound, in other words. But by laying it bare in this way, saying this is life sustaining water in this place, the well, where you can reliably go back and get it, is incredibly sinister. The fact that we know such announcements are normally exaggerated and intended to seduce us implicates us as complicit. The mind is forced to loop back on its interpretation and accept this Woodsman's stripped down reality. That's how hypnosis works. It really is a spell.

Part of me wonders how I can go back to watching any other TV show after Twin Peaks, part of me feels like the brilliance of Twin Peaks has enhanced my viewing experience of everything else. As last night's finale brought home, it is a show about experience, about contemplation of the moment and the potentials that are inherent in every moment. Among many other things, the third, hopefully not final, season of Twin Peaks is the nexus of Hitchcock and Cocteau, where the essence of suspense meets the essence of surrealism in a beautifully, startlingly meaningful way.

Spoilers after the screenshot



It's relatively well known that Laura Palmer's murder in the original series was never meant to be solved, that Lynch and Frost were forced by the network to reveal the killer's identity. The virtue in this original plan became clear to me some years ago when I was watching the series with my sister and I realised how much more interesting every scene must have been for her when virtually any character could be the killer. Like Hitchcock's bomb under the table, there's the suspense of that hidden fact and it compels the viewer to evaluate everything about each of the many characters we meet, to wonder whether some aspect of their surface personality is a reflection or a distortion of some other reality hidden from us.



Like the second season finale, the third season finale brings us more troubling, unanswered questions in the end. Twin Peaks doesn't leave all questions unanswered and not all of the clues lead nowhere--if it did, we'd get used to it and stop being engaged. Andy's (Harry Goaz) mission given to him by the Fireman (Carel Struycken) is fulfilled in a satisfying way as is the destiny of Freddie (Jark Wardle), which seems to have been nothing less than punching out Bob (Frank Silva's picture inside a black ball). The Fireman and the head of Major Briggs (a photo of Don S. Davis) even seem to make sure Mr. C (Kyle MacLachlan) arrives at the sheriff's station after finally getting to the right coordinates, seemingly indicating how sure they were all the right pieces were falling into place. It was an exceptionally well executed conventional showdown plot with plenty of ingenuity and entertaining ideas. I love the fact that Lucy (Kimmy Robertson) shot Mr. C and that the two Coopers somehow finally made her understand cell phones. There's a mysterious logic at play in Lucy's brain--it's easy to say she and Andy are stupid but I think Lynch's point is that what they have is a kind of intelligence organised in a vastly different way from how most of us understand it.



But on the other hand, that's true of everyone. It's easy to demonstrate by looking, for example, at reviews of the Twin Peaks finale. In an otherwise very positive review by Emily L. Stephens of A.V. Club, she feels compelled to note:

Naido being reduced to a placeholder for Diane is another example of Lynch’s clumsy sidelining of non-white characters. In this case, she’s not even a character, but a symbol of a character.



Why does Stephens reach this conclusion? Because most of Lynch's characters are white? In a finale so full of ambiguities, why is Stephens so sure that Naido (Nae Yuuki) is only a symbol of another character? We can interpret it like Stephens but we can as easily interpret it many other ways. For example, how do we know Diane (Laura Dern) isn't a symbol for Naido?

Naido's name is almost "Diane" in reverse. It becomes "Odian" when spelled backwards. Maybe meaning "Oh, Diane" or possibly "Zero Diane". The Twin Peaks wiki also has this explanation:

In Japanese Buddhism, the term naidō (内道) literally translates to "Inner Path," simultaneously describing "inner teachings" or "[one] within the path" of nature and righteousness.

Is Naido really Diane, or is her assuming the form of Diane a response to Cooper's (Kyle MacLachlan) need?

Incidentally, I recently learned about the second kanji in naido, 道, which means "way". The box on the right represents a severed human head and the line on the left represents a road--it represents an incident in ancient times when a conquering army left the severed heads of their enemies all along the road on their way back to their castle. In could be a coincidence but we've sure seen plenty of severed heads along the path this season.



The seemingly straight forward action climax shifts at one point to having footage of Cooper's stunned face overlaid on the increasingly strange occurrences in Truman's (Robert Forster) office. Like Phillip Jeffries in Fire Walk with Me, the close up of Cooper's face says that we live inside a dream and, indeed, things start to seem more and more dreamlike, especially when Candie (Amy Shiels) and the two other girls working for the Mitchum brothers bring in baskets of snacks. It is a good thing they made so many sandwiches but when did they make them and how did they know so many people were going to be there? Cooper, Diane, and Gordon (David Lynch) going to the boiler room under the Great Northern feels even stranger.



In episode 18, it becomes even clearer that Lynch's aim is to present scenes that do have a meaning but which also require interpretation from the viewer. Information given to Cooper by the Fireman at the beginning of season three starts to come into play--Cooper had been told back then to look out for the number 430 and we see him and Diane drive 430 miles out from some unmentioned location. Then, after checking into a motel, they make love, after which Cooper finds a note that seems to indicate he and Diane have become the Richard and Linda mentioned by the Fireman way back. I love how Lynch's sex scenes aren't just extended ways of saying, "They had sex." Each one is a vital and distinctive part of the story. This one had some things in common with the sex scenes in Lost Highway and there's a sense that Cooper's identity is becoming strange to Diane in this moment of physical intimacy. Her hands seem compelled to cover his face and in the note the next morning "Linda" says that she no longer recognises the person "Richard" has become. Before this, Diane has a vision of herself outside the motel and all together it seems that travelling between worlds has once again required the travellers to inhabit other identities and stories.



But Cooper is still Cooper. It seems twenty five years in the Black Lodge have taught him some magic. But what is he doing? Still trying to save Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee)? Is this the story of the little girl down the lane? Is it like Scottie in Vertigo, trying to make reality into a story about himself, a lawman, saving a beautiful woman from untimely death? The chivalrous knight is quick to protect the waitress (Francesca Eastwood) from three assholes in Judy's diner.



In the end, it seems to become a masterfully executed nightmare about a time travel story. Like the season two finale, everything seems to crash into enigmatic disaster. Jeez, I hope there's going to be a season four. I want to know what happens with Bobby and Shelly, what happened to Becky, what the deal is with Candie, I want to see more of Tammy Preston. In short, I want more. But I probably always will.

Twitter Sonnet #1030

Refreshing xylophone appraised the ice.
The party cooled beyond martini chill.
A name too far in sloth exchanged for rice.
A pie awaits upon the autumn sill.
The steam is pressed against the kettle's gut.
The melting air appears on ev'ry brow.
To screaming heat no window now can shut.
A boiling tide consumes the dipping bow.
Two birds ingest a single stone again.
The dream advanced behind the forward moon.
The only chance became a pyrrhic win.
An endless quest may also end too soon.
The absent eyes invite the seer home.
A skipping sound compels the dream to roam.

It's weird getting used to an absolutely transcendent experience in television every Sunday night, watching Twin Peaks. And it's always different--the newest episode, "There's Some Fear in Letting Go", I doubt left any fan of the old series with dry eyes.

Spoilers after the screenshot



In an extraordinary moment of life and art coalescing, actress Catherine Coulson, who died before filming on this season completed, performed the death scene of Margaret Lanterman. Seeing her looking so frail all season with her hair gone and tubes in her nose, it's hard not to feel the reality in her discussing death with Hawk (Michael Horse). As one of the most recognisable figures of what made Twin Peaks distinct from the beginning, it's appropriate for the death of the Log Lady to be given such attention . . . and the grief in that dim conference room where only a tearful Lucy (Kimmy Robertson) is fully illuminated is . . . well, there are no words to do it justice.



Margaret's not the only character death in the episode. In addition to the abrupt execution of Duncan Todd (Patrick Fischler) and his assistant, it also seems Steven (Caleb Landry Jones) commits suicide though we don't actually see him die.



I loved the way Alicia Witt played Gersten's reaction on the other side of the tree when she heard the gunshot. The way she claws at her hair it's clear she's immediately trying to scrub her mind of any understanding of what she's just heard. She looks up at the trees--we'd been getting point of view shots from Steven of the trees too and I really love how much this season makes the forest a character. There had always been talk about a darkness and a mystery present in the woods around Twin Peaks but since there had to be more limitations on exterior shots in the old series you didn't get to see the forest nearly as much. Now Lynch is using the woods every chance he gets. It's there for bad things and good, as when we see shots of trees and mountains after Ed (Everett McGill) and Norma (Peggy Lipton) embrace and kiss openly in the RR, finally free to be together.



Once again, we have a work of art being interpreted and provoking actions its creator could never have anticipated. This new season began with Dr. Jacobi receiving the shipment of shovels and painting them. Lynch invited us to contemplate them long before explaining how they were tied to Jacobi's political internet show. Who could have guessed Jacobi's exhortation that his viewers shovel out of the shit would motivate Nadine (Wendie Robie) to set Ed free?



Likewise, Bill Wilder never knew that giving Cecil B. DeMille a line about a character named "Gordon Cole" would inspire Lynch to use that name for a character and would also inspire Dougie Jones (Kyle MacLachlan) to be Dale Cooper again.



The new Twin Peaks can function as a public safety video, too. Don't run out into traffic and don't stick a fork in a power outlet. If you didn't know before you're certainly never going to forget now.



Maybe the most amazing segment, though, was Mr. C's (Kyle MacLachlan) encounter at the legendary convenience store. This segment tied the area above the convenience store, first mentioned by Mike (Al Strobel) in Cooper's original Red Room dream (or in the alternate pilot ending), with the old room with torn floral wallpaper Laura (Sheryl Lee) entered through the picture given to her by Mrs. Tremond. In Fire Walk with Me it seemed to connect to the Black Lodge but in a marvellously spooky sequence last night we saw Mr. C walk with a woodsman through the same doorway only to enter a long corridor of complete darkness which occasionally faded into ominously creaking trees.



He finally finds Phillip Jeffries--is he trapped in that ghostly motel? In any case, he's now a massive tea kettle voiced by Nathan Frizzell. My friend Caitlin pointed out to me that this tea kettle resembled one of the machines from the Fireman's home in episode 8.



Speaking of eight, Jeffries motel room is eight.



It's also the number on Freddie's (Jake Wardle) cell.



All these numbers on the show. I hope some mathematician fans are getting a kick out of them, I can't make heads or tails of them so far. Dougie seems to be associated with the number seven a lot. Does it mean something that James is in cell seven?



Poor James. His shy little greeting to Renee (Jessica Szohr) sure got out of control. But it puts Freddie in the same room with Naido (Nae Yuuki) so perhaps all this was arranged. Andy (Harry Goaz) said people are trying to kill her, now she's got the police station around her and a guy with super strength.



Finally, it was confirmed at last that Richard (Eamon Farren) is Audrey's (Sherilyn Fenn) son. This was followed by another strange scene between Audrey and Charlie (Clark Middleton) who is not, as I thought, a dwarf. The actor actually has a form of arthritis that inhibited his bone growth and he was apparently in Kill Bill vol 2 but I don't remember him at all. Anyway, the scene ends with Audrey trying to strangle him and after the way bits of their conversation have resembled things said in the Girls in Roadhouse Booths vignettes and we'd just seen Steven apparently feeling guilty about something, possibly for harming Becky in some way, I wonder if the idea is that actions tend to travel on spiritual currents out into a community. Or maybe through power lines.

Last night's new Twin Peaks showed the clear contrast between benevolent forces and cruel. It also contained the best arm wrestling scene I've seen in any movie or TV show and the best use of dandruff since North by Northwest.

Spoilers after the screenshot



Looks like a field of stars.

Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) has become a master zen fool. He has lost all connexion to illusory human attachments, even identity, and allows the flow of existence to carry him. There's no guile when he becomes transfixed by the dandruff on Anthony's (Tom Sizemore) coat but it just happens to be the right thing to do. I wonder how much Mike (Al Strobel) and the Arm appreciate this new mode of existence for Cooper since Mike had told him he needed to "wake up". Maybe there'll be limits to Cooper's new powers.



There's something unsettling about his success with the Mitchum brothers. When they come into the Lucky Seven insurance building in that conga line the music sounds like a handful of screws dropped in an air duct. And Candie's (Amy Shiels) glee at giving gifts to Bushnell (Don Murray) seems manic. Sonny Jim (Pierce Gagnon) in his new jungle gym at night with a spotlight is almost frighteningly delirious.



A more markedly uncertain reality appears in Audrey Horne's (Sherilyn Fenn) second episode of the new season. We see her questioning her own motives and identity and her relationship with Charlie (Clark Middleton) has become less clear. Last week he seemed to be her husband, now I wonder if he's a psychiatrist who indulges Audrey when she slips into delusional narratives. Or maybe she's in a dream. It almost feels like Lynch and Frost didn't know what to do with Audrey in the new series and decided to use this uncertainty as a prompt. Well, it certainly works, in my opinion, and I'm intrigued. Her desperation at searching for a basic identity, lacking Cooper's contentment, is kind of heart breaking.



Mr. C (Kyle MacLachlan) shows how malevolence has greater, more logical efficiency than Dougie's brand. I thought the idea of an arm wrestling scene was silly at first but I was completely won over when C tortured the gang boss, Renzo (Derek Mears), not merely with physical pain but with a complete disruption of the rules of strength and dominance that define the world Renzo understands. Cooper's a master Jedi and C's a consummate Sith.



Cherry pie was discussed a lot again this week, both at Lucky 7 Insurance and at Twin Peaks where we have another nice scene at the RR. Becky (Amanda Seyfried) reveals she has a love for the famous pie as well, also revealing she hasn't seen Steven in two days. I'm no relationship expert but firing off several rounds into his girlfriend's door might have made him skittish.



Bobby (Dana Ashbrook) says they've just found something of his father's "to-day" which is either a continuity error or the police have recovered whatever treasure the capsule map was leading to. Lynch and Frost show a genius level attention to detail so it's hard to believe it's an error.



And poor Big Ed (Everett McGill), finally back and, while he seems to be doing better with Norma (Peggy Lipton) than Bobby is with Shelly (Madchen Amick), things are still remarkably unsure with Norma apparently being wooed by some cheesy corporate cutthroat (Grant Goodeve). Honestly, Ed, I wouldn't worry.