I have happy memorie
I was excited for the return (after 25 years) but already the show and I have a rocky relationship. I’m not used to watching TV and not doing something else at the same time… but Twin Peaks demands your entire attention. Most of the time that has been fine, but this week’s episode really tested my patience.
The show started and it began with a road trip, EvilCooper and Ray were in the car on the run from prison (after Cooper blackmailed the warden to get out of jail). The next thing you know the car pulls over, they both get out (packing their guns) but Ray has emptied out Cooper’s and so he shoots Cooper.
Did not see that coming.
Then a heap of ‘beings’ appear (ghosts, zombies, who knows) they can’t be good though because I definitely saw BOB’s face in amongst them. The ghost things perform some sort of ritual (maybe it’s CPR?) and Ray screeches off.
The ghosts vanish, it’s misty, it’s dark, there’s a moon. Ray’s in the car talking on the phone (not making a heap of sense). And that is pretty much the end of normal for this episode.
Cut scene (11 minutes have passed) and we’re at the Road House and the Nine Inch Nails are playing (yes, the actual Nine Inch Nails). Five minutes passes, end scene – EvilCooper sits up and is (apparently) alive.
Cut scene and time shift. We’re in New Mexico and it’s a nuclear test. I thought it was a very tiny mushroom cloud but then I realised that we’re just a long way away.
After a rather long examination of the dust cloud (including some exploding light “Sony!” I shouted as it looks just like their DVD intro card and some sadly tortured violins we find ourselves outside a gas station. Twenty minutes have passed.
Lights are flashing, people are appearing and disappearing – some sort of by product of the gas station? The scene fades in and out of focus, not a lot really happens.
Cut scene. A body floating in space which vomits out some sort of dark matter. There are strange bubbles and objects which look like potatoes but more of that later. This can’t be good because there is BOB again.
There is some more self indulgent light and sound. It starts firey and progresses to zooming through space with a reddish hue – the geek in me wonders if this is symbolic of red shift and the expanding universe. Could be.
Now we’re passing over the sea to a rocky outcrop, there’s a castle on top. Of course we go up and eventually through the tiny window and inside (half an hour has passed).
Here we find a lady who is either an opera singer or a silent movie star. She sits around looking awed. The the giant appears. After a lot of standing around the giant floats up into the air. A gold glow starts flowing out of him, that gold glow that helped Dougie-Cooper win the jackpots and draw the ladders and staircases on the reports. A large gold orb appears and floats to the movie star woman. She catches it, kisses it – we know it must be good because there is Laura Palmer.
A giant euphonium (or similar) sucks up the orb and spits it out towards a representation of earth, presumably heading towards Twin Peaks?
40 minutes have passed. Time is also passing on the screen. It’s the 1950s… we’re still in the desert. Those potato/egg things that the floating body vomited out – turns out they are eggs as a cricket-frog hybrid hatches out.
People appear in the desert. It’s those zombie ghosts again. Now we see a couple in a car, one of the zombies stops them “Got a light?” he says over and over. Eventually common sense prevails and they speed off.
Cut scene. We get acquainted with an awkward teenage couple finishing up their date. We see KPJK radio station which is playing “My Prayer” by The Platters. We see a waitress cleaning up in the diner at the end of the day and the girl from the dating pair at home sitting on her bed.
50 minutes have passed. The spooky zombies are closing in. The radio station gets invaded and the receptionist is killed and the DJ halted in his tracks. Whilst he isn’t dead yet he’s incapacitated, the zombie takes over the airwave spouting out some blank verse type nonsense which sends the towns folk into trances. The girl on the bed seemingly falls into a slumber and the cricket-frog climbs into her mouth. Ew!
The zombie thing walks off into the desert. Finally credits roll.
If you get the impression I was watching the clock… I was. I found the episode tedious beyond reason. Too arty, too mystic, not enough story, not enough character. Pure David Lynch, but he doesn’t need to – he just does because he can.
If it was a movie (not counting the assertion that the episodes make it into a serialisation movie) I’d have turned it off.
You can share my Twin Peaks viewing moments here.
The Mrs Nat G 