Welcome to Twin Sneaks! I started this column about a year ago, but stopped watching the show as I wanted to wait until the new Season 3 was closer. What I’m hoping to do here is recap all the episodes for you guys leading up to the new premiere on May 21st (EEEEEK!!) After that, I’ll continue to recap the new episodes for you, and have them ready to go every Monday or Tuesday! There will, of course, be SPOILERS in these recaps, so please stop reading (or don’t, I’m not you mom) and WATCH THE DAMN SHOW ON NETFLIX, YOU JERK!

Twin Peaks – Season One: Episodes 2-4

Recap by Nick Spanjer

 

Episode 2: Traces to Nowhere

Directed by Duwayne Dunham

Written by Mark Frost and David Lynch

The first episode after the Pilot gives us a nice feeling of The Great Northern as Cooper recites his notes for Diane while hanging upside down from the ceiling in his boxers. “The true test of any hotel, as you well know Diane, is that morning cup of coffee, which I’ll be getting back to you about in a half hour.” Cooper then has his first of many cups of coffee in The Great Northern. “You know, this is – excuse me – a damn fine cup of coffee.” High-schooler Audrey Horne creeps in and is immediately lovestruck with the Agent. He uncomfortably returns this affection while talking about freshly squeezed grapefruits. 

Cooper then arrives at the Sheriff station in which every employee has their mouths full of donuts, including Sheriff Truman, who manages to violently cram an entire bearclaw into his mouth all at once. We find out Laura’s death was between midnight and 4 AM, and she died of blood loss due a number of different “shallow wounds.” Doc Heyward also mentions that she’d had sex with at least three men in the last 12 hours of her life. 

We then cut to Leo Johnson’s semi-truck, that is of course named “Big Pussycat.” He’s vacuuming out the cab while smoking a cigarette when his wife, Shelly Johnson tells him she has to leave work. He throws his bag of laundry at her and demands that she do it before she leaves, not caring if she’s late for work. Their washing machine is outside on some half-ass porch and as she pours his clothes into the machine, she finds a denim shirt stained in blood. Back at the Sheriff station, Cooper is grilling James Hurley about his alibi the night of Laura’s murder. James details the last time the two saw each other on his bike at the light at Sparkwood and 21, and she just ran into the woods at about 12:30 AM. Cooper refers to Laura’s diary and asks what happened on February 5th. We flash back to one of James’ ultra-emo memories of February 5th, when Laura admitted she knew he loved her and gave him half of the necklace. Careful viewers will note the necklace actually reads “Best Friends,” and this is where we realize that James was in all actuality, hardcore friend-zoned by Laura.

Over at Leo’s house, he’s angrily tearing his truck apart looking for the bloody shirt like a deranged, ponytailed neanderthal. Mike and Bobby are still in jail and are discussing Leo wanting the rest of the money for a coke deal that was pulled off while Laura was still alive. Over at the Heywards’, Donna comes downstairs to her mom in her hockey jersey pajamas and chides her for not waking her up. They discuss Laura’s death and Donna basically mentions that she’s happy Laura is dead so she can now be with Hug Me James.

Norma Jennings and one-eyed Nadine Hurley stumble into each other awkwardly at the General Store. Nadine, though mentally affected, clearly has an idea that her husband is secretly seeing Norma while she aggressively rambles on about her drapes that Ed bought her. Nadine mentions her new silent drape-runner invention and the secret behind them: “Cotton BALLS. By god, those things will be quiet now.” Back at the station, James is released into Ed’s custody as Deputy Hawk and Ed give each other the ‘teardrop’ Bookhouse Boys signal. James mentions he’ll need a hand from the Bookhouse Boys.

Over at the Packard estate, Josie awakens to find Pete cleaning fish and she thanks him for standing up to his wife, Catherine the day previous. Cooper and Truman arrive to meet with Josie, as Pete pours them a cup of coffee. They each take a drink of coffee as Pete comes running into the room yelling about a fish in the percolator. Catherine calls to tell Josie that shutting down the mill caused nearly $90,000 in losses.

We cut over to a cheap motel where an unclothed Catherine Martell watches Ben Horne putting his clothes back on after their hour-long, secret and disgusting romp. It is revealed that they are collectively attempting to sabotage the mill in hopes of gaining the land it sits on for the Ghostwood development. They horrifically flirt while discussing burning down the mill and the scene thankfully ends before moving to a vomit-inducing level of revulsion. At the Palmer’s house, Leland is attempting to console his grieving wife and Donna shows up to talk. Sarah breaks into another frenzy of crying and hallucinates her daughter’s head on Donna’s shoulders in a glorious display of 1989 video effects awesomeness. As she grips her tight, she suddenly envisions Killer Bob at the foot of Laura’s bed and erupts into absolute delirium.

At the hospital, Deputy Hawk is questioning Ronette Pulaski’s flannel-clad parents about her whereabouts on the night of Ronette’s attack and Laura’s murder. They reveal that Ronette was a salesgirl at the Horne’s Department Store’s perfume counter. The one-armed man steps off the elevator and Hawk leaves the parents to follow. He sees him going to the morgue, but for some reason, just lets this happen and walks away. We cut to Audrey dancing by herself in her father’s office at The Great Northern. He walks in after his geriatric fuckathon, annoyed at the sight of this and turns off the music. We find that they clearly have a terrible relationship, as he rubs chap stick on and questions Audrey about her role in the Norwegians’ sudden departure. She admits to this happily, in which Ben returns a brutal confession of his disappointment in her. “Laura died two days ago. I lost you years ago.” Damn, son.

Over at Bobby’s parents’ house, they are discussing Bobby’s girlfriend’s murder over dinner. Garland Briggs attempts to console his son with a strange, militaristic textbook form of sympathy that feels like GI Joe reading Shakespeare. Bobby places a cigarette in his mouth which his father violently slaps out, harpooning the cigarette into his mother’s slice of meatloaf. Over at the Double-R Diner, Cooper and Truman visit Norma Jennings while enjoying coffee and cherry pie. Cooper notes The Log Lady’s presence and waves with no response. The Log Lady comes over suddenly and asks Cooper to speak to her log about the night Laura died. Cooper looks bewildered, which disgusts her, so she leaves in a huff.

Back at Chez Johnson, Leo is cutting into a football with a switchblade like a true fucking psycho would. Shelly gets home from the diner and he places a bar of soap in a sock. She cutely expresses that she brought him some pie (like he asked) and instead of saying thank you like a normal human being, he asks where his shirt is. “Where’s my shirt…my favorite blue shirt?” He slaps the pie (that he fucking asked for) out of her hand, as she plays dumb. He turns on the radio to some Badalamenti 50’s bebop and watches her recoil into the corner of their awful skeleton of a house, while he spins the soap sock in the air.

Finally, we return to the Heyward’s for a ridiculously uncomfortable dinner scene where Hug Me James is already being introduced to Donna’s parents. He’s wearing a spectacularly awful sweater that puts Seinfeld’s Puffy Shirt to absolute shame. He opts for fruit punch to drink (of course) as Doc Heyward awkwardly questions James’ background. Mike and Bobby roll up to the house and see that James’ bike is outside. They note that James has now moved in on both of their girlfriends. “Too bad we can only kill him once.” Over at Dr. Jacoby’s, he’s listening to one of the tapes he had Laura make him in his Hawaiian-themed office. He grabs a fake coconut off a decorative tree and opens it while listening to Laura’s crying voice through headphones. He grasps the other half of the necklace from the inside of the coconut and begins to cry.

 

Episode 3: Zen, or the Skill to Catch a Killer

Directed by David Lynch

Written by Mark Frost and David Lynch

The beginning of this episode is drenched in David Lynch awesomeness, as the Horne’s eat silently while the credits roll before Jerry Horne makes his grand appearance, urging Ben to try a baguette he got in Paris. Ben tells Jerry what he missed concerning Laura’s murder and the Norwegians leaving before signing the contracts. This depresses Jerry, so Ben lifts him up by telling him there’s a new girl at the whorehouse he runs, and that Jerry has a 50% chance of being the first to try her out. These girls are in high school, by the way. “All work and no play make Ben and Jerry dull boys.” Nice, David Lynch.

Back at the Heyward’s, Donna and Hug Me James are still finishing the most boring dinner on earth while he swims in his sweater. The parents go to bed and they prep the dullest whisper conversation ever. Ben and Jerry arrive at One Eyed Jack’s ready to bang out some high school girls dressed like a hallucinatory deck of cards in Alice in Wonderland. Ben wins the coin toss and gross. Back at the Heyward’s, it’s midnight and Donna and Hug Me James are whispering for 10 minutes about being together and then kiss and ugh, who gives a fuck.

Cooper walks into his room at The Great Northern and receives a call from Deputy Hawk about Ronette and the one-armed man he saw. He hangs up and sees a letter slide under his door that reads “Jack with One Eye.” He smells the letter, because he’s Dale Fucking Cooper and that’s fucking weird, then smiles creepily knowing who wrote it. Mike and Bobby drive into some dark woods and get some coke out of a stump where Leo is waiting in the dark for them with a shotgun. They argue about money for a bit, as Bobby is about $10,000 short for the drugs since Laura had it hidden in the safety deposit box then died. Leo tells Bobby that he knows Shelly is cheating on him then goes into full Leo Johnson nuthouse mode.

Over at Ed and Norma’s, Ed trips over the drape runner invention and spills grease on them while Norma shows off her superhuman strength and angrily bends some steel. At the Johnson’s, a face-bruised Shelly is watching the show that oddly mirrors the Twin Peaks storyline, Invitation to Love when Bobby comes in. He sees the bruises and says he’s going to kill Leo before they start making out. At the Double-R diner, Ed and Norma talk more about their shitty, depressing lives without each other in them.

In the woods, Cooper and the Sherriff’s department prep an odd deductive technique that Cooper learned from a dream, because why the fuck not? Lucy pours them coffee and Cooper yells “Damn good coffee! And hot!” Based on what he read in the diary, Cooper mentions they’re looking for someone with J in their name. He draws a way too perfect circle in chalk, which has always bothered me to my core, for some reason. Every time one of the J names are read, Cooper throws a rock at a bottle that’s 60 feet and 6 inches away until it smashes upon the reading of Leo Johnson’s name…because, you know, David Lynch.

Back at the diner, Audrey walks in, plugs the jukebox and dances up to the bar for some black coffee because she wants to fuck Agent Cooper, and that’s what he likes. Donna walks over to her, and Audrey asks if Laura ever mentioned her father, Ben. Then Audrey gets up and dances like she just smoked five joints and yeah, Lynch definitely directed this episode. In the Sheriff station, Albert Rosenfield shows up in all his glorious assholery. Cooper warns Truman about him then squeezes his nose, which I’m really hoping was improv, because it’s amazing. Albert talks mad shit about Twin Peaks in front of Truman, and the sheriff goes full John Wayne in response. “I hear that you’re real good at what you do. Well that’s good, because normally if a stranger walked into my station talking this kind of crap, he’d be looking for his teeth two blocks up on Queer Street.” Welcome to 1990.

Ed comes home from the Gas Farm and Nadine over-excitedly tells him that his grease caused her drape runners to be completely silent, driving her to think they’re going to be rich from the invention. Over at the Martell’s, Pete and Catherine are getting ready for bed, when he sneakily gives Josie Grossie a key to the safe downstairs so she can get the ledger for the mill. Catherine yells at Pete and tells him to go to his room in one of the stranger dialogue exchanges yet. Josie finds two ledgers in the safe; one fake and one real.

Over at the Palmer’s, Leland puts on a record (the strangely snappy ‘Pennsylvania 6-5000’), and begins spinning with a picture of his murdered daughter, while weeping and screaming aloud. The phone begins ringing and Sarah runs in, when he breaks the picture and slices his wife’s hand open on the broken glass. She begins screaming, and with the music and the phone ringing, it’s one of the most stressful scenes in this entire show.

This episode ends in one of my favorite scenes in the entire series. In a dream, Cooper finds himself in the “Red Room” where a dwarf is shivering in the corner. It’s revealed that the one-armed man is named Mike and there is an evil entity named Bob. Cooper is clearly aged in the dream and he notices that Laura Palmer is sitting across from him. The dwarf turns and in warped speech yells, “Let’s Rock.” The whole scene must be seen to be believed, but it truly is the scene that hooked me on Twin Peaks.

Cooper awakens from the dream, with one of the greatest bedhead scenes in cinematic history, and calls Truman to tell him he knows who killed Laura.

 

Episode 4: Rest in Pain

Directed by Tina Rathborne

Written by Harley Peyton

The next morning, Cooper-obsessed Audrey is waiting for Cooper, and they uncomfortably flirt while Cooper admits he knows she wrote the letter that was left under his door. They talk about One Eyed Jack’s and Laura’s connection before Truman and Lucy show up. He repeats the dream to the sheriff and Lucy, and mentions that the Mike and Bob in the dream have nothing to do with Mike and Bobby, our local high school badasses. He admits that the killer’s name was whispered in his ear by Dream Laura, but he forgot it by the time morning rolled around.

Over at the morgue, Doc Heyward is arguing with Agent Dickhead Rosenfield over Laura’s blue corpse, while Ben Horne for some reason is staring creepily into her dead face. Rosenfield calls Truman a hulking boob then gets punched by our mulleted sheriff. Leland is watching Invitation to Love while being plugged with some kind of tranquilizer. His niece Madeline (Maddy) then appears in the doorway, and she just happens to not only look like Laura, but it’s also the same actress, Sheryl Lee. At the diner, Norma is meeting with her incarcerated husband Hank’s lawyer about Hank getting out of prison.

Out at Leo Johnson’s, Cooper and Truman follow up on the bottle-breaking deductive result and find Leo chopping wood in half-buttoned overalls, because that’s what pony-tailed Leo Johnson wears, god dammit. Cooper questions him about the night of Laura’s murder and Leo gives a bunch of angrily hilarious one-word answers. At the Briggs’ house, Bobby and family are getting ready for Laura’s funeral. His father, Major Garland Briggs, in all his almost Shakespearean glory, does his best to console his son concerning Laura’s death. Seemingly coked-out Bobby exclaims he’s going to turn the funeral upside down in his father’s attempt at consolation.

At the station, Cooper and Truman receive Rosenfield’s autopsy results and find that she was high on cocaine when she was killed, that she was bound with two different kinds of twine, an animal pecked and scratched at her, and that there was plastic in her stomach. Albert attempts to get Cooper to sign a sheet saying he was assaulted, but Cooper refuses and it is this moment that you know Cooper has fallen in love with Twin Peaks. At Ed and Nadine’s, Ed stares at his wife’s decorations in the most loathing manner possible before Nadine depressingly admits how much she’s always loved him. Then Hug Me James comes moodily through the door and announces he’s not going to Laura’s funeral, honestly pouting out the following shit from below his giant forehead: “I can’t. I just can’t.” He then legitimately runs out the door and jumps on his bike and fucking christ, I can’t stand him.

Over at The Great Northern, Audrey suddenly has a 90’s-era Prince haircut and watches Dr. Jacoby through a peephole, taking her brother Johnny’s Native headdress off for the funeral. So here we go: The Motherfucking Funeral. It starts off fine, until Cooper notices Bobby staring at the approaching James, who just fucking said he wasn’t coming. Bobby does what he promised and begins yelling ‘Amen!,’ then lectures the whole crowd about letting Laura die. This gets James all worked up into an emo frenzy and the two go at each other in slow motion, again, for some damn reason that I can’t name. Leland begins to cry then collapses on the coffin as the hydraulic begins to malfunction and wife Sarah begins screaming. The whole scene is wonderfully out of control and really makes Twin Peaks, Twin Peaks.

Back at the RR, Shelly is joking about Leland falling on the coffin with two old dudes, while Cooper arrives to meet Truman, Hawk, and Ed for some pie. Truman reveals that someone is running coke into town from Canada and they want Cooper’s help without revealing it to the FBI. Truman tells Cooper that there’s something evil and strange in the woods surrounding the town. “There’s a sort of evil out there, something very, very strange in these old woods. Call it what you want – a darkness, a presence. It takes many forms, but it’s been out there for as long as anyone can remember, and we’ve always been here to fight it.” This is when it is revealed that there is a secret society called ‘The Bookhouse Boys’ that has watched over the town for generations. They introduce Cooper to the Bookhouse and find Bernard Renault tied up, being watched by the Bookhouse Boys.

Over at the Roadhouse, the disgusting blob of a human, and Bernard’s brother, Jacques arrives to find that there is a red light on the roof, taken as a warning to stay away from bartending that night. Upon seeing this, he calls Leo, who is using a switchblade to get mud out of his boots in his kitchen, because he lives in the world’s most disgusting turd of a house. Jacques tells Leo that he needs help with a border run, and him and his sweater leave the way too cute Shelly behind right after she got off work.

Out at the Martell’s, Truman is talking to Josie Grossie about Catherine and Ben wanting to hurt her. Catherine is listening to the boring conversation, while Josie reveals to Truman that one of the ledgers is now missing. Catherine places the other ledger in her secret desk in the bedroom and shit, I hate this dumb storyline. At Laura’s moonlit grave site, Cooper approaches Dr. Jacoby who is delivering flowers to the recently deceased. Jacoby admits to Cooper that Laura meant way more to him than she should have as a high school girl, then we unfortunately return to Truman and Josie Grossie, where they whisper about Ben and Catherine’s conspiracy against her. Then they make out for like 15 minutes.

At The Great Northern, Cooper and Hawk discuss the Native thoughts on the duality of souls, while off-his-rocker Leland stands in the middle of  the dance floor, eyes closed. A swing number kicks on and he desperately asks around for a dance partner. Cooper and Hawk look on concerned before coming to his aid and taking him home.

I know I said I’d have the remainder of Season One in one recap, but it’s simply too much awesome to pack into one post! Come back this Friday, 4/14 for the rest of Season One!