Twin Piques: A Millennial’s Journey Through Twin Peaks (Part 3)
By Maya Gold
[Image via CBS/Showtime]
Part three of the journey into David Lynch’s Twin Peaks, written by your friendly neighborhood millennial. Here be llamas!
Welcome to the third round of Twin Piques! If you’re just tuning in: I’m a would-be television buff millennial who’s filling a gap in my media education by watching Twin Peaks for the first time.
If you’d like to catch up, here’s what we’ve covered so far:
Twin Peaks, Episode 5. Or: “I’ve been doing some research. In real life, there is no algebra.”
Y’all, I know I’m only five episodes in, but this theme music is already a beautiful relaxing bubble bath.
We start the fifth episode with Sarah Palmer describing her vision of the creepy dude crouching in her living room. Turns out, Overly Empathetic Policeman can draw?
Leland pops in to be a jerk — “she’s had two visions,” he sarcastically informs the gathered policemen. Sarah puts his butt out to pasture by very accurately describing the buried half of Laura’s heart necklace being retrieved. Which, as we the viewers know, was originally in possession of Biker James, hidden by him and Donna, and retrieved by Doctor Jacoby so he could cry over it.
Back at the police station, Lucy loves her some Invitation to Love, a soap opera which consistently appears in snippets as different characters watch it. I’m assuming it’s some Great Big Metaphor, but I honestly can’t be bothered. Point being, President Sheriff asks her what’s going on, and she gives him the skinny on her soap, because she’s adorable.
But wait! Overly Empathetic Policeman and Lucy hooked up! He tries to be Overly Empathetic: “Why couldn’t I spend the night last night?”
She shuts him down: “Will you be having coffee, Deputy Brennan?”
It is A+.
Meanwhile, speak of the devil: President Sheriff and Cooper are interviewing Doctor Jacoby. He invokes doctor-patient confidentiality and … 3-D glasses?
[Image via CBS/Showtime]“The problems of our entire society are of a sexual nature,” Dr. Jacoby informs PS and Cooper. They’re not impressed. Neither am I, for the record.
He invokes doctor-patient confidentiality and … 3-D glasses?
Jacoby denies having sex with Laura the night of her death and reveals a very confusing grasp on geography–last I checked, Hawaii was not to the east of anywhere in the continental United States. He admits that he was not making much headway with Laura as a patient, but that he was following someone with a red Corvette a.k.a one-strap Leo. He leaves, deploying the WORLD’S BEST CATCHPHRASE.
[Image via CBS/Showtime]The good doctor also appears to be sporting a hoop earring. Every time the shot focuses on this dude, I learn something new about his appearance.
Jacoby leaves, and Cooper’s boss calls in from The Big City. We learn that Laura had bird bites on her shoulder, and Cooper once again defends President Sheriff’s honor because he loooves him. Overly Empathetic Policeman comes in with the sketch he drew; Coop identifies it as the person he saw in his dream.
Meanwhile, Josie is … espionaging? She appears to be spying on Daddy Warbucks and Catherine, who are once again shacked up, this time at a motel. The one-armed man is also at the motel. After a truly cringe-worthy scene where the Twin Peaks Police Force sneak up on his room and Overly Empathetic Policeman drops his damn gun, alerting Daddy Warbucks and Catherine to their presence. What is this I can’t even:
[Image via CBS/Showtime]When DW leaves to go take a shower (maybe? is that the idiom here?), Catherine finds a poker chip from One-Eyed Jack’s, DW’s favorite yacht-accessible brothel. She doesn’t look pleased.
We learn that the one-armed man is a traveling shoe salesman named Gerald. Cooper asks him if he knows a Bob, which is part of his dream-sequence Spidey sense; Gerald does indeed. Bob the veterinarian is Gerald’s best friend. He’s also currently in a coma.
He’d be cute if his name wasn’t Manslaughter McDiner.
Meanwhile, Manslaughter McDiner, aka Norma’s husband, is getting tried in a parole hearing. He’d be cute if his name wasn’t Manslaughter McDiner. He asks for Norma’s help, tells both Norma and the parole board that he’s changed, and plays with a domino. Norma doesn’t seem super on board with any of this.
Let’s just take a minute to reflect on this veterinary clinic motto, shall we:
[Image via CBS/Showtime]Nope, no time for that, there’s a. LLAMA. IN. THE. WAITING. ROOM.
[Image via CBS/Showtime]Ladies and gentlepeople, I believe we have reached peak Twin Peaks. I have a lot of feelings about llamas — they can be summed up as more of them, yes please thank you.
Cooper and President Sheriff seem to take the llama in the room in stride. They have some banter that’s probably moderately important to the plot but I am not taking it in because I am DYING DYING DEAD FOREVER:
[Image via CBS/Showtime]I am forever changed by what I have seen today.
I have a lot of feelings about llamas — they can be summed up as more of them, yes, please, thank you.
Cooper handles the llama with a lot more aplomb than I am, and informs the secretary at the vet’s office that they will be taking all the files.
Bobby and Shelly are hanging out at Shelly’s half-built abode again. Look, philandering 101: if you have a husband that beats you and works weird hours, don’t cheat on him at your house?
Bobby tells Shelly that Leo and Jacques have been running drugs, conveniently omitting that he was also in on the deal. Shelly shows Bobby Leo’s shirt. He’s excited to have the bloody shirt smoking gun.
Shelly has a gun. She also lacks trigger discipline. This seems to be a turn on for both of them.
Back at the police station, Overly Empathetic Policeman apologizes for being a dodo and dropping his gun. Speaking of dodos, the team officially starts going through the vet’s files for information about bird owners. Lucy is very professional to Overly Empathetic Policeman; it’s awkward. The boys go down to the shooting range, and Cooper is sexist: “Women were drawn from a very different set of blueprints.”
No one asked you, Cooper. Go hang out with some more llamas.
They all shoot at targets. Surprising no one, Overly Empathetic Policeman is gonna needs some more practice. Cooper has some ridiculous aim, which means he should spend less time at the range and more time reading Simone de Beauvoir.
No one asked you, Cooper. Go hang out with some more llamas.
Biker James calls Donna from the diner. I don’t know what he wants, but her dad has a significantly more important question:
[Image via CBS/Showtime]After going through some animal files, the police learn that Jacques Renault owns a myna bird–which is convenient, seeing as the bites on the shoulders were from a parrot or myna bird.
Albert faxes over the reconstruction of the plastic fragment found in Laura’s stomach, displaying some peak reconstructive technology:
[Image via CBS/Showtime]Anyway, they’re off to the races. And by races, I mean Jacques Renault’s apartment. They get there just in time to find Leo’s shirt, which Bobby has planted. Bobby himself dives out the window and successfully escapes.
Leo and Daddy Warbucks meet up. Iiiiinteresting. DW sasses Leo, which pleases me: “Bright red sports car for a secret meeting. Nice.”
Looks like Leo killed the Renault cousin and convinced Jacques to skip town. DW throws away a cigar wrapper right next to the Renault cousin’s body because apparently he’s really into leaving evidence for the police to find, and they set up a drug deal.
DW sasses Leo, which pleases me: “Bright red sports car for a secret meeting. Nice.”
Donna and Biker James go to check on the necklace. As we could have told them, it’s gone. There’s a dramatic owl, which I assume is the ’90s version of dramatic prairie dog:
[Image via CBS/Showtime]Ain’t no transition like the ol’ sheep-head-on-a-wall transition:
[Image via CBS/Showtime]I just need to point out that its poor little hooves are now a gun rack.
We pan over to Josie, who sidesteps President Sheriff’s phone call about being at the motel. Pete asks her to join a fishing competition, which is actually super adorable. He leaves, happy with his mayo sandwich; Josie gets a letter that seems important.
It’s a hand drawn picture of the domino that Manslaughter McDiner was holding at his parole interview–two threes. Instantly, there’s a phone call from him.
Look. Licking dominos is NOT SANITARY.
He tells Josie he’ll “catch her later.” Josie does not seem pleased. This is a man who is two for two on not leaving a good impression.
Other important bits of Episode 5:
- When the police are leaving the motel where Elvis got a bath, Deputy Hawk figures out that Josie has been staking out the motel. How? Who knows. Tire tracks, maybe. At any rate, he tells President Sheriff.
- Audrey convinces Donna to let her help their investigation into Laura’s death, mostly because she wants to hook up with Cooper. This is going to end well. She does know a bit, though–she tells Donna she knows Laura was Dr. Jacoby’s patient, that she thinks Laura worked at One-Eyed Jack’s, and that both Laura and Ronette worked the perfume counter at her dad’s store.
- Norma and Shelly have a heart-to-heart about their spouses and misters: “Two men apiece and we don’t know what to do with any of the four of them.” Manslaughter McDiner gets his parole.
- Biker James runs into Madeline, Laura’s cousin. She looks a lot like Laura, probably because she’s played by the same actress. Biker James seems preeeetty infatuated.
- Audrey successfully convinces Daddy Warbucks to let her work at the store,