In PRESTIGE PREHISTORY, Pop Heist critic Sean T. Collins takes a look at classic TV shows that paved the way for the New Golden Age of Television — challenging, self-contained series from writers and filmmakers determined to push the medium forward by telling stories their own way.
Twin Peaks Season 2, Episode 4
“Episode 11” aka “Laura’s Secret Diary”
[NOTE: The pilot episode of Twin Peaks is not numbered; this, the twelfth episode overall, is officially designated “Episode 11.”]
Original Airdate: October 20, 1990
Writers: Jerry Stahl, Mark Frost, Harley Peyton, Robert Engels
Director: Todd Holland
Cast: Kyle MacLachlan, Michael Ontkean, Mädchen Amick, Dana Ashbrook, Richard Beymer, Lara Flynn Boyle, Sherilyn Fenn, Warren Frost, Peggy Lipton, James Marshall, Everett McGill, Jack Nance, Kimmy Robertson, Ray Wise, Joan Chen, Harry Goaz, Sheryl Lee, Chris Mulkey, Ian Buchanan, Lenny Von Dohlen, Royal Dano, Don Amendolia, Fumio Yamaguchi, Ritch Brinkley, Michael Parks, Bellina Logan, Claire Stansfield, Mak Takano
Leland Palmer has a confession to make. Once again sobbing like the devastated father we knew before his hair went white, Leland admits that he killed Jacques Renault, the man he believed to be Laura’s killer. His motivation, he explains to Sheriff Truman, Agent Cooper, and Doc Hayward, was “absolute loss…more than grief. It’s deep down inside. Every cell screams. You can hear nothing else.”
And indeed, we do hear the sound in Leland’s head as he sits in the interrogation room in the Twin Peaks Sheriff’s Department, staring into the holes in the paneled walls. It’s the voice of his daughter, Laura, calling “Daddy!” over and over.
The scenes directly pertaining to Laura’s case are, unsurprisingly, the most affecting and disturbing in this comparatively light episode of Twin Peaks. Leland’s tearful confession is followed by a late-night appearance before the circuit court judge, Clinton Sternwood (Royal Dano).
Tall and imposing in his black Western-style clothing, he’s a good-natured fellow who hits it off with Coop right away. When the Judge points out the irony of Coop calling their woodland hideaway “heaven” despite its recent run of “arson, multiple homicides, and an attempt on the life of a federal agent,” Coop replies “Heaven is a large and interesting place, sir.”
The Judge also wishes Leland, who’s appeared before him as an attorney many times, the best despite the situation. “Before we assume our respective roles in this enduring drama, just let me say that when these frail shadows we inhabit now have quit the stage we’ll meet and raise a glass again together in Valhalla.”
“Would that it were so,” Leland replies, smiling ruefully.
Laura’s best friend Donna, meanwhile, has what can only be described as a dinner date with Harold Smith, Laura’s mysterious Meals on Wheels client. Reading from the book he claims is her secret diary — though he won’t let Donna examine it herself — Harold accidentally reveals Laura’s ambivalent feelings about her friend. The writing is poignant and relatable for anyone who’s ever felt like a freak for how they think or feel.
“Still I’m afraid to tell her of my fantasies and my nightmares. Sometimes she’s good at understanding. Other times she just giggles, and I don’t have the nerve to ask why things like that are funny to her, so I feel badly again and shut up about it for a long time.” Laura alludes to explicit fantasies of sexual submission to older, stronger men she worries would repulse Donna if she knew about them.
Is Harold such a man? He has the delicate mien of someone who’d blow away in a stiff breeze, hardly one of the “big, big men” from her fantasies, but he’s certainly reticent to allow Donna a deeper look into the book. Laura, he explains to Donna, is just one of many people who’ve told him their stories: “Friends…lovers…well, maybe, someday, you will too.” Whether he means as friend or a lover is left to Donna to decide. If anything, it renews her determination to get her hands on the diary, whether she has help from her semi-estranged friends James and Maddy or not.
But the teenager in the most danger at the moment remains Audrey. She now finds herself as a pawn in a deadly power struggle for control of One-Eyed Jack’s. Jean Renault, Jacques’s vengeful older brother, makes his move this week: He presents Ben Horne with the hostage tape and demands a cash payment, a full partnership on the casino/brothel, and of course Agent Cooper on a silver platter.
Jean also curries favor with the strung-out Audrey — and eliminates a co-conspirator — by killing Emory Battis, the sleazy perfume counter manager and human trafficker, for roughing her up. I doubt Blackie, the madam, is long for this world either.
Meanwhile, Ben comes to Cooper with Jean’s proposal: Coop will deliver the ransom in exchange for Audrey’s safe return. Smelling a rat, Coop asks Harry to loan him the best man in the Bookhouse Boys as backup for a mystery mission; Harry volunteers himself, no questions asked.
Harry has his own hands full, literally, with Josie Packard, who’s returned at last from her quote-unquote “shopping trip in Seattle.” She did plenty of shopping alright, but as we learn from her behind-closed-doors conversation with her quote-unquote “cousin Jonathan,” the glowering mystery man who’s been lurking in the Great Northern for a few episodes now, it was all part of the plan to sell off the mill and return home to Hong Kong. There, the pair’s employer, a Mr. Eckhardt, awaits. While Jonathan deals with loose ends like the truculent Hank Jennings, whom he beats up in the diner after hours, Josie only has days left before her role in the scheme will be complete.
But Josie doesn’t give the impression of a femme fatale, does she? Sure, she can tell “Cousin Jonathan” that Harry “means nothing to me.” But it sure doesn't look that way when she’s pulling him down on the couch, pleading “take me, I want you to take me” and commanding him to tear her expensive new silk robe off of her body. Of course that kind of emotion can be faked, that’s what femmes fatales do, but her affect is one of sincere desperation, not play-acted passion.
To return to Hank for a bit, he’s a bit hard to get a handle on. He’s a two-faced, conniving bastard, a contract killer who’s got his sights set on Big Ed Hurley for messing around with his woman, Norma. At the same time, however, he seems genuinely excited at the idea that M.T. Wentz, a major restaurant critic who travels incognito, is coming to town. He hypes Norma into trying out her best dishes, then runs out and buys supplies to redecorate and spruce the place up. He really does do it, too!
Hank even puts his criminal background to good use by picking the pocket of a man he suspects is the critic. It turns out it’s the state prosecutor, in town for Leland’s arraignment, but hey, he didn’t know that at the time!
Perhaps the critic is Mr. Tojamura (Fumio Yamaguchi), a newcomer to the Great Northern whose ludicrously obvious disguise can only be described as “Yakuza Roy Orbison.” That’s certainly the opinion of Louie (Bellina Logan), the extremely ebullient desk clerk who tips off both Ben and Norma to the impending arrival of the great critic. For all we know it’s Philip Gerard, the One-Armed Man, under that costume.
Gerard’s name comes up when Coop spots Deputy Andy’s new boots, connecting them with the similar pair found at Leo Johnson’s place and the clue that the spectral Giant told him he’d find there in his vision. Andy himself has bigger fish to fry at the moment, though: He’s having his sperm re-tested to see if he could in fact be the father of Lucy’s baby after all.
That’d be a damn sight better than the odious Dick Tremayne, whose worldliness initially attracted Lucy’s attention during a lull in her relationship with Andy. (“He doesn’t even own a sportcoat!”) Dick loses himself a lot of points in the battle for Lucy’s heart when he shows up out of the rain saying he’s there to do the right thing…then hands her six hundred and fifty bucks “to take care of…you know…the little problem.”
Lucy hands him back the cash, along with his walking papers, letting out a little scream that she catches in her hands like a noisy butterfly when he protests. Apparently, like her fellow blonde Madonna, she made up her mind she’s keeping her baby. Twin Peaks: a large and interesting place to start a family.
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