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 19
“Episode 26” aka “Variations and Revelations”
[NOTE: The pilot episode of Twin Peaks is not numbered; this, the 27th episode overall, is officially designated “Episode 26.”]
Original Airdate: April 11, 1991
Writer: Mark Frost & Harley Peyton
Director: Jonathan Sanger
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, Joan Chen, Piper Laurie, Eric Da Re, Harry Goaz, Michael Horse, Kenneth Welsh, Billy Zane, Ian Buchanan, Heather Graham, Robyn Lively, David Lynch, Wendy Robie, Don Davis, Gary Hershberger, Mary Jo Deschanel, John Boylan, Ted Raimi
Once upon a time, there was a place of great goodness called the White Lodge. Gentle fawns gamboled there amidst happy, laughing spirits. The sounds of innocence and joy filled the air. And when it rained, it rained sweet nectar that infused one’s heart with a desire to live life in truth and beauty. Generally speaking, a ghastly place, reeking of virtue’s sour smell, engorged with the whispered prayers of kneeling mothers, mewling newborns, and fools, young and old, compelled to do good without reason.
But I am happy to point out that our story does not end in this wretched place of saccharine excess. For there’s another place: its opposite. A place of almost unimaginable power, chock full of dark forces and vicious secrets. No prayers dare enter this frightful maw. Spirits there care not for good deeds or priestly invocations. They are as likely to rip the flesh from your bone as greet you with a happy good day. And if harnessed, these spirits in this hidden land of unmuffled screams and broken hearts will offer up a power so vast that its bearer might reorder the earth itself to his liking.
Now, this place I speak of is known as the Black Lodge. And I intend to find it.
Twin Peaks doesn’t really do infodumps. The closest we’ve ever come to an explanation of the sinister powers besetting the town and its inhabitants are fragmentary recountings of baffling visions and events, often so nightmarish and surreal they’d be hard to explain to anyone else even if the explorers in these further regions of experience had sat there taking notes. Agent Cooper’s bizarre dreams. Leland Palmer’s dying confession. Deputy Hawk’s tribal legends. Major Briggs’s classified transmissions. The “Fire Walk With Me” poem. We know the woods are involved, and the owls, and rival spirits named Bob and Mike, and a Giant, and a Red Room, and a little dancing Man from Another Place.
Interesting, isn’t it, that when Windom Earle describes the Black Lodge, “another place” is the very first thing he calls it?
Earle’s monologue about the White and Black Lodges, transcribed above, is the closest thing to straightforward exposition the show has gotten. But it’s also the purplest fantasy dialogue the show has yet delivered. I mean that as a compliment. The man sounds like a Targaryen as he rants about the evils of virtue and the virtues of evil, as embodied in twinned concepts that sound not unlike Heaven and Hell. The White Lodge is a place of unending peace, joy, and satisfaction. (Suddenly, Major Briggs’s vision of the great golden palazzo where he and a happy, fulfilled Bobby meet and embrace has a whole new context, doesn’t it?) The Black Lodge sounds like a world of Bobs, a world of fire.
Earle’s quest for the Black Lodge raises compelling questions. Is it mere coincidence that Dale Cooper’s insane ex-partner is a student of the supernatural forces involved in Cooper’s most recent case? And what about the dark spirits of the Black Lodge themselves? They are represented throughout the episode with eerie shots of black-hooded figures with voids where their bodies and faces should be, and of course by the owls. Are they taking an interest in Windom’s quest? Are they actively facilitating it?
And just how far back does all this go? The petroglyph Earle uncovers contains several familiar sights — the Owl Cave logo flipped upside down, the ubiquitous fire imagery (also shown when the hooded figure shows up), and, though no one draws attention to it, a drawing of a giant next to a dwarf. The implication is that the same entities who have appeared to Cooper appeared to the indigenous residents of the area hundreds of years ago. It’s eerie enough to take your breath away when you notice it.
Coop makes an additional breakthrough after leaving the cave. A chance encounter with Shelly Johnson at the Double R tips him off to the poetic note Earle sent to her, Audrey, and Donna. (He recognizes the lines Shelly is reciting behind the counter as lines from the poem he once sent to his lover, Earle’s wife Caroline.)
Getting ahold of the scraps of the poem from Shelly and Donna (Audrey spends the episode off-camera in Seattle on Save the Pine Weasel business), Coop matches the handwriting to the missing Leo Johnson, who’s still wanted by the police for any number of crimes. This connects Leo’s disappearance, to Earle’s arrival in Twin Peaks, to the discovery of the petroglyph, around which Hawk spots Earle’s bootprints. I won’t say there are no coincidences in Twin Peaks, but there sure aren’t many.
This means that all roads, going all the way back to Leo’s involvement with Laura Palmer and Coop’s disastrous affair with Caroline Earle, perhaps even to the madness within Windom that predated his discovery of the affair, lead to that petroglyph. So Agent Cooper and Sheriff Truman call in the one man who knows more about this stuff than anyone: Major Briggs.
Sure enough, Briggs somehow recognizes the petroglyph, though he can’t say exactly how. Cooper explains the connection between the three mysteries and asks the Major to tell them everything he knows about Windom Earle’s participation in Project Blue Book, the Air Force’s UFO project that evolved into the Major’s investigation into the strange forces surrounding Twin Peaks. If anything could help them figure out Earle’s interest in the cave drawings and what they represent, it would be his time researching paranormal activity for the government.
Knowing that his help could prevent further deaths sways the Major (who lost his security clearance following his mysterious disappearance), but he still has to consider the ethics of divulging this kind of information before making his decision. Coop and Harry, two guys who legitimately see their jobs as pledging them to a higher purpose than mere law enforcement, understand.
There’s only one problem I have with any of this, and his name, believe it or not, is Ted Raimi. The brother and frequent collaborator of director Sam Raimi, Ted delivers — I’ll just say it — my least favorite performance in the series as the dumbass metalhead Windom abducts to serve as his latest victim in his and Cooper’s lethal chess game. I can perhaps excuse his silly “this is what heavy metal looks like to TV wardrobe departments” outfit, since the show perpetually leans heavily on stereotypes — bikers, jocks, schoolgirls, Feds, diner waitresses, small-town cops, long-distance truckers, French Canadians, you name it.
Harder to forgive are his over-the-top facial expressions, his sub–Cheech & Chong burnout voice, and even the comical faces he pulls after Windom shoots him to death with a crossbow. I don’t object to the baroque method of his delivery: He is sealed inside a giant papier-mâché chess pawn, shot to death with a crossbow, and enclosed in a giant wooden box that Windom and (I’m assuming) Leo sneak undetected into a gazebo in the middle of town. Dale opens it by tying its handle to a rock with a stretch of police tape, then shooting the rock from a distance. All that, for a corpse that wouldn’t look out of place in a film with a Troma Diploma? It’s the first time death has ever looked silly on this show, and it’s jarringly out of place.
True, the actor Kenneth Welsh does his best to sell the terror of Windom Earle, with one last monologue about how this “lucky boy” is about to discover what awaits us after death before he fires that crossbow, horrifying an increasingly reluctant and rebellious Leo in the process. Additionally, Kyle MacLachlan uses all his Special Agent gravitas to proclaim that Earle is now so far gone his actions can no longer be predicted even by a mind like Cooper’s, adding to the sense of “what the hell is this guy even doing?” that such a Hannibal-esque stunt requires.
But man I wish someone involved in the production had taken the hostage role even a little bit more seriously. “A little bit” is truly all I’m asking, since I understand how vital juxtaposing the ridiculous, the horrific, and the sublime is to this show and to David Lynch’s entire oeuvre. Ideally the role would be handled with the same level of humor as that of Mike Nelson, Bobby Briggs’s best friend, Donna Hayward’s ex-boyfriend, and the soon-to-be-former Mrs. Nadine Hurley’s main squeeze. (Side note: Given the open question of how deep all of this goes, is it a coincidence that Twin Peaks High School’s twin terrors share the names of a pair of estranged demons fighting some kind of war on the spiritual plane?)
Mike is not a “serious” character on the show. He’s not overt comic relief like a Dick Tremayne or a Jerry Horne, but nor is he given the depth of an Andy or a Lucy or a Pete Martell or even a Dr Jacoby, funny characters who display real emotion and, at times, real growth. Mike’s idea of growth is getting the shit fucked out of him by, and I’m quoting him here, Nadine’s “combination of sexual maturity and superhuman strength.” Whatever that combination has resulted in, whispering into Bobby Briggs’s is enough to blow the team captain’s himbo mind. The subsequent exchange of lewd winks between Mike and Nadine, who for some reason is dressed up like Little Orphan Annie, once again cements this weird digression as one of the most entertaining storylines on the show.
The point is, though, that Mike feels “real,” in a way that the metalhead does not. He’s broadly drawn, he’s a dim bulb, he’s there to either be a one-dimensional asshole (Season 1) or do comedy bits (Season 2), but he’s the kind of guy you’ve met. I’ve never met a metalhead like Ted Raimi. If I’m emphasizing this, it’s only because such missteps are so rare.
Elsewhere in town, both Pete and Harry continue to pine after the late Josie Packard. Catherine has little time for Pete’s mooning, but is strangely sympathetic to Harry. Josie was a sort of psychosexual shapeshifter, she explains to him, learning early in life that “she could survive by being what other people wanted to see….Whatever was left of her private self, she may not have shown that to anybody.” Catherine even suggests that Josie believed her own bullshit. “[Her lies] may not have seemed untrue to her. What she needed to believe was always shifting from moment to moment.”
Personally, I think sharing these insights makes Catherine less sympathetic, not more. Tormenting someone you know to be thoroughly broken? Of course, no one’s tried to assassinate my brother on behalf of his former business partner, so I can’t exactly put myself in Catherine’s shoes.
Anyway, Harry’s visit proves fruitful in one respect. In a brief struggle with Pete over the impregnable puzzle box left to her by Josie’s pimp Thomas Eckhardt, the box falls and opens up, revealing a second, smaller box emblazoned with a moon phase zodiac calendar. Classic Twin Peaks: Solve a riddle with another riddle.
Elsewhere in town, Dick Tremayne joins Lucy, Andy, and Lana Milford for a Pine Weasel wine-tasting benefit, hosting it with a visibly injured nose, for which he has demanded commensurate woker’s comp from Ben Horne. “Sometimes the urge to do bad is nearly overpowering,” Ben mutters to himself in response.
But his face turn once again appears sincere. He gives Dick what he’s reasonably asking for, and he pitches the committee of old-timers on the judging committee for the Miss Twin Peaks contest — Doc Hayward, Mayor Milford, and good old Pete Martell — on making saving the Pine Weasel the theme of this year’s pageant. “We’ll take it under advisement,” they say, with Pete at least still skeptical about his real motives.
So is Donna Hayward. After seeing him at the Miss Twin Peaks tryouts, she makes a scene at the dinner table with her mom and dad that night. (I guess her perpetually absent sisters are out with their friends, or staying late for drama club rehearsal, or anything other than developing the bad habits endemic to teens in this town.) Her parents’ obvious discomfort is not enough to stop her needling her mom about her connection with Ben, his visit to the house, the roses she’s received.
I understand where she’s coming from. She knew someone who led a double life and died for it. It cost the life of another friend, too. Then the boy she loved drove off and was nearly destroyed by another woman who was living a lie. To know that her sweet, loving parents may harbor a similar secret seems to have Donna at the breaking point. Though she appears to be growing closer to Shelly Johnson, Laura and James, the two people she confided in the most, are both gone. What will she do if her suspicions prove true?
Shelly is only at the contest tryouts with Donna in order to please Bobby, her increasingly pushy boyfriend. “Beautiful people get everything they want,” he tells her arrogantly, insisting that she’s such a person in a way that I think is supposed to be complimentary but comes across as borderline abusive. Bobby additionally proposes himself to be Shelly’s speechwriter for that portion of the contest. Maybe he soaked up some soaring rhetoric from General Benjamin Horne.
He’d better soak up some rizz, because he apparently needs it. Before his departure from Twin Peaks, Dale’s supervisor, Regional Bureau Chief Gordon Cole, makes his move on Shelly, asking for a kiss before he leaves, perhaps for good. To him, she’s a goddess, not only due to her looks and personality but the fact that she’s magically cured his hearing loss, somehow for herself only. I mean, that is kind of hard to argue with.
But even as they’re locking lips, Bobby walks in, leading to a needle-scratch sound effect from the jukebox and a fantastic reaction shot from actors David Lynch (hooray!) and Mädchen Amick, who has never looked lovlier. (Let’s face it, the entire human race has never looked lovelier.)
“YOU ARE WITNESSING A FRONT THREE-QUARTER VIEW OF TWO ADULTS SHARING A TENDER MOMENT!” Cole informs him. “Acts like he’s never seen a kiss before,” he says to Shelly at a conversational volume, his face wearing the unmistakable look of a man who knows he’s successfully punching way above his weight class. “TAKE ANOTHER LOOK, SONNY!” he shouts back to Bobby. “IT’S GONNA HAPPEN AGAIN!” Then he leans in for his second kiss, fulfilling his, and one can only assume David Lynch’s, fondest wish. (Series mainstay Harley Peyton and co-creator Mark Frost wrote this episode, and Lynch’s fondness for his leading ladies, usually platonic but occasionally less so, is well-documented.)
Love is indeed in the air for the boys from the Bureau. Coop finally makes his move on Annie, asking her out on a romantic rowboat date on the water. Lit like a Botticelli, Annie gets dark, implying that she attempted suicide after being physically or sexually assaulted by her high-school boyfriend. She turned to religion and a life as a nun out of fear of the world, she says, but when she looks at Dale, she feels trust instead. The two kiss, their chaste vibes belied by the way their full lips hang open as they make contact.
Later, back at the Great Northern, Coop commiserates with Jack Wheeler about being madly in love, not knowing the man he’s talking to has fallen for his special friend Audrey Horne. Their exchange on the topic is pure classic Hollywood:
“Earthly love.”
“What other kind is there?”
“When you’re in it, no other.”
“It hits you like an 18-wheeler, doesn’t it? And there’s no relief.”
“It makes you feel more alive.”
“It makes you feel more of everything.”
But the entire time Cooper and Annie are out on the water falling in love with each other, Windom Earle looks on. “Next time it will be someone you know,” reads the note on the giant chess piece in which he deposits the body of his latest victim. Audrey, Shelly, and Donna are in the crosshairs, we know — three queens out of four. The Queen of Hearts, it seems, has now been drawn.
If you haven't already, consider supporting worker-owned media by subscribing to Pop Heist. We are ad-free and operating outside the algorithm, so all dollars go directly to paying the staff members and writers who make articles like this one possible.
