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 21
“Episode 28” aka “Miss Twin Peaks”
sometimes listed as “The Night of Decision”
[NOTE: The pilot episode of Twin Peaks is not numbered; this, the 29th episode overall, is officially designated “Episode 28.”]
Original Airdate: June 10, 1991
Writer: Barry Pullman
Director: Tim Hunter
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, Russ Tamblyn, Ian Buchanan, Heather Graham, David L. Lander, Robyn Lively, Wendy Robie, Don Davis, Gary Hershberger, Mary Jo Deschanel, Catherine E. Coulson, Dan O’Herlihy, Willie Garson, John Boylan, Jill Engels
We have it all now: the who, what, when, where, how, and why.
Who: Windom Earle — former FBI Special Agent, liaison to the Air Force’s paranormal investigation Project Blue Book, Dale Cooper’s former partner and mentor, the husband and murderer of the love of Cooper’s life, master of disguise, serial killer, seeker of secrets, would-be sorcerer.
What: The entrance to the Black Lodge — diametrically opposed to the benevolent White Lodge, home of the murderous entity called Bob, an immeasurably powerful place of evil for evil’s sake.
When: During the astrological conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn from January to June, whose opposing expansive and contractive forces augur times of great change, for good or evil.
Where: Somewhere in the woods outside of Twin Peaks, at a location indicated by the petroglyph from Owl Cave, which both Windom Earle and Deputy Andy Brennan have figured out is actually a map.
How: The doors to the Lodges require a key, and the Black Lodge is opened by fear (“my favorite emotional state!” whoops Windom), a feeling to which creatures like Bob are drawn as “their bread and butter.”
Why: Power. Is not the will to dominate the root of all evil?
Putting all this together requires the teamwork of several of the most remarkable minds in Twin Peaks working in concert, even if not all of them are aware of it at the time. Deputy Andy, whose visual thinking and perception has repeatedly been shown to be extraordinary, cracks the secret of the map for our heroes, just as Windom Earle did for himself. He also draws Dale’s attention to the petroglyph’s astrological symbols. (Well, sorta — he thinks they’re the 4H logo.)
Coop concludes that Bob’s presence and Earle’s 25-year search for the Black Lodge in the area are related — that the Black Lodge is where Bob comes from. Revealing his vision of Bob following Josie Packard’s death to her lover, Sheriff Truman, for the first time, Cooper speculates that Bob was attracted to Josie’s terror, which was enough to have her “quaking like an animal.” This tracks with what we’ve seen of Bob’s rampages: Laura Palmer, Ronette Pulaski, and Maddy Ferguson were all given ample time by their attacker to be terrified of him, and Laura’s abuse by her Bob-possessed father went on for years.
Cooper also cracks the astrological code and determines when the Lodge will be accessible: January to June, i.e. right now, and in fact all throughout his time in Twin Peaks
Listening in on Coop’s deductions via Harry’s bugged bonsai tree, Earle thanks old protégé for showing him the way. Now he knows that fear attracts the spirts of the Black Lodge like a food source, and he surmises that fear will allow him entry.
Major Briggs appears to confirm this. He’s freed from Windom’s clutches by (of all people!) Leo Johnson, who (of all reasons!) wants the Major to save Leo’s estranged wife Shelly’s life, since he himself is unable to unlock his own chains. (The last time Leo saw Shelly, he was trying to kill her; I guess time under the cruel tutelage of Windom Earle changes even the worst person for the better.)
Garland is so doped up on Earle’s haloperidol injection that he’s largely incoherent. (Sample quote: “The King of Romania was unable to attend”). However he says something crucial: “Fear and love open the doors.” The latter emotion leads one to the White Lodge, the former to the Black.
Even Harry gets in on the act. Way back near the beginning of Season One, on the day Laura was buried, Harry told Cooper that the local vigilante group the Bookhouse Boys were formed in part to defend the town of Twin Peaks against the price he suspects town must pay for its beautiful seclusion from the outside world:
“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.”
Cooper connects everything back to this statement, arguing that the Black Lodge is the source of that evil.
There’s one last crucial thing to note here. “Protect the queen,” the semi-coherent Major Briggs advises. The chess game Windom Earle is playing may be a long one — potentially an ancient one — but it still involves the same pieces. Cooper believes he’ll seize the queen, the winner of the Miss Twin Peaks pageant, and take her to the Black Lodge’s doorway.
Then Andy knocks over the bonsai tree, Harry finds the bug, and they realize they’ve been doing Windom Earle’s detective work for him.
Some other storylines still proceed apace. Sick of trying to crack open the steel box left to him by his rival Thomas Eckhardt, Andrew Packard just shoots the damn thing open. As Pete looks on, he and Catherine agree to leave the key in plain sight where no one can make off with it on their own.
Donna Hayward confronts both her parents and Ben Horne about his relationship with her mother Eileen. When Ben can barely bring himself to answer at all, she realizes the truth: Ben Horne is her father. It’s an Empire Strikes Back moment at first glance, but it’s more complicated than that. For one thing, Ben is no longer the monster he once was; as his goofball determination to read the holy books of every major world religion indicates, he’s sincere in his desire to reform and do good for the world.
For another, I suspect Donna’s vehement reaction stems largely from her own experience with secrets and love triangles. Imagine being one side of the entire Laura Palmer/Bobby Briggs/James Hurley/Maddy Ferguson/Donna Hayward love pentangle, then discovering your parents have been lying to you about who your goddamn father is your whole life. They’re lucky she doesn’t pull a James and simply skip town.
Audrey’s relationship with Ben is much more conciliatory. When we first see her, she is resplendent and despondent in a bright red dress (hm, does bright red connote anything on this show?). Saddened by the departure of Jack Wheeler the day before but eager to move on, she acquiesces to her father’s wishes and joins the Miss Twin Peaks pageant.
Audrey doesn’t participate in any of the contes’s cockamamie choreography, which involves Lucy, Nadine, Annie, Shelly, and Donna dancing in clear plastic raincoats in what feels like an allusion to Laura Palmer — a deliberate one on the show’s part, an inadvertent and unfortunate one on the part of the pageant’s organizers. Nor do we see her take part in the talent portion, in which Lucy looks beautiful as she does one hell of a dance routine. (Lana Milford’s belly dance is a bit more in line with what you’d expect from the character involved.) But Audrey does deliver an impassioned speech about saving the forests, which was all Ben ever wanted her to do.
Yet Annie Blackburne seems to do an even better job of getting the point across. Quoting Chief Seattle at length, she wonders why contemporary culture doesn’t share indigenous cultures’ love of the land. “Maybe saving a forest starts with preserving some of the feelings that die inside us every day. Those parts of ourselves we deny. For if we cannot respect that interior land, then neither can we respect the land we walk.” She asks those assembled to see themselves as “new warriors, mystic warriors, who love the Earth and tried to save it.”
She sounds so much like Dale here that it’s clear what he sees in her: a true kindred spirit. Earlier in the day, after he meditates (a practice in which David Lynch believed strongly) and records one of his many notes to the mysterious Diane, Annie comes to see him for help with her speech. Perhaps he gives it to her, perhaps not; all we see is the two of them starting to make love. These things are only hinted at and alluded to, but Annie makes her past sexual trauma clear if you know how to listen, and she’s chosen Cooper to help her move past it.
Lucy’s choice, meanwhile, is Deputy Andy Brennan. She picks Twin Peaks’ resident sketch artist and glyph decoder to be her babydaddy irrespective of who the biological father is. The look of sheer joy on his face is enough to tell you she made the right call, even if we didn’t already know that the other candidate, who couldn’t be happier to have lost, was getting his Dick Tremayne’d by Lana Milford in the supply closet in a vain attempt to fix the vote.
“[Annnie] gave a beautiful speech,” he explains to the outraged Ms. Milford. “Inherent in her message were words even the most craven of us can ill afford to ignore.” As the most craven of us, Dick knows whereof he speaks.
Nadine Hurley also comes up short, though her real source of emotional turmoil comes during a Dr. Jacoby group therapy session, when she learns Ed and Norma plan to get married. She claims she and her high-school boyfriend Mike are also getting married…then crushes his hand in hers. It’s hard to imagine the blow to the head she receives at the end of the episode improving this situation.
Finally, Mr. Pinkle returns, this time to choreograph the pageant and hit on the Log Lady. Poor Margaret.
But when it all goes down, Margaret’s gone. In her place is an imposter — Windom Earle in Log Lady drag.
He knocks out Bobby Briggs with his log, cuts the lights, sets off a strobe and a smoke bomb and finally an actual explosion, and kidnaps Annie right out from under the watchful eyes of Cooper, Harry, Hawk, Andy, deputies called in from all over the region, and countless eyewitnesses.
Which leads one to wonder: How much help does Windom Earle have here? Does the Black Lodge want this madman to find it? How else to explain Earle’s horrifying face — corpse-white, his lips and teeth wet with black fluid — when he returns to his cabin with a bag full of tarantulas he leaves tied to Leo’s teeth as a parting gift?
We know the who what when where how and why begins and ends with Windom Earle wanting to enter the Black Lodge. Does the Black Lodge want to enter Windom Earle? Has it done so already? Or does it have grander, darker plans — plans to which Windom, like fear and like love and now like Annie, is merely the key?
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