Diane, August 30, 1 pm. The disappearance of Leo Johnson; the appearance of the psychotic Windom Earle; the discovery of petroglyphs at Owl Cave. Agent Cooper spelled out the final mysteries plaguing the town of Twin Peaks, but none of these are fully mysteries. Unlike the iconic whodunit surrounding the death of Laura Palmer, the viewers were let in on most of the details surrounding these three elements as soon as they were introduced. The mystery isn’t whether these things are related, or even how they’re related. All that’s left to discover is how they’ll come together at the end. And the end is nigh.
Here’s five thoughts on the penultimate pair of episodes, “Variations on Relations” and “The Path to the Black Lodge.” Spoilers lurk in the woods below.
1. One is Light, One is Dark
As the opening credits roll, Windom Earle tells a fairy tale. I’ve written before about how Twin Peaks is interested in duality, setting up pairs of characters and storylines that compliment or contrast against each other. Earle tells the story of the White and the Black Lodge, and it’s similar to the one Hawk told way back in the episode “Masked Ball.” Fittingly, though, it’s that story’s opposite, with Earle pouring malice over his description of the purity of the White Lodge and expressing his desire for the sin and cruelty of the Black Lodge.
Turns out, Windom Earle’s interest in Twin Peaks isn’t just in Agent Cooper – as Cooper later discovers, all his antics so far have been a game, a fun add-on to his real objective. He’s hunting for the Black Lodge, and he’s manipulating all the pawns he’s put in play around town in order to gain access to it.
His schemes this episode culminate in him taking another pawn, another stray passing through the town in the wrong place at the wrong time. This time, though, Earle ups the stakes. Having deduced that Cooper is getting help, Earle doesn’t tell Cooper his next move, abandoning the pretense of the chess game; and then, frighteningly, he promises that the next pawn will be someone Cooper knows.
2. A System of Boxes Interlinked within Boxes Interlinked
Catherine Martell can’t open the box left by the late Thomas Eckhardt, a seemingly unsolvable puzzle box. Neither she nor her husband Pete can open it, nor can Sheriff Truman. It’s fitting that the mystery of the box isn’t actually solved by cleverness but instead by circumstance. Pete dropping the box opens it up, revealing another puzzle inside. Andrew Packard manages to solve this one, but he doesn’t play by the rules for the next one, smashing it with a rolling pin to reveal its contents.
This is the second game of these episodes to be abandoned, following Earle’s breaking of the boundaries of the chess game to kill a stranger and threaten Agent Cooper. It’s tempting to view this as an indicator of the upping of stakes in this final stretch of episodes – the old rules don’t apply. However, I think this points to the show’s ongoing theme of characters wanting to reap the rewards without actually doing the work. Earle abandons his game after it becomes clear that Cooper is going to drag out the match as a stalemate without losing more pieces, and in the same way Catherine and Andrew skip the hard part of solving the puzzle in order to get at the mysterious prize inside. Time will tell whether or not their jumping the line will pay off.
Meanwhile, as Sheriff Truman searches for answers to his broken heart, Catherine offers a too easy button on Josie’s story. Catherine theorizes that Josie’s shifting stories, personalities, and lies were the result of her putting forward a version of herself that best appealed to whoever was around her. It’s a convenient, logical answer for why Josie’s plots were so empty and lifeless, and not one I fully buy as intentional.
3. Beautiful People Get Everything They Want
The judging of the Miss Twin Peaks pageant has begun, with added stakes for the audience that’s in on a secret: the prize for winning the pageant is that Windom Earle kills you. It’s interesting that several of Earle’s “Queens” join the pageant at the behest of someone else: Audrey enters at her father’s request, Shelly because Bobby “commands” her, and, most tragically, Annie Blackburn enters at Agent Cooper’s suggestion (more on that below). Earle at the moment doesn’t seem to have a reason for targeting the pageant beyond it being uniquely situated to cause maximum chaos and cruelty.
Continued belowShelly’s arc through these past two episodes has been a fascinating one. Last week I called out Madchen Amick’s performance as being a standout element on the show, and this episode continues to find interesting ways to use her. Unlike some of her other contemporaries – the less I have to talk about the subplot of Donna being Ben Horne’s secret child, the better – Shelly has rebounded from the resolution of her ongoing plotlines with an even more interesting new direction. Sure, she enters the pageant at Bobby Briggs’s request, but she also continually defies him, including kissing Gordon Cole (coincidentally giving David Lynch the opportunity to kiss a 20-year-old, weird how that happens). Shelly’s path in these final episodes seems to be regaining the ability to conceive of herself as an individual person, rather than someone subservient to whichever goon is dominating or abusing her. Hopefully she manages to keep that momentum going through to the finale.
4. The Lovers
A pair of lovers comes together while another is ripped apart; ah, poetry.
Audrey Horne and her new beau Jack Wheeler aren’t destined to be together, it seems, as Jack is summoned off to Brazil to aid some unnamed business from crisis. The script takes pains to make sure it’s known that his departure was the cost of him doing his noble duty, and Billy Zane imbues the character with some suave sadness that makes the star-crossed love affair more tragic. Ultimately this storyline feels like a stalling tactic, aiming to fill the gap between Audrey’s previous plotlines and the finale. It’s sweet enough, but it’s hard not to wish Audrey had gotten the same sort of confidence treatment as Shelly.
Agent Cooper, meanwhile, is head over heels for the girl from the convent. The most interesting thing about Annie, and in particular Heather Graham’s performance, is that she immediately comes across as human. The performances of the principal players are often purposefully arch and stilted, highlighting the artifice behind all of the soapy, overdramatic plotlines. Heather Graham’s performance is very natural; she’s magnetic because she feels so normal. Her courtship with Cooper feels genuine and underplayed – it makes you lean into the pair better than if it were a sweeping, high fantasy romance. The charm and happiness is repeatedly undercut, however, whenever the camera zooms out and we realize that someone is watching: Windom Earle, watching his former partner and protégé, and IDing a new pawn for his games.
Happiness in the town of Twin Peaks, however, is rarely everlasting. As Agent Cooper dances the night away with his newfound love, Annie tells him she’s going to join the pageant after all. As soon as she does, the lights dim in a familiar way as Cooper’s old friend The Giant appears on stage, frantically attempting to tell Agent Cooper no. As usual, Cooper doesn’t understand the message, but to me it’s fairly clear: only evil will come from Annie entering the pageant.
5. The Return
With a little help from Windom Earle, the Owl Cave has revealed its secrets: a petroglyph engraved in the wall that looks, at first, like gibberish. Upon showing it to Major Briggs, the team learns that Briggs previously saw that same pattern in his dreams after he was taken from his camping trip with Agent Cooper. At this point, the supernatural elements that had been creeping at the edges of the show since the death of Leland Palmer fully reform and Earle kicks his plans into the next gear.
Earle fulfills his promise to take someone close to Cooper pretty much immediately, taking Major Briggs captive with a classic singing Donkey tranquilizer maneuver. He drugs and interrogates Briggs, getting just enough out of him to conclude that the petroglyph isn’t just a bit of spooky artwork: it’s a map with directions to the Black Lodge. Earle has found his mark, and Agent Cooper and friends are officially two steps behind.
As the episode closes, we see creeping shots through the series’ primary settings – lurking through the high school, the Great Northern, the Sheriff’s office, as if someone is watching – settling on a spot out in the woods. With a flash of light, we witness the return of an evil thought gone after the wrap-up of the Palmer case: BOB has returned. Fasten your seatbelts: only two episodes to go.
And a movie, of course. Come back next week for the series finale, then prepare yourselves for a Fire Walk.
