Diane, June 21, 1 pm. The threads laid down across the entirety of Twin Peaks season one have converged. There was high drama in the interwoven relationships from the moment we first glimpsed the small town, and with all the jilted lovers, violent criminals, and deeply held grudges, this town-shaped powder keg was printed to explode at some point. Seems that point was [checks notes] the season one finale, go figure.
Pour yourself some coffee and read these here five thoughts on Twin Peaks episode 7 and 8, “Realization Time” and the aptly-named season finale “The Last Evening.” Content Warning: Suicide, Domestic Violence.
1. Two People in a Room
The penultimate episode picks up right where episode 6 left off: with high school student Audrey Horne, stripped naked and waiting in Agent Cooper’s bed. It’s a dramatic move from a dramatic girl, but it’s worth pausing to analyze how the moment plays out counter to genre expectations.
Sherilyn Fenn often portrays Audrey as a hyper-confident, in-control femme fatale with an easy coolness. Kyle McLachlan plays Agent Cooper with a similar zen, but mixed with likability and trustworthiness. Previously, when the two were together, an Old Hollywood electricity crackled between them. From the jump of this scene, however, Audrey isn’t in her usual mode – she’s vulnerable, exposed, and speaking with less assuredness.
The classic noir version of this scene features a sultry Audrey wagging her eyebrows while Cooper looks torn but aroused, culminating in a gentle fade to Audrey smoking a cigarette while Cooper pulls on his slacks – that’s not what happens here. Instead, that conflicted dance is removed; Cooper never wavers from his insightful good guy persona, reading the loneliness in Audrey’s forwardness and offering her friendship and kindness in place of sex.
Many times the show’s theme song “Falling” is repurposed for love scenes, and it often indicates something darker lurks beneath the sappiness, whether it’s Nadine expressing her love to her husband Big Ed even though his heart is elsewhere, or James and Donna falling in love over Laura Palmer’s figurative grave. It seems earnestly deployed here, but this scene could either be a subversion of the show’s own rules or a hint of something darker in Cooper and Audrey’s growing bond.
2. The Bookhouse (and the Hardy) Boys
By her next scene Audrey has switched back on her swagger, conning her way deeper and deeper into her father’s skeevy store and managing to go undercover as an escort at his side hustle, Canadian casino One-Eyed Jacks. Cooper, meanwhile, calls in the Bookhouse Boys to assist him with his own undercover operation at Jacks, easily baiting murder suspect Jacques Renault to hop the border back into America. Before he goes, Cooper manages to get him to spill some details about the night of Laura’s murder, filling in the period of time just before the appearance of the mysterious third man described by the Log Lady’s log.
As their own investigation reaches a turning point, Donna, James, and Laura’s cousin Maddy set up an elaborate con to find a missing tape Laura recorded for Dr. Jacoby, her (possibly obsessed) psychiatrist. The plan would feel farcical if it wasn’t so detached from the reality of the show (more on that below), but most importantly the trio doesn’t seem aware of how big of a fire they’re playing with.
I’m reminded of Stranger Things, where each of the show’s plotlines (following the kids, the teens, and the adults) feel like they’re in distinctly different genres, with the kids on a Spielberg adventure, the teens in a slasher monster movie, and the adults in a political sci-fi thriller. The difference here is that the genres aren’t different, these three characters don’t realize what story they’re in. They think they’re in a Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys mystery, but some very real, very dangerous forces lurk in the shadows of their investigation, and a death of innocence is surely in the cards.
3. Money Matters
The shady dealings in this small town’s underbelly and in the fraught interpersonal relationships all trace back to the same thing: money. As a small example, Nadine’s plans for a better life for herself and her husband Big Ed are dashed when her patent application for silent drape runners is rejected. It’s a devastating blow for her – the delusions she nurtured about the windfall from the runners solving all of her problems can’t square with reality, and Ed isn’t able to bring her back to Earth despite his seemingly earnest love for her. She attempts suicide at the close of the season finale, her ultimate fate left unknown.
Continued belowAcross town, Josie Packard and Ben Horne’s insurance fraud exposes their plot to Catherine Martell, when she is warned about a new policy taken out without her knowledge that names Josie as the sole beneficiary in case of her death. Jacques is taken into custody because he jumps at the chance to earn a quick buck, sacrificing his freedom (and, ultimately, his life) for a paltry 10K. Hank Jennings, fresh out of prison (for doing Josie’s dirty work) and gifted with a fresh start courtesy of his modestly successful wife Norma, threatens to expose Josie’s dealings if she doesn’t provide him with another shady partnership.
Money is power, and the commonality between all of these subplots is that the characters are strivers that all want *more*. Nadine wants a grander life, Josie wants another payout, Jacques wants more drug money, and Hank, forced to work as a dishwasher at his wife’s restaurant, wants to take back the power and agency of his own life – by whatever means necessary. Their (literally, in the case of Josie and Hank) bloodthirsty capitalist impulses are complements to the show’s larger themes about folksy American mythologizing. This small town, what should be a serene mountain getaway, is rife with conflict, violence, abuse and murder, all because the citizens are classic American strivers.
4. Doppelgangland
Most of the subplots feature the characters paired up as love interests, but more interesting than that are the ways the show pairs them up as foils and copies of one another. The most obvious pairing is Laura and Maddy. To trick Jacoby into leaving his office, Maddy dons a blonde wig and ditches her glasses, making her identical to her cousin. Maddy is a ghost of a ghost, a replica of a memory of someone who never existed. Laura’s wildness makes it so no one seemed to really know her – every interaction with her was twinged with a performance put on for the observer. Maddy, for her part, is a natural performer, slipping into a mimicry of Laura’s voice over the phone before sliding back to her own more casual dialect as soon as she hangs up.
Other pairs are more interesting in the ways they differ than the ways they’re the same. Hank Jennings is a direct foil to Leo Johnson. Leo is always on, a menacing presence who is unable to turn off his cruelty no matter the context – the man has, as the kids say, bad vibes. Hank, on the other hand, is just as dark but far more in control of how others perceive him. He turns on the charm to woo back his wife Norma and promises change, but is perfectly willing to gnash his teeth and get his hands bloody in the pursuit of what he wants.
More pairs are scattered around the town: the self-assured but deeply lonely Audrey and the insecure but earnest Donna; the two abused wives of Norma Jennings and Shelly Johnson, one who is slowly drawn back to her dangerous man and the other who courts a newer, younger danger; even Sheriff Truman and Agent Cooper, the simple, dependable cop and the open-minded, spiritual savant. In most cases the differences between the pairs don’t mark them as opposites. Rather, those differences highlight and solidify their motivations, forcing a deeper analysis of their personalities and decisions.
5. These Violent Delights, etc.
There’s a Chekov’s Soap Opera near the beginning of “Realization Time” that warns you the finale is going to get bloody. A nerdy, jilted man shoots a criminal looking bad boy in a moment of high drama in the show-within-a-show Invitation to Love, and though the parallels with the Twin Peaks townsfolk are too imprecise to draw a one-to-one comparison, it’s clear the evil that haunts the town is planning to claim some victims.
Leo, furious at Shelly’s infidelities despite his own, kidnaps her and ties her up at the Packard Saw Mill, which he plans to burn down at Josie Packard and Ben Horne’s instruction. Dr. Jacoby, tracking Maddy (disguised as Laura), is beaten to near-death by an unseen assailant. Jacques Renault is shot and captured by the police. Bobby, after (flimsily) framing James for running drugs, is nearly killed by an enraged Leo; Leo, for his part, is shot through the window by Hank, cleaning up loose ends on behalf of Josie. Catherine Martell, hunting for the mill’s ledger, stumbles on a tied up Shelly just as the mill starts to go up in flames; as Catherine’s husband Pete arrives on the scene, neither of the women are anywhere to be found, and Pete heroically dives into the growing flames with nothing but a fire extinguisher.
Continued belowThe show saves its most titanic acts of violence for last. Leland Palmer, distraught (but also possibly possessed?), sneaks up on Renault (a suspect in his daughter’s killing) in his hospital bed and smothers him with a pillow. Finally, as Agent Cooper receives a call telling him his prime suspect (and Renault’s partner) Leo has been found shot, he opens the door of his hotel room and takes three bullets to the chest himself.
The fates of most of these victims (save for the extremely dead Renault) are left up in the air. Although many characters’ lives are in limbo, I wonder less about their well-being than I do about the town’s sanity. These acts represent a change in the town’s atmosphere, as the violence has bubbled over and the tangled web has only gotten more complex. My biggest question: can the previously incorruptible Agent Cooper remain the same after his trusting nature nearly got him killed?
Next week: A giant (in more ways than one) season 2 begins.
