A Pilgrim's Peaks - Episode 3
The journal of my Twin Peaks rewatch. Begin here.
They really put the twin in Twin Peaks with this one. Introduced earlier in the series, the in-show soap opera Invitation to Love functions as a goofy meta commentary on the soap operas that influenced the creation of the Twin Peaks we’re watching, but it also acts as a means of self-reference to what’s happened in the show or, as with this episode, what’s about to happen. In this case, the introduction of a twin character played by the same actress that's been portraying Laura Palmer; her cousin Madeline. This kind of explicit, multi-level self-reference would break most shows, but Twin Peaks is nothing if not also a soap opera. The genre already allows for a logical malleability, but sequences like Special Agent Cooper’s dream in the last episode and other artistic choices that have been made so far further reinforce its foundation against the quaking produced by any large dramatic leaps it may make in the future.
For now, Maddie is mostly a question mark, there for the funeral of her cousin Laura and perhaps to add a little fuel to Leland’s grief. We also get a breakdown by Cooper of his dream, which included a pair of killers named BOB and MIKE, who are not to be confused with the town’s teenage athletes-cum-drug dealers, Bobby Briggs and Mike Nelson (your classic double-double). Not much comes out of the Special Agent’s description that wasn’t implied previously, but it does put names to faces while also suggesting the supernatural from Dale’s dream may have some hold in our reality.
A spillover that is reinforced later on when Sheriff Truman, alongside Deputy Hawk and Big Ed, inducts the Special Agent into some of the local lore surrounding the woods around the town of Twin Peaks, of the evil present there, and those who stand guard against the literal darkness on the edge of town. In more ways than one, the private has started to creep into the public spaces. This trio of private citizens choose to pass their information to a representative of a publicly answerable institution. They are choosing to bring an outsider further into their town. It’s entirely understandable, given all that’s happened in the last two episodes and how much he has relied on their trust, that they are willing to rely on his in return. The only strange part about it, is that when Special Agent Dale Cooper of the Federal Bureau of Investigation is presented with a man who appears to be detained against his will, through extra-legal means, and presumably without Miranda rights, he goes forward and engages unquestioningly with the interrogation.
A curious blind eye for one whose sight is usually so clear; perhaps a casualty of the conflict between public and private that is consuming the rest of the town and erupted earlier that day at the funeral for Laura Palmer. It was the type of ceremony we’ve seen portrayed so often in film and television, with all the characters we know assembled around a casket and the priest adding a piece of personal touch to the last rites he’s reading, interrupted only by a too-loud shout of, “Amen,” from Audrey’s brother. This sets something off in Bobby, though, who lets out a yell of his own and then confronts the rest of the gathered townspeople at the ceremony, asserting that everyone there knew Laura was in trouble, in a bad place, but none of them did anything to help her. He spirals out into a fight with James, but the damage is done and blame laid bare.
Leland and Sarah Palmer’s grief boils over as he makes a scene, leaping onto the casket and weeping uncontrollably while his wife tries desperately to get him to stop. This very public display of loss becomes the subject of tasteless ridicule later on as his understandable outpouring of emotion and the minor mishap it caused are mocked. Unfortunately for Leland, his public embarrassment continues when, alone on a dancefloor at the Great Northern hotel, he desperately tries to get anyone to dance with him, in an echo of the dance with his daughter’s photo from the last episode. Special Agent Cooper and Deputy Hawk help him home, bringing further damage to his reputation by having an acceptable emotion in the wrong place for it.
Better to grieve privately, like Doctor Jacoby, who Agent Cooper confronts later that night at the cemetery and begins to close a loop that was left open by the secrets the doctor knows about Laura that were suggested earlier in the series. Secrets which we’re starting to learn that everyone in the town appears to have had and done nothing about, and by keeping them so close, failed to save the life of someone in trouble.