A Pilgrim's Peaks - Episode 5

The journal of my Twin Peaks rewatch. Begin here.

Turns out life, and televised drama, is what happens while you’re making plans. 

Norma and Big Ed are in the mood for love, but unable to be selfish enough to take it for themselves as their respective plans to divorce themselves of their respective spouses fall through in a painfully self-aware conversation. Kindness to others is a trait to be admired, but it’s just as important to make sure you’re kind to yourself, even though it can mean being less than perfect to someone you care about. The shine from Norma’s treat to herself and Shelley is taken away by a newly paroled Hank whose freedom is so taken for granted that has already made himself at home in the double R, drinking coffee and reading newspapers like it’s a Sunday morning. He’s already undermining Norma’s authority over him as the sponsor of his parole and his employer by shirking his job, hiding behind a jokey request to finish his coffee before he starts that, if she denied it, he would probably rebuff by saying she can’t take a joke or mock saluting her before heading to the dishes. Norma is little more than a tool to someone like him; useful in getting himself out of a place he didn’t want to be and into somewhere he does, but not worthy of respect. 

While he is a dirtbag, he does have his use. As foreshadowed in Invitation to Love, Leo is prepping his arson kit when Hank knocks him down to size, giving him a quick beating to warn him off a trade that apparently was his before doing time. The night gets worse for dumb ol’ Leo Johnson after he shoves Shelley while cleaning himself up and she shoots him and, happily, he makes a noise like a stuck pig before running off into the night, probably not to die alone of exposure, but would that be so bad?

I guess it would be for Catherine and Ben’s plans to burn down the saw mill, frame Josie, buy the land cheap, and then make a ton of money redeveloping it into Ghostwood Estates for whatever buyer is interested that week. Who knows if Leo will be back in arson shape by the time that shakes down. Ben has been a consummately unreliable dance partner, so Catherine shouldn’t be acting scandalized upon learning he patronizes One-Eyed Jack’s since her shacking up with him already makes her the other woman in his life. Or maybe other, other woman, since the women of One-Eyed Jacks seem like his real life’s passion, after the acquisition of wealth. And what to make of the meeting he’s taking under the roof of the Great Northern with Josie herself? After adding yet another other to the list, Catherine’s next slap might not be able to reach him. 

Special Agent Cooper’s nights at The Great Northern have gotten considerably less restful with the arrival of the Icelandic investors and their celebrations. He could have used the sleep before a day that found him trekking through the woods, first to the Log Lady and her log’s story of the night Laura Palmer was murdered, and then to one a cabin with red velvet curtains. Much of what he learns and sees continues to bring into reality parts of the dream that he had earlier in the series. His night after that doesn’t appear to get any more relaxing when he discovers that Audrey has snuck into his room, and is naked, wrapped in bedsheets.

Doctor Jacoby takes the opportunity of family therapy with the Briggses to scoop out a healthy amount of Bobby’s ego that reveals a much fuller knowledge of Laura’s life and secrets than he’s led anyone else to believe. It also gives us our first clear impression of a part of Laura beyond the image of the homecoming queen, as someone with damage and darkness in her, who’s capable of wielding it to inflict the same upon others. We don’t learn the cause of her trauma, but for the first time we get a glimpse into the world of dark and troubling things that Laura occupied before her life ended. 

The borders of which Leland Palmer seems to have settled into for the time being. Showing up uninvited twice to The Great Northern, he nearly derails the soiree that Ben and Jerry have organized for their Icelandic benefactors-to-be until Catherine intercepts him and is able to skillfully hide his grief in plain sight for the assembled good people. The behavior wiped under the rug by dance and play, more palatable than having to try and figure out what to do to help a man whose daughter was so recently murdered. 

Leland’s trauma is still too real, too uncomfortable for public consumption. Unlike the Log Lady, Nadine or other characters with a defining, quantitative quirk indicating a coming to terms with their tragedies, he has no physical or behavioral signifier to indicate that his pain is safely contained and until he does, his presence will continue to remind everyone who sees him of both his loss and their difficulty in dealing with it. Essentially, his pain is humorless and dangerous because it’s too real. Earlier, we learn that the Log Lady lost her husband the day after her wedding, and that she now lives as a semi-recluse who carries around a small log and is largely accepted by the town. She got over the pain of that loss, and it has made her a more full person, who’s better able to commune with the forces in the woods surrounding Twin Peaks that were hinted at earlier in the series. At least Leland has something to look forward to?