A Pilgrim's Peaks - Episode 11
The journal of my Twin Peaks rewatch. Begin here.
The artistic pedigree of Twin Peaks and the mark it’s left on culture can have the effect of overshadowing one of foundational influences of the series; soap operas. Known for their long-running nature and convoluted, melodramatic storylines of interconnected characters, their influence has always been part of the show’s background (literally, in the case of the in-universe soap, Invitation to Love (filmed at the famous Ennis House in Los Angeles)), but really starts to come to the fore in the sprawling second season. This episode alone provides a succinct snapshot of the soap operatic heights the series has already ascended to with more than half the season still left to go.
Audrey Horne, the kidnapped daughter of prominent local businessman and schemer Benjamin has been kept drugged with heroin while her keepers plan a blackmail plot to buy out their business from under Benjamin with the funds raised by the return of his daughter. Jean Renault is acting as a middle man between the blackmailers and Mr. Horne while also planning to backstab them for him to take over their business and attempting to use this entire scheme to get revenge on Special Agent Dale Cooper, FBI, who he sees as responsible for the deaths of his two dead, drug running criminal brothers, Bernard and Jacques. Those brothers were actually killed, separately, and neither one by the Special Agent. Bernard was murdered by Leo Johnson who’s currently in a vegetative state and part of an insurance fraud scheme between his wife Shelley (who he tried to murder while burning down the town’s sawmill) and her high school quarterback lover. Jaques Renault was killed by Leland Palmer because he thought the man was responsible for the murder of his daughter Laura (he wasn’t). Leland was caught after being identified by his daughter’s therapist under hypnosis and confessing to his crimes.
His arresting officer, Sheriff Truman, is having an affair with Josie Packard, a local widow who is using their relationship to deflect guilt about her involvement in the fire at the sawmill. There’s a hint that her mysterious new “cousin” is tied to some larger, still hidden, goings on about the takeover of the sawmill and the increasingly suspicious circumstances of her husband’s death. This “cousin” then beats up and threatens Hank Jennings, an ex-con who has been attempting to blackmail Josie at the diner where he works after it’s closed down for the night. Earlier at that same diner, Donna Hayward met with Maddie Ferguson, the lookalike cousin of her murdered friend Laura Palmer and current competition for the affections of Laura’s ex, James Hurley. They plotted to steal back a secret diary which Laura had kept that is now in the possession of the mysterious agoraphobic orchid grower Harold Smith. The love triangle between Lucy Moran, Sheriff’s Deputy Andy Brennan and Dick Tremayne of the menswear section of Horne’s Department store becomes increasingly complicated as Andy retakes a potency test to see if there’s a possibility he could be the father of Lucy’s child while Dick tries to give her money to get an abortion that he decided she should have.
And what to make of the mysterious stranger, with the strong Asian accent who checked into The Great Northern Hotel while staring at Benjamin Horne? Undoubtedly, the show will somehow manage to answer these myriad dramas with further drama still, weaving the characters and their deeds together as their world continues to spin in the constant tornado of crisis and resolution that’s been spun up in the wake of the still unsolved murder of Laura Palmer.