A Pilgrim's Peaks - Episode 25

The journal of my Twin Peaks rewatch. Begin here.

There’s a good reversal of roles in this episode as Sheriff Harry S Truman observes Special Agent Dale Cooper telling a joke to Annie, who says she’s weird but still okay. She’s called away in the middle of Agent Cooper’s delivery and that’s when the local officer asks the federal one, “How long have you been in love with her?” Given the brightness with which the Agent’s extremely open and genial personality shines, it’s a remarkable indication of how the friendship between these two men has grown to the point that Harry is now able to accurately discern the different level with which Annie is being engaged in conversation here. 

Truman is still be recovering from his own myriad traumas; the death of his girlfriend after a series of revelations about her criminal past, an alcoholic binge that resulted in a mean hangover which he’s been pushed to vomiting as a means of recovery by both Regional Bureau Chief Gordon Cole and Agent Cooper and an attempt on his life by garrote late last night, but he is still able to see this new, subtle shift in his friend’s behavior. It’s a nice callback to the second episode of the show, when Agent Cooper wowed Sheriff Truman by clocking that he was dating Josie just by observing Harry’s body language. He definitely still has emotional work to do on himself, but this shows that he does have some foundation on which to build.

Agent Cooper eventually finishes his joke and gets a laugh, while mere feet away in the same diner, Gordon Cole is pulling the same move with Shelly Johnson, who he can hear without the need for his aid. I guess wholesome jokes are how nice guys flirt on Twin Peaks? 

On the opposite end of the spectrum is Benjamin Horne, who’s recently been spotted in the proximity of Eileen Hayward, mother of Donna and her sisters. That eldest Hayward daughter overhears a conversation that hints at a past relationship between Ben and Eileen. His perpetual inability to admit defeat seems to have combined with that newfound dedication to Becoming A Better Person and produced a man who’s so selfishly committed to putting his emotions and personal growth before those of everyone else around him that he is incapable of seeing what pain and suffering that may cause to the people in his life. 

We close things out with a hint of the supernatural to come. The law enforcement officers all head out to investigate Owl Cave, whose connection to the otherworldly events in Twin Peaks is discovered when Annie notes a similarity between markings on its walls and a napkin doodle by Agent Cooper that combines the marks left on the Log Lady and Major Briggs when they returned from experiences of their own. They open a hidden space in a wall there to reveal some kind of lever that for some mind boggling reason they don’t touch or turn or interact with at all. They just. Leave. It. Alone. This frustrating lack of curiosity and investigation by every officer of local law enforcement and one of the Federal level is given its due when Windom Earle comes in later and twists the lever, causing the cave to start falling apart, or, perhaps, open.