Twin Peaks Part 2
When people say they hate season 2 of Twin Peaks I suspect most of them mean the second half of the second season. The first part of season 2 probably should have been part of season 1 since it solves the murder of Laura Palmer.
Personally I like all of season 2, though I admit the second part has flaws. That is also partially my bias. I tend to like flawed art so long as there’s something that really speaks to me. I would rather a story give me something wonderful and be flawed rather than perfectly execute something safe and bland.
The second part of season 2 had to sort out what the show would be about going forward, and do it with a large ensemble cast that Mark Frost and David Lynch didn’t always seem to have ideas for what to do with. They had to do all of this under the threat of cancellation, and the show was cancelled while they were making the season finale, if I remember correctly.
I think some plot lines seem like on paper they should’ve worked. James going off and finding himself in A Postman Always Rings Twice seems like it should’ve worked, but it just didn’t, and unlike some other threads that didn’t work well, this storyline took up a lot of screen time.
There are a few others that didn’t work for me, but I’d prefer to concentrate on what did work, because the purpose of this rewatch for me is to find things that are inspiring ahead of writing my next novel.
Some people didn’t care for the Ben Horn going delusional bit, but I liked it. From the moment where he started playing with that Civil War battlefield, I could see myself getting a little too wrapped up in a tabletop war game perhaps. But mostly I liked Dr. Jacoby (who my friend Steve always called “Dr. Jacoby, world’s worst psychiatrist”) deciding to have Horn indulge his delusions to work through them. “What he needs now is your support and a Confederate victory.” It’s also possible that the saving grace of these sequences is that unlike the James Hurley Noir bits, they were short. I also think I liked this because it started with Ben watching old films and feeling a little maudlin and nostalgic, which watching the original show makes me feel.
I really liked pretty much everything about the main plot and its tangents.
Agent Denise was excellent. It’s been said that there wouldn’t have been the X-Files without Twin Peaks, and while I think that mainly has to do with the weirdness and the story arcs instead of pure episodic television, I think it’s also true that Duchovny’s presence showed that he had the chops… as well as the gams.
I love the way Major Briggs and Project Blue Book expand the weirdness of the story. I also love the way that Major Briggs seems like he’s in and out of the story. The character feels like an RPG character with a flaky player who shows up randomly. By season 2 it seems like they had a better idea how to handle it: getting him taken into the Black Lodge in the beginning and then getting him abducted by Windom Earl toward the end.
Windom Earl was a quality villain. He was scary and funny, sometimes all at once. The show made me root against him, but at the same time laughing as he tormented Leo. Earl goes against the grain in some ways. There’s the adage about no one thinking they are evil and that villains are the protagonist of their own story. Earl not only was evil he reveled in being evil. He admired legends of people who sought out evil for evil’s sake. There was no gray area for Earl. It was easy to root against him because it was clear that he wanted to do everyone wrong.
On the flip side of this, we have Cooper. My primary reason for revisiting this show was to get a feel for what I liked about the characters. One thing I hadn’t thought about going in was the decency of the characters. Agent Cooper isn’t just a fun character, he’s also a decent character and he’s always striving to be evermore decent. This comes through strong when Harry breaks down after Josie’s death and Cooper holds his friend as he sobs and talks it out.
My favorite thing about the second season is the lengthy finale dream sequence where Cooper goes into the Black Lodge to try and save Annie. Lynch’s work using dream sequences and abstract imagery goes back to the beginning of his career. It’s why he started making films. What struck me watching this again is how he continues to hone that ability, and it’s masterful in the finale. It’s creepy and upsetting and conveys the sense that the audience has witnessed something that can’t be expressed in words.
Once of the best things for those of us who are fans of the story, in that dream sequence Laura tells Cooper “we’ll meet again in twenty-five years” setting up what would become The Return. As Cooper says of the petroglyphs, “I think these will take us to a place both wonderful and strange.”
Onto the Fire Walk With Me movie and then The Return.
