Been watching a lot of teevee shows on the electric internet machines lately so haven't been as good about the near nightly movies. But TV is a nice way to pass the time as well.
Prepping for the upcoming season of Twin Peaks on Showtime, I’ve been revisiting the show and prequel. Twin Peaks, universally considered god tier, for at least the first season, has been the female companion and I's recent haunt in preparation for the new season. I don't think she likes David Lynch though she does say Lynchian every once in a while. She is sort of into the first season but I fear she lacks the patience to survive the second season. We'll see how that goes before I introduce her to Fire Walk With Me or the upcoming season.
Myself, I guess I am a Lynch fan, this show being my introduction into his world as a child. By this I mean I watched one or two episode when it originally ran with my grandmother. I was eightish and was in no way sheltered from any form of entertainment, I watched Deliverance with her around that time as well, and I dug what I saw. But as a little athlete with games that went way too late back then, I was usually way for the original airings. She would tape then for me but eventually she missed one and I didn't catch up for a decade and then only the first season. When I bought the DVDs to the first season in 2001, I thought for sure it wouldn't be long before they would release the second season. Right? Yeah, the second season didn't come out on DVD until 2007. How do you make the second season even more of letdown? Wait six years for it. Second season, while fine, wasn't the magical first season and I lost patience with at some point. But oh that first season. Much like Lost, that first season was the bees knees.
Rotten Tomato Consensus: Twin Peaks plays with TV conventions to deliver a beguiling -- and unsettling -- blend of seemingly disparate genres, adding up to an offbeat drama with a distinctly unique appeal.
Random thoughts as they come to me on Season 1: Meet most of the 40 something characters that inhabit this world in the double-length pilot. They are all up in arms about the murder of world’s most popular high school senior, Laura Palmer. Starts out like a normal show. Dead girl. Cops show up. Procedural. Inform her parents. So far so good. Then like 40 minutes in the FBI gets called in and things get weird. Something I believe is true but am not sure on is the status of the “twin peaks” that the town is named for as they are never shown.
Of all the characters, Bobby Briggs, Laura’s dude at the time of her death, is easily my favorite. This dude is a maniac. While in jail for a bar fight, his rival who was seeing Laura secretly, one James Hurley, gets brought in for some shit as well. Bobby and his buddy just sit there and bark at him like fucking wilderpeople. It is alpha as fuck and totally not something a sane person would do. It sort of feels like his thing too as his buddy joins in like they do this sort of thing all the time.
Other characters I really enjoy include Dr. Jacoby, Laura’s shrink, Ben and Jerry Horne, Shelly Johnson, and Hank Jennings. Those are my top six. All except Shelly are outrageously eccentric. Jacoby is a total quack who wears prescription 3D glass, salmon ties (like a tie that has one long fish printed on it), and pulls golf balls out of his mouth when he is board; the Horne’s appear as normalish business men but have insatiable appetites that they in no way can control when they get together, and Hank is a recent parolee who sucks on a domino piece and beats the shit out of the most repulsive character on the show, Leo Johnson, Shelly’s husband, for not kicking drug money his way while he was in prison. They were partners you see. Shelly is just the most interesting chick on the show.
Now for those I hate. What strikes me is how many characters I can’t stand… And still like the show. I once ranted about Kate Austen in Lost and I still liked that show, but it is rare I dislike main characters like this and still find a way to be into the show. Characters I loathe: Audrey Horne who Ms. Slutty McSlutterson, Donna Heyward (Laura’s BFF played by Lara Flynn Boyle), Big Ed and Nadine Hurley who are just fucking terrible, and James. Audrey, Ben’s daughter, has this whole thing with FBI Agent Dale Cooper who is sort of the main character played by Lynch regular Kyle MacLachlan. The first time we see her she sort of gets stoked when she hears about Laura’s death in homeroom, she works her way up to hooker from perfume girl in her old man’s business organization, and fucks up a deal pops had going by telling the investors about Laura’s murder. She does this just to be a bitch. Donna is just irritating. Big Ed is a fucking dipshit. Nadine, who wears an eyepatch and is completely unhinged in a noninteresting way, is hard to fucking watch. And James is the fucking worst. He is supposed to be a heart throb or something but just comes off as milk toast. He is like Ross on Friends in high school with a leather jacket. He is also a piece of shit. Example, towards the end of the season Donna, James, and Laura’s identical cousin mind fuck the shit out of Dr. Jacoby. They dress the cousin up as the dead girl and call the eccentric doctor, show him a video of her as Laura, so forth, all to make him think she is still alive to get him out of his office. A fucked up thing to do to someone.
Some other random stuff stood out this go around. One thing was when Ben tells Jerry about Laura's death. Laura was their lawyer’s daughter. They obviously are all friends. Jerry is all like, “I’m depressed.” So now Ben suggests they go to One-Eyed Jack’s which I believe Ben owns. It comes out later that Laura was a sex worker there and that Ben basically does all the new girls adding another layer of fucked to the whole situation. Another thing, Deputy Andy would be so fucking fired. This bumbling idiot goes on a kicking-down-the-door type of operation and when they are just about to burst in, he drops his gun and it discharges. One of Twin Peaks’ finest, that one. Also, the same 20 people are at every fucking event in this goddamned town. Laura’s funeral, yeah, of course The Log Lady would be there. Ben Horne courting the Swedes for some dubious business deal? Sure, get Major Briggs up here. So forth.
Something else I fucking can’t get over is how Laura managed the shit out of her time her last night. A quick timeline of her last day included going to school, writing a diary entry where she said she was going to die (what a drama queen), tutored Josie Packard in English and commented that she understood how she felt about her husband's death which no, ate dinner with her parents and complained about her mother’s asparagus, went to Bobby’s and did cocaine, went back home and did more cocaine, went out with James-meeting him on foot, went on a motorcycle ride with James which ended with her hopping off and running into the woods, met Jacques, Leo, and Ronette at a cabin where the trio partied like insane people, she also slipped in sex with three different dudes in that time, and then she was murdered. That’s one hell of a productive day.
Finally, for all of Cooper’s irritating shit, there are two things that I live by that he gave. One was the phrase “when two separate events occur simultaneously pertaining to the same object of inquiry we must always pay strict attention.” I don’t believe in anything, not really, but I do listen when the universe is trying to tell me shit. The other thing is treat yo self. Give yourself a treat every day. A little gift to savor on the daily. Been doing this for the last decade and it’s worked out pretty, pretty, pretty good. In that moment I stop time and pay strict attention to what I am doing and fucking enjoy it. It is indeed pleasant.