Twin Peaks: S02E08 “Drive With A Dead Girl”
It surprises me how quickly Leland has emerged to become the best character on the show. I mentioned a few episodes ago how Cooper was no longer driving the plot (from our eyes, at least) and that other characters were stepping up. Well, our frontrunner is Leland Palmer. I’m not sure if you can steal scenes where you’re the only character, but man, Ray Wise does some fine work. His laughing/crying scene in the Great Northern was excellent, as was his first scene with James and Donna.
As I mentioned in the recap for “Lonely Souls,” I was expecting Leland to be revealed as incredibly conflicted inside, trying to reconcile the love for his daughter and Bob’s murder through him. Nope, the other side is much more frightening, and an idea I hadn’t even considered: he’s one with Bob, and while they each have their moments, their pursuits aren’t separate. It makes me want to watch the first season again.
I guess now we have some insight on how much Bob has control and how much Leland has power. I think that prior to Maddy’s murder, perhaps Leland had some control. In “Rest In Pain” when he jumped on the coffin, that was Leland. When he was dancing with the picture frame, that was Leland. But gradually, as he had to reconcile with himself more and more, he knew the only way to make him feel better (and ostensibly finish the job) was to do the same to Maddy.
He was a tortured man, of course, even before Laura’s murder. There were years of incest and abuse before we ever saw Laura Palmer. But that’s when he hit his high, the breaking point, and once you hit that, you can’t go down from it.
So now Leland is almost asking to be caught - dancing around, saying Maddy had left the town to James and Donna, trying to show his clubs to Cooper, and generally making a scene. Is he simply so joyous at what he did? Probably, but Bob will continue - the question is, who’s next? I speculated that he’d kill Maddy and he’d be pretty much caught in the act. Things are definitely almost over for Leland, but I don’t doubt Bob could get one more girl in before he’s caught.
It’s a little surprising to me how much this is like the Black Smoke Monster from Lost, but almost in reverse. From “The Incident,” I assumed that the Man in Black was the BSM, one and the same. But from “Across The Sea,” I wondered if there are two separate entities, and the BSM just controls more. I still hold to my disputed theory about the BSM being separate and that it will eventually overtake someone else, and I think Bob will too. (By the way, that recap is really interesting to read now.)
And don’t they stand for, arguably, similar concepts? Bob, as I understand him right now, is Evil. He takes Man’s basest desires and acts upon them with no thought of morality. The BSM advocates a pessimistic worldview. If you believe what I wrote in the above recap, then he is opposite to The Light, and is a type of equalizer. If he’s released into the world, then he will either destroy it or make it worse. Any thoughts?
But now, the question remains: how much is Leland and how much is Bob? I think Leland had a hold on Bob during parts of Season 1, and we just haven’t been seeing other parts. Now, Leland’s going away, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see Bob through Leland like we’ve been seeing Mike through Gerard. Was he really going to kill Cooper with that club? Or was it just the way he was holding it? Does Leland not care enough to kill Cooper in broad daylight? Leland does care, but Bob doesn’t.
A thought just occurred to me: how can this show end happily? Mike and Bob seem like they can’t be killed in any way (unless the woods are burned down, perhaps). They’re Good and Evil. And that mantle can’t just be passed down like it was in Lost. Will Cooper die on this mission? I don’t think so, but I don’t really see any way he’d leave without finishing his investigation.
Truman: “Cooper? I’ve backed you every step of the way but I’ve had enough of the mumbo-jumbo. I’ve had enough of the dreams, the visions, the dwarfs, the giants, Tibet and the rest of the hocus-pocus. Now we’ve got hard evidence against Ben Horne and its my job to lock him up.”
In non-Leland news, I love how the investigation seems to be taking its toll on Cooper and Truman, finally. Their relationship isn’t in jeopardy, as we can tell by Cooper’s response, but since the investigation has taken a step back, I wonder if tensions will begin to flare. (By the way, who shot Cooper?)
As for the rest, there were parts that worked and some that didn’t. There will be time to get to them. I’m still giving the uninteresting subplots a pass for the time being.
As for the recaps, you can blame StarCraft II. It’s worth a purchase, even if you’re not totally sure about that kind of thing.
