2x07 Lonely Souls

[7.7/10] I give Twin Peaks a lot of crap. I think it’s deserved and, frankly, that the show’s reputation is bolstered by the lack of competition when it aired. While it deserves credit for doing things that simply weren’t being done at the time, many shows have since followed that tack and far surpassed most if not all of its achievements, making them look downright quaint, if not outright bad, by comparison.

But by god, I have to give it this -- it answered the “whodunnit” in an unexpected, unnerving way, which felt at once unique, satisfying, and frightening. That is no small feat, and I have to confess that after all the hand-wringing and jumbled up nature of the clues, not to mention the show’s general propensity to make odd or ill-conceived story choices, I expected the reveal to be a letdown, if not an outright facepalm.

Instead, the twist and the answer to the big question -- Who killed Laura Palmer? -- turns out to be Leland, her father. And the episode’s closing sequence, interspersing the weird and ethereal vibe the show has tried to go for from the beginning, with a legitimately scary sequence where the truth is revealed, is without a doubt, the apotheosis of the show.

The virtuosity starts with a nice shot of the log lady, her log nudging its way into the frame, alerting Cooper and Truman that their destiny lies at the Roadhouse. David Lynch directed this one, and while some of his directorial choices have left me burying my face in my hands with this show, he does outstanding work here in shots like that which put the viewer off kilter and set the mood.

Once the trio arrives at the Roadhouse, Lynch goes full-on with his sense of a dreamworld. A singer warbles on the stage, finding the spaces between slow verve-y riffs and smooth, high pitched yawps that establish the otherworldly atmosphere. In a blink, the lighting changes, Cooper is singled out, and the singer is replaced with The Giant, there to tell Cooper that it’s happening again.

It’s then that the Leland reveal occurs. The episode communicates that well by making the reveal visual, with Leland seeing Bob’s reflection in the mirror and cutting back to the other side of the glass with Bob standing there. It’s a tack the episode puts to good use, with several moments in the ensuing incident that cut back and forth between Leland committing these horrid acts and Bob engaging in the same thing. For a show devoted to notions of duality, the grammar of the two parts of Leland Palmer come to life in these horrifying moments and do more to communicate that theme than all the overwritten dialogue the show has offered so far.

The ensuing sequence, where Leland-qua-Bob attacks and (presumably) kills Maddy, reaches peak horror in a way that even the show’s most frightening prior moments (one of the few areas in which the show has excelled) have not been able to match. The gleefulness on Leland/Bob’s face as he pursues Maddy around the room, the terrified screams from upstairs as Maddy screams, the way that Leland/Bob has her cornered and almost seems to be toying with her, are all truly chilling.

I’ve ragged on Twin Peaks for its extended sequences that drag on and on (and if fairness, there’s still plenty of that in this episode, just not in this scene) but Lynch extracts a sense of terrifying realness to making Leland/Bob’s attack of Maddy into essentially one big scene, only broken by the cuts back and forth between the visages of both halves of the persona. There is no time for the viewer to catch their breath, no time to process what they’re seeing, just this skin-crawling parade of moments where a demon possesses a man to, in turn, caress and destroy his daughter. “Lonely Souls” does not shy away from or cushion the blow of that horror, and it gives the reveal a force that much of the show, even in its investigation of the main mystery, has lacked.

The episode then cuts back to Cooper in the bar, as the Giant fades and the scene returns to normal. It’s then that “Lonely Souls” becomes a tone poem, one where Donna seems to feel the weight of all that’s happened, where even execrable Bobby seems affected by what’s going on, where the bellhop who left Cooper lying on the floor bleeding has enough sense of apologize, and the location where so many of Twin Peaks intersected feels like some supernatural weigh station, one where these lonely souls congregate and know harsh truths and strange things meld together into one, grief-fueled dreamscape. It’s the best thing the show’s ever done, and that may not be particularly high praise coming from me, but by god, it’s still something.

As I often say about these things, the episode wasn’t perfect. Maybe it’s my years of having seen one too many thrillers and mysteries, but there was no tension in how the early parts of the episode seemed to point to Ben as the killer. He seemed like an obvious red herring, just because it was too perfect, and he was already too evil, for the show to go that direction. That said, it was nice to see Audrey get to be a part of this in a meaningful way once more, and I can appreciate the show wanting to include some misdirection before the big reveal, even if the feint wasn’t especially effective for me.

In the same vein, we also wasted some time with sidestories that are hitting the same beats again. While we were mercifully spared any more Andy/Lucy drama for one installment, we’re back to Bobby and Shelly having money troubles over the insurance not covering all of Leo’s expenses plus their own. Leo mumbling about “new shows." The mystery of what that means or when he’ll recover more function doesn’t do much for me either.

And Nadine’s scenes have become formulaic now -- she blathers on about something related to high school, Ed goes along with the lie to reassure her, and then she uses her super strength in some way. Like Leo, she’s a ticking time bomb, but I wish the show would either let her tick to something interesting or just leave her in the background until it’s time for her to go off.

But hey, that doesn’t keep “Lonely Souls” or Twin Peaks from getting plenty of credit for paying off the mystery of Laura Palmer’s murderer in an eminently satisfying fashion. Leland really is the last person I would suspect, but the way his disturbed state and connections to everyone were laid out makes him fit the bill nicely (with an admission that the supernatural elements make that a little easier on Lynch and Frost than it might otherwise have been). The reveal that Laura’s killer and abuser was her own father, who was a tool of some sort for an ancient evil, has layers of disturbing qualities that make this far better than “the butler did it.” I haven’t loved every minute of Twin Peaks journey to uncovering who killed Laura Palmer, but I’ll be damned if I didn’t really appreciate and stand back impressed at the way they paid it off.