2x09 Arbitrary Law

[7.3/10] I think I owe Ray Wise an apology. Leland Palmer grief-stricken jigs were one of my least favorite parts of the first season, and certainly one of the most laughable, and I had pretty well written the character, and by extension the actor who played him, off. Coffin-surfing and show tunes and more overwrought falling to pieces just struck me as too much, verging into, at best, “so bad it’s good” territory.

But now that he can fully play up Bob’s predatory instincts, his malevolent glee, his unhinged villainy, Wise is a revelation. In his first interaction with Donna in ages, he is so unbearably creepy. “Arbitrary Law” does well to tease and taunt the audience, putting Donna in the place Maddy was two episodes ago, in the same corner, while this shark of a man starts to pen her in. From his skin-crawling touching of Donna’s hair, to his awkward dancing that quickly turns into creepy dancing, to the same lewd gestures he performed before killing Maddy, Wise’s take on Leland goes all out in seeming to come this close to striking again.

He, of course, doesn’t, and a last minute reprieve for Donna thanks to Sheriff Truman leads him back to the Roadhouse for Cooper’s last seance, or whatever you’d like to call it. That sequence, like most of the show, is a bit hokey, with lightning crashing and showy camera angles. But at the same time, the episode does a nice job of not only attempting to tie all the psychic elements together, but setting a mood to make those reveals meaningful.

So we have all, or almost all the major players in one room -- Ben, Leland, Leo, the cops, and even, by serendipity or providence, Major Briggs escorting the senile bellhop. It’s then that Twin Peaks plays its hand. Leland’s dancing connects with The Man From Another Place’s little boogie. The “gold circle” that Gerard warns Cooper about in a severe and unnerving fashion comes back in the form of The Giant returning Cooper’s ring to him. The senile bellhop offers a stick of gum to Leland, serving as the cosmic force of the universe essentially fingering him as the killer in light of the “your gum is coming back in style” comment. In the shadow of all of this, Cooper thinks back on his dream, and for once he can hear Laura’s whispered words -- “my father killed me.”

What’s noteworthy about the scene is how much we already know. We know Ben’s a red herring. We know that Leland is Bob. We know who killed Laura Palmer and to a lesser extent why. And yet, this still feels like a reveal, a momentous occasion -- Cooper not only realizing who the culprit is but deciphering all of the cryptic images and clues he’s seen up until this point. I’m sure half of it is a retcon as I doubt how much of this Lynch & Frost had planned out in the beginning, but it works well enough to feel like a satisfying, if not fully clockwork, resolution of all the mystical symbolism Cooper has been chasing throughout the series.

There’s also some cleverness from Cooper here, realizing the dangerous animal he’s about to try to nab and making Ben the temporary patsy to lure Leland to the station as his lawyer. Again, the episode leans into the shorthand and trust that Cooper and Truman have developed, and the scene where they push Leland into the cell and he begins running around like a crazed beast is both a triumph and a fright.
It’s there that Ray Wise really shines, letting the beast out of his cage and creating a truly ominous and horrific presence. The way he hoots and hollers and toys with his captors as they interrogate him about what happened to Laura and the others gives him the character of an unchained spirit, unconcerned about his current circumstances and revelling in his taunts and his terror. It’s the scariest Bob has ever seemed, and that’s saying something.

But Wise isn’t finished. As usual, things get a bit melodramatic, but he also sells Leland’s remorse, his regret, his revulsion to all that he’s been a party to after Bob pulls the “ripcord” and Leland is forced to remember all of the deeds that Bob committed in his body. The sprinklers going off from Dick’s cigarette is too convenient, but it creates worthwhile imagery of Leland leaving this mortal coil and Cooper easing him into the next world, trying to help him let go of his unimaginable pain.

The only big problem is that Twin Peaks feels the need to sum up too much, both at the conclusion of Leland’s incident and in the aftermath. The scenes speak for themselves, so having Truman wax rhapsodic about what he can or can’t believe, and having the group give their “I sure learned a lot” speeches is an unsatisfying finish to some great work. It also doesn’t help that they’re wondering what’ll happen to Bob results in a cheesy sequence of an owl flying and a freeze frame that looks like the rejected cover of a prog rock album.

There’s also a good chunk of other pretty useless junk in the episode before we get to the meat of it with Leland. The Norma’s mom storyline continues to be entirely uncompelling. The same goes for the James-Donna romance, which never ceases to include the worst dialogue in the entire show on a regular basis as they torture one another (emotionally -- something I have to specify on this show) over Maddy’s death. And Lucy’s paternity situation wears on without end. There’s an awful lot of crap to wade through before the episode really kicks into gear with Leland, and by extension Bob, being exposed.

But once that happens, the show and the episode finds its way and delivers a satisfying wrap-up of the Laura Palmer saga, with enough imaginative verve and dot-connecting to make it feel like this jumble of nonsense was part of a plan after all. And you have my apologies Ray Wise -- you knocked it out of the park here, and for once, the outsized, supernatural world of Twin Peaks felt right at home for someone other than Agent Cooper. Godspeed, Leland. So long, Bob.