Review S02E17 “Wounds and Scars”

Mad-Pac

Member: Rank 5
Aired Thursday 9:00 PM Mar 28, 1991 on ABC

Harry sinks into a deep depression after Josie's death. Ben holds a Save the Pine Weasel fashion show that doesn't go as expected.


CAST

Kyle MacLachlan ...Special Agent Dale Cooper
Michael Ontkean ...Sheriff Harry S. Truman
Mädchen Amick ...Shelly Johnson
Dana Ashbrook ...Bobby Briggs
Richard Beymer ...Benjamin Horne
Lara Flynn Boyle ...Donna Hayward
Sherilyn Fenn ...Audrey Horne
Warren Frost ...Dr. Will Hayward
Peggy Lipton ...Norma Jennings
Everett McGill ...Big Ed Hurley
Jack Nance ...Pete Martell
Kimmy Robertson ...Lucy Moran
Joan Chen ...Jocelyn Packard
Piper Laurie ...Catherine Martell
Eric DaRe ...Leo Johnson
Harry Goaz ...Deputy Andy Brennan
Michael Horse ...Deputy Tommy 'Hawk' Hill
Kenneth Welsh ...Windom Earle
Russ Tamblyn ...Dr. Lawrence Jacoby
Billy Zane ...John Justice Wheeler
Ian Buchanan ...Dick Tremayne
Heather Graham ...Annie Blackburn
David L. Lander ...Tim Pinkle
Wendy Robie ...Nadine Hurley
Don S. Davis ...Maj. Garland Briggs
Gary Hershberger ...Mike Nelson
Catherine E. Coulson ...The Log Lady
Mary Jo Deschanel ...Eileen Hayward
Brenda Strong ...Jones
Ron Blair ...Randy St. Croix
Julie Hayek ...Model
Betsy Lynn George ...Teen Model


WRITING CREDITS

Mark Frost...(created by)
David Lynch...(created by)
Barry Pullman...(written by)


DIRECTED BY

James Foley
 

Mad-Pac

Member: Rank 5
At this point, reviewing the last two episodes, my strongest impression is that the writers simply didn’t know what to do with the characters anymore, ever since the Who killed Laura Palmer mystery had been solved.

Let’s start with Josie. OK, so we saw she was involved in a complicated and messy situation involving many bad people, and the one person who brought her into the fold, Andrew Packard, was plotting against her and obviously only married her for her to be the scapegoat. I get why she fell from grace, thought the reason why she shot Cooper never became clear to me. I also get how Catherine got to be in control of things (she’s ambitious, greedy, amoral and has a big help from her brother, who’s plotting everything, whatever it is, I don’t know for sure).

What I don’t know is why she accepted the humiliating situation of becoming Catherine’s maid, and how smart and observant people like the good men in municipal law enforcement never thought it was weird that the former owner of the business now worked as a maid there…

Anyway, she became Cinderella, and it seemed to me that, like Cinderella, she would be constantly belittled by Catherine and that would be the preparation for her big revenge/reaction and Josie would turn the tables on Catherine. But now, she was humiliated until the end, she grew meeker and meeker and then simply died just like that.

Finally, to add insult to injury, her soul got trapped in the wooden drawer knob??? WTF??? OK, I sort of get the wood thing, after all Ghostwood, with that eerie name, is a saw mill and kills the forest by cutting its wood, so there’s some karmic justice there, but having her face trapped in the drawer knob was just too weird to make sense. And that was a curious attempt to use a CGI effect, something uncommon for that time.

Who else can we talk about? What about James and Donna? James leaves town and gets involved with the wrong kind of woman and what was evident was going to happen, happens. OK. Finally, Donna goes find him, helps him and gives him her unconditional support. But, no James cannot come back to Twin Peaks yet because… reasons. (The real reason is that the writers didn’t know what to do with him, of course.) And without James, Donna has no purpose, so she’s also in a story limbo.

Then there’s Leo. Leo was part of the Bobby/Shelly/Leo triangle. Tension was built up (poorly) for several episodes (which seemed to last forever, but wouldn’t seem that long if we were binge watching this show as we should), then he eventually woke up, made a lot of noise and scared Shelly, got wounded, escaped into the forest… and became Windom Earle’s plaything, shock collar and all. Basically just someone for Earle to talk to. So, another character without a purpose.

Now that I’ve mentioned Leo, let’s talk about Shelly. She’s back as a waitress, and waitresses usually are non-entities. They are extras that have short conversations with the real characters and, again, provide them with someone to talk to. So, maybe something is going to happen to her, maybe not.

It was laughable how she doesn’t see herself pretty enough to be in a beauty pageant (especially such an inexpressive one like the Miss Twin Peaks one). Come on, by any objective or subjective standards you use she is beautiful. In fact, every young woman in Twin Peaks is fashion-model level beautiful.

And I don’t know if that’s the light or color palette used in the series, or simply a characteristic of white Americans (especially those pretty enough to be on TV), but all these white women, and some men as well, look pink in closeups. Well, the concept of “whiteness” differ in North and South America, so it is expected there would be many examples of White American actresses whose skin has lots of little freckles concealed by make-up. Personally I’d be more than glad to check that out personally, and at a closer range. The point I’m trying to make is, yes, Shelly is pretty enough to be in the Twin Peaks pageant, and so is Donna, Audrey, (late) Maddie, Josie, the models for the “Save the Pine Weasel” fashion show and even Lucy. Plus, now they have a young Heather Graham!

Since I’ve talked about Leo and Shelly, of course I have to talk about Bobby. He started as Laura Palmer’s troubled love interest she was cheating her boyfriend with, then he became just troubled, then he was involved in a scheme to profit from the insurance money paid because of Leo, then that was dropped and he became Ben’s assistant and nothing is really happening there. Writers, give Bobby something to do!

Audrey had a crush on Dale and had a restless and curious nature, which she used to investigate crimes and get herself into trouble. She would also conspire against her father’s economic interests. It seems to me that the moment she found out her father was the boss behind that brothel in Canada and that innocent perfume counter girls were lured into the sex business, Audrey would definitely want to get him in jail. In a twist, however, her father became incapacitated and she took over the business so that offered a chance for big character growth.

However, her father got better and now she’s also in a limbo. The writers gave her another gentleman caller because her thing with Cooper went nowhere. By the way, that’s Billy Zane! With hair! Now I realize I missed Billy Zane’s hair.

I spoke about Audrey, so let’s talk about Ben. After all that Civil War nonsense, he has become the white knight of endangered species. This could be part of a consistent plot to destroy Catherine’s business by closing Ghostwood, but at this point I couldn’t tell.

The whole Lucy/Andy/Dick triangle became stale quickly. They tried to add some spice with that spawn of the devil plot, but it got them nowhere. Now, Dick is just hanging around, and there’s nothing else to say there.

Dr. Jacoby stopped being relevant a long time ago. The Log Lady makes occasional appearances just for the sake of appearing. Major Garland is no longer even interesting enough for me to call him General Hammond. He basically just appears to point out, “Look at me, I have a cool story to tell, but first you have to waste time with all those meaningless subplots. Keep waiting until I finally do something worth watching.”

I was almost forgetting Nadine. As I said before, the writers had to get rid of her for Ed and Norma to be together, so she became delusional she was a teenager again and that she loved Mike. So she breaks up with Ed, because Ed can’t feel guilty about her anymore if he’s supposed to end with Norma. Supposedly, she has moved on, even though she is DELUSIONAL! And probably sooner or later she’s going to wake up and realize she’s living a false life and will want her husband back, I suppose. Or not, since the writers even made Mike fall for her for some inexplicable reason, considering Mike is not delusional.

There’s also the Cooper vs. Windom situation, but that’s in the back burner. Sheriff Truman is very depressed, but let’s see where that goes. I’m sure who that Jones lady knocked out and went to be with and what that means, so I’ll talk about that in my next review.

Quickies:

  • Of course the weasel was going to bite someone. That’s a wild creature, not a pet. Mr. Pimple could’ve just shown the animal in a cage.
  • Cool stuff on Truman’s desk: a whale figurine and deer head bookends. I loved the owl. I think it’s not what it seems.
  • Lucy does her phone calls alphabetically.
  • Pete likes chess and to make clown-face omelets.
  • The Hurleys have lots of figurines as well.
  • Leo’s silence speaks volumes. Or an occasional unpunctuated paragraph.


Episode 16 gets 6 miniature brass owls under a glass dome in display
. And episode 17 deserves the incongruity of 4 stuffed animals to represent an endangered species in an ecological protest.
 

Brimfin

Member: Rank 3
I didn’t forget about TWIN PEAKS. I watched it on Friday, but it’s just been a crazy weekend/week and I’ve only now found time to write about it.

Well, let’s see. Windom Earle figured out that Coop is playing a stalemate game with him, so he must be getting help. He feels that’s cheating and swears he will get him. Fun to watch Leo cowering in fear around Earle, after the way he used to terrorize Shelley.

The death of Josie has turned Sheriff Truman into a depressed drunk. Cooper tries to cheer him up by reminding him Josie was a murderer and a prostitute to boot. Yes, that really helped a lot. (To be fair, he was really trying to toughen him up and make him face facts, but Harry’s not ready yet.) New woman in town later knocks him out and crawls into bed with him. Hmmmm.

I remembered Norma mentioning that her ex-nun sister was coming last week. Didn’t expect she’d be played by hottie Heather Graham. As usual, they get the facts on nuns all wrong. TV does this all the time, from having them still wearing the black habits that went out in the 70’s (not here, but on other shows) to misunderstanding their duties. She hasn’t handled money in years except for BINGO chips? Pull-leaze! Nuns deal with everyday people and situations all the time – except for cloistered nuns. And cloistered nuns would not be helping with BINGO games. And BINGO is not played in a casino; they don’t use chips except to cover spaces on the cards.

The Log Lady has two mountains on her legs; she disappeared years ago just like Briggs and returned with those images. Maybe it’s a map saying the White Lodge is between two mountains. And seriously – Donna’s mom and Ben Horne are fooling around?

I was wrong about Mike; he actually does like Nadine – at least enough to sleep with her in a hotel. But if she’s looking for a long-term relationship with him, I’d guess he’d go for someone younger. Plus she just noticed she’s blind in one eye. Here comes that pesky memory again!

Highlight of the episode was watching Dick Tremayne and “Squiggy” putting on that phony “Save the Pine Weasel” routine to try to put the kibosh on Ghostwood, only to have Dick get bitten and the whole routine go down in disaster. Hope he had his shots, or he might catch something. I’m talking about the weasel, of course.

Can only give this one 6 ridiculous outfits worn by Lucy and Andy in the silly fashion show preceding the STPW campaign.

Best dialogue:

Cooper: Are you staying in town for a while?
Annie: I might be here quite a while.
Cooper: It’s happened to me.
Annie: Looks like it’s grown on you.
Cooper: It has a way of doing that.

(Too bad this show isn’t growing on me like that.)
 
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