Ok, so this week (sorry, last week, sorry again) we started with Ronette having a crisis, getting agitated and needing to be controlled. I'm a little confused because it seems Sheriff Truman said, "Ronette pulled out her IV. I just gave her a sedative." It sounds like he said that HE gave her a sedative. That's what I understood and how the subtitles read. If that's true, well, well, dear Sheriff, I know you are very versatile and resourceful, and we all know that in a small town, a conscientious civil servant has to learn to multitask, but at the same time I believe that the doctors, the REAL ones, would frown upon the idea law-enforcement officers would be dispensing medication at their own criteria. After all you don't want doctors making arrests, do you? But of course, he might as well have said, "THEY just gave her a sedative", so all this snarky rant was for nothing. Ouch! Each time Cooper gets letters from under people's fingernails I wince with pain.
So we're introduced to Harold Smith, as usual, another quirky character. He's a shut-in, and claims he simply can't go outside. He gives Donna an orchid to be placed on Laura's grave. I thought it was very curious that Bob (not the how's mythical Bob, but our own Bob Peters) almost mistook him for Ned the Piemaker. Clearly, Lee Pace would be way too young in 1990 to be playing an adult in Twin Peaks (he was 29 when Pushing Daisies started back in 2007), but the comparison is apt, as he combines some characteristics of the people in that show.. He's a quirky character, there's this eyebrow thing, he's a shut-in (a theme also used in Daisies, as Chuck's aunts were shut-ins), and he likes flowers like Chuck (who enjoyed growing flowers for the benefit of her beloved bees).
So... Cooper is playing with his letter soup, since many of his clues are the letters left by the killer. Which makes me wonder how police officers would operate if vain criminals didn't purposefully leave elaborate clues behind
Albert makes the strangest declaration of love one could imagine. Out of the blue he becomes all metaphysical, and mentions Gandhi, and King, and that his concerns are global, so this is why he loves Sheriff Truman. And he says that a few moments after sarcastically remarking to Cooper that he (Albert) lives on Planet Earth. I guess that's not the same Earth you and I live in.
We also meet Richard Tremayne, a smug dandy with a face you instantly want to punch. And he is the sources of Andy's problems right now. And yes, I admit that makes me a little misogynist to make this all about Andy's feelings, because it's actually Lucy that will have a major issue to deal with nine months from now. But who told Lucy to fall for that phony Casanova who doesn't seem to be putting any effort to even pretend he's likable?
And what's the deal with this "Tremayne" name? If I'm not mistaken (and I'm not), that was the name of the alien in Star Trek: TOS's "The Squire of Gothos", who, by the way, was also an affected dandy. That can't be just a coincidence. But I like the idea that Lucy is that kind of person who seems to have a pretty boring routine and doesn't seem to have a personal life, but then you realize there's a whole world you don't know about her.
Leland comes to tell Cooper and Truman about the man he used to know when he was a boy. Which, again, would make this stranger pretty old, and most definitely too old to do anything interesting, like terrorizing peaceful people's hallucinations. Then he throws a lit match to sort of make a point, and i didn't get what that point was, but that certainly impressed Cooper, who is convinced this is his man.
The James/Donna/Maddy/Laura quadrangular triangle is funny and predictable. We could already see that Donna would feel left out. I thought it was particularly hilarious when she told James (in order to make him jealous) that she had met "a young man who was bright, charming, intelligent... and 13" (no, that part she conveniently left out). In the end, Donna goes to complain about the situation to the person who actually was the one causing all the trouble: Laura, the deceased. OK... By the way, I don't know if Maddy's confession of feeling so upset because people think she is Laura is a genuine character concern or a nod to the fact that plot device is an old soap opera cliché, and people are actually SUPPOSED to think she is Laura. Come on, she even got rid of her glasses to look ore like Laura!
More fragments: Audrey's plight knows no limit: the bad guys are giving her drugs! At least her virtue is still intact. And Cooper realizes Shelly is after the insurance money. Truman talks to the one-armed man who sells shoes about... shoes. But what really gets him is the picture of the mysterious man. I swear that when he hid in the bathroom stall and had some kind of attack I thought he was going to turn into a werewolf. OK, actually I thought he was going to turn into the mystery man they are looking for. A Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde thing. Anyway, because of this incident, Cooper finds another clue which explains yet another part of the giant's riddle.
Cooper asks Ben if he has seen his daughter and he, as the concerned parent he is, replies in a very casual and dismissive way that he hasn't seen her since the day before, and then gets more worked up with Cooper's seemingly excessive interest in her whereabouts than the fact she's missing.
So, we meet Jean Renault, another name that reminds me of yet another name, in this case, French actor Jean Reno. And that may just as well be another "on purpose" coincidence, because Reno was already famous back in 1990.
The scene with Nadine breaking her restraints, showing some superhuman strength when she just wanted to clap her hers to the song Ben was singing was really bizarre. Actually she was doing her cheerleader routine and thought she and Ed were teenagers again. I suppose that will keep the interest in her character still alive, since she's not directly connected with the main part of the story.
So, we come to the part of Dr.Jacoby's hypnosis, which I'd call the core of the episode. Long story short, because of this unusual technique, Cooper and Truman find out who killed Jacques an Leland is arrested. I loved his "caught red-handed" face when the cops came for him.
Finally, Donna goes to cry her sorrows with Harold, whom she just met. Well, at least she doesn't look for that"sensitive and intelligent young man" who's JUST A KID! And it turns out he has Laura's diary, which could mean a great deal, but I suspect means nothing.
At this point, I'm just going through the motions. And grading is becoming a very hard task. I guess unless something really good happens, it'll be stuck right in the middle.
Looks like I bumped my head on the glass ceiling, but couldn't go beyond. "The Man Behind the Glass" gets 5 life paths that are strange and difficult ones, like this show.
