This episodes demands some answers. The previous one made the claim that Cooper knew who killed Laura Palmer. This is the fourth episode of the show, and we apparently are already going to find out who killed Laura Palmer. So? Who did? Oops, looks like HE FORGOT.
It's a cop-out. But of course they weren't going to tell us who killed Laura Palmer only 4 episodes into the show, and we just need to carry on. We will learn in due time. But that doesn't mean that we didn't have any interesting developments in this episode. We learn a bit more about Cooper's dream, as he clearly is able to interpret it beyond what we saw in the last episode. Or perhaps we didn't see the whole thing. Either way, he lays it out pretty clearly. His dream is a code. Crack the code, solve the crime.
And throughout the episode it all starts to make sense. Some of it is explicitly said by Cooper himself (sometimes my arms bend back), other parts are just shown to us, like Laura's cousin Maddie (She's my cousin). The proof of these two statements being confirmed in the real world make the dream sequence that much more interesting to analyze for clues. I can only imagine that it was aggravating waiting for each episode to air, but it did give plenty of time to study scenes like the dream.
The centerpiece of this episode is Laura's funeral, which becomes, as well as the events leading up to it, quite a fiasco. First of all we have Albert, who has no patience for the way that everyone in Twin Peaks does things. Thankfully Cooper comes to the rescue, and Harry even gets a punch in. Cooper is quite defensive of Twin Peaks, and while his speech is a bit hollow considering we know quite a few of the more sinister things that the townspeople do, it comes from his heart. He's even considering getting a piece of land in the town!
The funeral itself is a disaster, with Bobby claiming that everyone knew Laura was in trouble but nobody did anything about it. I'm not sure if this is completely accurate, because it comes as quite a surprise to many characters learning about the things Laura was involved in. After Bobby spots James and starts fighting, Leland jumps onto the coffin and sobs as it moves up and down in the grave. It's a tragic scene that contains an emotional punch.
Twin Peaks is a difficult show to review, because the structure of the episodes is so different. In any other show, the entire episode might have focused on the funeral and how it effected everyone. But in Twin Peaks, the funeral is over halfway the through the episode and we get a few more informative scenes. We learn about the Bookhouse Boys, and that someone has been smuggling drugs into Twin Peaks. We also get talk of an evil in the woods, deepening the spiritual themes running underneath the show. More on this in the future.
As far as other characters go, we learn that Norma's husband is up for parole, Audrey was the one who slipped Cooper the note, and Shelly's got a gun. We also have a few scenes with Harry and Josie (who is probably my least favorite character). She is worried about what Catherine has in store for her, and we will see that soon enough. And lastly, Leland continues to get crazier. Lots of stuff to digest, and some great emotional scenes. Another quality episode.
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