Episode 5: “Cooper’s Dreams”
Originally broadcast May 10, 1990
Written by Mark Frost
Directed by Lesli Linka Glatter
Episode 6: “Realization Time”
Originally broadcast May 17, 1990
Written by Harley Peyton
Directed by Caleb Deschanel
Episode 7: “The Last Evening”
Originally broadcast May 23, 1990
Written & directed by Mark Frost
My rating: ★★★★
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Bite the bullet, baby!
Special Agent Dale Cooper is woken up in the middle of the night when Ben Horne’s new potential clients show up: a group of Icelandic investors who have a penchant for singing and partying, even at four in the morning. Meanwhile, Leland Palmer shows up in Ben’s office, ready for work, but he’s still breaking down over Laura’s death. The insane Icelandic singing plays in the background as he falls apart in front of his boss. This is another one of those glorious TWIN PEAKS moments, when something that should be a very emotional moment is juxtaposed with something designed to take all power away from that emotional moment. Brilliant.
Poor Norma and Big Ed split up. Norma because Hank is back, and Big Ed because Nadine is “sick.” (Translation: Nadine is losing her mind because no one wants to help her patent her silent drape runners.)
Cooper discovers that the blood on Leo’s shirt belongs to Jacques. He also discovers that Laura and Ronette advertised sex in a skin magazine.
Maj. Briggs brings his son Bobby in to Dr. Jacoby for family counseling. After the major and his wife leave the room, Dr. Jacoby interrogates Bobby about Laura, since he knows they were involved from her private tapes. Bobby is at first defiant, but Jacoby breaks him down and gets to a raw emotional place with the young man. Bobby reveals that Laura started him dealing drugs in the first place, which makes it very curious that she would take the money that should have gone to Leo and put it in a safety deposit box. Jacoby says that she liked finding a man’s weakness and preying on it. With each episode, Laura seems to get darker and darker.
Maddy finds Laura’s hiding spot and discovers a cassette tape in it. She calls Donna and James right away.
Coop, Harry and Hawk go to the Log Lady to ask her log questions. She translates what it has to say and reveals that it saw two girls (Laura and Ronette) with three men on that night.
Leland invites himself to Ben’s party for the Icelanders, but when he hears the music, he falls apart and starts weeping and dancing. Ben makes Catherine dance with him so as not to scare the Icelanders. He needn’t have worried; they think this is an American custom, and they start to imitate poor Leland’s wretched dancing.
Hank, angered that Leo has taken over operations, beats the shit out of Leo. Leo in turn beats Shelly. Shelly in turn finally uses her pistol and shoots Leo.
Meanwhile, Audrey ups her seduction game and greets Cooper in his own bed . . . nude. Cooper has to talk her down and explain things to her.
Back on the case, they find Waldo, the bird who attacked Laura Palmer on the night of her murder. It turns out that he’s a mimic, but for some reason, he can’t do it right now. It’s probably in shock. Hoping for anything, Cooper puts his recorder on voice activation and puts it next to the bird. He desperately needs Waldo as a witness. (Yes, you have been paying attention. Should this case ever make it to court, the two prime witnesses will be a log and a bird. Thank you very much, TWIN PEAKS, for giving us this to take our minds off of the horrible FERRIS BUELLER TV show that debuted the same year.)
Shelly only got Leo in the arm, and now that he sees Bobby sneaking around his house, he knows for sure who is really fucking his wife on the side. Leo starts gunning for Bobby.
Maddy, Donna and James listen to Laura’s tape to Dr. Jacoby before they realize that the next installment is missing, probably still with the good doctor. They start to think that Dr. Jacoby is the killer.
Audrey discovers that Ben’s store in town, Horne’s, is a recruiting station for One Eyed Jack’s. She decides to go undercover to see what else she can discover. She leaves a note for Cooper first, though, just to be safe.
Waldo is assassinated by Leo before he can squawk . . . but Cooper gets enough of a recording to know that Waldo knew who killed Laura Palmer. (Yes. You read that right. LEO ASSASSINATED A BIRD THAT COULD HAVE BEEN USED AS A WITNESS AGAINST HIM IN COURT.)
Cooper and Big Ed go undercover at One Eyed Jack’s, hoping to nab Jacques.
Big turn of events: Josie plots with Ben to have Catherine killed in the mill fire instead of herself. They decide to hire Hank to burn the mill instead of Leo, but Leo doesn’t get the memo.
While Cooper and Big Ed gamble below, Audrey auditions for One Eyed Jack’s as “Hester Prine” with a phony resume. Blackie, the head whore, sees through it all, having read THE SCARLET LETTER in high school, but when Audrey ties a cherry stem into a knot with her tongue, she decides to take Audrey in as a prostitute.
Maddy calls Jacoby pretending to be Laura Palmer, complete with a video tape of her holding up today’s newspaper. Jacoby rushes out to meet with her. James and Donna then break into Jacoby’s office to search it. While they’re in there, Bobby comes upon James’s motorcycle. Still bearing a grudge, Bobby decides to hide cocaine on James’s bike.
Donna and James find the half-necklace and the missing tape, and just as Jacoby sees Maddy as Laura, he’s shocked. Before he can approach, he is beaten from behind by a masked man.
Big Ed loses all of his money, but Cooper comes out with a shocking amount of chips. He uses this to get close to Jacques. Cooper claims to be the financer behind Leo’s operation, and after being offered a job for ten grand, Jacques is on board. It becomes clear that two of the three men from the log’s statement were Leo and Jacques. They took the girls to Jacques’s cabin, and that’s when Waldo kept calling Laura’s name. As a gag, Leo set the bird free, put a poker chip from One Eyed Jack’s in her mouth and said to her, “Bite the bullet, baby!” Which is how the poker chip that led to One Eyed Jack’s in the first place got chipped.
Cooper sets Jacques up to get busted. Harry and Andy take him down stateside. Shockingly, he puts up a fight, and before he can gun down Harry, Andy takes him down with a single shot. FUCKING ANDY!
Donna, James and Maddy listen to the final tape that was stolen from Jacoby. They decide he was trying to help her, not kill her.
Leo gets ready to torch Josie’s mill, but he wants a little revenge first. He picks up Shelly so he can burn her with the mill.
Nadine, frustrated with her inability to patent her silent drape runners, swallows two containers of pills in a suicide attempt.
Leo goes back home and waits for the inevitable arrival of Bobby. When Bobby shows up, Leo attacks him with an axe, but before he can succeed at murdering Bobby, Hank shoots Leo in the heart through the window.
Catherine senses a trap when she’s called to the mill, where she finds Shelly tied up. Catherine cuts her down and saves her just as Pete runs into the burning mill to save his wife.
Leland discovers that Harry has arrested someone for the murder of Laura Palmer, and that the guy is being held at the hospital. He sneaks into the hospital and holds a pillow over Jacques’s face until the Canadian drug dealer/whore runner dies.
Ben finally succeeds in selling Ghostwood to someone—anyone! And it looks like the Icelanders are going to be moving in.
And then there’s that final moment of this season finale, something no one ever expected to see.
Confused? You won’t be after this episode of SOAP!
Er, well. This cluster of episodes continues the winning streak from the last grouping. The writers surrender just the right amount of answers as they produce even more questions. It can sometimes be difficult to keep track of everything, since there is so much happening in each episode, but with such great characters, it’s a sheer joy to be along for the ride.
However, the supernatural is still waaaaaaay in the background. These episodes seem more concerned with furthering the mundane mystery, the one, historically speaking, most people were interested in learning about, at least at this point on the show. It can be frustrating for someone who has already seen the show, mostly because when the true horror elements are at their strongest, this show is at its most interesting. That’s about to change next time. Stay tuned for more.