Didja Know?

 

For the titles of the Twin Peaks TV episodes, I have taken the unique approach of using both the episode numbers, which were the only titles given the scripts by series creators David Lynch and Mark Frost, and the translated German titles of the episodes that were assigned when the series aired in that country. Frequent readers of PopApostle know I like the aesthetic of actual episode titles, but I also wanted to honor the simple numbering used by Lynch and Frost, hence the expanded titles presented in these studies.

 

This episode is the season one finale.

 

Writer/Co-creator Mark Frost has admitted in interviews that he wrote the season finale with as many cliffhangers as he could think of, both as a satire of typical soap opera cliffhangers and, hopefully, a means of convincing the network (and fans) to demand another season to get the resolutions. The cliffhangers in this episode are:

	Who assaulted Dr. Jacoby?
	Will Jacoby recover from his heart attack after the beating?
	Will Shelly, Catherine, and Pete survive the fire at the mill?
	Will Nadine survive her suicide attempt?
	Will Lucy and Andy reconcile?
	Will Bobby's frame-up of James for drug possession succeed?
	Will Leo die from his gunshot wounds?
	Will Leland get away with having murdered Jacques?
	Will Audrey get uncovered by her own father at One-Eyed Jacks?
	Who shot Agent Cooper?
	Is Cooper dead?
	And, of course, we still don't know who killed Laura Palmer.

 

Notes from the Log Lady intros

 

When cable channel Bravo obtained the rights to air reruns of Twin Peaks in 1993, David Lynch directed all-new introductions to each episode featuring the Log Lady, portrayed by original actress Catherine E. Coulson. These intros also appear as options on the DVD and Blu-ray collections of the series.

 

The Log Lady's comment, "This particular song will end with three sharp notes, like deathly drumbeats," refers to the three gunshots fired into Agent Cooper in the last scene of the episode.

 

"A drunken man walks in a way that is quite impossible for a sober
man to imitate, and vice versa. An evil man has a way...no matter
how clever, to the trained eye, his way will show itself.

"Am I being too secretive? No. One can never answer questions at
the wrong moment. Life, like music, has a rhythm. This particular
song will end with three sharp notes, like deathly drumbeats."

 

 

 

Didja Notice?

 

This episode opens immediately after the end of Episode 6: "Realization Time", still the night of Thursday, March 2, 1989. It proceeds through the night, into the wee hours of Friday, March 3.

 

    After breaking into Dr. Jacoby's office, James and Donna discover a small box filled with drink umbrellas, all labeled to commemorate important dates in the doctor's past.

    The first one they look at reads, "The Kahala Hilton. July 8, 1969. Men on the moon." The Kahala Hilton was an actual hotel in Kahala, Hawaii in 1969, now known as the Kahala Hotel & Resort. The date and description here imply it was when men first walked, or at least landed, on the Moon, but July 8, 1969 is merely the day Apollo 11 launched from Cape Kennedy, landing on the Moon on July 20, with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walking on it on the 21st. Maybe the erroneous date is why James' voice does not say the specific date while reading it, just the month and year. Another moon landing error occurs in Secret History of Twin Peaks.

   The second umbrella they look at reads, "August 9, 1974. I first lay eyes on Mimsy." The reference to Mimsy is unknown; perhaps that it is a nickname for his wife, Eolani (seen briefly in Episode 10: "The Man Behind Glass")? Ironically, the date is that of the resignation of U.S. President Richard Nixon, but I guess that wasn't what was important to him that day!

 

The cassette tape found in the coconut appears to be of the Scotch brand. Scotch is a brand name used by the 3M Company for various products manufactured by them; this once included Scotch audio tape, but the line was discontinued in the 1990s.

 

Inside the coconut, James and Donna also find the half-heart necklace that disappeared from the spot in which they buried it in the woods back in Episode 0B: "Northwest Passage". But it now has a chain on it instead of the leather strap seen in that episode. We might argue that Jacoby changed it for some reason, but when we see the necklace again in Episode 8A: "May the Giant Be With You", the leather strap is back!

 

A man in a dark ski mask and dark clothing assaults Dr. Jacoby as he watches Maddy-disguised-as-Laura in Easter Park. The assault results in Jacoby having a mild heart attack. It is never officially revealed in the series who it was that assaulted him, but Mark Frost is reported to have said that it was Leland as BOB. Why he attacked Jacoby has never been addressed directly as far as I know. Remember that Leland saw Maddy sneaking out of the house at night in Episode 6: "Realization Time" and probably followed her to see what she was up to; seeing her in Laura's clothes and the blond wig may have triggered a desire in BOB to kill her and he decided to take down Jacoby as a witness first, then James and Donna arrived to pick up Maddy, preventing BOB's assault on her. 

 

The surveillance van used for the undercover operation at One-Eyed Jacks appears to be a GMC Vandura.

 

At 7:13 on the Blu-ray, Blackie is observing Cooper on a casino camera just before seeing Audrey in her new costume. Blackie at first appears to be playing solitaire with a deck of cards while doing this, but look closer. She is actually laying out a spread of tarot cards! The formation of the spread looks to be the Celtic Cross Spread, a 10-card layout that goes into more detail of a reading than the typical smaller layout. The top card of the Celtic Cross appears to be a king, usually representative of a father figure being prominent in the reading. It may be that Blackie was doing a reading on the new girl--Audrey--whose father, unknown to both in different ways, is the owner of One-Eyed Jacks and will have a "close encounter" with his daughter in the brothel shortly!
Blackie's tarot spread	Celtic Cross Spread (from learntarot.com)

 

As Cooper and Jacques sit down for a drink at the casino, the waitress serves Jacques two beers for some reason. Cooper has a clear beverage in a cocktail glass. Did Jacques order two beers for himself? Regardless, we only see him drink one of them, guzzling it all down in a few seconds after accepting Cooper's "job" across the border; but then, when Jacques leaves the table about 30 seconds later, both mugs are still about half-full of beer!

 

Jacques tells Cooper that "some high school kid" distributes the drugs on the U.S. side of the border. This would seem to imply that he does not know that the "high school kid" is Bobby Briggs. But in Fire Walk With Me, it is clear that Jacques is aware of Bobby.

 

Accepting Cooper's job offer, Jacques says, "Can do, cabby." I'm not sure what "cabby" means in this context. In some circles, a cabby is a marijuana joint laced with cocaine, which might be appropriate since they are discussing a drug run.

 

The license plate of Harry's sheriff Bronco is 83206.

 

Jacques' car is a Chevrolet El Camino, probably around 1982 model.

 

A Stinger II crane made by Simon Aerials is seen at the water processing plant at 13:51 on the Blu-ray.

 

In this episode, Deputy Andy redeems himself for dropping/misfiring his gun in Episode 4: "The One-Armed Man" by calmly shooting Jacques in the shoulder when the latter grabs another deputy's gun and aims it at Harry.

 

At the Packard Mill, Leo pulls the same two gas cans out of his pickup he was seen loading in Episode 5: "Cooper's Dreams".

 

Outside the Blue Pine Lodge at 19:24 on the Blu-ray, notice that Truman's sheriff's truck is parked there, even though he's not there! Obviously a reused shot from an earlier episode when he was visiting Josie.

 

At 19:26 on the Blu-ray, Hank tosses his pay into a briefcase, in stacks of $20 bills. But notice that they aren't real $20 bills! It's prop money that looks just vaguely like the real thing.

 

At 20:23 on the Blu-ray, Josie blows her cigarette smoke into Hank's face, trying to show she is not intimated by him. Notice that he inhales it rather than cough or turn away, to show his strength.

 

At 21:09 on the Blu-ray, Hank walks into frame and stops at such a place in the camera's view that the antlers of a deer head hanging on the wall behind him appear to be sprouting from his own noggin! A not-so-subtle symbolism of his evil nature.

 

Hank's speech to Josie implies that he killed her husband, Andrew Packard, in collusion with Josie herself.

 

    Notice that after Hank cuts Josie's thumb and she rubs it on her lips, the red of Josie's lips don't change color, as if she already has blood on them, possibly symbolic of the "blood on her hands" for the murder of her husband.

    A similar "blood-on-thumbs" scene occurs between Jonathan and Hank in Episode 11: "Laura's Secret Diary".

 

The deputy whom Jacques attacked to take his gun was named Fred, according to Big Ed's telling of the story of Andy's bravery during the arrest. "Fred" was also the alias of Ed during his and Cooper's operation in the One-Eyed Jacks casino.

 

After Andy closes the partition in the coffee nook at the Sheriff's station to attempt a reconciliation with Lucy, notice that thunder rolls in the background at 26:37 on the Blu-ray. A harbinger of the gloomy turn the relationship takes seconds later, perhaps. Another roll of thunder occurs as Andy opens the partition and exits. 

 

At 24:40 on the Blu-ray, the large, log-framed photo in the office at Packard Mill is a blow-up of the same photo seen in the conference room of the sheriff's station.
Packard Mill logging photo	Sheriff's station logging photo

 

The design on the shoulders of Hawk's sweater at 27:37 on the Blu-ray is a bit reminiscent of the Owl Cave heiroglyphs and similar to the triangular design seen on the cover of the Secret History of Twin Peaks book.

 

At 28:06 on the Blu-ray, Bobby makes a phone call from a Pacific Bell pay phone. This shows that the scene was actually shot in California, as Pacific Bell is a California telephone service company owned by AT&T.

 

During Bobby's phone call to the sheriff's office, he tells Lucy that James Hurley is an "easy rider". This is a reference to the 1969 film Easy Rider, in which Dennis Hopper's character hides drugs in the gas tanks of his and his friend's motorcycle gas tanks.

 

After Jacoby is treated at the hospital, Dr. Hayward says, "He's out of the woods." Of course, "out of the woods" is an idiom for "out of danger", but it also makes a nice parallel to the environs of Twin Peaks and Truman's description (in Episode 3: "Rest in Pain") of something "very, very strange in these old woods."

 

Jacques describes having a drunken fight with Leo at his cabin the night Laura was killed. In Fire Walk With Me, it is revealed to have been Leland who battered him, not Leo.

 

At 30:19 on the Blu-ray, the novel Ocean Front by Douglass Wallop is visible on the bookshelf behind Catherine.

 

Finding his old high school yearbook on the shelf, Pete seems to pine for an old crush named Midge Jones. The title of the yearbook appears to be Logroller. According to the Twin Peaks trading card set, Pete attended Missoula High School in Missoula, Montana (a fictitious school).

 

At 32:11 on the Blu-ray, a Snow Crop orange juice machine is visible in the background behind Hank. Snow Crop was a produce company in the 1950s-60s.

 

Norma's sweater during her conversation with Hank at the RR has a design vaguely reminiscent of the Owl Cave heiroglyphs.

 

Coming home and finding that Nadine has taken a deliberate overdose of pills, Ed calls for an ambulance, giving his address as 422 Riverside. But Twin Peaks: An Access Guide to the Town shows Big Ed's Gas Farm (neighboring his house) is located on Tanner Road (and the number on the house was seen to be 31002 in Episode 0A: "Wrapped in Plastic".

 

At 34:32 on the Blu-ray, Truman and Cooper run from the sheriff's Bronco through the rain to the front doors of the sheriff's station. But then we cut to them inside apparently having entered from some back or side entrance! Also notice that the two aren't wet, despite just having run through pouring rain.

 

The Ghostwood Estates contract between Horne Development Corp. and the Icelanders is interesting to read in the close-up at 37:18 on the Blu-ray:

 

	The Twin Peaks Registrar address in the top left corner shows the Twin Peaks zip code to be 83717 (which is actually a zip code in Boise, Idaho). But the book Twin Peaks: An Access Guide to the Town gives a zip code of 99153, an actual zip code for the small town of Metaline Falls, WA, near the area of the fictional Twin Peaks.
	The contract shows a date of March 1990, though the series is set in 1989.
	The Icelandic investment group is Fjjord International Investments in Ólafsvík, Iceland; possibly "Fjjord" is a mispelling of "fjord", a Norwegian term for long, narrow body of water. They are paying Horne Development Corp. $33 million through International Belgium Bank to develop 1,350 acres in Twin Peaks County. Ólafsvík is a real world fishing town of barely 1,000 inhabitants! The companies and bank mentioned are fictitious.
	The date on the document is March 3, so it is presumably being signed after midnight since this episode opens on the night of March 2 and remains night time throughout. Notice the 2-digit year is missing from the document date, showing only the pre-printed "19__".
	The document seems to read that it was "made and executed by Hon. M.J. Kaffee Esq., County of Timber Lull". Timber Lull is a fictitious county. The same Hon. M.J. Kaffee Esq., County of Timber Lull is seen on the deed for the sale the Packard Mill land to Ben Horne by Catherine Martell on March 23, 1989 in The Secret History of Twin Peaks.

 

During his phone call with Ben, Hank says it's "time to Black Flag that little fire bug." The "fire bug" is Leo (setting fire to the Packard Mill) and "Black Flag" is a reference to the Black Flag insecticide brand.

 

At 38:20 on the Blu-ray, there is a statue of a rearing snake on the coffee table in the Johnson house.

 

When Leo gets shot, the same scene of Chet shooting Montana on Invitation to Love as seen during Nadine's prep for suicide in the previous episode, Episode 6: "Realization Time", plays on the TV set in the living room. It must be either a reshowing of the episode or a video tape recording (Bobby does bump into the TV and VCR on top just before it happens). The gun used in the Invitation to Love episode is a Colt M1911A1.

 

When the heart monitor flatlines as Jacques dies at Leland's hands in the hospital, the "Lead off" indicator on the console also lights up. This indicates that one of the monitoring electrodes was removed from the body, obviously a quick way for the production to show a live heartbeat followed by a flatline to suggest death!

 

The truck behind Pete at 42:15 on the Blu-ray is a GMC.

 

As Pete and the millworker walk past a Jeep Cherokee, Pete says that it's Catherine's car.

 

The seamstress putting the finishing touches on Audrey's Queen of Diamonds costume appears to be a hunchback! In the audio commentary by production designer Richard Hoover, the hunchback was inspired by a character in Grimm's Fairy Tales (I'm not sure what story this would be; the most famous hunchback in literature is that of The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, the classic 1831 novel by Victor Hugo).

 

Approaching his hotel room, Cooper dictates the night's events into his tape recorder and comments on having ordered some hot milk to be brought up by room service before bed. We see a very elderly waiter bring it to him in the next episode, Episode 8A: "May the Giant Be with You".

 

After Cooper enters his room and shuts the door, he looks up as the phone rings and, in the background, if you look closely, you can see the shadows of the feet of the person who will shortly shoot him (revealed in a later episode to be Josie) on the other side of the door. But she waits a full 13 seconds or so before knocking. Why wait? Maybe she heard the phone ringing in his room and thought it would be better to let Cooper answer the phone first instead of splitting him between whether to answer the phone or the door first. Of course, the real answer is probably that the stand-in for the shooter on set just moved into position immediately to be in place for the camera when the knock and door opening comes (even though we don't see quite that angle in the final edit).

 

Memorable Dialog

 

buy you a cocktail, Jacques?.wav

bite the bullet, baby.wav

just like that.wav

I have no complaints about the house.wav

under all that scar tissue.wav

I can't understand a word you're saying.wav

let's have a look at the new girl.wav

such stuff as dreams are made of.wav

one of the premiere achievements of modern civilization.wav 

 

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