0:00I'm sending you the latest episode of season two of horror vanguards Twin Geeks Retrospective. I think you're going to get a kick out of this one. Yeah, Purf. Shall I lead us in? Uh, drive away. Hey, it is. It is good to be back, friends. Diane, it is 47 minutes past seven on the evening of April 1st. And I am re-entering the small, idyllic town of Twin Peaks, joined as always by the log lady of podcasting. Ash, how are you, my friend? I feel like it's been a hundred years. Do you know that, like, meme? I don't know if this was originally a vine or a TikTok, but it's like the person mixing all the household cleaners and the toilet bowl and the voices.
1:13All right, I'm just going to be doing commentary until they've killed themselves by making chlorine guests and they're dead. And then it like slash cuts to the same person. Like, how long have you been doing this? I'm trans now. And I'm like, oh, that's me, but with the Twin Peaks review. How long have we been doing this job? Yeah, when this starts it, you were a whole different gender. Look, look, I just, I just, everything I do is in service to horror Vanguard and our numbers. And I'm just doing this for the upcoming David Duke company episodes.
1:52Yes, I mean, so it's all have more thorough commentary. Thank you for your service. That's all I can say. But yes, long time listeners will know that we have been, there has been a much delayed Twin Peaks retrospective. It was delayed for many, many months because of the WGA and SAG after strikes when those on strike asked podcasters to not cover work from Struct Studios. So we pulled the plug on the Twin Peaks retrospective. We were up to just getting into the kind of the swing of season two. And so we are back for the retrospective.
2:33And we're going to make things up a little bit in how we do it. So instead of kind of 20 minute, many episodes on just one episode of the show, we're going to try and do go for like the full full full king sized HV podcast meal. And we're going to be covering three episodes in every episode of the retrospective just to just to just to give you more content. That's what we're that's what we're up to. And now I think this is oh, go on. I was just going to ask I was just going to ask you the question that I've been wanting to ask since we agreed to restart doing this, which is maybe catching up listeners as to what is happening in Twin Peaks right now?
3:19So, so in appropriate Twin Peaks fashion, dear listeners, if you will recall our earlier episodes of the Twin Peaks retrospective, the numerical sequencing of the Twin Peaks episode uses three separate numbering systems, which is designed to induce lovecraftian madness. By bundling three episodes into one, we we add to this appropriate tradition of making this episode. I don't know. This is this is like episode 320 of a horror Vanguard episode, maybe 20 something of the Twin Peaks review episode one of the three part and one Twin Peaks reviews episode 1314 and 15 of Twin Peaks.
4:01So so let's let's just sit with that for a second. But I think I think catching up to Twin Peaks, my God, everything has happened since since our last encounter with this wonderful franchise franchise. Oh, that sounds so dirty calling to me some franchise. I just threw up a little bit in my mouth when you said that. Cringe me cringe. Oh, look at look at your posting cringe. Oh, Easter Easter, Easter, a trans day of visibility, the appropriately timed holiday that's all themed around eggs being broken just passed. And so let let he who is without cringe cast the first podcast is what I what I've been saying for years.
4:45Um, but but there she is the case maybe. There is there is there's there's there's there's there's there's there's there's murder there's gambling there's drug running there's Austin and insurance fraud and there's UFOs there's magic there's another dimension there's possession with demons and and all of that and so much more as we were as we return to Twin Peaks season two. Bump bump bump bump so today recovering episode 13 demons episode 14 lonely souls and episode 15 drive with a dead girl. Where where do we where do we want to start with demons?
5:29Uh, I feel like so this is this is this is um, this is a really interesting episode I think as it is tying up a lot of plot that the earlier episodes in this season had had lane and setting up a lot of kind of reformulated character dynamics. So, um, I think we have to start with Audrey. Um, as as with everything into in PX we must start with Audrey Horn. Yeah. I, I, long time listeners will know I am, I am an unapologetic, uh, Audrey Simp. I'm sorry. I'm, I'm only human, uh, absolute, absolute queen legend icon that can do no wrong in my eyes.
6:13Um, except if you get yourself, um, kidnapped, uh, injected with heroin and, uh, in prisons in a brothel that is, um, run by the older men in your family. Um, classic mistake. We've all been there though. Uh, so I kind of wanted to start by talking about just how deeply gothic the rescue scene is. Um, and I think I think this, this does return us to our ongoing discussion. So, um, I think we have a discussion of Audrey Horn's predicament through the context of gothic literature. Absolutely. And do you, do you want to, do you want to, I know it's been a while for people, um, since we've been talking about this.
6:57So, do you want to kind of maybe flesh this out? Listeners that, that podcasting sub series, uh, that you like so much is coming back in style. Little, little twin PX jokes for the listeners at home. We include those in our twin PX retrospective. Every so often. Um, every, every so often we'll do something funny, but don't count on it. We are a theory podcast. Oh, yeah. So, I, I went at, okay, so to catch our listeners up on the kind of predicament of Audrey Horn, I keep comparing it to, uh, the classic gothic text, the text that people often refer to as the first, quote, unquote, uh, piece of gothic literature.
7:39Horus Wollpools, the castle of a Toronto published in 1764. And I have to look at my tattoo every time I say that, uh, because I have the publication date of this novel tattooed on me. Um, which is true. Just true. I am that kind of nerd. Um, but so in, in Horus Wollpools, castle of a Toronto, uh, we, we kind of have the fleshing out of all of the central themes of the gothic, right? Um, we have, we have the kind of heroin who's trapped in the patriarch's evil subterranean layer. We have the chivalrous knight who's kind of questing to go safer.
8:14We have divine intervention that keeps routinely guiding the knight back on track. We have the incestuous dynamic, uh, between the father figure for our, our heroin and herself. All of these dynamics, um, kind of coalesce in Horus Wollpools, the castle of a Toronto and echo forward in nearly every single gothic text thereafter. If not literally, uh, through interpretation almost always. And that brings us here, here to Twin Peaks. Um, so Horus Wollpool has been imprisoned in one eye jacks, the, uh, illegal gambling den slash brothel slash clearing house for drugs that is north of the border.
9:01Um, and, uh, in a, in a sort of car, let's not, let's not rehash the whole plot, but in a complicated series of events, um, involving a large suitcase full of money, a large briefcase full of money, um, Cooper, uh, rescues or tree who has been drugged, um, and brings, brings her back to the great northern. Um, and, uh, it's just, you know, you know, it's like it all gets very Freudian whenever Audrey is around her family, you know, her daddy is there. Uh, and I've, you're watching this and you go, uh, maybe there's some subtext here about the incestuous sexual dynamics of a small town American ideology that seeks to, um, literally imprison and drug women into a kind of patriarchal order, but no, it's just weird.
9:54It's just, it's just kind of cookie and surreal. But again, um, I, I insist upon the idea that Lynch is actually making. Uh, I think a lot of Lynch's work is deeply feminist, and I think this is to, um, and the relationship between Audrey and Cooper continues to be one of my favorite things about the show, um, because it's, it's just, it's just a very lovely example of friendship. I think, um, of what it means to genuinely, uh, care for someone and want the best for them. Um, uh, yeah, just the heart eyes. Uh, but yeah, so the, the, the kind of, the thing that I wanted to talk about is Ben
10:37Horn's reaction when Audrey is returned. Yes. And it's just like the most lascivious, creepy like, uh, dynamic because he's like, the lasting after the briefcase full of money. And then he's like, oh, but it's, but it's all the while he's saying, like, oh, Audrey, I'm so glad you're back home with me. And it's just, oh, skin crawling. Yeah. No, I, I think we've had, um, a little bit of rest by it over the last several episodes, because Twin Peaks has a lot of wacky stuff. Twin Peaks has a lot of like fun, surreal vibes.
11:16Um, but, uh, demons lonely souls and drive with a dead girl was kind of like an infamous stretch of just absolutely like miserable gut blows. Okay. And there's a scene that's, that's, that's in this episode where Audrey asks Cooper to, to drive her home. And like the very clear implication there is that, oh, she's going to tell Cooper a bunch of secret stuff. And then like Ben Horn just turns around and immediately chimes in with the, like, oh, can I come with? We can all drive together. I like, like the, and it's one of the creepiest scenes in all of Twin Peaks for me because it is so clearly readable as this guy, like just just being this, this expert manipulator, just just structuring every situation so that Audrey Horn can never actually be free.
12:04Yeah. And, and really that, that theme of like, what is it? So this, again, you're completely right. This is a kind of classic gothic trope of, um, women imprisoned in the gothic space, but it's within the gothic space, the women are permitted agency. Um, you can solve the mystery. You can explain the supernatural, right? Um, and this, that's like classic rad cliffian gothic. Um, but I would argue actually these, the three episodes, um, I'm not sure if you're so it's particularly very much concerned with this dynamic of like the struggle for, uh, for women to emancipate themselves.
12:44I think Audrey is a really good, um, example of this, uh, and I also think we have to talk about Leo, um, and, and, and, and the systems of finance that we're introduced to in this episode. So really, it really, one of the big villains of Twin Peaks that no one likes to talk about enough is the profit driven American healthcare system. Yes. 100%. Um, we might need to explain this. Okay. So, yeah, so Leo is now in some kind of coma. Uh, he's using a wheelchair. He's kind of stuck in his home. And he's being taken care of by Bobby and Shelley.
13:25Uh, Bobby and Shelley have agreed to take care of Leo, uh, because they got winded that if they take care of him at home, they'll get thousands of dollars in government assistance. And what we see play out in this episode is actually they're going to get like $12, because all that money is being spunged up by fees and equipment costs. Yeah. Uh, it's Tom. Tom is the name of the insurance guy. Um, and it's like, what's, what's so, what's so kind of interesting is that everybody concentrates on the kind of metaphysics of the show, but actually, um, under the surface, it's, it's a surface, it's, it's a show, not even under the surface, actually very explicitly, it's a show about, um, control of capital and patriarch control of women.
14:10Um, and those two things go hand in hand, right? So Shelley and Bobby need, and so Leo is, let us be unequivocal. Leo is a piece of shit. He's like an awful, oh, totally. You're a teamable piece of shit, like a violent, abusive, uh, patriarch, like involved in all kinds, like, making, makes the world a bit of a worse place just by being in it. Um, he's giving Ben Horner run for his money. But the two very different flavors of awful, right? Ben Horner is the powerful man who can control him and manipulate Leo is like physically violent.
14:42Um, yeah. And you know, Shelley has been kind of abused for years by this man. Uh, her and Bobby have had a kind of family, and actually, honestly, very sweet romance. Um, and so Leo's insurance money is Shelley's means to like freedom. Uh, but it's still, it's still a freedom that's contingent upon the domestic and reproductive labor that goes with being the wife of Leo. Yes, yes. And this is, this is, I think you bring up really good point here because in this episode, we get this wonderful quote from Mr. Tajimora.
15:18Uh, where he says, I find adherence to fantasy troubling and unreasonable, which I think really underscores this kind of like materialist reading of, of a series that is often predominantly. Discourse through its metaphysics, even through a lot of art, uh, twin peak retrospective episodes. And, and I just like, oh, like, is it this episode of the next episode that has Shelley quitting the R&R diner? Uh, that's the next episode. And that, that scene, I think, is so we're going to get into that is so my, my, so important.
15:52Oh, come on. Um, cause my whole point is, is that seen. Yeah. Like what's the, what's the inciting incident of the entire show? It's real estate deals, right? The entire show, wreath. And I actually think this is, this is such a good show for us to talk about because you know, we often, kind of really lazy criticism that gets thrown at like talking about horror from the left is like, it's non materialist. And it's like actually, like the whole system, the whole systems of capitalism have material effects, but are abstracted into this kind of like spectral.
16:26Financial systems of rent, extraction, land manipulation, capsule acquisition. And it's like, to, if you're talking about Twin Peaks, you are unavoidably talking about political economy, unavoidably. You're talking about it on the lived experience of like a woman who's just trying to pay a fucking bills or these corrupt business, uh, these business guys, Ben and Jerry doing business deals with Mr. Togemura who we will get onto in due course. Will we ever, so I think, I think to round out our little medical, this medical detour discussion here, Cooper, Sheriff Truman and a few others, bring the one armed man in for questioning.
17:11And they withhold his anti-psychotic medication, which allows the one arm man persona to come through. He's no longer the, the kind of oddball door to door shoe salesman. No, he's Mike. Yes, he becomes Mike. And I think we get some really interesting scenes, scenes here with him that are worth dwelling on. So, so we get, I do believe it's Gordon Cole asked, ask him, do you suffer from skits of frenia? Which again, like I find this to be, we could take this, where do we want to take this? You know, we could like bring this down like a kind of like Foucault slash Delusio-Gotari in path.
17:54And kind of like question like, okay, well, like where is the locus of skits of frenion is seen then. You know, we have the entire law enforcement apparatus of this small town is withholding medication from, from an amputee. To hopefully get psychic insight into the nature of a killer they believe to be supernatural. Yeah. Uh, uh, meanwhile like there's just a mountain of material evidence that says that the owner of the local hotel chain is a rapist, a murderer and a drug dealer and no one seems to really mind. He had no one seems to even Cooper Cooper is pretty neutral on that one.
18:28But I find that to be really interesting, right? Because like again, like in this fits in, the kind of popular discourses of twin px. Where we're we're focalizing these kind of like metaphysical discourses, right? Like, oh, the Mike is from this other dimension and everything where it's like actually, well, you know, Gordon Cole is kind of really broad. They asking the question, do you, where is the suffering of skits of frenion here? Where were we locate that inside this text? And if you put some pressure on that, especially using like left theory, it's, it's not Mike.
18:58It's not the one armed man, like the locus of the skits of frenion is systemic and bound in between all of these people. Yeah, do you suffer from skits of frenion? That's an interesting choice of words, right? Do you suffer? And so the obvious question is, well, why, why do you suffer? And again, this is like, this is classic for code, right? This idea of like biopolitical control is not simply repressive, but it's productive. What are you trying to produce? You're trying to produce access to a discourse of knowledge.
19:30And we'll have to get into this because I just wrote something about Marxist approaches to crime, to crime fiction specifically. But maybe we'll get into that when we talk about lonely souls. But I also feel like we know we ever, we also have to talk about Gordon Cole played by David Lynch himself. Yes, yes. And in proper theatrical tradition, the God of the production walks on set to shepherd his wayward cast. I love Gordon Cole because for all, like for all we can racks poetic about David Lynch being interested in the interiority and existential freedom of women, particularly and mounting a critique of the abstracted violence of political economy on the like capitalism. David Lynch is also just a weird little dude, which is just a wonderful combination. As often the most provocative figures are, at their heart, they're kind of like weird guys just doing weird stuff. And what I love is that Gordon is clearly just a character that allows David Lynch to do stick because Gordon doesn't hear very well and has hearing aids in, cranked up to the max as he tells Cooper. But there's this very silly scene where he takes Cooper into Harry's office and just yells, just yells exposition in a conversation that's supposed to be private. And this is one of my favorite things about the show is that periodically it'll just turn into like a weird little comedy show. Yeah, that's I mean, like there's stuff like that that I find to be like really the thing that makes a lot of the lynchians so surreal in quotes isn't the like, oh, it's not the the one armed man talking about magicians and kind of like the very like heavy-handed stuff. It's like the fact that we get that and then we immediately whiplash to like all of all of these like the director coming on to the set to do a bunch of like comedy bits. Yeah.
21:52Like him's him and his head just doing some like, sorry, what did you say? No, I said, how was your trip? Yeah, so at the start of this episode, the log ladies introduction is talking about kind of when it's difficult to be the self. You know, and she's discussing it through trauma and a few other lenses. But what I find to be really interesting about the episode that then unfolds is we have a lot of people who for whom their sense of self is heavily mediated. You know, we've got Gordon Cole whose sense of self is extremely mediated as a character, right? Because we see him and we see David Lynch, right? He's being mediated through that as a character in Traw the text. His entire existence is mediated via the prosthesis he uses for a hearing aid. We've got the one armed man whose existence is also kind of medically mediated, right? Right through his status as an amputee, amputee through his status as like someone who might have schizophrenia might be possessed by an interdimensional being that's kind of unclear. We've also got Leo and by extension everyone in his orbit. And I find that to be a really interesting thing that when David Lynch throws himself into this, that's the level that he's operating on in the text. He doesn't throw himself as like, I don't know, he could have done Gordon
23:11Cole totally straight and been the super important well respected senior detective coming in. But no, he just pops into the text as another person who's kind of imbricated and inserted into all of these really complicated discourses. Yeah, I mean, and he is, and he is, it's just another flattening of normative hierarchies, right? He's his commanding officer, but a lot of the time Cooper is telling him what to do or telling him what's going on. And he's kind of like, it's again, it's like impotent authority. This is, and again, maybe we'll get into this more when we get into the horrors of the next episode, but like, this is a very eadipal show. Just just just just a little bit just a little bit.
24:04And it's it's it's revealing in as much as you recognize like, for Lynch, how structuring and fundamental the eadipal narrative truly is to to to this investigation of not just one specific crime or not just one individual act, but actually is the structuring metaphor of like social totalities meeting, right? It structures the world of business. It structures the world of like finance. It structures the world of law. All of these things have kind of like, there is one economy, right? There's only one. There is no, there is an distinction between Ben Horn's weird sort of sexualized, incestuous desires on the one hand and his desperate need to generate as much money as possible. Those things exist on a kind of continuum, rather than is like to distinct and different apparatuses. What do you think?
25:13I think I would pose an interesting point of discussion for that, because I think that's like, like obviously, like the libidinal economy is such a powerful way to look at Twin Peaks, because it lays everyone's libidinal desires bare. You know, not only do we see what they're desiring, but for the vast majority of these characters, we see why and how they're doing that desiring. And this, this I think interestingly brings us to Mr. Tajimura, a character who shows up in this episode, but we won't find out for a bit who he really is. You will at the end of this episode, but not if you're watching. And again, there's that line about fantasy, but there was a quite,
25:57I pulled out this episode, which is what Maddie says to James. You look to me in Solura. I kind of liked it. And like, you're completely right. But what is desire? We don't desire, we desire to be desiring. This is the great example in the show so far of the of the of the pervert aren't of cinema, where you are taught how to desire. You desire is for the desire of the other. What did James want? James wanted to lure. Right. So that's why it has to be structured across these like, like, like, lachanian tryouts. Once again, I end up talking about the count. I hate it.
26:42I hate it so much. Right. But like, it's what does what does Maddie want? Right. Wants to be seen as what she isn't. Right. There's this moment of kind of like subjective disjunction. Right. Who are you? You are not who you are. Right. You want to be seen as the other by the other. Right. So there's these kind of multiple steps that you get to see being inserted. And these kind of filter through all of them, those mediating structures of economy, society, family, education, law, the wider sociology of the of the show. Really, the kind of question that drove Laura Palmer and a question that drives so many of the people is like, what does it mean to get to be somebody else?
27:37Right. So the the agential capacity is you recognize that your life as you understand it is in some ways insufficient and kind of not correlated with your own internal sense of subjectivity. Right. You realize something about yourself not only has to change but can change. And that's the very little bit like that's that's the whole point of Laura living this kind of secret life and the secret diary that the episode opens with. The place where all of the things that you can't say publicly can be set. Yeah, I think this is the big question of the show for so many of its of its characters is like, what does it mean to get to be someone else? I think that's such a strong point to lead us into a discussion of episode 14 lonely souls. And I couldn't think of a bouncing souls joke to start this off with.
28:31So let's just dive right into a discussion of the bouncy ball scene. Make make this make sense. We need we need a like a twin peaks is being a weird little comedy like sound effect here. Yeah, I mean it's sound but it should just be the the noise of the bouncing balls. Okay, okay, what's the context? What's the context for it? Okay, so Cooper has taken so the one armed man through a series of riddles and poems has divulged that Bob is in the Great Northern right the kind of metaphysical monster that Cooper has been hunting has been located and he is going to use the one-arm man as something of a
29:15Bob detector by taking him to the Great Northern and kind of parading all of the guests and staff of the Great Northern in front of him. While he's doing this, there are a few dozen people in kind of naval sailors uniforms bouncing rubber balls around. Discuss. Okay, I have a I have a theory and it's a little bit wild hit me with it theory time. Okay, so and this is a kind of big important point I think for talking about this episode we have to talk about Marxist approaches to crime fiction. So if I can do this please forgive me. Block writes about this. He writes about there's an essay that he writes which is published in the 60s it's called Art in the Detective Novel and he says this
30:13Holmes referring to Sherlock Holmes found the seeachler utilizes the scientific inductive method. He can tell from the mud on the souls of his visitors from which part of London they hail. He differentiates between all kinds of tobacco ash and chemistry is his favorite science. Agatha Christie's character, Ercule Plaro on the other hand a product of a less rational time no longer stakes his little gray cells on the inductive card but instead intuits the totality of the case in accordance with the increasingly irrational modes of thinking characteristic of late bourgeois society.
30:49What are the bouncing balls a kind of visual symbol of? I think in a way this is maybe a stretch but there are the it's about this atomistic, mechanistic law of the universe of crime detection. Right it's like the billiard ball theory of like subatomic particle interaction the ball bouncing cause in effect there's supposed to be a deterministic logic. But because we exist in this alienated less rational time when the discourses of science and a long hold, Cuper is not a rationalist right Cuper is far closer to parrow than to Holmes to use blocks analogy. He is intuiting not just the responsibility for one particular act but is intuiting an entire structure of feeling that unlocks the kind of these these rational the irrational mode of thinking characteristic of all of twin peaks. This is a stretch but for me it's readable as like mechanistic deterministic physicalist interaction meeting this intuitive non-rational irrational mode of thought.
32:08And it's a very tense scene because of that repetitive rhythmic noise right what do you think? I realize I'm reaching a bit here. I don't think this is a reach at all. I think the beauty of this scene and here I will approach it from a bit more of like a kind of dry formalist sense. I think the beauty of this scene is it adds so much grit to this episode and in specific an already tense sequence because we have the one armed man who is in a lot of like psychic discomfort as he channels Mike and attempts to detect Bob. We have Ben Horn being like what the hell is going on?
32:44Cuper what are you doing at my place of business? You've got all of the guests and staff who are like obviously confused and tense. You know like Leland Palmer who we know is possessed and evil is just lurking in the background of the entire time. And then you have all these like sailors just bouncing balls and running around like totally oblivious to what's going on. And it's such a all of this anxiety all of this discomfort cries out for resolution. Yeah. And we don't really we don't really get it like obviously the scene ends and kind of the major plot points involving Cuper and Leland are resolved. But the kind of tensions that erupt here don't resolve as much as they kind of just fade away into the background as time moves us forward. And I think the kind of discourse that you're bringing to this the kind of like I might get you're phrasing backward here but the kind of irrational rationalist approach to this. I think it's a very powerful way to start like attempting to resolve that sequence or attempting to give it at least the potential of resolution.
33:47Yeah and we'll get into this because again what are you trying to do in so there's a really Fred Jameson has a really famous essay about the wire called I think it's called reality in utopia. And he says that actually the point of crime fiction is to show you the social totality in which crime appears. That's what it's for. So you can't disemmit you can't like solve this tension because crime is a is a is fundamentally a social problem right the representation of crime in fiction is a social problem which means you have to to talk about how do you solve a fit the you know crime fiction is presenting you with a solution is presenting you with a solution that is inevitably about res which is about suturing closed the fabric of the social totality. And as this episode I think is expertly doing this is like trying to go who is the guilty party is entirely insufficient.
34:50Absolutely and I mean I think a really good way to look at that is during this episode a hawk is sent to go visit Harold's house and try and find out more about the secret diary, Harold's involvement in this do some detecting when he when he gets there we found that Harold has hanged himself and it's it's a really like quick and brutal and tragic sequence of events for a character that's already been very unsettling and tragic and often manipulated throughout the plot. And I think it really like it underscores I think a lot of the kind of the tensions and the tragedies and like the complexity because this is like Twin Peaks does a really good job of kind of playing out these some totality of the social landscape of the disappearance of Laura Palmer.
35:38Like Laura Palmer's disappearance is more so heavily structured on on other things like Ben Horan's crime network but it does require everything else in order for it to happen as it happens. Like we need a society in which someone like Harold is so sufficiently tormented, ostracized, and exiled from normal social life that they're driven to suicide. Like that is a necessary prerequisite for what happens to Laura Palmer in the show is I find David Lynch to be really empathetic. Oh yeah you show runner and as a writer director.
36:11Usually, yeah hugely, hugely because he has he has like yeah like a lot of the people he puts in his shows are there us there are there are people who have like all kinds of problems. Psychic physical economic, they're the downtrodden, the oppressed, and like I don't I don't think any of them are ever like played for jokes or if they're played for jokes it's it's always like as part of a larger and more complicated context. I think that's entirely true. I think it's entirely true. And again, this whole this whole theme in this episode is like this is never individualized. Right Harold's tragic death is is is part of this bigger picture. And like a really good example is that it's almost immediately contrasted with Ben and Audrey again. And Audrey like confronting him going how long have you run one hijacks? Like did you know that Laura was working that? Did you end up sleeping with her?
37:15Did you kill her? He's he's he's completely pathetic in this scene and like it's all contemptibly so because we again we have this like nasty little streak in his character of this like this incest to do because when Audrey was at one hijacks Ben went to visit and went to visit someone called Prudence. You remember Prudence don't you? What a great loaded name to have as an alias in the context of this show. Yes. Like did you kill her? Is the big question. And again the whole of society is structured in structured in such a way as to like Ben Horn and Leeland Palmer accumulate vast sums of wealth. But as you pointed out repeatedly it's like it's classic Gothic patriarchy right?
38:09And what I find to be really interesting here with Ben Horn is that after Audrey confronts him the kind of like big culminating moment that Ben gets here is is somewhat tearfully and agonized he confesses that he always loved Laura Palmer. And the camera just dramatically cuts to a picture of Laura that's nearby. Yeah. And I find that scene to be so interesting because with Ben Horn you know we have someone who's internal libidinal economy right? His system of desires are so bound into him being this kind of you know Gothic patriarch to continue to use this framework that even if that desire that that kind of like desiring confession he makes about Laura Palmer that he always loved her. Like that could very well be him as the master manipulator doing that to put Audrey back in her place to put her on the back foot to try and drum up a false sympathy. Yeah. Or if it's honest it's just further imbricated in all of this because like not only is he incestuous but he's also a pedophile.
39:18Right? Like like Ben Horn is just kind of racking up all of the like creepy horrible things that one can do in a lifetime. But a thing that I found really striking about that scene is and how that cut is accomplished is it really like brings out how we engage with Laura Palmer as like an object in a story like as an element I rather of the fiction itself and how her status is objectified in Shra the text of the show kind of mechanically. Yeah. Like we see that picture of Laura all the time so many cutting to his and the camera just cuts back to it after a moment and cuts back to it after a moment. You know like like we have we have the Laura Palmer wrapped in plastic sequence that will be later echoed with Maddie which which for the life of me you can get a Laura Palmer wrapped in plastic Funko pop. Fix your hearts or die people. What the fuck is that? Yeah. Like did you watch the show? Yeah. Do you know why Laura Palmer is blue wrapped in plastic? Everyone who owns that
40:25Funko pop raise your hand if you thought about the thing on your shelf for a fourth of a second. I know I'm so mad at Funko pop. That's a bit that's never going to stop. Never going to stop. What's that company closes? What's every Funko pop is ground up and reconstituted into vital medical equipment. I will cease to complain about that company. I think there's another really good example in this episode of exactly what you're talking about of like the instrumentalization and like literally the reification of a woman into a kind of like object. And this is the conversation between Shelley and Norma in the diner which is oh here we go. Honestly so beautiful and so unironically moving. So Shelley. So lesbian coated. It's so good as being coated.
41:15And also like so kind of like working working class solidarity coated as well. So Shelley realizes that when Bill's covered and the insurance money is going to leave her 42 bucks a month to live on and Leo is going to need care 24 hours a day and she has a job at Norma's diner. And so she kind of goes into work and kind of very tearfully explains to Norma that she's going to have to quit.
41:49And Norma's like okay this job is always going to be here. Like you will know you're not going to be left alone but it's like it's another it's another example of going like oh look another example of how systems of finance systematically try and keep women in the role of doing unpaid reproductive domestic labor right reproducing the means by which capitalism functions. This is a wages for housework moment. Right back. Go go go. Boom. Okay so oh my god this so so much to say about this scene. All I kept thinking all I kept thinking about my last watch of this was was Sylvia Feta reaches counterplanning from the kitchen. Yep absolutely right right and and that old AK press poster.
42:40I think it was originally might have been originally some some other poster but everybody knows her from AK press but but the one that says like men and boys the revolution begins in the kitchen because what what's also going on in Norma's life right now is Hank or her violent abusive manipulative husband is is feigning a job at the double R working with her as a way to cover for the fact that he's just back to doing a lot of complicated crime and murdering people. Yeah like he's his his in the entire existence of his wife for him is literally just a smoke screen for his crimes. Yeah and and this this kind of moment of like raw intimacy this moment of solidarity between Norma and Shelley and kind of the raw potential it represents like again evokes this proud gothic tradition of storytelling because like you know like in the gothic sense women are subterranean creatures right like they are oppressed they are forced underground in a very the gothic listeners if you haven't read a lot of books from the 1700s the metaphors are very loud. They get away with it with every book starts with like I did not write this I found this complete edited manuscript in an alley and I I'm just going to sell it who knows who actually wrote it so that's how they get away with it but um like like I find this to be just incredibly powerful because like they're here they are wielding this kind of like subterranean power right like the this class connection this connection as a gendered underclass right they're wielding that and using that to forge an alliance as best they can in a larger oppressive structure like like like oh my god be be less 1700s gothic david lynch um and then we come we come to the kind of the final 15 minutes of this episode um which just just incredible and terrifying and absolutely awful in every way um which is which is what happens to mary and how it's presented and how it's shown and the inscrutting between um what happens to her and where all of the rest of our characters are you were in the bar listening to the singer um what do you think of this it's brutal like the the the sequence is so unforgivingly brutal for everyone in it and again like we we we have like this is just like a long unbroken sequence of domestic violence between leelon palmer as possessed by bob and maddie and leelon's wife and how this all strings together and how it contrasts with everything that just happened in the rest of this episode like like the more that we see of leo and shelly's relationship like the more we see of like how norma is dealing with things and then we till like cap this episode with this and and the god the stuff with herald at the beginning lonely souls is a brutal episode yeah yeah yeah um so block makes this point which i think is really uh really really good that there is a kind of like criminological knot um which is the edipus story so he says that like the the from from poe onwards crime fiction is is about the restaging of the edipus problem um one recalls as edipus is increasingly pressing an urgent investigations carried out in the interests of his people and his own security from the murderer yet thwarted by the most confounding obstacle the hunter who it is himself the prey and fails in this quest of self plies his monstrous trade until he belatedly recognizes the truth and does panitons for the perpetration of crimes in which he participates neither consciously nor morally but with a highly classical and highly modern ego identity this is describing leo and parmatuity multi-feriously disguised the theme of edipus this primordial detective theme per se continue to have an effect always criminalistic to be sure and with this hidden antecedent so block kind of makes the argument that crime is not just about the kind of subjective appearance of the the social totality but is about this philosophical problem of what he calls the darkness of the lived moment like kupa is sitting in the bar like completely almost like blissfully ignorant for a moment of what's happening and it's only through the formal structures of the sequence in which we intercut and then we introduce the vision and the it is happening again line that kupa realight has this moment of like revelation you move from a darkness into a kind of um you you understand how always already rotten the entire social structure is
47:49that is such such a good point and and I want to talk really briefly about the horse yes
48:00because we we have to so this is this is arguably one of the most I'll just say meme-ed on scenes and all of twin peaks the the simpsons have a bit about it and and and kind of and inexplicably there's like a glowing white horse and again this is I I draw a lot of connections between this in the bouncing ball sequence it's it's adding grit to to the sequence and it's allowing us to kind of bite harder into it it's loading it up with metaphors that like again like like the tradition of gothic literature metaphors that can be this conversation sidebar this conversation is so good for helping us move the gothic discourse away from like bats and spooky castles and and Dracula and into the kind of like slow drama where the gothic really really gets cooking yeah not that I don't like Dracula but sorry I you will we'll do Dracula some did we have it we aren't done Dracula yet have we no no dear god we haven't done Frankenstein either have we no no listeners we run a horror movie pug
49:12uh okay now to return to our conversation on the emoji movie the Dracula of today
49:19but no so so one of the things one of the things that I was kind of thinking about because I was also thinking about these kind of like edible com edible edible conflicts that are happening in this episode um and and of course of course uh I will turn our attention now to a brief reading from Paul B. Prisadios can the monster speak
49:40this is on page 96 class set edipus free join the monsters do not hide patriarchal violence behind the so-called incestuous desire of children and place at the heart of your clinical practice the bodies and the voices his hers and there of those who have overcome rape and patriarchal violence of those who already live beyond the patriarchal nuclear family beyond heterosexuality and sexual difference and of those he she and they who are searching for and creating a way out so watching watching this episode for for this last uh viewing I had and seeing that horse right because the conventional reading of the horse in kind of literature especially in the gothic context would pull us back in towards like these patchless and tristic readings right it would pull us back towards the kind of standard you know like like Freudian edipus complex type of readings where we would see the horse as another like glowing symbol of the colonizer and of patriarchy and of oppression you know like the horse riding down on the down trotin but I kept thinking about like Prisadios writing and in the sequence and like like counter reading the horse as like a moment of freedom the the the thing that could yet find a way out right this thing this thing that is unfortunately and unduly saddled with all of the sins of patriarchy and colonialism as a symbol right when it enough itself is just a horse yeah so yeah that's that's that's what I was thinking about as I was thinking about any any takes
51:21I couldn't agree more actually I really love that I really love that um yes I think there's this I think to kind of I want to push this even further because there's something else that I do it um I think is important which is that this this this concept of the the the darkness of the lived moment means that not only is crime a kind of like a stringing moment from society but that we fundamentally are strangers to ourselves yes you know block says at the foot of the lighthouse there is no light like you don't know who you are really you can struct your sense of self like who who is Leland Palmer um is it useful is it useful to think about this idea of a coherent identity because often I think this is true especially in the context of the next episode that people kind of split him and you go oh there's Leland Palmer and then there's Bob who is like the bad guy and you go really is it that is it that is it is it that straightforward is it that dualistic and I think the whole point is the detective story like a narrative of detection is not just about these kind of ideological struggles but about the fact that we are fundamentally strangers to ourselves we are estranged from ourselves and we find ourselves kind of trapped in these recursive loops of like not knowing this movement of epistemology um and these kind of seemingly compulsive acts of restaging things right um this is why uh you know we have Laura the death of Laura Palmer again but it's on screen but it's just someone different but it's someone who thought who we looked at and saw Laura right so we see it again yeah again it's Laura's it's it's both Laura and Maddie's identities now being mediated through these series of images um and I think I think that sets up things quite well for uh very next episode yeah yeah I think I think uh the only the only the only last thing I'd want to say about uh lonely souls we would be that like I love that point about like people tend to split
53:28Bob in Leland and into two separate and distinct things that that aren't fundamentally interwoven with each other but that I think we could take that even further and if we if we do that why aren't we doing that with Ben Horn what about Leo yeah what about Bobby you know what about Koup what about what about literally everyone in the sequence why aren't we cleaving you know like these things which we which are negative or viewed as negative character depending you know why why why don't we see the moral somehow possessed by larger systemic things and and I think that you know the kind of like dialectics of the
54:05Leland Bob distinction really push us into very complicated territories of finding the locus of agency in these horrible crimes yeah precisely and and the kind of fundamentally slippery idea of identity like who are you what does it mean to be somebody else what does it mean for uh you to have within yourself many faces right um these speaking of the slippery idea of identity let's talk about a reoccurring character from this show who has some wacky views about his identity as a father jarring change of tone everyone sometimes sometimes we get these moments of silence and I don't know if it's because the call dropped or if it's because I just said something like so so ridiculous it's it's just the there would be the cricket sound effect playing if we could get the soundboard working um do you want to do you want to talk about driver the dead girl do I don't want to sound excited to talk about drive with a dead girl but yes let's talk about drive with a dead girl um there's a there's a lot of like fun kind of incidental stuff in this we have the return of Andy yes Andy is back and so are his sperms yeah his sperms there's a lot of like this this great example of masculine anxiety is still still still feeling the worry still feeling the stress what what do you think about this what I find to be really interesting is is what Andy's character reveals more and more as the show goes on is that the patriarchy is founded on a constantly shifting and constantly uncertain base of identity there is no way to be sufficiently masculine in order to satisfy the kind of preconceived needs of the patriarchy and we could see this in Andy's character and we could also see this in those tweets that people this is meme-don but people earnestly do those tweets where it's like fellas is it gay to bodybuild because you're sweating with a bunch of other dudes and and we we see this really played out in Andy's character because you know at first his tensions are oh can I can I have a romantic relationship can I be man enough to really get that going and then he's got all of these tensions of like you know his his something's wrong with his sperm maybe some erectile dysfunction he his gun can't shoot and then he kills a man for the police right he cementes himself as kind of a murderer agent of an occupying colonial force right like ostensibly filling the demands of the patriarchy but no here in this moment where he has potentially fathered a child he still does not see himself as man enough yeah it's the it's the great tragedy of his character right it's the great tragedy of his character yeah is this reckoning with his own like entirely fabricated sense of insufficiency mm-hmm someone someone sent him some Sylvia Federici we also get we also get another a new man a new man enters town um and a whole boy
57:31so uh enormous mother comes to town um and there's there's so much here about like these these kind of like misogynist standards of like what is appropriate for a woman to be normas mom is like oh you your figure hasn't changed that's good oh you're able to make a real mashed potatoes um and normas mom has remarried and is and is on the honeymoon uh what are your thoughts about the the new father-in-law Ernie we are in the Ernie zone zone zone zone zone zone so I think I think one of the there's a really telling line with Ernie and that's what he says I met Vivian at a Republican fundraiser and and I think this reveals so much to us about his character right and and that's like we we we come to find out that Ernie's done done time and jail for finance crimes and Hank uh normas normas uh terrible husband uh normas trash dick boyfriend to use twitter parlance for everyone who's very online it kind of ropes him back into crime by blackmailing him because he's been lying to Vivian this whole time about his status as a former criminal um and in him in Ernie I see so much so much of what I see in like the kind of perpetual grift that is both conservative American culture and the finance industry like like Ernie's character draws such an interesting parallel between those two maybe somebody could write one to three volumes of a book that would give us a good material understanding for this maybe a guy named Carl could do that maybe it's a it's a good idea there might be something in that I don't I don't know I'm I'm spitballing here that sounds like something a Carl would do I feel very calm coded but but again this is this is exactly what we've been saying right what is like what what what are the crimes the crimes of financial crimes and it's it's like the meme of like the astronaut looking at the earth where it's like so it's all a financial crime and rents extraction always was always was and no like this is this is also you're so right this this is like Ernie Ernie's character is a necessary historical material precondition for the creation of Donald Trump yeah right right we we built a society that is purpose purpose built that is that is custom engineered to produce increasingly odious increasingly conservative finance crime guys yeah I mean and like and what better example of this is Leland going off to play golf he gets his golf bag which is full of bloody clothes um and it's like well what is golf golf is the privatization of land the exploitation of natural resources and the enclosure of a common shared space all for the benefit of business guys you know you do all your best business on the golf course it's it's it's a means of mediating and optimizing rent extraction and capital accumulation through the instruments of financial speculation and talk about talk about being Trump coded we've got Leland who who is doing mountains of crime and finance crime who's using golf as a way to mediate his identity precisely oh twin peaks the gift that never stops giving well if you want to really get example of exactly what we're talking about uh there's a lot of bribery in this episode there's a lot of bribery and there's a lot of blackmail that happens in the context of law um so Ben is arrested
1:01:44Jerry turns up from from being in Japan I think and essentially admits that he is he's he's just a little guy he's just he's just a little bird hey boy you wouldn't you wouldn't make just an EP he's just EP he's just EP and jet lags and is terrible at his job and it's just absolute loser but like the best example here is like bobby so bobby needs to make money um and he and he figures out that Leo was behind Ben horns like he was the instrument of Ben wanting to burn down um wanting to burn down the uh the uh the uh the mill but yeah um Leo is talking with Leo's talking with them talking with Ben um and bobby's eyes basically turn into dollar signs uh and he says to
1:02:36Shelley that he is going to go into business but he's going to be an executive and he's going to do it by blackmail and like it's a source of play it as a joke but it's like no he's being completely serious because it's like bobby gets that's what you do if you're an executive right yeah no bobby bobby at this point bobby starts as kind of Leo's understudy and crime in a way yes and and at the in season one bobby is well on his way to being like a drug runner or a hitman or something like that but but bobby gets his taste of finance crime when he tries to con the the health insurance industry for money and now he's kind of a graduated up a wrong of crime class now he's moved on to finance crime yeah which again like I mean like there's a really good class point about all of this right like you know like Ben Ben horn is arrested and like nobody still seems to care about him running a brothel and killing people and burning down buildings it's still all centered around the kind of like you know white teenage daughter of the affluent well-liked local businessman which isn't to downplay what happens to Laura Palmer that's tragic and that's terrible but it is to like focalize the kind of levers of social power in these material conditions that actually get to the quote unquote justice system to move like how many how many women have died at one i jacks for Ben horns amusement we'll never know because it's not even part of the show but like and then you get so many return like Pete is back and it turns out that there's a recording of Catherine and josey's back and it's like all of these so like oh he's we've arrested someone we've got a good case that's the law but actually you go no now is the opportunity for for black male to happen um you know you're going to sign over the you're going to sign over the middle and the hotel back to back to Catherine uh there's the there's a five million dollars for mr. tockimura who's that's floating around like there's all of these all of these like things that kind of suddenly accelerate as soon as the
1:04:48Laura suddenly has like apparently quote unquote done its job yes yes yes yes yes yes and all of this is happening while leeland Palmer is is driving around with maddie's body yeah wrapped in plastic in the trunk of his car swarming singing looking at looking at himself in the mirror that that scene that that that scene too is even like so so oh my oh my fucking god this this sequence of events and the discourses inspires um so leeland Palmer is is swarving in an out of traffic because he is fully possessed by bob and he doesn't care whatever and in Cooper and and sheriff Truman pull him over and and he's just like he he's acting like just totally unhinged right he's he's just like oh I just so full of emotions and thoughts and feelings do you want to see my golf clubs I really love these golf clubs yep and then Cooper and the sheriff are just like well drive better next time and they let him go and and and I'm and I'm like okay like the race class gender like let's the spin spin the wheel of oppressive forces that allow local successful white businessman to to drive around with a woman's corpse in his trunk swarving in and out of traffic and being a total creep and then and then like the the psychic FBI agent and sheriff justice are just like ah you seem all right yeah yeah I know you don't need to because we captured we've recaptured jarad who um who had escaped um the one who would have been a shaman or a spirit seer and is now just a shoe salesman um yeah you're completely right and is again another good example of the ways in which this the show is about uh I'm completely sure that the show is about these explorations of like irrationalist modes of knowledge policing is not a rational institution right the what happens in a what happens specifically in America with although not um I think very what happens in a traffic stop is not a rational situation right it's not like an impartial application of the law mm-hmm oh absolutely um but but so much so much is going on right like the pace is sort of like starting to amp up as we keep going through this um well there is there is like a devastating crescendo yes at the end of this episode yeah so leland leland uh discards maddie's body in the woods and at the end of the episode it's discovered and it is kind of the you're you're totally right this episode is frenetic there is so much going on is so fast and then right at the end at the end of this kind of trilogy of episodes we just go full speed into a brick wall with the discovery of maddie's body yeah it's very interesting what keeps us to order it where he's like go to a room and lock you door um and it's like this point there's a kind of like pre sentiment that she was in trouble she's going to be in trouble she's going to be in danger um and there's this attempt to like control how knowledge circulates I think is very much implicit in kupers character but yeah the ending is yes it's Laura again it's Laura it's it's it's again this another like another body wrapped in plastic it's another beautiful young woman it's again these these these these seemingly unstoppable cycles of like compulsively restaged violence
1:08:29just just a shockingly brutal ending in brutal in the the kind of raw realism of it all yeah absolutely um and and and once again a further implication of like the process of investigation again this is block's point about universe right it's by investigating the problem that you actually uncover that just just how big the problem always already was and just how deeply you're involved the process that you start is the perpetuation of the process that you were trying to stop I think that's a beautiful point to close out this discussion on who well I'm so happy to be back in the Twin Peaks retrospective um I'll be excited for forthcoming episodes excited for Kyle to join the chat we will see you in an upcoming Twin Peaks retrospective episode with episode 16 arbitrary law episode 17 dispute between brothers and episode 18 masked ball until next time everybody stay spooky avoid golfing
1:09:40cut
1:09:58history of the reception of owls reveals one thing is that we have more questions than we have answers