0:00I'm sending you the latest episode of season two of one of Vanguard's Twin Geeks Retrospective. I think you're going to get a kick out of this one. Excellent. Excellent clapping. Really, really podcasting is all about clapping. We've established this now after many years of investigation. This is really the hallmark of horror Vanguard. We like any good cheerleaders. Learn how to clap in unison. Today, we're here to cheerlead the works of one David Lynch, Mark Frost, and plenty of other wonderful creative people. Hello, hello listeners.
0:52Hello bookhouse boys, thems, and fans. Today we'll be diving into episode 19, the Black Widow episode 20 checkmate and episode 21 double play. Radio announcer voice is now over for the day. We will begin the discussion. This is a weird energy. This is going on right now. Look, listeners. I have some weird scars behind my ear. I've been missing in the woods for days, and now I'm not sure what has happened to me was meant for my soul. And my feelings about David do Coveny just keep getting weirder. So my energy is all over the place.
1:36Owls, David to Coveny, the super secret experiments for the military industrial complex. That's twin peaks, baby. And for the less than the cost of running MK Ultra, you can support horror Vanguard and patreon.com forward slash patreon.org.vangard slash support. Thank you. Yeah, actual correct links will be down in the show notes as always. I mean, honestly, the best way to support us listeners is you want to go into the woods in the middle of the night and just you late. Just howl and agonize as deep and as long as you can, really free those demons up.
2:15Get that energy back into the ether so we can siphon it back off. Do you want to lead us in ash because and perhaps we can do this with our dear friend, our companion, our guiding anchor through the hermeneutic mysteries of twin peaks, the log lady. This really, this really is the log lady show. So at the beginning of episode 19, the black widow, the log lady gives us a wonderful introduction where she's talking about memory. And you know, she kind of frames memory as this thing of the earth that returns to the earth and not in I think it explicitly like just to dust, kind of like Christian theological perspective, but in a very like naturalistic and materialistic way.
3:06And I think this is like such a strong statement to make in the context of twin peaks more broadly, because twin peaks, and this is something we discussed often on this retrospective that has now gone on for years. But that the twin peak, twin peaks tends to get summed down to its most like weird metaphysical and bizarre moments, which are strong elements of the show, which are hallmarks. And we're going to be talking about UFO abduction some more in a bit. But nevertheless, like everything is grounded in a very material reality, right?
3:41There are very material concerns that are driving twin peaks. And like I in the distance can hear Kyle saying something absolutely beautiful about history and memory and the earth and grounding in these kind of like, catholic relationships. And listeners, you'll be able to hear that out loud too in a forthcoming episode. I guess, I guess, I guess maybe a question that is like, why is it that they're at the show? Maybe it doesn't get the kind of like full, the full richness of the show and the actual kind of like, yeah, but why do people not really appreciate twin peaks philosophy of history?
4:24Basically, is my question. I mean, you know, like this would be the perfect episode to have our resident historian on. It's like people go, oh, the show's really, it's really strange. It's really weird or it's really like, you know, random or surreal. And actually, I think doing this kind of deep dive has really brought home to me the extent to which totally it's very eclectic. But really, it's philosophy of history is, is a materialist history. It's not a, it's not a reductionist materialism. But I think it's always good that we start with a log lady because her character basically functions as the kind of prism through which the materialist concerns of the world of the peaks get refracted into something that's a bit more universal, right?
5:29And I think like I was also reflecting on your commentary about American cinema you made recently in an episode. I think this was our off-ramp review. And this is something that you brought up pretty frequently actually. And that's like American television media just doesn't talk about class. Almost as a rule, we are very bad about discussing the actual mechanics of class outside of like an aestheticized like Larry the cable guy. You might be a red net kind of way. It is very the aesthetics only perspective. Yeah. But then like, you know, oftentimes when I've talked about materialism with people, whether that's just like union organizing with people who've never kind of like considered that before, who think unions are something for like plumbers or like, you know, to talking about like, you know, more theoretically complex Marxist stuff, you often get looked at like you're talking about an alien abduction. You know, like you often get approached with that level of strangeness because it's just so alienated, you know, materially and theoretically and experientially in our society. That like, you know, like to hear the log lady present at this way, it's like, it almost lets you naturalize some of these discourses a little bit more because it's like, no, everything here is super weird. And that kind of makes the super weird a little super normal. Yeah. I, well, what do we want to be? Why don't we get into major breaks? And like, okay, where do we even begin?
6:56Where do we even start with this? Major breaks, miraculous return. I mean, I think it's really important that major breaks returns to his familial home, right? And Bobby's there and his wife's there and he kind of just steps back into that setting. And it's been the kind of like every time we've been in the Briggs family household, it's been like this like this site of enveloping trauma, right? It's like this site of conflict where all of these people are just struggling against each other in fighting, you know, especially like Bobby trying to cast off the yoke of his father and stuff like that.
7:33And in this episode, like, you know, we get like, it's almost kind of endearing. It's like, it's like a little family, you know, overcoming their difficulties and coming back together after like a significant dose of trauma. But I also think that like, so we get, we get a, we get a moment where like, you know, major breaks comes back and he's like, Bobby, go fix me a drink. You know, and Bobby's like, oh, right away, and he's like, oh, and put out that cigarette. And like these are things that like, you know, like smoking in the house and stuff where like, you know, sites of tension in previous episodes.
8:03And so part of me is like, oh, that's endearing. And then another part of me is like, oh, like, this is kind of like, you know, like, what's going on here? If not like the reifying of the familial structure and the patriarchy, like through these moments of disruption and trauma, right? Like, you know, rather than having those be like sites of further growth and momentum, their sites at this kind of calcification. Yeah, I mean, like the, the whole point is the return of the return of the patriarchy. Like, like, re-inscribes like Bobby's rebellion because it now only, it really, it really only makes sense when there's something to rebel against. And like, the kind of problem really for this, you know, generational shift is like, maybe there really wasn't that great distance between the two the father and son in the first place, right? And I think, I think there's an interesting subversion here of like a very common Gothic literary trope. And so in the Gothic, we often have these kind of like, frail kind of emasculated characters having some kind of encounter with the, with like a sublime force of terror, right? Like, think of Jonathan Harker and his trials and
9:23Dracula's castle, you know, like, and he comes back and he's different after that, right? He might not be like, he's not like a hardened warrior or anything like that, but like, he's more worldly now and he's kind of burnt off a layer of that naivete. But in this instance, like, they're almost doing a, what if, what if Rochester or Manfred instead had that experience? Like, what happens when you take someone who's already got like blood on their hands and who's an agent of oppression and you give that experience to them? And I think this really like resonates with like one of the things Briggs says to Koup is he's kind of musing about being in the white lodge and trying to like, piece together his experiences and he like, nearly breaks down crying, wondering if that experience was meant for his soul or someone else's. Well, let's, let's, let's kind of get into this then. And like, I think it's very important you started off talking about this sort of like materialist explanations for things, right? Because like, isn't this the whole, the whole thing of Twin Peaks, right? Who kills the repalmer? And it turns out there are all of these material interests that exist beneath the surface of how things appear to be. Let's talk about alien abductions then. Because because he is the thing that I think is really important and very revealing.
10:43Um, Colonel Riley turns up and Colonel Riley tells Cooper that major Briggs's disappearance is a matter of national security. Um, like, how do you, how do we, so Briggs comes back and gives this very exciting, mesophysical experience? But how do we join these two things, the, this kind of the white large, the metaphysics? And I suppose what we could call like psychological warfare that's happening. I mean, see my MK Ultra joke at the top of today's episode for further discussion. But I think I would like to tie this into it. We just, uh, and listen to this, I think the episode is out now actually. But we just had a wonderful discussion with Frank and Leon from Left Page, slash hereby media about Starship Troopers, both the movie and the book.
11:38A wonderful discussion about space, fascism and alien bugs and Neil Patrick Harris. But I think it ties in nicely to today's episode, right? Because like, you know, owing to David Lynch's sensibilities, right? Like, where we're very focused here on the kind of like metaphysics of an alien abduction. But like, you know, like what is Riley really focused on, the Starship Troopers element of this, the like, if there is something supernatural going on here, that either is an implicit threat or an implicit like utility for the kind of hegemonic cultural militarized force that that is in charge right now, right? And so like, it is kind of like a haunting reminder that even like, you know, hypothetically, like, if we argue except what happened to major briggs as being authentic, then like, you know, part of grappling with that isn't just the kind of like,
12:32I don't know, dime store wonder that like Neil deGrasse Tyson would be like, oh, what if we're not alone? But like the real, serious like, oh, what if we're not alone? What does that mean materially for the world in which we find ourselves? Yeah, I mean, I think, I think that the relationship between this kind of like the metaphysics of alien abduction and how that is connected specifically to the US Air Force is one that is well worth unpecking without falling into like conspiracism. So like, I think a really good way of thinking through this is like, what did the alien represent to pesadism, for example? Yeah, right. It's, it's a kind of messianic figure, right? This idea of a kind of like outside a rupture point that can be driven into the day to day experience of the world. But the fact now is like, all of those ruptures, all of that outside, all of that like differential possibility is inevitably premediated by the military industrial complex of the American and burial empire.
13:47Oh, I completely agree. And I think it would be, it's too reductionist to kind of just some, some of the whole conversation down to like, like, I'm so happy about conspiracy theories, right? Because it would be too easy to like come up with some kind of nesting doll of conspiracy theories, or oh, they're covering up the alien. So the cover up is actually a distraction from ongoing military conflicts. And like, you know, like, and it's, it's more like, you know, like these things, of course, are multi-phasic, right? Like it's not just a single interpretive framework will unveil the truth about the world around us. It's like, this, everything that happens has multiple utilities, you know, especially in the context of like the military industrial complex, which is like, it's driving ecological disaster, it's driving genocide, right? It's, it's, it's the kind of linchpin to so much inequality. So of course, it's going to be utilizing and have its hand in every pot.
14:40I guess the point I'm trying to get at is that like, people tend to focus on the, the surreal imagery of the show. But like the thing that linches linch and frost and rest of the team are very good at is that the, the, the, the strangeness is actually again grounded in a concrete material sociology of the world they're presenting. You know, it's like, it's like, you don't need to be a conspiracy theorist to look at, you know, how, how much DARPA spends every single year or like, how deeply involved in psychological warfare operations, the US Army is. All of those things are like very material things. And it's like, it's so strange that, it's not strange, but it's like, it's really kind of telling that before Brexit repairs, it's the hierarchy of the US Air Force that really is like, Harold's the way for his return. So like if we're thinking of the white lodge, you've got, you, you are kind of like, preemptively primed to be thinking of national security.
15:51Yeah, basically, basically, basically, what I'm trying to get at is like, the US Imperial project makes its way inside of our own minds. You know, what the, the, the, the, the Lerz and guitar are called the fascism inside your own head. Yes. It's, I think, I think it's a very stark reminder that like, there is no outside, right? Like, there are only spaces of struggle. You know, there, there, there isn't like this kind of like, appellonian field that we can go take a break in, you know, there, there are ways to rest, there are ways to heal, there are ways to rejuvenate, but there isn't like an outside of the structure, whether we're talking material or psychic forces.
16:38Yeah, precisely. But this, but this, the thing that's also really interesting about this show, about these episodes, particularly, is that we just keep doing these like, basically like narrative side quests. Well, we're like, totally things get a little goofy because once again, we've got Cooper just bumbling around town and is in his, in his like, outdoorsman fit. And now he wants to buy the wonderfully named dead dog farm. There's, there's Nadine. That storyline is ongoing. What do you think of these, because I feel like it's all, we all got, we got very serious very quickly. What do you think of these little kind of like narrative spin-offs and the way that the tone of an episode is starting to shift actually much more rapidly, I think.
17:37So I can think about Evan Colter Williams' book, Combined in Univin Apocalypse, is, right, where it's like, we see like a microcosm of that here in Twin Peaks because everyone's life is heading towards this like apocalyptic point of becoming. You know, like, Cooper, Cooper is suspended from his, not only his career, but his like theological vocation as an agent of the FBI. Right? Like Andy is in this absolute conundrum of fatherhood as he's now the like, parent to like the spawn of Satan. Audrey is attempting to run the business and is kind of ushered into this new world. Like everybody's at this kind of like point of apocalypse relative to where their character was a few episodes ago. And I think that that like, it's creating moments of like relative hilarity because of our safe distance from everything. But then like the second you start getting too deep into anybody's character, there's like this, almost like an unnerving panic that's like pulsing beneath the ground of Twin Peaks. I think Nadine, so in this episode, like Nadine joins the wrestling team in today's episode of Twin Peaks. And the coach has like this impassioned speech where he's like, he's like, oh, she might be a girl, but it's her god-given right and her constitutional right to wrestle on our team. And like on a surface level, we tend to take the bait and be like, oh, hell yeah, it is, isn't it? But then like you kind of look at why he's doing that. He's doing that because she has like some kind of like weird superpower because of her recent head injury that makes her infinitely strong. You know? And like, so here's like an adult woman who after a concussion lost all memories predating high school and gained a super strength. And like the coach of the local wrestling team is 100% abusing her and taking advantage of that. And so we have like both like this like weirdly timed in 2024, 2024 affirmation of like gender and sports. And also like a scathing critique of ability layered together. Yeah, I mean, it's it's kind of initially plays as like it's a sitcom bit, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, Nadine joins the wrestling team and shenanigans and you, but you can like, you completely correct that there is a kind of like real darkness in a lot of these beats. And there's like real paythats in like this, this, this sense of an identity that is is struggling to care here after after this injury. And the ways in which like everybody, everybody has just molded the world around that is both simultaneously is like actually quite caring and supportive, but also leaves her paradoxically much more vulnerable to manipulation.
20:40Oh, absolutely. And we can take this back to like our previous discussions on Dr. Jacobi and and Fugno and kind of mad liberation. And like what we see in Jacobi is like the absolute like the picture of the felonious mental health expert who's just kind of doing stuff and is treated by like with awe and respect by a society that is taught right left and center to undervalue the experience of people with like varying kinds of madness. And so like, you know, Jacobi's just like, yeah, let her go to high school or something, whatever, we'll figure this out later. You know, like, and so Nadine is just left to the wolves. And it's I think just dumb luck that the bad things that wind up happening to her at least up until this point are sitcom silly and not woefully horrific.
21:31Exactly. And I feel like we also have to talk about Denise. Denise. Yes. Yes, listeners. It's gender gender again. We're going back to the gender lodge. We see so many gender owls. This is a damn fine cup of gender with a slice of gender thumbs up gender gesture. So I think there's a really really interesting exchange that happens here, right? Because like
22:05Denise. So Audrey and Cooper and Denise have like a tri-partate run-in with each other. Like, and you know, Denise and Cooper are setting up business because they have to do they're trying to do this FBI Coke bust that's going to clear Cooper's good name. And Audrey's showing up because she she has pilfered the photographs that Bobby took for her dad and is showing them to Cooper and being like, hey, I found some evidence that can help you out. Everything's, you know, like I'm seeing it's still doing good. And then at first Audrey is like jealous of Denise. Like, oh, who's this? Who's this woman you're talking to? I feel like she's like this. And then like the way that it plays is there's this subtle moment of tension where you think Audrey's going to be like scathingly transphobic for some reason.
22:51But then it pivots instantly to when Denise reveals she's an FBI agent. And Audrey's like, oh my God, they let women be FBI agents. And it's yeah. And again, speaking back to like what's going on with an idea and what's going on with Major Briggs and Bobby, it's both this like, oh, this is like really accepting. And this is really non-shelonned. And this is kind of quite nice on one level. But on another level, it's kind of the comic where they're like, oh, they say that the next bombs will be dropped by a woman. So it is like, twin peaks is doing this kind of like combined and uneven apocalypse thing where it's like giving you something that's kind of like relaxed and wonderful and sitcom silly and just kind of goofball. And then on another level, like handing you something visibly dark.
23:43You just put in the notes an amazing sentence that I'm going to need you to talk about. Yes, you've just written gender as a kind of magic. So there's an exchange that happens immediately after this. We're like Audrey runs out of the room kind of all starry-eyed thinking about a possible career for herself as an FBI agent in the footsteps of Denise. And Denise gives Cooper that slide look like you dog. What are you doing? And she's like, how old is she? And then Cooper is like, oh, nothing untoward. I'm agent Dale Cooper. I do not have moral faults.
24:24And then Cooper makes one of those offhanded kind of transphobic comments. So like, oh, aren't you like into men now or something? To which Denise has this amazing line, Cooper, I may be wearing a dress, but I still put my panties on one leg at a time if you know what I mean. And Cooper is kind of like, thanks for seconds. He's like, not really.
24:48And like I, so Cooper, I read Cooper is being kind of like the dedicated amateur sorcerer, always ready to learn, always ready to study new kinds of magic that fall across his path, and new kinds of mysticism and wisdoms, and constantly in all of them when he sees them. You know, even if that all is kind of coded by things from the outside world, right? Like he's he's a little racist to Hawk, right? And Hawks, you know, like indigenous traditions. He's kind of appropriative of Eastern thought and philosophy, right? But he is approaching these things with a kind of like naive open heart. And he approaches Denise in the same way.
25:27Like he sees Denise as like a in a way like how his character approaches Denise is how he approaches everyone who's like practicing some kind of magic that he doesn't quite fully grasp. It's the same way like he approaches Denise as being trans, the same way he approaches major briggs studying the white lodge. Like for Cooper, they're not that distinct as character traits. And I find that to be very compelling. Absolutely. I need to come up with a new physiology by the way. I edit these episodes listeners. And I say I find that to be very compelling way too often. I mean, there's a lot of compelling shit in here though. I'm sorry, he sits compelling. This isn't my fault. I am compelled. We are we're compelled. We're we're pondering. We are we are vibes maxing. It's it's it's all here. Should we should we move on to talk about checkmate?
26:23Yes, episode 20 to checkmate. So how do you how do you feel about balls? I I was there was this thing going around on Twitter of like.
26:38What was it? Like you should you should ask ask the man in your life what you're what their favorite bird is. And I was like I have so many I have so many birds that I really like. But owls are absolutely top of the list. Okay, hit me. What are your favorite birds? I can give you my favorite kinds of owl. Go for it. Obviously the classic barn owl, long-eared owl and snowy owl. But I am also a big fan of screech owl. I love screech owls. Super cool. Super cool.
27:27But I honestly I think I think the the classic British barn owl is just this tiny beautiful ghost-faced thing that glides through the woods at night. I love them. I I am so fascinated by the owl as icon in Twin Beaks. Give me your owl thoughts. Okay, okay. So I I too I love the screech owl that eastern screech owl specifically. I have a soft spot in my heart for the barred owl as well as the barn owl. Big big into owls over here. One of my cardinals I love cardinals. I know it's like a basic pick. Real heads real heads avian real heads in the audience. Piping clovers.
28:23You know what's up. You know what's up. If you if you know what's up you know what's up. Shout out Monty, Reston piece, Piping Clovers rule. So there's this. Well I mean my other favorite then. Like a deep cup field fads. European like thrush species. Super beautiful. Mostly seen in in the UK. We we have Mr. Calling as ornithologists. But but to circle back to Twin Peaks. What do you think about about the owl as like symbol for the show? Yeah, yeah. It's do some Gothic ornithiology I guess. I find that the owl to be really interesting because the owl has had like a second life as it kind of metaphysical cryptid in a way associated with UFO encounters, right? There's the interpretation that things like moth man or sightings of extraterrestrials are actually sightings of owls by people who aren't accustomed to seeing these birds in the wild, which owls can be really big and they look a lot bigger when they're flying down at you or in a tree flapping their wings and hooting or something. And I think that the overlap is really interesting because owls are one of those birds for like not only do they have a I think very well established in pop culture like lineage of meanings, but they also are like genuinely like you don't really you think about owls differently after you encounter them a bunch, right? Like like they're they're a bit like Winnie the Pooh if you haven't ran into owls a bunch. And then once you kind of start like seeing and hearing owls frequently or if you go through a period of your life where you do that, you kind of appreciate the like, oh I get why people were so spooked by these things. Like these are spooky birds. I know this is like these are just like ashes random owl thoughts, so welcome to our new section. There'll be a drop that I'm never going to make for ashes owl thoughts. So you've totally right there's there's often they're often used as kind of like reported as like a memory by people who experience alien abduction right. And it's seen as like they're like a screen a screen memory to kind of protect protect themselves. But the owls are not what they seem. That's super important. And honestly in Twin Peaks as the show goes on, I think increasingly it becomes plausible to think of them as doing what birds of all, it's done in mythology which is servers both observers and messengers. And so the owls are in my reading anyway, the servants and messengers of the lodgers, right? They you know, they watch over the town. They report back. They monitor what's going on. You know, it used to be in in Norse
31:41Norse mythology. It's Ravens. They were the messengers of the gods. But they have like this, there's a kind of like metaphysical possibility within them, right? Oh absolutely. I think that's a very strong reading. That's much more theoretically robust than my owls are sometimes pretty, but also kind of scary when you think about it. Take so thank you. Thank you for digging us out of the hole I put us in. Yeah. Have you ever thought about birds? That cool, but there's something about them, which is not quite right. Birds are really cool. It's sometimes being cool. It's also kind of troubling.
32:16That's that's our take on owls. Should we should we come back to Nadine? Yes. Nadine and Ed are rekindling their romance. Coming back together, revisiting their potentials. Teaching us an important lesson that yet again, sanctified marriage by the state is a tool of patrous entricity to keep people changed together under these oppressive class dynamics. So thank you. Thank you Nadine and Ed for delivering us that Marxist treatisee. Yeah, there's something so, there's something so tragic about Ed's character. So obviously trapped in social roles and positions that he has no means of getting out of. Absolutely. And again, it's another example of how even while we're doing like what seems like stick. There's something so kind of human and moving happening beneath the surface. I couldn't agree more. And speaking of something human, but said with a much more inquisitive and suspicious town, shall we discuss little Nikki? Oh yeah, let's talk about Adam Zadler. Yeah, so the Trimpeaks retrospective is doing two things behind the scene. It is weaving or inevitable visiting of the X-Files universe franchise TV show movies. And it's also slowly weaving a spell called horror Vanguard episode on Adam Sammler's movie Little Nikki. Oh yeah, okay. So okay, how do we, how do we read this? Right? Because like, you know, a dick, dick,
34:14Trimane and Andy, right, are like pseudo, pseudo fostering Little Nikki as a way to demonstrate their capability as fathers. But they've run into trouble and that's Little Nikki is either, either the kid from the Omen or he is an anchor for a world of bad luck. So how do we, how do we interrogate this from a bit more of an interesting robust podcastable, if you will, theoretical perspective? Uh, I mean, isn't this the problem of like looking for supernatural causes when like, like just ordinary thinking will do because you can, like, he's either the Omen or he's just got really bad, and it's like, yeah, he's got really bad luck. He's this orphan child who's been through like, you know, an absolute cacophony of trauma and fancy-lad dick, Trimane is like, yeah, he's clearly the spawn of Satan, and we might have to kill him. Uh, I, and it's like, it's so revealing of like, of how dick,
35:28Trimane sees the world, right? Because he's now trapped in this strange triad with him, Lucy and Andy, going through some, some, some weird relationship outworking. Um, uh, how do you kind of immediately jumps to this conclusion of all things? Um, and like, really, it just comes off that Trimane kind of hates this child. Yeah, and I think this is, this is so important too, because this is less true about Andy, Andy, because it's Trimane that brings little Nikki into the world of Twin Px, right? He ushers this in as a ploy. Um, and Andy kind of less, he steps up to the challenge. He's the stepped out, he's not the stepped out, he's the dad that stepped out. Um, but I think what we're seeing here is the same like kind of combined and uneven forces because on level we've got like, what I think is like a, just a really like goofy sitcom set up where it's like, what if two guys in order to compete with each other to demonstrate who's going to be the better dad accidentally became father figures to the spawn of Satan? Whoa, wacky. But then on the other hand, like, Nikki's life is a nightmare, you know, he has been kicked from tragedy to tragedy by a society that has no material support for these wayward orphaned kids. And now he's caught in the crossfire of two dudes in a proverbial dick measuring contest, right? Like it is so tragic. And so like, like, I think one of the some of the magic between peaks is that you are just being jostled all the time. You know, at least in my experiences of you were I'm just constantly being shaken because something like, you know, when like Dick Trance trying to fix the car and little Nikki's like honking on the horn and like in one sense I'm laughing because it's like, a little demon child isn't that fun? And like, but in another sense, I'm like, these guys are going far enough to break in to like the adoption agency to look at the paperwork to see if this kids a demon rather than interrogating the facts that they're being like, you know, like, let around by their patriarchy completely without any sense of internal criticism of how they got into this wacky position. And it's so funny that gradually like Lucy has sort of receded. And it's just the two of them now. Like the homo socially, yeah, a homo socially trying to like work out what this what this triad they've fallen into really is. And like, like, I know
38:11I know Twin Peaks is really deep and philosophically complicated. Books have been written about the show. It's hard to think about. But but in the listeners, let me this this might take me like 30 or 40 minutes to work through John. So like bear with me here. There's a lot of graphs, lots of philosophy. This is a really tough point. I'm going to make delusant Quattari look like easy mode. Okay. What is the thing that Andy has been fixated on since the first episode we see him and what is his his proverbial fixation, what is he want above everything else? What is he always vexed by? What what what but guiles him around every corner and always haunts his character? Dick. He wants his dick. He wants nothing more than his dick. He wants that dick to work for him. Right. He wants his dick to orgasm.
38:59What what is Richard Tremaine's name? What is Andy keep calling him? This is right here. This isn't even the giles meme is back like like the subtext is becoming text here. Yeah. Yeah. This is not subtext. Andy wants is dick Tremaine. He just can't put it together. You're completely correct. It's it's so it's so kind of like again we're not reaching this is all it's all just textually inscribed. Oh, what's what's that I hear in the distance? It's it's the horror Vanguard gendered clacks on going off again. So what happens in this episode that's interesting
39:52John there's some gender there's some gender happening in Twin Peaks again. We have to talk about we've got to talk about David Decovney again. Okay. Do you want to do you want to just unpack what happens in this stink operation specifically? So Jesus Christ. So Denise Bryson is organizing a drug bust in order to free cood or in order to help Cooper and clear his name. They've they've reeled in Ernie right as the guy doing the finances for for these cocaine dealers from Canada these Canadian co-clawers and they they haven't organized a buyer but they need a buyer and the buyer has to be someone in on the sting. So Denise volunteers. What I find to be so interesting about this this kind of presentation of this character is I had completely forgot about this right like as I'm rewatching this Twin Peaks episodes I haven't seen many of these episodes in years right. And so I was like oh no like David Decovney is just going to come back as David Decovney and it's going to be like turning the gender on and off with a switch. It's going to have like no flow no relationship but no it's
41:11Denise Bryson doing drag king as Dennis Bryson doing the drug lord. It's like five layers deep of acting and it's actually really like it's it's really compelling and really intriguing to watch David Decovney do Denise trying to do Dennis and drag. It's it's bizarre it's fascinating sure it's problematic but it's also like really heartening isn't exactly the right word I want to use here but it is never oh it's compelling listeners it's compelling I'm being compelled again. It's it's it's demanding of my soul and critical faculties that the gender here isn't this thing that can be redirected and switched on and off at will it's not a choice that Denise Bryson has. It's this bizarre flow of energies that that can be you could take the reins of but you can't like master entirely.
42:08And it's and it's Denise's I suppose what we might call yeah that Denise's energy which kind of like gets them all out of the sting when it seems like a people are going to die. Okay so the sting goes south right Denise as drag Dennis and Ernie get captured by by the Canadian coge dealers right. Coup offers himself up in trade and so so Denise as Dennis are is freed along with Ernie and Coup is being held in the dead dog farm and then what's the counter sting? Oh it's it's Denise as Denise again wearing an R&R diner uniform bringing food in but she's got like a gun strapped her leg that Coup is able to draw while while she's she's distracting with the like oh I'm just a waitress bit yeah it's so like it's six levels we were six levels of gender deep with David
43:14Ducavanese Denise Bryson I mean what else can you what else is that ads?
43:26it's it's just it's this fascinating like I cite of struggle it's this fascinating like erupting little flux it's this like yeah oh go on go on I'm just thinking you know like obviously there's a lot to critique the show for as Denise is like a fascinating character but obviously as you said deeply problematic but for portraying the kind of like fluctuating status and performance of gender or the performativity of gender I think this is just a super it's it's it's captivating it's captivating and it's it's done it's it's done well I don't know but it's done in such a way that it is the show has its heart in the right place right the show has fixed its heart rather than die yeah and especially coming out of the 90s right like when you know like any depiction of like trans women in cinema we're like at best corpses you know like like in one of the most like feverishly transphobic times in like western cultural production which is saying something isn't it listeners like oh yeah to have you know like of course again and like I hate that we have to worry the stone of David do company being Denise but like you know what's done is done so like let's look at the text that's sitting here right David do company please come on horror Vanguard and we can discuss your many cinematic roles and all of your feelings about gender but like you know like oh my god x files is T for T hold that thought for the forthcoming x files discussion listeners but no like like to see Denise like a trans woman with just like such mastery over the kind of like side of cultural struggle that has that has been made to be her gender by a world around her right like like something that should just be normal and easy and not conflicted to see here like not only master that but like a few episodes ago inspire a young woman to make a positive like encodes here because we're left on gas positive career choice you know you can make something of yourself like you know it's it's really theoretically useful from this kind of a laboratory perspective even if light as with everything in our world it's still kind of like partially jammed up and and kind of like lodged lodged into a lot of like other oppressive discourses and it's problematic discourses to continue to like use our favorite term um our favorite term compelling what being compelled again so let's let's let's talk about another character that's gone into some kind of transformation and this one is a transformation that sucks but is deeply revealing how do you feel about Robert E Lee oh let's talk about Ben Horn yeah okay so Ben Horn has started doing
46:47Confederacy Cause Play and also Historical revisionism and I don't know what to make of this I I don't know so so Ben Ben Horn is doing some lost cause shit yeah and listeners if you don't know what the lost cause is in quotes here it's a pseudo historical racist and revisionist look at the civil war that suggests that what the south was doing was somehow just and not about slavery in the slightest um so everyone every every time someone pretends that the civil war wasn't about slavery for the south they are doing lost cause stuff um and that's what Ben Horn's doing right he's trying to like carve out a glorious underdog victory for the Confederacy right he's doing this lost cause bit which I think is very revealing for his character right because what what his his entire character right he's kind of the Robert E Lee of his family and twin px right he's this mid dude who just is not really good at his job who who keeps bungling himself and into shenanigans that cause greater failures around him like he's kind of like the like as the eternal loser um we're hating on the Confederacy today and horror Vanguard absolutely so what do you what do you make of this then and it's historical revisionism right he's trying to rewrite his own story um but like he's a loser he's a massive loser so like obviously he's drawn to the Confederacy uh with its proud noble tradition of taking a fat fucking out and and and and I gotta say I gotta say twin px went on longer than the Confederacy twin px is more of a cornerstone of American society than the Confederacy you're right it's very revealing of like uh this character's self conception um this idea of like trying to uh place your own shitty pathetic behavior into some grand historical narrative of destiny um but it's like it's at and in a way I suppose my reaction of like uh this is boring and not very funny and I think it's slowing the pace down it's kind of deliberate I suppose because you want you want the audience to be like oh no this fucking loser again every time he pops up on every time he pops up on screen like with his little uh general Lee figurines that he's carrying around yeah absolutely and again my because like part of the project of historical revisionism is less about arguing over the interpretive frameworks with which we look at history and more about laundering the frameworks with which we guide and shape the world in which we live our current material conditions right and so like you know people who don't want to talk about slavery and the south and the Confederacy like it's isn't it weird how they're really often rich racist white people who are very loud about that who may perhaps have you know or are currently uh the inheritors and benefactors of material system that's kind of structured on you know like those historic forces and I think we again we see a little microcosm of this been horn right like he wants to see himself as as you were saying some kind of historic figure but he needs to do revisionism for his own history right we'll see that we'll see this play out as Jacob he gets involved and this becomes like a thing but like rather than having like an opportunity to face taking an L Ben horn is about to double down on revisionist mythologies that forever guide and shape his character and it's like let's let like let's be clear he is he is a uh vinyl corrupt liar cheat like it's like this is a person who would drastically need to change in order to turn around uh like his his life um but this like he kind of vanishes into fantasy to preserve his own ego right and and furthermore he has the material conditions to do this too right like yeah you know like like like like some of a lesser standing wouldn't be able to like walk through these fantasies quite as easily and even like we we see kind of like a mirror a parallel play out with me Dean you know like like me Dean is doing this but like the longer the longer me Dean stays in her fugues state the more the more her relationship with Ed deteriorates the more there are consequences in her world right like like the more like like Ed is her sole source of material support and the longer she stays in in that kind of fugue the the more decayed that's becoming versus Ben horn like who is legally structured as the empire of his little kingdom you know he could take time to have his little fugue problem he could spend money buying a bunch of cool action figures to facilitate it you know like it's going to take a long time for that to fully deteriorate and before it ever deteriorates they'll just shuffle the deck as to who's in charge of the white water enough a white lodge oh my god the hotel absolutely it's a kind of finish up talking about this episode should we very quickly talk about uh poor uh Shelley and Leo yes let's uh so this news by now uh we get honestly a scene that feels like it's something out of Friday the 13th where Leo comes back to life and he's got an axe and he's stalking Shelley through their half finished home in the woods it's very slasher killer oh yeah yeah yeah deeply so Bobby also ever the scumbag has pretty much left
53:02Shelley at this point and now he's pursuing Audrey Horn as he's seen he's seeing himself move up in the world as a businessman of crime and so now he can't be slumming it with these petty fraud schemes with Shelley yeah it says a lot that Bobby's role model is ban horn yeah it's not falling out of like at all listeners yeah uh yeah well it's it's really it's an expertly choreographed scene it's as you say it's like straight out of a slasher um and once again it's like there's there is a deep concern in the show I think for the ways in which the uh the the kind of like well the the patriarchal system of male behavior that ignores domestic labor and reproductive labor that um that that seeks to confine women to the home perpetuate systems of violence done upon women absolutely and we see like classic men women in chainsaws final girl plot structure with Shelley here right like you know there's a scuffle with axe wielding killer Leo uh uh knife falls to the floor Shelley grabs the phallic weapon of death and stabs Leo and he runs off into the night and I think this this carries us on to uh what I would I would I believe will be a quicker discussion episode 21 double play yeah where so Shelley Shelley good Shelley vindicated
54:29Shelley we love Shelley where where has uh Leo run off to John uh well he is wandered off to the woods he is lost he's lost in the woods uh and he is found by he is you know think think of the opening of of Dante's inferno he loses he loses the path he's lost in the woods and he is found by uh a virtual figure a guy if you will um we have the introduction of the great nemesis windum Earl I really like this sequence I really like windum Earl popping up right like when the merrill has been a very like mythological figure up until this point right he's the only person who could get the better of Cooper right like we have a very very classic narrative structure going on and I think introducing him here in in the woods right where everything strange in Twin Peaks is out of windum Earl is quite literally an accountor fit lodge in the woods which I think importantly situates him philosophically and in throughout the context of Twin Peaks between the white lodge and the black lodge that he's in some kind of counterfeit human lodge dwelling right and having him kind of emergent of the show this way both as like both with how grimy and real and sudden it is but also with how it's still nevertheless part of like the mythological structuring of
56:05Twin Peaks and I think it's like it's the it's the best way to stick that landing for including him back into the show oh absolutely um and you you finally like it's very it's very strange or kind of like quite satisfying that we'd move from this chess game at a distance uh that's been done through the newspapers uh and then suddenly like he's here he's here now and it's like the the stakes escalate so expertly yes yes I I really like that framing and some exciting things are going to happen to Leo over the next few episodes uh his his fun and games aren't quite over yet and listeners I very much look forward to discussing oh my god um oh actually anything anything left to say on this episode
56:54John oh we have not yet talked about James and Evelyn oh yes let's let's so what what is set us up here what's going on with James and Evelyn so our classic haunted bad boy has gone out of town and has met the mysterious beautiful Evelyn and has volunteered to help fix her car um um Evelyn it seems as also a bit of a troubled soul yeah and is in an unhappy marriage um and it all gets very gothic it all gets very gothic very quickly uh so uh there's also Evelyn's brother Malcolm and Malcolm tells James that Evelyn is being uh being abused and she's damaged his prize car in retaliation um James and Evelyn end up having sex um what do you think about this kind of gothic try had because in the very next episode in slaves and masters um there's a reveal of poor James um who once again finds himself in so much trouble but we will get to that but what do you think about about that whole setup going back to my comments on James from a few episode a good a few episodes ago the thing I find to be intriguing enchanting summoning provocative definitely not compelling um about how he's being positioned with Evelyn and Malcolm is that like he's literally James Dean right you know he's he's the rebel he's the bad boy right you know in other narratives he'd be like the peak of the trouble pyramid he'd be so edgy and no one could catch him but James keeps finding himself in situations where he's actually on the back foot all the time because like in in reality James Dean is a troubled teenager right and a lot of those movies like these are teen splotation films about the dangers of wayward youth biking around and and that's who that's who James is you know like he kind of like the the kind of narrative of cinema wants us to see him as the rebel without a cause right we want to see him as that classic biker rogue you know the someone's the pseudo carolac figure you know who's so worldly and wise and dangerous but like that's a relic of teen splotation this guy's a kid you know he's he's a teen so he's he's actually on the back foot all the time and when they're doing they're kind of like you know a Nancy Drew boxcar boys style you know solve the mystery of our friend's death kind of situation you know like they keep getting themselves and increasingly horrific trouble and have to get bailed out by the adults and now you know James is again we're having one of these situations where this like combined and uneven apocalyptic revelation right like James has fled twin piques you know and like as an all proper journey is right he's gone in search of himself and his soul and not something out there in the world and like as he actually encounters something like it's as yeah exactly as you said as we will find out is way more he's bit he's again bit off way more than he can chew but perhaps that's something that's best kind of fully unpacked on our next installment yes listeners we will be back next week with episode 22 slaves and masters episode 23 the condemned woman and episode 24 wounds and scars we look forward to talking about shock collars and chess the newest way to cheat at one of the world's oldest games next week on horror vanguard
1:00:57diet is that we have more questions than we have answers a new episode new episode a plan time it's time you're gonna kick on it this one if the long history of the reception of owls reveals one thing is that we have more questions than we have answers