0:00Yeah, well, hello, everyone. Hello, dear listeners. I hope you enjoyed that bit of academic criticism that we opened today's episode with. That's what we're very intellectual show here. But no, this is the Twin Peaks retrospective. We're back with episode 11, aka episode four, aka episode 12. This only gets more confusing as those numbers go up. Laura's secret diary. And I think we're both pretty excited for this one because this is really where, at least in my opinion, this is where season two starts to become season two. Yes. Unless the rehash of season one. Yes, absolutely. This is where things really kind of kick off. This is a really, really interesting episode, I think.
1:07Absolutely. Where would you like to begin? Log lady. As always, everything starts with the log lady. In this log lady introduction, which I really like, I know I've mentioned this a few times before, but those log lady introductions are absolutely fantastic. It's worth getting the blue ray just for those. I'm sure they're on the internet somewhere. But this log lady introduction is talking all about anger. And I think that this is really interesting from a left discursive standpoint, especially when we're dealing with horror media and Gothic media, because anger is like the hidden emotion of the Gothic. We over focalize the kind of the Anhedonias, the depressive affacks, the the solemn sorrows.
2:04But even going back to the horsewalt pool is the castle of Attronto. This stuff like Jane Air, like anger is such a predominant emotion in the Gothic landscape. And I think we can kind of like, you know, do do a little post post fishery and magic and extend that forward into kind of like the look at what one then. How does that relate to Gothic Marxism? And that's a massively complicated conversation that I'm sure someone could get a book deal for. But the first thing that that kind of comes to mind for me is like, oh, we're so focused today on like a lot of the the discursive focus on the left presently is very depressive. And not I don't say that qualitatively, but I say that quantitatively, right? We're focused on trauma. We're focused on loss. We're focused on suffering, which are all important things to study critique and move through. But that does leave out the kind of generative force that is anger. You know, anger isn't always a moralistic negative, right?
3:06Anger can be a very positive, very healthy emotion. What do you think about the about Margaret's point and the connection that it makes between anger, happiness and health? See, this I really, really, really enjoy. I do think that anger can help sometimes improve the happiness and health of a person and of the position in your life, right? Like, you know, like, like get mad sometimes is the answer. And this seems really counterproductive and this seems very toxic because we've structured a lot of our contemporary understandings of psychic well-being around a kind of placid enjoyment is how we we orient our psychic health towards placid enjoyment. You are psychically healthy if you are just doing okay enough to go to work and enjoy whatever products are being sent your way. That's kind of the capitalistic psychic status quo. Yeah. And we need the boat needs to be rocked to get the mind out of that. And the mind can be rocked via several emotions, but the more, I guess, generative ones, you know, anger and joy, like they can help they can help ease us out of this current mireing.
4:22What are some of your texts on this? Well, I think that's really interesting, but I also think I think there's a degree to which it's a kind of understandable response. This idea that she says something, the log lady says something which I think is really interesting, but she says sometimes she says that anger can kind of make you ill, can kind of make you ill. And she says sometimes when we're ill, we're not on our best behavior. And I'm like, by what measure of best are we working with here? Best behavior for whom and to what ends, because I think if we take the injunction to always be happy as a sort of one where you have to remain productive, right? The I think the whole kind of productive point within, you know, a lot of that post-Visual theory was that dealing with the psychological and psychic trauma of survival under capitalism made you unproductive in the capitalist sense of the word, but was a chance for to be a new kind of production. So I think it's interesting that she brings up this question of behavior of like, what does it mean to be on your best behavior? And what happens if we are not on our best behavior and can that be a positive rather than a kind of disciplinary thing?
5:51Absolutely, absolutely. And I think I would make here kind of like an interesting connection between anger and love, right? Like we're in a very difficult political moment as people who like to live on the surface of the earth. I think that particular class of people is in for quite a doozy. Yeah. But like, you know, like we should be mad about this, that anger has a potential for us, right? And not just a just a craft kind of reduction of like, oh, get angry and go in the streets or whatever, not the kind of oversimplified, you know, liberal discourses of like, what would be the political organizing equivalent of a wall puncher, right? But nevertheless, like a deeper anger, right? A kind of generational, spiritual anger that has been building this kind of like anger of the dead. Well, I think this raises a kind of interesting question because how do you see that, what we will call a HV, these HVL's HV-pracy style introductions to the episode? How do you see that connecting to the actual story content of an episode which is a little bit silly in places?
7:13Oh, so I think there's nothing that's made me happy around this show so far than the doing Kafka and his precursors, but it's for my pricies to the log lady. Yeah, absolutely. I think that I'll take that. No, I think it really works though, right? Because we've, we're starting to see characters in Twin Peaks kind of a psychically grow from the state of kind of like this placid, consumptory, sorry, the state of like, plasive enjoyment focused on like material consumption. And then we've got the death of Laura Palmer, which brings on this great trauma. And then in the wound of this trauma, now that people are starting to bring themselves back together, we've got, we've got
7:54Maddie recognizing that she hates just being a clone of Laura Palmer. We've got Donna wishing Laura Palmer would have been very deeper, right? So that her ghost could be fully excised from the community. You know, we've got all these people starting to realize like, hey, like things, things are mad, or things are bad here and they're becoming mad by that. But there's also quite a lot of, there's sort of a lot of excited joy in this one, particularly revolving around the people of the double art diner with their, you know, absolutely wild excitement of empty wence coming to town.
8:31Let's let's talk about empty wence. I know you have empty wence takes. Well, I just, I just sort of love this plot beat because everybody goes, oh, Twin Peaks is a dark, noir, psychosexual thriller. And you know, yeah, it is also, they're doing like classic comedy bits of like rushing people out the back door before the big important guest comes in. I think season two does get a lot more kind of, and I don't mean this in a negative way. I think it does get a lot more goofy. What are your thoughts of Twin Peaks as a kind of comedy?
9:14I mean, I think that works. I think that works. I think there's a, you know, we keep saying that Twin Peaks is a sitcom and Twin Peaks keeps proving us right. And I think these comedy bits are perfect. And again, this is something that we've talked about in previous episodes too, where it's just like on the same day that the most horrifying thing in recent memory happens to a given individual, they will also bear witness to a complete farce of society. And David Lynch is just a master of being able to kind of like wield seemingly contradictory swords at the same time.
9:49You know, and like, and even there, like, this is interconnectedness that I really love in Twin Peaks, right, because we've got everyone at the diner on the surface level. They're like, oh, a secret food critic is coming in. Everybody panic and do a bunch of high jinks. And then like, but like, that's that's kind of just a surface cover for like all of these like ex-cons and murderers, like using the diner as like a way to like, wander their reputations in the community. Yes. And then like, like, the diner, the diner also has this front of like Americana, right? Like, oh, it's the diner. It's one of America's most wholesome cultural products. You know, it's a good meal. Conversations with strangers.
10:30It's classic Americana. But like, no, no, it's like two married couples who are who have like an on-again off-again trust. We have like multiple, I think multiple murderers now organizing through the diner. Yeah, yeah, yeah, or at least very, various kinds of criminals. And then like not to mention that like, while all of that's happening, we've got like three to five separate psychics. It's something to solve a ghost alien UFO murder mystery. And it's all just happening. I'll just happening while this while this woman is trying to serve coffee and deal with the fact that she loves another married man. It's it's perfect. And at the same time, all of this exists in conjunction with the episode of, you know, Leland going on trial. You know, there's that great line of, you know, have you ever known absolute loss where every cell in the body screams. And it's like, these these things happen in the same episode. I think this is the thing that like, people don't necessarily appreciate about the show is that it it not only hybridizes its form, but it does so with its content as well. Oh, I really like that take. I really like the not to foreshadow what we, part of what we'll be talking about the next episode, but this kind of like, oh, oh, I don't know, Cosmosis, you know, increasing the complexification of the text of Twin Peaks. I saw something about that. I just really like, but what do you, what do you think about Leland's storyline in the opening sections of this episode? I really like the kind of growth and decay of Leland Palmer. He's becoming more of an interesting character for me now that I rewatch Twin Peaks like from the perspective of a real film critic, which is a weird thing to say. But like the thing that the thing that I'm liking about
12:34Leland's character kind of increasingly is he's kind of he's a microcosm of the greater Gothic narrative going on in Twin Peaks, right? Like he is simultaneously his own haunted house. He is his own Gothic heroine trapped in the labyrinth that is himself, right? Like he is the singular entity that holds multitudes and this kind of sprawling complexity. And it's like you jammed all of the classic facets of a Gothic character into a single being. Yeah. What are some of your Leland takes? Well, he's sort of a husk, isn't he? He's become a kind of husk. He's been hollowed out by this experience that he's been through. And I think it's very interesting the way that he's treated by the various figures and representatives of the legal system in town. We finally see the judge for the first time, for example. What do you think about the judge?
13:37Yeah, this stuff I found really interesting, the kind of court case that goes on in the background. And I think the thing for the thing for me that is most interesting that kind of speaks to what you were saying about the kind of hybridity of the form and content of Twin Peaks is like now we have a courtroom drama popping up for a few episodes. And the thing about American courtroom dramas is that most of the time the prosecution are the good guys. When I say good guys here, listeners, I mean good guys from the standpoint of the text of the show, they want you, oh, the prosecution is our protagonist, our hero. We have to lock up those dastardly criminals and then they're twirling their moustaches or whatever with like, you know, it's just propaganda. But in this one, and in this one, like the prosecution is like the most, the king of the oh, he's a fantastic character.
14:33You kind of feel bad. I'm not a great way of putting it. But it is like, it's just like, it's barely even like, it's almost feels like a borderline like high camp like drag without the costuming like parody of an American courtroom scene. I mean, it's in a dive bar. Like, yeah, right? Like, it's so parodic of the kind of hype. And like they're treating this this this judge with with such high prestige. And he's just this like, he's just another one of these goofy weirdos that rolls into town. Yeah, he drove into town with his RV. You know, it's like, there's something, there's something again, something really interesting happening with the show's genre here because it's, it's essentially kind of like the setup for like a western, right? You know, Twin Peaks is very rural. It's right on the, it's on the front here. It's literally on the border, right? And so it's, it's the premise of like, a dozen Clint Eastwood movies that there's been a crime and the judge rolls into town to dispense some justice. And that's what they build it up to. And what you get is you get the slightly, the slightly goofy boomer who is rolling around in his RV with his wife.
15:58I think so. I think so. I can't quite recall. And it's like, again, even even the, the kind of great frontier narrative gets this kind of like arch deconstruction happening to it. I love that. I love that. I really, I'm really enjoying your kind of focus on like, for the form and substance of Twin Peaks. I think that's been some of the most fun stuff we've been doing in these like last, however, many Twin Peaks retrospective episodes now. But there's a sidebar. There's so much more in this episode as well, because there is, there are two other really big stories that we have to talk about.
16:39Yes. So we have to talk about what happens to Audrey. And we also have to talk about what happens to to pull, put upon Deputy Andy. And more deputy Andy. Where would you like to start with those two? Oh dear. Well, let's let's pick up our deputy Andy because because this episode is kind of one of the many peaks of deputy Andy's masculinity in crisis hijinks. And as you have said over the last several episodes, he's kind of now the poster boy for the anxiety of the cuckold. So do you want to kind of just catch people up if they maybe haven't seen the show for a while? What are we talking about? That's true. That's true. It's been it's been it's been months since the Twin Peaks season one retrospective came out. So Andy keeps having these instances where his masculinity is in some state of crisis, right? Like there's his whole character arc over season one is his inability to properly wield his gun. Metaphor is a bound. Right. And now we're into season two where we're at the end of season one, he becomes the the classic masculine marksman. He is now able to kill.
17:56Kill on the first date. Yeah, he's using his firearm, right? So he's he's rounded that particular circle. And now now we're in the news season. And what's his new crisis? Well, to kind of reverse the analogies here, he's shooting blanks. So do you want to do you want to kind of flesh flesh this out? You know, who's who are the plays involved? Where are we? Where are we at? We set our stage in the sheriff's office at 20 weeks. Andy, the deputy cannot has been told by doctors he cannot conceive a child because he uses like it's just a bunch of like hokey euphemisms that he keeps using. You know, like to just a bunch of like like weird like all there's no doc doc says there's no trout in the stream. Get it? Like just just a bunch of goofy uncomfortable stuff.
18:52And it's almost like there's almost a there's so much like Andy is such a such a great like court gesture figure because like there's so much like paythos to his comedy. You know, like you really feel for his bumblings. But then you got Lucy who's not pregnant. Bum bum bum bum. Dorauma. So his his girlfriend's pregnant. But he can't he can he be the father question mark what's going on? So who's the other guy? The other guy is is men's men's department store the new risk king Dick Tremay. Yeah, take that baby groan. Yeah, it's it's it's like that whatever would I know
19:30I don't know. Baby I don't know what baby groan is. At this point, I'm afraid to ask. And I'm just I'm just going to assume that baby groan is like a new character in the Mandalorian. Which I haven't seen. So I'm assuming baby groan can baby Yoda are like maybe baby groan because the Sith, you know, he's the bad one. I think you would immeasurably improve. I think you would immeasurably improve the Mandalorian if this was to happen. Disney call me I have a great idea. I know your numbers are going down.
20:04Yes, we we have a sort of like we have a sort of like the continuing deconstruction of of the masculine figure of the law gets reintroduced here. We have Dick Tremay resident fancy boy and department store, Riz expert, Dick Tremayne. And we have Lucy and of course we have sweet Bumbling Andy who is now racked with the confusion and anxiety of the cockled. Um, desperately trying to figure out what I sort of love is that he's very he's very straightforward about it. He just thinks oh the doctor has made a mistake. He doesn't think there could be possibly any other answer to this question. And what do you what do you think about the the interactions between these three various players? I mean I would I really love to to bring the fourth into our mix here. I love the doctor. Yes. I love it because his interactions with like whenever he has to interact with like who or like anything related with Laura Palmer he is so like he reminds me of McCoy from Star Trek, right? He's he's he's the overly human doctor. Yeah. Right. You know he's he's brought to emotion so easily and he's so empathetic. And then whenever Andy needs something he's like just just just just fucking give me another sample whatever dude I gotta leave. I'll be in my car. Poor Andy. Poor Andy. Poor Andy. Poor Andy. Poor Lucy. I don't really feel for Dictra
21:39Man at the current junction. No, the and let's let's let's be clear Twin Peaks is very pro-abortion rights. Paul Lucy she ends up pregnant with this with this absolutely awful man's. Thanks to this absolutely awful man who doesn't want to have anything to do with her really. And and Andy who sweetly and naively thinks there's been some sort of you know miracle as there are suddenly there are frogs in the stream again. So so this is Twin Peaks continuing it's kind of deconstruction of you know the masculine law archetype. And then then actually there's another thing we have to talk about we have to so we have to talk about Audrey as well. Yes. And just to catch people up how would you say that things are going for Audrey at the moment. Great. Yeah. Great. Great. Audrey is is doing season three of Twin
22:44Peaks ahead of her time. Yes. So Audrey is is kidnapped. She is injected with heroin and blacky and the is it's John Renault. Yeah, John Jacques is dead. Jacques is dead. The Renault brother is plotting to kill Cooper. And I think it's so useful that you brought up kind of the classic gothic melodrama because this is just this is just what the show is doing now. Right. You've got you've got the imprisoned you've got the imprisoned young woman. You've got the devil devious kind of the uncle the family figure. You've got the uncaring father like and you've got the heroic gothic hero who is tasked with with the rescue mission. But he doesn't really manage to do that terribly effectively yet. What do you think about this in the context of the comparison to somebody like Andy?
23:54So I think this is one of the interesting things that I think about when I think about kind of what's going on with Audrey in this moment. And that's like to Twin Peaks has a very complicated kind of like discursive existence when it comes to drugs. Right. The season one is all about cocaine. Season two we're starting off with a heroin plot line. And what I find to be really interesting is a lot of what the text of Twin Peaks is doing here is it's kind of like we're dealing with like these kind of like thematic inversions. You know, like Andy is the man who can't fire his gun and then once he gains the ability to fire his gun, all of a sudden his gun doesn't fire. Wink wink. Yeah. So we have his masculinity is perpetually in crisis because it just keeps getting inverted. And something that I was thinking about about one eye jacks and blackie and because essentially at this point in the story,
24:50Laura not Laura Palmer Audrey Horne has been trafficked at yes in Canada across an American border and is now being like forcibly manipulated with drugs and like, you know, she is the rich white teenage girl from the suburbs. Like she is kind of the proverbial force of like, myth making. And but like what's going on? It's not the southern border that she's been traveled across. It's the northern border to Canada. And I think that that is an interesting inversion there. Like there's almost a very clear sense of playing with like like because that is a very typical like conservative political for your story. Oh, they're like stealing our white women and sending them south across the border. Yeah. Now now it's going to Canada. Yeah. Yeah. And I find that to be a really interesting way to like call out that discourse and to kind of force us into having it and kind of unpacking why we are very comfortable with media often using race and ethnicity and you know, specifically like the Mexican border zone for these kind of criminal discourses.
26:00Well, it makes a similar point to 2666, does which is to connect drugs with the sexual exploitation of women, but with the financing of neoliberal capitalism. Right? So yes, it's it's it's it's it's like one hijacks as a center of operations is inherently tied up in the property deals and land valuation and you know, it's not a coincidence that this show from the 90s then introduces characters, you know, from the the dragon of capitalism in the east. You know, that's not a coincidence. So I think that's it. That's a really important nexus that the show is kind of trying is kind of unpacking, but there is one more storyline that gets introduced here which is
26:49Harold. So we have another, you know, we have another kind of deconstruction, another inversion of something where you have the the agoraphob who knows the secrets of everybody outside. Right? And what do you think of Harold? So I think I think Harold's character is incredibly fascinating. I like really, really love kind of dwelling on what Twin Peaks is doing with mental health, especially with malibration context. But that that is something I'm saving for the orchid's curse because that episode says gets a frenia every other word. Yes, it does.
27:33So we're going to we're going to have to I'm sorry, I'll you to lose and good sorry fans out there, but we're going to have to wait until next week for that exciting discourse. The only thing I will add is that like I think the way they use Harold is extremely interesting because what they do is they kind of personalize history, right? Everybody has their own story. And so Harold is less, Harold is essentially the novelist of Twin Peaks. Right? So his job is to be the kind of record keeper, the remembrance of the town and to incorporate everybody's memory into a kind of larger metanarrasite for kind of a kind of Twin Peaks critical realism, as it were. There's a lot that happens in this, there's a lot that happens in this episode. It doesn't drag in the slightest, but I feel like we've just lost the surface on so many of these things.
28:34But there's a lot of threads that have been laying down, which are going to be this is where this is what we're starting to follow now moving forward. Are there any final thoughts? Oh, I'm just I'm looking forward to next week's episode. I think we're going to have a lot of fun with that one. Okay, well done, done, done. Some big promises being made. Some big promises being made.
28:59Well, hopefully we're not shooting discursive blanks next week. We discuss episode 12, the Orgid's Curse. Thanks for joining us listeners and we'll see you next week.
29:17It is that we have more questions than we have answers. A new episode... A new episode. Done? It's fun. You're going to kick onto this one. If the long history of the perception of owls reveal the one thing, it is that we have more questions than we have answers.