Review Tonight! "Twin Peaks" S01E03 "Zen, Or The Skill To Catch A Killer"

[Mad-Pac]

Aired Thursday 9:00 PM Apr 19, 1990 on ABC

Dale demonstrates odd deductive techniques for the sheriff's department; Benjamin and his brother take a trip; and Donna and James plan to solve Laura's murder.


CAST

Kyle MacLachlan ... Special Agent Dale Cooper
Michael Ontkean ... Sheriff Harry S. Truman
Mädchen Amick ... Shelly Johnson
Dana Ashbrook ... Bobby Briggs
Richard Beymer ... Benjamin Horne
Lara Flynn Boyle ... Donna Hayward
Sherilyn Fenn ... Audrey Horne
Warren Frost ... Dr. Will Hayward
Peggy Lipton ... Norma Jennings
James Marshall ... James Hurley
Everett McGill ... Big Ed Hurley
Jack Nance ... Pete Martell
Ray Sage ... Leland Palmer
Joan Chen ... Jocelyn Packard
Piper Laurie ... Catherine Martell
Eric DaRe ... Leo Johnson
Harry Goaz ... Deputy Andy Brennan
Michael Horse ... Deputy Tommy 'Hawk' Hill
Sheryl Lee ... Laura Palmer
Russ Tamblyn ... Dr. Lawrence Jacoby (credit only)
Grace Zabriskie ... Sarah Palmer
David Patrick Kelly ... Jerry Horne
Miguel Ferrer ... FBI Agent Albert Rosenfield
Victoria Catlin ... Blackie O'Reilly
Wendy Robie ... Nadine Hurley
Kimmy Robertson ... Lucy Moran
Jan D'Arcy ... Sylvia Horne
Mary Jo Deschanel ... Eileen Hayward
Gary Hershberger ... Mike Nelson
Michael J. Anderson ... Rumpelstiltskin
Robert Bauer ... Johnny Horne
Kim Lentz ... Bartender
Frank Silva ... Bob
Charlie Spradling ... Swabbie
Al Strobel ... One-Armed Man


WRITING CREDITS

Mark Frost ... (written by) &
David Lynch ... (written by)

Harley Peyton... (uncredited)


DIRECTED BY

David Lynch

 

[Brimfin]

Okay, I don’t think I’m really getting into this like I should. David Lynch was directing again and the music was a little more prevalent, though a lot of it was familiar already. (I’m not counting Pennsylvania 6-5000, which was flat out weird to use.) But it didn’t help much.

The most interesting storyline was Nadine and her drape runners – how Ed’s dropping of the grease in the house made her mad. (Ed, two words – garden hose!) But then later, just when it looks like she is charging up to kill him, she hugs him and tells him the grease on her cotton balls solved her runner problem. That was a surprise. Nadine, by the way, is just thoroughly repulsive. Poor Ed.

The rest of the story: Let’s see, we have weird Uncle Jerry, yet another J, who loves sandwiches like Cooper loves coffee and pie. He and Ben go off to the One-Eyed Jack to buy some hookers. Honestly, the prettiest girl there was the one at the register.

We had that whole scene where Leo finds out Mike and Bobby don’t have his 10 grand. He finally tells one of them to go out for a pass. They run in fear and then…he throws the football and it lands on their car? Kind of a weak payoff.

Cooper’s forensic expert Albert arrives with his team and lots of attitude. That scene led to my favorite lines of the night, listed at the end of the review. Albert was well played by Miguel Ferrer, whom we sadly just recently lost. I once met him when he was at a LOST IN SPACE convention with Bill Mumy, his friend. Pretty nice guy; may be rest in peace.

The rest of the show dealt with Dale’s weird shenanigans for investigating the crime. Last week, he was Sherlock Holmes, now he’s a street magician throwing rocks at bottles to determine which J Laura was meeting with. Dr. Jacoby’s name shakes the bottle, but Leo Johnson smashes it. No other investigating is done on this behalf, as it’s hard to get any warrants based on, “I threw a rock when I heard his name and it smashed a bottle.” Besides, he didn’t include Jacques from last week or Uncle Jerry, so his method is flawed anyway.

Finally, he has a weird dream where Dale looks like his skin has been aged with bad makeup, and there’s a dancing dwarf and Laura Palmer, both of whom apparently say their lines is reverse and then have it played backward just to sound weird. The dwarf and a one-armed man say some strange things like, “Fire, walk with me,” and then Laura whispers something in his ear and he wakes up and calls Harry Truman and declares, “I know who killed Laura Palmer.” Somehow, I doubt it’s that simple this early in the series. But Cooper tells us, “It can wait until morning.”

I hope next week’s episode is more interesting. This one didn’t really do much to move the plot along. I can only give it 5 slow, swaying dances from Audrey.

Best dialogue of the night:

Truman: “I hear that you’re real good at what you do.”
Albert: “Yeah. That’s correct.”
Truman: “Well, that’s good. ‘Cause normally if a stranger walking into my station talked this kind of crap, he’d be looking for his teeth two blocks up on Queer Street.”

 

[Mad-Pac]

Zen, Or The Skill To Catch A Killer has a promising start diving headfirst into the show's surreal motif. We first see the Horns having a meal, and the boy (Johnny) is wearing an Indian Chief headdress and the image was jarring, considering I wasn't aware Johnny was mentally ill. Suddenly, there comes Ben's brother from his trip to Europe and he brings... baguette sandwiches. Apparently, the best he has eaten. And he gives one to his brother, who loves it, to his wife's dismay. Personally I think it was rude of Audrey's uncle not to offer a sandwich to anybody else. In the end, the pair of brothers (who festively refer to themselves as "Ben and Jerry") hit the town "looking for love", and they take a speedboat to get there. All of that felt very weird indeed.

After that, however, I was beginning to think I'd have to give this episode a rather low grade, especially after the James + Donna romantic scene. Nowadays we're used to bad soap operas and funny soap opera parodies (Honestly, it's not difficult to mock soap aperas, as there's so much ridiculousness in them). A story can get away with using soap opera elements as a stylistic choice, as long as they make it at least slightly humorous. However, if the story is meant to be taken seriously as a drama, soap operas are not the way to go. And the young romance scenes always have too much of that, and so do the melodramatic outbursts given by the people who mourn Laura's passing. Initially I felt that was all over the top.

But this third installment still had a nice surprise in store for us; two of them, in fact. I'm talking about two of the most iconic scenes in Twin Peaks. The first was iconic to me at least. It']s something I saw in the original run, and got everybody I know who was watching, very confused: the bottle shoot investigation method. Described by Agent Cooper,after he enjoyed a damn good cup of coffee and some doughnuts from the prolific assortment of doughnuts beautifully set on a table in the open air, as a deductive technique involving mind-body coordination operating hand in had with the deepest level of intuition, which he subconsciously acquired in a dream three years before. And don't forget Tibet, of course, because... Say, what? WTF was he talking about?

What follows is pure nonsense, as Agent Cooper starts throwing stones at a milk bottle each time after Sheriff announced a suspect's name and their relation with Laura Palmer. Conclusion: Dr. Jacoby is a strong suspect. And Leo Johnsons is practically guilty. I remember watching this scene back in 1990, and my father saying, "That can't be the way they do it in the FBI." No kidding! Anyway, the memory of this scene lasts until today.

The other memorable moment was Cooper's dream involving Laura Palmer (or someone that looked incredibly like her) who actually did feel like Laura Palmer, but, you know, sometimes her arms bent back, of course, and little man with a cryptic message. Oh, and both spoke backwards, but we could still understand them because they were speaking backwards backwards, know what I mean? Anyway, I know this sequence is awfully iconic for the Twin Peaks mythology, though I don't quite know why yet. Not that I understood what it meant, or even tried to.

And, besides that, we also got a little more of the Leo + Shelley soap opera drama, we learn Bobby and Leo have a drug dealing relationship, Nadine is still bonkers about silent shade runners, and the scene in which Big Ed tries to enter his spotlessly clean living room with his hands covered in grease was hilarious and was a disaster of staining proportions waiting to happen. (Nadine actually has a nice body, by the way, even though that eyepatch doesn't favor her looks at all). And who would've guessed Ed's greasy mess would've helped her invent the perfect silent runner? They are going to be RICH!!!! (What???). Finally, we also see that Jocelyn is looking into the sawmill's book ledger. Or should I say,ledgers.

We also learn Audrey has a thing for Agent Cooper, but that is supposed to be a big "no-no" because, you know, she's one of the "kids" even though she looks like a grown-up woman and both Dale and Audrey make a saexy couple together. She also likes to listen to her own show's soundtrack, so she's in the right place for musical choices. I suspect that all jukeboxes in Twin peaks only play Angelo Badalamenti's tunes, and all Blockbuster stores only rent David Lynch movies. (If Blockbuster already existed back then.)

This episode also made me wonder if Lucy Moran is a wordplay because, you know, she's not exactly very bright or asks seemingly stupid questions.

The two iconic moments were enough to make this episode enjoyable and special, and now that I've gone through the main moments I'm even more sure of that. Episode 3 gets 9 bottles that were struck, but did not break and that's important!

 

[Bob Peters 61]

The rest of the story: Let’s see, we have weird Uncle Jerry, yet another J, who loves sandwiches like Cooper loves coffee and pie. He and Ben go off to the One-Eyed Jack to buy some hookers. Honestly, the prettiest girl there was the one at the register.

I liked the one at the dock. All work and no play make Ben and Jerry dull boys. Did the writers intend to plug the ice cream brand?

We had that whole scene where Leo finds out Mike and Bobby don’t have his 10 grand. He finally tells one of them to go out for a pass. They run in fear and then…he throws the football and it lands on their car? Kind of a weak payoff.

I don't know about that. It certainly had Leo's desired effect of scaring the crap out of the boys. Didn't even pick up the football off the car hood before tearing out of there to inevitably leave it on the ground somewhere in their path. Makes me wonder if we'll see it later as a plot element somehow.

Agent Cooper must remember the fish from last week's ep. First he does a spit-take and then voices appreciation for the taste of the coffee before enjoying a big second sip with gusto.

Nothing really new in this episode. Just reinforcement of my disdain for Nadine. She and Leo would have made one of those couples who deserve each other in a bad way, but instead they each have a spouse who deserves better.

I enjoyed this ep, but not as much as last week's. I'll give it 7 strange dreams of a strange detective.

 

[Mad-Pac]

Quite a few interesting ideas going around. I'd like to point out a few.

Cooper’s forensic expert Albert arrives with his team and lots of attitude. That scene led to my favorite lines of the night, listed at the end of the review. Albert was well played by Miguel Ferrer, whom we sadly just recently lost.

Ha! There was so much to comment on that I simply forgot all about Miguel Ferrer. Come to think of it, he seemed just like a random character, and the episode only worked to introduce him and give us an idea of what he is like. What will come out from that will be seen later. It also showed that Truman is not a whimp. He's nice and agreeable, but no doormat.

No other investigating is done on this behalf, as it’s hard to get any warrants based on, “I threw a rock when I heard his name and it smashed a bottle.” Besides, he didn’t include Jacques from last week or Uncle Jerry, so his method is flawed anyway.

Ha! I was just thinking how that would play in court.

Prosecutor - "And how did you come to believe it was Leo Johnson who killed Laura Palmer?"
Cooper - "Well, I performed the standard rock-throwing-at-bottle test."
Prosecutor - "Interesting. And what were the results?"
Cooper - "As Sheriff Truman read out loud his name, I threw the rock... And it struck the bottle."
Somebody in the audience lets out an "ohhhh!" The whole place gets very quite then.
Prosecutor - "Is that all, Agent Cooper?"
Cooper - "No, madam. The bottle... It broke, smashed into a million pieces!"
A low murmur starts in the crowd and soon starts to get louder and louder.
Judge - "Order! Order!", demands the judge, slamming down his gavel on his desk several times.
Prosecutor - "Your honor, I rest my case."

Well, Cooper's method could have been flawed, but he could always do it again, adding all the missing names. In fact I was wondering if a two-out-of-three trial wouldn't be a better option.

The dwarf and a one-armed man say some strange things like, “Fire, walk with me,” and then Laura whispers something in his ear and he wakes up and calls Harry Truman and declares, “I know who killed Laura Palmer.” Somehow, I doubt it’s that simple this early in the series. But Cooper tells us, “It can wait until morning.”

I had forgotten about the one-armed man as well, apparently. Now that Cooper knows who killed the girl, next chapter he'll tell us, arrest the culprit and the show will end. Good. We can move on to the next show.

Truman: “I hear that you’re real good at what you do.”
Albert: “Yeah. That’s correct.”
Truman: “Well, that’s good. ‘Cause normally if a stranger walking into my station talked this kind of crap, he’d be looking for his teeth two blocks up on Queer Street.”

I imagined at this point somebody would say, "Ha, ha, ha! Queer street. They have a Queer Street!" But, well, it is a strange name for a street. I wonder if it means something else... I mean, not weird for an official street name

I don't know about that. It certainly had Leo's desired effect of scaring the crap out of the boys. Didn't even pick up the football off the car hood before tearing out of there to inevitably leave it on the ground somewhere in their path. Makes me wonder if we'll see it later as a plot element somehow.

I think we're seeing a case of Chekhov's football.

Agent Cooper must remember the fish from last week's ep. First he does a spit-take and then voices appreciation for the taste of the coffee before enjoying a big second sip with gusto.

Yes, I laughed at that. It caught me by surprise when he said the coffee was actually good. And why all those neatly organized doughnuts for a simple outdoors exercise?

I'll give it 7 strange dreams of a strange detective.

Funny. You picked the exact average between brimfin's grade and mine.

 

[TheSowIsMine]

I love the opening scene, quiet and then..Jerry.
Donna and James, ugh.
Nadine is very strong.
Coopers deductive methods are different, but I like them. It works in this show.
I love Audrey's attitude.
Albert is great.
Silent drape runners.
Leland, what is going on in this house?
That dream is amazing.
And I always enjoy Coopers hair at the end.

 

[Brimfin]

The other memorable moment was Cooper's dream involving Laura Palmer (or someone that looked incredibly like her) who actually did feel like Laura Palmer, but, you know, sometimes her arms bent back, of course, and little man with a cryptic message. Oh, and both spoke backwards, but we could still understand them because they were speaking backwards backwards, know what I mean? Anyway, I know this sequence is awfully iconic for the Twin Peaks mythology, though I don't quite know why yet. Not that I understood what it meant, or even tried to.

Yes, perhaps I was a little unkind to this part of the show. I'm afraid I was affected by the new episodes airing on SHOWTIME. They started out with a long, long, long scene similar to the dream sequence, so that when I saw this on this original it seemed trite and hackneyed already, although back then it was fresh and new. I'm afraid watching the new series will mess up the original at times, although I must admit the original series moves so much quicker by comparison and is so far much more sane.

By the way, I see you changed Ray "Wise" to "Sage" in your credits, and listed the "Man from Another Place" (aka the dancing dwarf) as "Rumpelstiltskin". And was I imagining it, or did you actually have no gag credits last week?

 

[Mad-Pac]

Yes, perhaps I was a little unkind to this part of the show. I'm afraid I was affected by the new episodes airing on SHOWTIME. They started out with a long, long, long scene similar to the dream sequence, so that when I saw this on this original it seemed trite and hackneyed already, although back then it was fresh and new. I'm afraid watching the new series will mess up the original at times, although I must admit the original series moves so much quicker by comparison and is so far much more sane

Honestly I don't know what possessed you to watch the sequel before TOS. But then to each his own.

By the way, I see you changed Ray "Wise" to "Sage" in your credits, and listed the "Man from Another Place" (aka the dancing dwarf) as "Rumpelstiltskin".

That was his role in DS9.

And was I imagining it, or did you actually have no gag credits last week?

And THAT'S the gag!\(Not to say I felt uninspired last week.)

 

[Brimfin]

Honestly I don't know what possessed you to watch the sequel before TOS. But then to each his own.

The sequel started a few weeks before we voted to do TWIN PEAKS. That was one of the reasons I voted for the original show.

 

[Mad-Pac]

The sequel started a few weeks before we voted to do TWIN PEAKS. That was one of the reasons I voted for the original show.

I see. I wanted to watch the sequel as well, but when it was first announced, I decided I would only watch it after I had seen the original series.

 

[Cloister56]

Wow I have fallen so far behind. I actually watched this episode in time for "This Friday" then work got a bit crazy. So here we go 2 episodes back to back.

It's interesting how different Benjamin Horne is as soon as his brother arrives. After the frivolity with the amazing bree sandwich we then see the darker side of both brothers. The death of Laura is quickly forgotten with the promise of a new girl at their local club.

Donna and James, ugh.

Yeah they are very awkward to watch. They have come together under strange circumstances and they probably feel guilty finding any joy after Laura. It's played well in this regard but still awkward.

We get our first trip to one eye Jacks. It seems to be a well staffed place considering the client list is probably very small. I can't imagine there are many rich patrons within range of the place.
Out of the two brothers, Benjamin shows why he is probably the more successful, oozing the charm both to the madam and the new girl.
I vaguely remember something about Ronette also working at the perfume counter, which it is mentioned as the source for the new girl, so I assume both her an Laura went through One Eyed Jacks. The two brothers now make the suspect list.

And on to suspect number 1 Leo. It's a good scene as the two high schoolers are quickly out of their depth, but again I don't buy Leo as a tough guy, he's very awkward.

Nadine, ok, she's strong girl but with poor rowing technique.

The TV showing "Invitations to Love" reminds me of the TV sets in the Max Payne games. With shows like "Lords and Ladies". I get the feeling Bobby is taking advantage of this situation. He's preying on the emotionally injured Shelley. His promise to kill Leo "if he ever does this to him again" rings hollow.

The bottle scene is very entertaining. I wonder if Cooper's spit post tasting is his response to the still not explained fish in the percolator. We then get a lecture on Tibet, I am guessing this was removed from the Chinese release of the series. Cooper is so earnest and enthusiastic throughout all this, that I think just about anyone would go along with this crazy sequence of events, just to see how it will play out.

What this scene really does is serve as an recap of the main characters and their relationship to Laura. It works brilliantly and really helps. After all of this Leo Johnson is the killer, I believe in the bottles plus he's got shifty eyes and is an asshole.

The scene with Donna and Audrey is interesting. The two girls seem to have not been too close before but they bond over Audrey's interest in Cooper and what she says about Laura.

We are then introduced to Albert and his sunglass wearing buddies. It seems Coopers little lecture on Tibet has interested Lucy as she has a book on the subject infront of her. Sheriff Truman comes out of this scene brilliantly as he stands up to Albert immediately. The thumbs up from Cooper was hilarious, I love these 2 together.

Back to Nadine "Cotton Balls", I don't know why but that cracked me up. I do feel for Ed, Nadine does appear to have mental health issues, I suspect she is manic/depressive.

Ah the percolator mystery continues. I wondered wether Pete was fishing (ho ho) to see if Catherine had put the fish in the percolator but it still isn't clear. It seems Catherine has been keeping 2 books on the saw mill, creative accounting I guess.

Leland then spins on the spot, it's not quite dancing but somehow despite this scene being very strange it is also touching seeing a father still deep in grief about his daughter and keeps Laura's loss central to the show.

Ok dream sequence:
We meet Mike, who I think lives above a convenience store and took his own arm off.
Bob appears to be the man who Sarah Palmer saw crouched by the couch.
Then there is dwarf in a sharp suit. I did wonder how they were talking as it sounded like backwards but I can understand them I found out it they talked backwards and then the scene was reversed. It works really well to give that disjointed dream like feeling.
So he has a cousin that looks like Laura Palmer, but I am not sure who he is.

Cooper awakes with AMAZING bed head and signs of with the great "No, it Can wait till morning" after revealing he knows who killed Laura Palmer. Is it not Leo then, what about the bottles of Tibet????

Really enjoyed this one. 8 groovy tracks to click your fingers to and jive out of 10

 

[Mad-Pac]

Wow I have fallen so far behind. I actually watched this episode in time for "This Friday" then work got a bit crazy. So here we go 2 episodes back to back.

Indeed, I was wondering where you were. Welcome back.

We get our first trip to one eye Jacks. It seems to be a well staffed place considering the client list is probably very small. I can't imagine there are many rich patrons within range of the place.

I figure it's like Richie Rich's personal McDonald's inside his mansion.