Review S02E16 “The Condemned Woman”

[Mad-Pac]

Aired Thursday 9:00 PM Feb 16, 1991 on ABC

While Cooper and Earle plot their next moves, Josie is forced to meet with Thomas Eckhardt, which leads to a shocking and ambiguous twist.


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
Peggy Lipton ...Norma Jennings
James Marshall ...James Hurley
Everett McGill ...Big Ed Hurley
Jack Nance ...Pete Martell
Kimmy Robertson ...Lucy Moran
Joan Chen ...Jocelyn Packard
Piper Laurie ...Catherine Martell
Eric DaRe ...Leo Johnson
Michael Horse ...Deputy Tommy 'Hawk' Hill
Kenneth Welsh ...Windom Earle
Billy Zane ...John Justice Wheeler
Miguel Ferrer ...FBI Agent Albert Rosenfield
David Patrick Kelly ...Jerry Horne
Chris Mulkey ...Hank Jennings
Wendy Robie ...Nadine Hurley
David Warner ...Thomas Eckhardt
Dan O'Herlihy ...Andrew Packard
Michael J. Anderson ...Man From Another Place
Ron Blair ...Randy St. Croix
Frank Silva ...Bob


WRITING CREDITS

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

Tricia Brock ... (written by)


DIRECTED BY

Lesli Linka Glatter

 

[Brimfin]

Tonight ends the sad saga of Jocelyn “Josie” Packard, and what a sad saga it has been. She came from humble beginnings, with a father-like mentor that she slept with. She was married to a man she didn’t love, Andrew, and arranged to have him killed - only to be blackmailed by the man she hired to kill him because he went to prison for killing someone with his car while speeding away from the crime scene. She was also pursued by another ruthless man she didn’t love, Thomas Eckhart, and fled from him to Twin Peaks only to be dragged back by another man, Jonathan, whom she then killed. She is also the one who shot Agent Cooper in the season finale because she was afraid he’d figure that whole mess out. But wait, there’s more. Catherine got wind of the whole thing and forced Josie to be her maid. She was angry with Josie for killing her brother Andrew. Only he wasn’t really dead. Catherine told Josie to throw herself on the mercy of Thomas, but she took a gun just in case. But just before Thomas went to meet her, Andrew showed up to tell him that he was still alive because Josie had betrayed him, making him really mad now. When he went to see Josie, she called Coop for help and he arrived just after a gunshot was heard. He burst in the room to see both of them apparently dead on the bed. But then Andrew stood up – only to reveal a gaping wound in his side and then collapse and die. Josie confessed to shooting Dale, but before she could do so again, Harry arrived to point his gun at her knowing the truth about her. Harry was the one bright spot in Josie’s life – someone she apparently really did love - and now even he was turned against her. Rather than show her putting a bullet into her lovely head, she conveniently just dropped dead of sheer misery. But even that wasn’t the end. Her spirit became trapped in the handle of a dresser drawer – I kid you not. (Maybe I should say “I kid you knot” since it was a wooden dresser.) What can I say, Josie? It really sucked to be you.

The whole trouble with the entire Josie storyline was that it was sporadic and confusing with Josie disappearing for weeks at a time throughout. Oddly enough, she had special billing near the end of the credits but not a lot of screen time to show for it. At the time she had been in an Oscar-winning movie THE LAST EMPEROR which was frankly vastly overrated and quickly forgotten about in the long run, but that may have been the reason for her billing here. (Piper Laurie, on the other hand, was a well-known movie actress with 2 Oscar nominations for THE HUSTLER and CARRIE so her billing was easily understandable.) Since they did the whole Bob and the Dancing Dwarf bit after her demise, she still may end up showing up as a ghost character or something. We’ll see.

Meanwhile, James is completely clear of any murder charges and Donna is willing to forgive both his running away and his shacking up with the widow. Nevertheless, he still can’t bring himself to come back to Twin Peaks. He’s got to find himself, or something. Yup, still a jerk. And Nadine told Ed she’s in love with Mike and wants to break up. Poor Ed. The tears were streaming down his face as he ran outside, did cartwheels, shouted “Thank you, God!”, and then ran to the diner and proposed to Norma. Trouble is, I have a suspicion that Mike’s feelings for Nadine aren’t mutual and she may end up getting rejected by Mike, making her revert back to her old self and returning Ed’s life to misery.

And finally, that paper we saw Windom Earle tearing up last week was a poem/possible riddle that he sent in three pieces to Donna, Shelley, and Audrey who met, put it together, and wonder what it means. Pete gave Coop a chess move to slow Windom down to buy more time to find him before he kills someone else.

Couldn’t really get too worked up over this episode. I’ll give it 6 Little Pine Weasels, a rare species of weasels going extinct that Ben plans to use to halt construction on the Ghostwood project.

Best dialogue:

Hank: (to Norma) You’re his whore.
Norma: I’d rather be his whore than your wife.

Truman: (about Windom Earle): Never heard of a man who murdered by the rules.