Day Two Hundred and Eighty-nine - Twin Peaks: Season 2, Episode 7, "J'ai une âme solitaire"

It's finally happened! BOB has been revealed... or, at least, BOB's host has been revealed. It only took, what... fifteen episodes (some of them being double-sized, like the pilot and second season premiere)?

That's not the full measure of the night, though, as the reveal (and subsequent murder of Maddie) only occurs in the final minutes. No, there's still plenty of other stuff to pad out the majority of the afternoon and evening's revels.

Leo gains a small ability to communicate despite his brain damage while Shelly and Bobby worry about bills and their lives as potential caretakers. Maddie spends her last day in town with her relatives and Norma is let in on the fact that Nadine thinks they're all teenagers again thanks to the post-suicide attempt regression. Audrey confronts her father about One-Eyed Jack's and immediately goes to Cooper, whose own investigation into Harold's suicide reveals parts of Laura's secret diary... which seems to hint at Ben Horne as being BOB, but oh, that would be too easy, wouldn't it?

I especially liked that we get a second big reveal... that Catherine finally feels safe enough (with Ben arrested and Josie gone to Hong Kong) to let Pete know that she's alive and has been masquerading as Tojamura.

But... BOB... now that's the revelation that we've all be waiting for. That it comes at the cost of Maddie is a shame, as I would rather she'd just have been able to go back to Montana, but it works as a morbid statement of murderous symmetry.

It's a brutal and experimental sequence, to say the least. I liked most of the mirror bits, though I could've done without BOB's face matted over Leland's for that giggle session. It was much more effective when the device was just BOB in the mirror and the two of them smiling. It's pretty much the same problem that I have with the chase around the living room. They do a pretty terrible job matching up the positions of both actors (Ray Wise and Frank Silva) as Lynch tries to go for a duality, flipping back and forth between personas during the sequence. Additionally, the spotlight was a terrible choice of symbolism, making it feel like a stage play instead of a mystical murder. For her part, I think Sheryl Lee did a fine enough job as the victim... though she could've fought back a bit more.

To be honest, I think what really did it for me in the episode was everything that went down in the Roadhouse.

We've got Coop, Truman, and the Log Lady staking out the joint because the Owls are in play there somehow, Julee Cruise is performing several haunting tunes, James and Donna are sharing a private moment, and The Giant comes a'calling. Lots of great stuff happening.

For one thing, I think the only adorable moment for the James/Donna love affair is Laura Flynn Boyle lipsyncing Julee Cruise. Then there's Carel Struycken's despondant warning, which Coop can't understand. The icing on the cake, methinks was the fact that both Bobby and Donna seem to have had their own visions or brushes with someone walking over their grave as Donna bursts into tears and Bobby looks like he's about to. I have to wonder what they saw, felt, or heard.

Great mix of the supernatural and the mundane here. Sure, there were a few boring bits (Leo, Nadine), but overall this is one of the strongest, most intense episodes of the series... high up there on the entertainment factor. It's a bit sad, really, as it's arguably all downhill from here. Final bright spots/reflections: no more Harold, no more Maddie, lots of supernatural shenanigans, good times had by all (save for Maddie).

But what was with that horse, man? Sometimes you just have to wonder about Lynch.

Until tomorrow, Potatoes~