Jones is a weird character. In both the previous episode and this one, she is oddly cheerful exacting Eckhardt’s posthumous revenge. She doesn’t seem upset at all that he died, and especially with the puzzle box stuff, it feels almost like Eckhardt dying was part of his plan all along. Eckhardt and especially Jones are really undeveloped characters, almost pure archetypes with no actual human motivation driving them.
There’s a lot of really well-executed comedy in this episode, which is something the show generally wasn’t doing so well at this point. The material in this episode (like the repeated hangover remedy shtick) is motivated by character and situation, as opposed to dumb slapstick. I wish the show had stuck to this type of humor more in later season 2. In fact, other than a mercifully brief Nadine & Mike pop-in, the “sitcom” plots are completely absent in this episode!
My continuing mission to keep track of what Coop and Gordon do and don’t know at this point...Cooper is apparently surprised that Earle worked with Blue Book (which is a separate operation from Blue Rose, so maybe he is sincerely surprised...but he might also be acting for Harry). Gordon claims that all Earle’s activities with Blue Book are redacted...do we believe him? Cooper mentions Major Briggs, and Gordon immediately redirects the conversation to talk about sausages and going to get breakfast. He’s a slick one, that Gordon. My guess is that Dale/Gordon/Garland still haven’t had their “Judy” talk, but I do believe Cooper has told Gordon about Garland’s work with Blue Book, and Gordon is trying not to say too much in front of Harry and Will.
I hate to be a broken record, but Cooper tells Diane it’s Thursday. Donna, Audrey, Mike and even Nadine are all skipping school. Sigh.
TR really enriches the “good Ben” storyline in S2. Knowing that it’s a truly sincere lifelong character development, and not just a plot gimmick, gives a lot more depth to everything Ben says and does. The material with Eileen really informs Ben’s arc with Beverly and his refusal to put himself in the middle of another marriage after destroying both his own family and the Haywards’. The scene with Audrey is one I’ve never really liked because it doesn’t adequately address all that’s gone on between Ben and Audrey, but again, Ben’s remorse feels much more real to me in light of what we see of his lonely existence in TR. His vow to build a life of happiness for the family is poignant when the audience is armed with the knowledge that it’s too little too late, and he is going to lose the wife and children (and the not-yet-existent grandchild) he has finally learned to appreciate and value far too late in life for it to matter. In TR, L/F really transformed Ben from a soap opera cliché (albeit a really delightful one) into a tragic figure, and the “pine weasel” arc suddenly feels much richer for it. It’s also nice that he at least mentions Laura.
Likewise, the Donna/Will scene feels much stronger in light of the fact that this isn’t just an artificial conflict to give the characters something to do. We now know from Mark’s books that Eileen’s affair with Ben tore the Hayward family apart and sent Donna on a sort of spiral downward. Warren Frost’s performance in that scene has a resigned sadness that I hadn’t really appreciated before, and Dunham shoots it beautifully, making nice use of the staircase and stained glass windows on that set. The stakes of this whole storyline feel so much higher knowing that L/F committed to the reality and the aftermath in TR and the books. Strangely, in this go-round, I feel more invested in this corner of the universe than I do in the Earle stuff, at least at this juncture.
Whenever people complain that Annie wasn’t in TR, I sort of cynically point out that “How’s Annie” was just a memorable phrase to show that Cooper wasn’t really Cooper: Annie’s fate isn’t the point of the S2 cliffhanger, and her character was only in Dale’s life for a few days 25 years ago, and isn’t truly that important to his arc. Well, I have to say, I always forget how much I truly like Annie and her dynamic with Dale. She does seem to really make a huge impact on him in an admittedly very brief period, and part of me actually does wish TR had found a place for him to acknowledge her in some way, even just with a line of dialogue.
This old post of mine in the Part 17 thread discusses the evolution of the various symbols/glyphs/tattoos/etc. in the mythology:
viewtopic.php?f=31&t=3777&p=112813&hili ... e”#p112813 It still drives me nuts that Dale’s napkin drawing uses diamonds as opposed to the triangles on Briggs’s tattoo. Really damn sloppy, as Duke Leto says in Dune.
Lynch’s pronunciation of “anticdote” cracks me up. Ontkean is really really charming as he sweetly mocks his twitterpated friend (turning the tables after Coop calling out Harry/Josie in Episode 1 and Ed/Norma in Episode 3). I think that might be my favorite Ontkean scene in the whole show, although the scenes of him waiting for Coop to emerge from the Lodge in Episode 29 are up there too.
Is this the only time we see Dale wearing glasses?! (Other than his disguise in Episode 6/7.)
As a career editor, Dunham had a good eye for where deleted footage from old episodes might fit. He squeezes in a few shots of the Johnny deleted scene from Episode 1 here, just as he used discarded Pilot footage of James riding his bike at the start of Episode 18. It gives some nice context to the Ben/Audrey scene, reminding us that Ben’s family extends beyond Audrey (something that’s often easy to forget), and that Ben’s adult son will never be his RFK.
It’s also funny hearing Ben talk about Jack and Bobby, given that L/F’s first aborted collaboration was the controversial Goddess project (eventually retitled Venus Descending—“The babe without the arms”!), which allegedly painted the brothers in a less than stalwart light (see also Dale’s musings in Episode 1).
I have to say, Ben’s carrot just doesn’t give him quite the same flair as the cigar, which felt more like an appendage than a prop. I do love him pulling a carrot out of his jacket pocket and handing it to Jack.
EDIT: Almost forgot!
This episode in Dale’s Diet:
— “Surefire cure for a hangover, Harry. You take a glass of nearly frozen unstrained tomato juice, you pop a couple of oysters in there and you drink it down. Breathe deep. Next you take a mound, and I mean a mound, of sweetbreads. Sauté ’em with some chestnuts and some Canadian bacon. Finally, biscuits. Big biscuits. Smothered in gravy. Now here’s where it gets tricky. You’re gonna need some anchovies—” (Harry runs off to vomit, which was clearly Cooper’s intended goal)
— Cooper offers Harry further hangover aid: “Bicarbonate of soda. The ultimate digestive aid. Harry, quaff in good health.”
— Coffee at the Double R (Annie: “Cup of deep black Joe?” Cooper: “You bet”); he orders a turkey sandwich, whole wheat, lettuce, dollop of mayonnaise; Annie refills his coffee
— He appears to be carrying a Granny Smith apple when talking to Diane as he enters the Great Northern dining room; he pockets it when he spots Annie