Episode 11

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Mr. Reindeer
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Re: Episode 11

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Will/Warren is by far the funniest part of the Andy/Lucy shenanigans. He's the perfect stand-in for the viewer: emotionally drained after the tour de force Leland/Ray opening scene, and utterly exasperated to have to be talking about Andy's junk right now. His disdainful, "Put it in a brown paper bag. I'll wait in the car," is a thing of beauty.

I get the sense that the script for this episode was more slapped-together than usual due to Blackie injecting Stahl with heroin in the Lynch/Frost restroom (presumably with Phillip Gerard shooting up in the next Stahl -- er, stall). The pace is glacially slow for some scenes that don't merit it, as if they're padding a light script (or Stahling -- ack, sorry). However, Sternwood is a perfect Frostian creation; wish we'd seen more of him.

I'd really be curious to read the blood-soaked Stahl draft, or at least to learn which elements of it ended up onscreen (I'm sure SOMETHING did). Perhaps M. T. Wentz was some heroin-inspired demon that the show become stuck with due to the tight production timeline?

Has anyone actually read Stahl's book? I don't want to give him money, but I'd love to know what specifically he said about the experience.
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Jonah
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Re: Episode 11

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Not much to add on a recent rewatch.

Great opening sequence - and it really foreshadows Leland's capture in Episode 16.

The MT Wentz mystery here is a little fun and intriguing - and I love the eager receptionist at the Great Northern. Pity she didn't get a larger side role in the series rather than Lana, for example. (Edit - But she does return (!) 25 years later in a small role as a doctor in The Return.)

I'm still confused why Renault thinks Cooper killed one of his brothers? Subsequent episodes haven't cleared that up for me.

The Harold/Donna story is pretty good.

I like the Cooper/Ben scenes.

The Lucy/Andy subplot seems really at odds with everything else - more fitting to later in the season. But I like them so it's okay.

I love the scene with Maddy and Donna in the far booth at the diner. Don't think we've seen anyone sitting on this side before, have we? I like the way the camera pans around to reveal them, showing how all these little storylines are going on all over town.

I like the judge and his speech about shadow selves and Valhalla and how they have difficult jobs. I think this is his best scene.

The Josie/Harry stuff is okay. The passionate scene beneath the window panning up to show them being watched is very soapy but strangely effective.

And we get our first glimpse of Fumio Yamaguchi. Welcome back to Twin Peaks, Catherine!

I think Hank being attacked in the diner is one of the weaker closings.

Been rewatching these over the last few weeks but have delayed writing up my thoughts. Not sure what else to add. A pretty good episode all in all.
I have no idea where this will lead us, but I have a definite feeling it will be a place both wonderful and strange.
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Mr. Reindeer
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Re: Episode 11

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For some reason, I enjoyed this one a lot more than I have on prior viewings. Even the goofy M. T. Wentz stuff struck me as fun, and even the Andy “sperms” material gave me a couple of chuckles (mostly due to Kyle’s terrific straight man reactions...when Andy asks if he can go and Dale very seriously deadpans, “If you must” :lol: ). That storm really adds a great mood and elevates even the more mundane scenes. Sternwood is one of my favorite of the S2 pop-in characters.

It occurs to me that Cooper never meets either Leland or Sarah onscreen throughout the entire series until the end of E10, when he and Harry arrest Leland. It’s surprising that we never see him interact with the murder victim’s family at all until he’s arresting one of them. This also causes his interactions with Leland in this episode to be much more detached and impersonal than Harry’s, as they have no on-screen history. (EDIT: I somehow forgot the Episode 3 “dream souls” scene with Hawk, where Cooper of course walks Leland home.)

It cracks me up when Harold says it “seems appropriate” to read aloud from Laura’s diary. In what world, Harold, is callous invasion of a dead girl’s most intimate thoughts “appropriate”?! He’s a weird one, that Harold.

If Hawk is correct, Leland presumably hides the secret diary pages in the restroom stall door somewhere between the end of the prior episode and the beginning of this one.

This episode in Dale’s diet:
— Coffee in his FBI mug in the sheriff’s station waiting area while talking to Harry; he also has some donuts on the chair next to him which he is not seen eating (two jelly donuts, and two others which are mostly out of frame; one seems to have chocolate frosting and blue sprinkles, the other might be chocolate frosting with green sprinkles)
— Coffee in his FBI mug in the conference room (possibly laced with Irish whiskey; in the prior scene, Sternwood tells Harry to “break the seal on that Irish you stashed for me”)
— He has a glass of water while waiting at the Roadhouse (the bartender brings him a second one), and he plays with his food, making a design out of many peanuts and shells
— At the Roadhouse: “Harry, let me buy ya a beer”

If nothing else, the cringey masturbation material gives us some insight into the preferred coffee brand of the Twin Peaks sheriff’s station: Lucy is carrying a box full of Royal Kona Blend! Not what I would have guessed, but Dr. Jacoby would certainly approve!

For the curious: I finally got my hands on Jerry Stahl’s autobiography and glanced at the brief Peaks-related section to get his side of the story (as an aside, I found his writing style in the book pretty nauseating, just from the brief section I read). He talks about shooting up twice during the drive to the story meeting. He describes Mark as “one of those crisp, competent Anglo-Saxon fellows you had the feeling popped from the womb with a perfectly parted Princeton and white teeth.” He says the meeting was a “dictation session” and that Mark had laid the story out in such prodigious detail that writing the script would essentially amount to a game of connect-the-dots (it’s hard to tell if he’s complaining or not, since he was by his own admission unable to do even that). He admits to excusing himself to take a hit in the restroom, and describes himself as uncomfortably over-enthusiastic when he returned. Apparently when Mark started talking about Sternwood, Stahl started babbling about how his father was a federal appellate judge and the little details he could add to the script, like how the robes are dry-cleaned. He claims that Mark sarcastically said, “Hey everybody, Jerry’s sharing a little something personal with us! Isn’t that nice! You think we can keep going now, or do you have a few more little stories for us?” (This is presumably the passage that so upset Mark when he talks about it in Brad Duke’s book.) He talks about blowing the deadline while he shot nonstop speedballs and thought only two days had gone by when it was actually a week, and recalls trying to clean blood off pages without smearing the few thoughts he’d jotted down (material which he admits “was incoherent even before it was illegible”). And he recounts L/F’s courier showing up, and Stahl keeping him waiting at the door while frantically typing just to get something on a page to give him. Finally, he says he never heard from the TP crew after that, and says Tony Krantz reamed Stahl’s CAA agent for recommending him.

I’m still really curious how he came to be in INLAND EMPIRE!
Last edited by Mr. Reindeer on Wed Apr 22, 2020 6:19 am, edited 3 times in total.
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Mr. Reindeer
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Re: Episode 11

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Jonah wrote:
I'm still confused why Renault thinks Cooper killed one of his brothers? Subsequent episodes haven't cleared that up for me.
I don’t think he believes Cooper literally killed either, just that his presence is the cause of their deaths (remember that great if rather odd speech Jean gives in E20 about how Cooper brought the nightmare with him). From a purely causal standpoint, it is a fact that Leo killed Bernard because he got picked up by the Bookhouse Boys (including Cooper), and Leland only killed Jacques because Coop & co. arrested him, leading Leland to “believe” Jacques was the killer. So Cooper is indirectly responsible for both, and Jean would be aware of that. Their operations were running smoothly until he showed up.
I love the scene with Maddy and Donna in the far booth at the diner. Don't think we've seen anyone sitting on this side before, have we? I like the way the camera pans around to reveal them, showing how all these little storylines are going on all over town.
In E7 we see Norma over there doing paperwork while Hank sweet-talks her. I love the little transition camera move with the chocolate cake that bookends that Maddy/Donna scene, taking us in and out of that little corner. Holland definitely had some fun touches in his episodes.
I think Hank being attacked in the diner is one of the weaker closings.
While I’m not terribly invested in either character, there’s something jarring about seeing such violence in the cozy safe-space of the diner. I also find it really funny that Hank is in his jammies throughout. So is Hank just crashing in the kitchen because he has nowhere to go?
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Henrys Hair
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Re: Episode 11

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A few thoughts on the latest rewatch:

On first viewing, I remember thinking the ceiling tile shot was going to be Ronette's POV from her hospital bed.

Maddy seems to take Leland being arrested for murder in her stride.

Louis at the Great Northern is annoying, and the set-up of the MT Wentz sub-plot feels like the first thing in the series that doesn't quite work (for me, at least).

Richard's payment to Lucy almost prevented the Wally Brando scene in the Return. Personally I find the Wally Brando scene hilarious, although I know not everyone is enamoured by it.

There's a County Lumber Queen comp taking place in the Great Northern. Given that this is mere weeks before Miss Twin Peaks, you wonder how many beauty pageants the place has.

I think this is the first mention of Thomas Eckhardt.

Great peanut display at the Roadhouse from a nervous Cooper.

Would the fight in the diner not wake Norma? I'm assuming the Jennings house is out the back of the diner - otherwise it seems a bit strange Hank would change into his pyjamas before leaving work.
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Mr. Reindeer
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Re: Episode 11

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Henrys Hair wrote: Would the fight in the diner not wake Norma? I'm assuming the Jennings house is out the back of the diner - otherwise it seems a bit strange Hank would change into his pyjamas before leaving work.
I assume Norma lived somewhere else and isn’t at a comfort level yet of allowing Hank to sleep in the same house, so she is letting him crash in the diner back room.
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Re: Episode 11

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Mr. Reindeer wrote:
Henrys Hair wrote: Would the fight in the diner not wake Norma? I'm assuming the Jennings house is out the back of the diner - otherwise it seems a bit strange Hank would change into his pyjamas before leaving work.
I assume Norma lived somewhere else and isn’t at a comfort level yet of allowing Hank to sleep in the same house, so she is letting him crash in the diner back room.
That would make sense. It would also allow Hank more leeway to get up to some of his extra-curricular activities.
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