Twin Peaks (ep 2-3) dir. David Lynch
Last week was the pilot, and I mostly spoke about the series as a whole and its place in tv history. But now that we’ve met all the players, things start to move, and the characters come into focus, so lets look at a few. Lynch’s fascination with classic Hollywood is on full display. Piper Laurie, as Allyson Martell, is the sister of the deceased owner of the Packard Mill, and is deeply resentful that her brother’s foreign bride, Josie (Joan Chen) inherited everything. It’s clearly written as, and Laurie plays her as, a roll for Betty Davis at her height, unafraid to be powerful, unlikelable, and overtly sexual. Contrast that to Grace Zabriskie as Sarah, mother of poor murdered Laura Palmer. She is all brittle emotion and HUGE expression, echoing Joan Crawford as the suffering mother in Mildred Pierce and playing in to Crawford’s own personal"Mommie Dearest" reputation with absolutely crazed, outsized reactions. Ray Wise as Leland, Laura’s dad, is similarly unhinged, and their extreme behaviors clash with the genuine grief they convey, tipping things into odd, uncomfortably emotional territory, where you want to laugh and know you shouldn’t.
Then there’s the kids, with Sherilyn Fenn doing her best naughty-schoolgirl in plaid skirts and sweaters, making Marilyn Monroe eyes to all the inappropriately grown men. James Marshall’s soulful biker is names “James”, and I’m suprised they didn’t just make his middle name “Dean” to hammer the point home. Meahwhile Dana Ashbrook is doing his best ‘crazed Jack Nicholson’ as the volcanic Bobby.
There’s other stuff going on, too… Lucy (Kimmy Robertson) is endlessly delightful as the ditzy and earnest police dispatcher, along with Andy, her far-too-sensitive-to-be-a-cop boyfriend.
And then there’s Kyle MacLachlan, with his slightly manic grin, a helmet of hair Bryll Creme’d to a shiny lacquer finish and his near obsession with coffee and cherry pie. It’s a performance from another dimension.
There’s so many more: Russ Tamblyn as the hippy dippy but oddly sinister Dr. Jacoby, Ed, Jame’s uncle, and his wife Nadine, a crazed harridan with an eyepatch obsessed with silent drape runners. For goodness, sake, The Log Lady!
The 3rd episode also marks the first appearance of the Red Room, with the odd backwards speech and where the plot really begins to take on the explicitly mystical, semi-consipritorial tone that would carry through the rest of the series.
next week is eps 4, 5, and 6, with the final 2 being the week after.
) is reactivated after a nice lil family buys and moves into it, and that is manipulating its way to be a part of the family by gaslighting the mom (of course! 
), which the entire family believes (of course!! 
Ain’t nobody got time for that.
