3.10 Laura Is The One Considering it’s always been a prominent feature of Twin Peaks to explore the depths of pure evil, it’s impressive that Richard Horne is currently unquestionably the series’ most abhorrent character. When he was introduced to us, he was threatening to rape a girl and not long after that he mowed down a child in his car. We know what he’s capable of so anytime he’s on screen, there’s the potential for unadulterated cruelty. Yet, at the same time, he comes off like a snivelling little creep (recall the coin-flipping scene where he appeared to be quite intimidated). Every time Richard shows up, I’m simultaneously on edge and pissed off. At any rate, this episode inches us closer to revealing the origins of this awful little monster with one of the show’s most horrific scenes yet. Richard chokes his grandmother as her mentally disabled son Johnny writhes and moans on the ground, all the while his freakish, fishbowl/teddy-bear thing repeats, “Hello Johnny, how are you today?” It’s a pure Lynchian audiovisual nightmare symphony that I can’t exactly say I enjoyed but, well, it was certainly effective. Other than that, we got a lot of Dougie stuff. Annoyingly, Dougie (Coop) managed to go to a doctor and still not have his mental issues addressed. Instead, his wife just realised Dougie’s hot now, which led to a totally ridiculous sex scene. Yeesh. There were also some very, very drawn-out scenes of the casino owners planning to get revenge on Dougie. Some of it was funny (Jim Belushi makes a lot of good faces), but all that business with Candy was a real chore. And, goodness me, what a profane episode this was! The dumbest, filthiest line had to be, “You fuck us once, shame on us. You fuck us twice, shame on you, you’re dead!” The other reveals amazingly helped a lot toward making all the disparate threads we’ve seen up until this point start to congeal into a coherent whole. It was satisfying to see the weird box from the start of the series referenced. I had an inkling that Mr. C was the one who was paying for it and that’s now been confirmed. Also, we now know the true extent of how corrupt Chad (the jerk detective at the Twin Peaks Sherriff station) is. Lynch has always been big on presenting good and evil as absolutes. I have no idea how Chad landed his job among all those other altruistic cops, but it makes sense for the universe as Lynch presents it. The evils of the world find each other and those who are good work together to fight against them. //
