Arbitrary Law

Diane, it's 647 p.m. Welcome to another episode of Twin Peaks Peaks. We're going to be talking about arbitrary law, which is the ninth episode of season two. This is the one that I originally assumed was commonly referred to as the reveal.

Okay. My name's Ashley Brandt. There we go. There we go.

My name's Matthew Olson. I guess it hasn't been any longer since I watched this episode than since I watched any of the episodes. But I didn't remember it very well, evidently. So I can see how you would feel this one is more explicitly tying up the lower Palmer storyline as it were.

Thank you. Yeah. I'm also not trying to be like, okay, valid. No, it's just like, yeah, it's a good one.

I was already resigned to being all like, not into watching Twin Peaks for the rest of this podcast. This is a good episode. This is pretty good. Yeah.

I've got a piece of not revival news and not news recording this on November 4th. So we've officially passed by the spookiest time of the year, but I would like to wish a happy late birthday to Frank Silva and Michael J Anderson, a K, Bob, and the man from another place. They were both born on Halloween. How cool is that?

It's pretty cool. That means they're both Scorpios, which is extra spooky if you know Scorpios. Ashley, are you going to prepare star signs of Twin Peaks characters for us at any point? I am.

I'm working on it. We have to wait until we have an episode where there's going to be ample time for me to talk about that. Yeah. I mean, that's really any of them coming up.

But not this episode because we have a lot to talk about. Like what? Get us started. How about?

I have a big framing question here. Okay. Okay. So before we really get into the recap, well, we can recap it a little bit.

So by reveal, I was kind of thinking in terms of like Leeland Palmer's confession, which is what we get. Or Bob's confession. Bob's confession as he leaves the vessel that is Leeland's body, which we get at the end of the episode and the whole episode is sort of working through that. That piece of information and just narrowing down the suspects and kind of addressing.

I feel like all of the red herrings that the show has presented. Yeah. But through the course of working through who killed Laura Palmer, we also get a lot of explanation. We get some information dumps that tie up some loose ends.

And my big framing question that we don't have to answer right now is like, is this satisfying? Is this satisfying form of storytelling? Or is it worth it to keep the mystery alive, I guess? Is the question?

Would that have been more satisfying? That's, yeah. What do you mean would that? Oh, to keep the mystery alive and just stick purely to this, who did it, but we don't know anything else about the edges of that?

I'm mostly thinking about the explanation for Cooper's dreams. Oh. Oh, yeah. That actually reading into the symbols.

Yeah. Well. We don't have to answer that right now, but that's my big. Yeah.

That becomes hard when you consider the dream. Yeah. I don't know. It does kind of stick out in the episode.

The, this meant that and this meant that and so on. But I mean, it didn't bother me too much. It's pretty anti-lynchie, though. This whole episode is written by Mark Frost and two others.

Mark Frost, Harley-Payton and Robert Engles. Yeah. All familiar names. All familiar names, but none of them are David.

And this is definitely, I would say, a frosty end episode, but among the best of them. That's true. So the kind of info dumps in the trending towards the more kind of literal, I guess, kind of grounded and, and pacey actiony. Lots of, lots of good stuff happening packed into one hour.

Like that's, that's very much him and this works for me. This episode stuff. That's fair. This episode, we usually do this at the end, but this episode is directed by Tim Hunter, who directed the episode Cooper's Dreams from season one, which is the episode that you think it is if you don't remember what it is.

And Tim Hunter also has directed, like he's probably done a directing stand on like most TV shows. I'm looking up at the Wikipedia article now. Went to Harvard. Yeah.

Look at that dude. Okay. Yeah. Wait, wait, wait.

You're stealing my thunder here because most notably he's directed a bunch of episodes of Hannibal, a bunch of episodes of early Mad Men and the season one finale of Breaking Bad. That's cool. So he's like, and I think that in this episode, we really clearly see a distinct visual style, which I think is really chill. And that's probably why, you know, he's done the extended directing stance on, you know, Hannibal and Mad Men.

Here's some shows you didn't list, which I feel like you should have, especially the ones that are closer, I think, in terms of something better to Twin Peaks. We'll talk about this in a second. American Horror Story. Pretty Little Liars.

I hear a lot of people call pretty little liars, like Twin Peaks, but only with teenagers in it. House, you know? Okay. Here's the thing.

Here's the thing. Here's the thing. Do you have more shows? What was the other one I wanted to say?

What was the other one I wanted to say? Oh yeah, glee. Glee. Glee.

Definitely a good one sticking out there. Here's the thing, though, of the shows you read, he only directed one episode of the shows. Okay. Yeah.

Yeah. So you focus on what he was like on the books for. Yeah. And the season one finale of Breaking Bad because that's television history right there.

Also, I mean, that's got to think about how weird it was to direct that, not to turn this into a bad podcast, but wasn't that, like, wasn't that cut right because of that writer's right in like 2007, 2008? Yeah. So, you know, to direct when it's like, well, we have, I guess a script for this episode, now this episode's a finale, and we have to work around that. I don't know if that's how that worked.

I'm pretty sure it was because I remember hearing some Apocryphora about a certain character who is supposed to die, but whose death was averted because it cut the season short. Hasn't that kind of been dispelled? I don't know. Has it?

I thought that was a confirmed story. No, people like love telling that story and I tell that story all the time. I feel like, but it's not true. But I feel like Vince Gilligan has said that like when Aaron Paul came on set, like after they completed that first episode, he knew that they weren't going to kill Jesse.

Okay. Not anyway. Anyway, but how- This has been a piece podcast. The thing that I did want to pull out there was like how weird to like direct the season one finale, which is like one of the most recognizable episodes of Breaking Bad, but like not come back.

Um, I don't know. I don't really have a comment other than that. Being busy? Do you want other stuff?

I guess so. That's he, he is a busy man. Anyway, it's cool. It's cool.

Cool dude directed a good episode. Yeah. I love the Dutch angles in this episode. Yeah, it is one of my, one of my little notes to myself.

It's just like the first, the first shot is awesome. The first shot, the posse walking down the street in a line. That's great. Yeah, there's more dogs.

Yeah, exactly. But then it's just like two solubnids of Dutch angles after I'm like, whoa there. It's a lot. It's a lot.

Have you ever seen a clip from Battlefield Earth? Yes. That is, that is the Dutch angles movie. Right?

Yeah. I like, I was like- The Jangles in Scientology. Yes. Yes.

Yes. A beautiful meld. But I was like, oh, some Dutch angles. Yeah.

Too much of Dutch angles in one movie. And then I watched them compile a bunch of clips to talk about how bad Battlefield Earth is. And every scene is a Dutch angle. Every single scene.

And it kind of made me want to throw up. It was like that disorienting. Yeah. I think it's just on the edge of 2D disorienting here in this episode.

But on the right edge, not on the just push pass. Like God, can we please cut away to a different scene? And also like, don't want to cut away to a different scene because right after that intro, I would feel like the heaviest on the Dutch angles in the episode is Donna and James. In the dighter?

In the, in the, in the not, definitely not a double R. I also had that note. Yeah. Like what the hell?

What the hell? That was definitely like a different diner. That's a diner where you go when you don't want to run into anybody, you know, because it's always empty. And then if you're too gross teenager, you can like hold each other's hands and talk about how you did it last night.

Yeah. Everything in the world is all about you. God, you'll be together forever. Like I'm fine with Donna and James being together forever, as long as it's far away from here.

I don't think it's not on screen anymore. I have a line. I know that it says James would do this and I like forgot what that's in my friends too. I think he doesn't say a single not doofy thing this episode.

Like later on when they walk into the double R and Andy is saying, sorry, Joon on the solitaire, which I just like, I love that Andy is like co-opted to like kind of get the plot moving in a direction and actually give Donna something like halfway useful to do. But also it expresses his like weird sadness about the Lucy situation. I love that. I love that moment.

But James walks over and is like, what's this about? And it's just like clearly like look at your girlfriend's face. She's like very concerned about this thing. Like lots of fuck up shit's been happening.

Can you just like not come over with like this dumb like still eight hours later post-coital smile on your face? Oh, good. Yeah. Gross.

Gross, James. I hate being like one of those assholes who correct people's French. But what you said was I am a lonely friend. Oh, is it?

Yeah. What is it supposed to be? Um, is that you and Am? Salute, you said Ami.

I'm pretty sure that he says Ami in the episode. I'm pretty sure Andy says Ami in the episode. I just watched this clip like 10 minutes before we started the podcast. Go back, watch it, tell me if I'm wrong.

But I think the point is that he's saying it wrong. He didn't sound right. At the very least Andy doesn't speak French. So it's coming out wrong.

I didn't hear the hard like, but it's possible. Maybe. I don't know. I'm a lonely friend.

I'm also a lonely friend. So, saying. Um, I feel like maybe my note was about him just being really unapologetic about how they didn't visit Maddie the night before she left. Oh, yeah, that's also a mark against you.

Yeah, his mantra at this point is like, whatever it's all about me and Donna, my girl. Yeah. Laura Palmer, who? Maddie Ferguson, who?

Hey Donna, where'd you get those cool sunglasses from? Who's Laura? Uh, yeah. What did you?

Also, wait. So someone tried to date this episode, like in terms of the timeline of the show. And there is some discrepancy because at one point Cooper says that Maddie has been dead for two days, which does not seem correct. Yeah.

Given the timeline, it's usually like one day per episode of the show. Anyway, this is supposed to be about March 11th. So Laura's been dead for 18 days. Yikes.

Yikes. I know. And not only has James started hooking up with Laura's best friend, he also like came very close to hooking up with her identical cousin and is now back with her best friend. Yeah.

Well, her body's like not cold in the ground yet. Okay. Taking the imagery there to the point maybe a little too far. No, but I don't think we need to belabor the point that James is the worst and weird man.

Tip at iceberg, really. This guy. Oh boy. But hey, Donna is like kind of doing something apart from James for part of this episode.

Yeah. Isn't that something? Yeah. Something interesting.

Hey, actually, finally, a fucking the most roundabout way ever contributed to helping solve the fucking mystery of her dead best friend. Look at that. Round of applause for Donna. 17 episodes of detective work later.

17 episodes of detective work and one heart attack and one suicide later. They finally finally contributed something worthwhile. Congrats. Mystery kids.

You did it. You did it. You saved the day. Well, when you think about that way, the 18 days isn't like that's actually pretty impressive.

Yeah, in that light shirt. Sure. But like, did you did you realize that it took Audrey like four to out her dad as a potential suspect and like also the owner of a brothel like Audrey's doing way better. Audrey survives like an attempt on her life.

Okay. She did way more and in a certain way even like wrapped up a bigger body count than if we want to measure along that way. That's how we're measuring teen detective work now. Yeah.

I mean, honestly, did someone get stabbed in the back by Hawk for Donna? No. No, but Audrey, yes. Yes, very much so.

You know who's not in this episode? Audrey. Yeah. Sad.

I know. It's a bummer. We got a couple notable omissions. Ed's there.

Ed's in one of the pivotal scenes just kind of like we don't really know why he was invited. He's just chilling. Wait, let's go. Let's go.

Let's go around right background to Donna really quick, unfortunately. Let's just get through all the Donna stuff now. Let's just push through. Okay.

All of her scenes in this episode really remind me of Mahaland Drive. Okay. I can see the diner. The diner.

Walking up to Mrs. Tremons. That's like when they go to the apartment in Mahaland Drive. Mrs.

Tremon, the one we meet this time. Does she remind you of the later kind of apartments? Yeah. I wanted to ask you, is not Mrs.

Tremon or is the physically embodied Mrs. Tremon? Is she sporting a look? Do you consider that outfit to be a look?

Because I think it's pretty great. Yeah, I think it's a look. Nice. Good job.

This is Tremon. Without Audrey, that might be like the top look. What about wet hair Cooper? I don't know if that's a look.

Okay. Alright. Anyway, so Donna. Let's also talk about the fact that Donna is like the one time I came here.

This is who this person looked like to me. And then Cooper is like, but don't you deliver meals on wheels here? Has Donna just been neglecting this route for the past? I don't know.

Nine days? Possibly. Donna certainly doesn't care about a lot of her responsibilities, like her responsibility to her best friend to not go sleep with her boyfriend and also yell at her tombstone. So that's true.

Just saying is all. And then my last note from that scene. Why was Harold holding on to that? Why was he like, this is the piece of the diary that I should keep to myself and not tell anyone?

I don't know. I don't know. Uh, the leaving map behind is a note for Donna. Like to what end?

Uh, but the very least. At this point, like Harold has to know that Laura had better friends. Did Laura have better friends? Did, did she?

I want to believe that Bobby may have been a better option. Imagine how different that storyline would have been if it was Bobby going over to Harold Smith's apartment. I really did. Then he like gives him a pep talk.

Like, come on, man. He's just got to go outside. Feel the sun on your skin, man. I got my football.

I'm gonna do a little catch. Work on your spiral. Shelly's gonna bring over some pies from the double R. Yeah, that would have been way better.

Harold would be like chilling with Bobby and Shelly. Harold would not be dead. Yeah. Anyway, let's, let's go through all the rest of what Donna does this episode.

Let's get Donna off of our minds. So Donna puts together that maybe it's time to talk to Cooper because it's stream on, maybe knows something, doesn't find the real mystery on. Read the note. And that's like the extent of her usefulness.

Then, uh, almost gets murdered. But also like it's very Donna to just like not make the cut to get murdered. Wow. And maybe the harshest thing either of us have said about Donna.

Yeah, I was aware of that when I thought of it, but I still feel that way and I watched this episode several days ago. Wow. Again, a great, great scene for Ray Wise really, really just nailing that like, I have my thoughts on like the Leland Bob sort of dichotomy influenced by watching this episode again, but just nailing that like very creepy unsettling like on the edge of doing something terrible, uh, kind of attitude, I guess, like the anticipation. Also, also a great, a great, I will say like lynching moment of the inner cut with Bob screaming.

Yes. But then like Leland showing nothing on his face while I was in a creepy smile. Donna also breaks out jail cell Donna in the bottom of my room. Right.

Like why, why this look again? Why is she like casually like, Oh, I forgot I'm wearing your dead daughter's sunglasses. Yeah. Why does she light up a cigarette in his living room?

That seems like very rude to me. Why Donna? Why, why so many things? But then again, I'm not a total monster.

Donna's in danger. That's worrying. But then, ooh bad day for Donna. Find out put two and two together that your friend died, your other friend.

And finally now with the death of two of her friends. Three of her friends. Three of her friends. If we include Harold, well she was definitely scheming on Harold the entire time.

That's true. But let's give Donna the benefit of the death. I mean, not like she wasn't scheming on Maddy. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. When it's Donna not scheming. Okay. Death of identical cousins.

Finally it seems like Donna is like actually like feeling the impact of the death of one person now that now that there's a trail of bodies and gets real sad but not as sad as James who is just going to totally abandon everything he said about staying together forever and you know, purity, love, light, all that and just write off on his dumb motorcycle. Good riddance, right? And then yeah, well they have this conversation. We could have helped her how.

We could have helped her how. I forget who is who in this scenario. The point is they totally could have helped her had they gone over to the Palmer House like they said they were going to do and then Maddy wouldn't have gotten murdered. Well, that's it for James and Donna this episode, right?

We don't have anything else to rail on them about, right? I've been kind of solid minutes of that. Start of a grand new chapter in James's life. Oh yeah.

Oh yeah. I actually enjoyed a little bit more. Who knows? Oh, it was it was was it James saying we could have helped her.

It was. And then Donna being like, no, we couldn't know. Okay. Okay.

My next note is James is developing some sense that he and Donna are not the protagonist of the show. All right. Finally 18 episodes and whatever. All right.

We're done with them. Yeah. What do you want to talk about? What do you want to hop to next?

I was going to talk about Albert's back. That's huge. Albert's back. Also, like just always the greatest and now is very serious and very much like maybe not a true believer, but definitely believes that Cooper has what it takes to get this shit done and done right.

And I love Miguel Ferris kind of like the writing there is good for Albert. And also just his kind of like delivery and portrayal of like he really sells that trust that he has in Cooper. Unlike other friends that could be named. Well, Harry's going through some stuff.

And I mean, I made a special note of that. Harry is in his in his dark, doubter phase. And I think on the point of what you said last week about not getting enough like time spent with individuals to really see them kind of work through this internal stuff that's going on. Harry all of a sudden is just like, no, I don't know about this guy is like, or like, man, that was weird.

Wasn't it? It's like, well, Harry, what angle are you putting this from? And we don't see that he's like probably bummed. And that's like the explanation for it is that he's like, that's real and he's like projecting.

He's just projecting. But yeah, without that it does just make him seem like kind of a downer and a bit of a bit out of the loop in these scenes. It comes off as very like spirit in the woods. Great.

I draw the line at, I don't know, the Tibetan method. Yeah, kind of arbitrary. Well, anyway, anyway, Albert is around, which means Miguel was able to film for this episode. Thank God.

Yeah. But, like, just little touches, little touches. We also have the results of the blood test. It has been one to two days, depending on who you believe.

Well, it's just because, you know, Doc is, uh, doc Hayward's just so busy all the time. He's the only one who knows how to do it. That's the real delay. Yeah.

But got the final result of the blood test and then. Doc Hayward has a pal around at the police department all day and then do his doctor stuff at night. Or the reverse. It's a difficult life for Doc Hayward.

Another blood test is mentioned, but I guess maybe we'll get to that later on. I want to get to that later on. Okay. because oh my god, that scene.

Gosh, there's a lot of stuff. Let's talk about the fact that Mike, one-armed man has been in this state for a couple days now and is in a really bad way. Yeah, someone should administer some medication. Yeah, I side with a sentiment of, yeah, he needs to have some medication at this point and even him right out.

But really great. I mean, he's got to sell some shoes. He's not making a living right now. Yeah, I did that too.

Yeah, are they gonna comp them for a couple days worth of selling boots for the struggles, helping the department out? Who knows? Maybe Gordon bought a bunch of shoes from Mike. I really thought that.

While Mike was Mike. You have to imagine that no matter what the nature of Mike's possession is he probably kind of sees through the one-armed man's eyes when he's not in full control. So he's probably like, yes, this is a very finely made boot. What size are you?

And then Gordon Cole's like, I'm a size 12 and a half if you got it. Sometimes, sometimes just 12 if they run a little large, but no smaller. Okay, I've got something for you here. Probably sell at least a couple pairs of boots.

Probably not what he's trying to probably use is more focused on killing Bob. You know what just occurred to me? This is not totally related. Is the judge and the prosecutor still in town?

I don't think so. I don't think so. I think they're gone. And all the prosecutor has wallet.

Yes, we learned in the last episode. But they showed, did they mostly just my curiosity? Did they do a circuit? Did they do an arraignment?

And then they go through a set of trials and a specific path. And then they kind of work their way back around. Is that how this is working? You're the one with a lawyer, dad.

So you tell me how a circuit judge would work. Okay, my dad's not live in a county where there's one judge driving around the whole county. He's using me mad on something. The city.

In courts and bars. I was like, I don't know, he better. I don't know having any speculation either. I just know that his life is pretty dope.

He travels around, is one of Bego, and drinks weird looking drinks. And it has great speeches. I guess the real question is like, is the judge so busy that he has to leave between the arraignment and the trial because he has other stuff to do? There's probably other spooky murder trials happening in every other city in the Pacific Northwest.

It was 1989, you know. He just holds a misdemeanor gorgon once a week in each town. Am I wrong in this idea or does the Pacific Northwest have a disproportionate amount of serial killers? You know?

I'm gonna look this up later and then I'm gonna be up in four in the morning. I definitely think that there was like, a famous serial killer in Washington. There was a DB Cooper. I'm not gonna be up with a ton of stuff.

I feel like there are a lot of killers in Los Angeles. Yeah. A lot of people killed in New York, but I don't know if there are like, a lot of killers in New York. I feel like New York is where you get killed and it's always unsolved.

And the circumstances are super mysterious. That's how you get murder by serial killer in New York. You get murder by serial killer in LA. You're like one of many, but that shit's gonna get solved.

Yeah. And it's gonna be turned into like a lifetime movie later. Yeah. Well, the other thing is like in New York and LA, there are more people of color.

Whereas this fictional town in the corner of Washington. And people love to freak out about white people getting murdered is what I'm saying. Okay. And there are a lot of white people in the Pacific Northwest.

Yes, very, very many. Go to Embers. Anyway, what else can we chat about this episode? That really great Frank Silver moment that you've already pulled out.

Leland says to Donna, can we have this dance? Or maybe we have this dance? Which is like our first home in a movie and then using the Pearl to refer to himself. Interesting.

I didn't pick up on that really. I just thought it was formal. They couldn't afford a wonderful world in this episode, I guess. They were just wanted to go for something different.

They were a full budget. Yeah. 30 seconds of that. Let's just talk about the big scene.

The big scene. Well, I mean, the big roadhouse scene. Yeah. I love that, I mean, Cooper's approached this one and is just like, well, I don't fucking know.

Let's just get everybody get out of the roadhouse and maybe something will happen. Just like literally every man in the town. Yeah, pretty much. All the suspects.

And I think the book house boys are there for security. Okay, that would explain it. But like they deleted the scene where they explain that. For a time they had to cut up.

That makes sense though. At first, like I was watching the scene and I didn't remember the exact progression of it. Which is silly because, oh my God, it's a great pivotal scene. It's really good.

But for the idea that maybe they have to recreate the kind of circumstances of the other night in the roadhouse when Cooper had the vision and saw the giant. Like, it's definitely like there's a shade of that because that's other than Cooper's hotel room. That's where the giant has been known to appear to him. So, you know, go there.

Obviously if you need to talk to him. But I was like, oh yeah, this is like the log lady come through the door. Nah, it's Major Briggs being the best. Oh my God.

It's Major Briggs. Some really good entrances. Realizing fully his role as a great, and I think under-appreciated Twin Peaks character. And a conduit for weird shit.

Yep. Just the best. But there's like a series of great entrances. Bobby is so happy.

Bobby and Leo. Oh my God. And Hawk is like pushing the chair. And then, Cooper directs Leo or Bobby to take Leo's chair.

And then he like kind of rides Leo's chair. Like a shopping cart. And he's like, Hawk, give yourself a raise. Which is like, oh, but also like, it's Bobby.

I love it. I like that we start with Richard Bamer with Ben. Just sitting dejected. A ruined man.

Who recently realized that his lover is blackmailing him and is dressed in yellow face. Yeah. Oh shit, we skipped right over that. And frankly, that's kind of OK.

That's fine. They're just up to their nasty foot shit again. And Ben is a ruined man. That's all we need to know.

Yeah. Not in a good way. Oh, God. And that's the last we see at Tajramar.

I think. Thank God. I think this is like Piper Laurie was credited as both Catherine and Hajomora at the beginning of this episode. I don't know if you saw that.

Just say Catherine. Just remember that several episodes ago, people were arguing about whether Hajomora was Catherine or not. I mean, TVs were worse then, but they weren't that bad. They weren't that bad.

It's not like TVs were so bad. You couldn't see something racist happening. It's like, wow, really once we reached the HD 1080p, as you can really see the racism and sharp contrast to the not racism. But before that, it was just a muddled mess.

It was a great area. No, it wasn't. It wasn't though. But anyway, most importantly, Major Briggs rolls up with a waiter from when Cooper got shot.

Yep, just by pure coincidence. They look so happy to be hanging out. They probably had a great conversation in the car on the way over here. Yeah, probably stopped for some milk and gum, which has handy.

Yeah, Hank Warden, again, super great as the world's most a crap at room service waiter slash. So here's a question I got that we can dwell on for a while, or maybe we just won't have much to say. Do you think that the, what do you think the role of the waiter is as we've seen thus far? We threw this episode or up until this point in the scene?

Through this episode, we see Mike and we see Leeland slash Bob. And there's a clear connection there in terms of possession. But this waiter happens to always be around acting all weird, and then the giant appears. Or vice versa, the giant appears.

And you realize the waiter was sitting at the bar as it happened a couple of episodes ago. What do you think, does this map to any kind of supernatural happenstance or relationship that you know from other fiction or so forth? Do you think it is like the possession of Leeland in a way, or by Bob in a way, or do you think it's of another nature? I will say that Mike says that the giant is known to them.

But that implies some kind of like distance to me. Well, it's a good question. I mean, we know it's not like within this world the same mechanism as Bob and Mike, because Bob and Mike occupy different bodies and different vessels of different people, right? Whereas like the waiter and the giant are distinct.

We're not doing jump cuts between the two. We're like, they're in the same position and interacting with the same person or what have you. But do you think that there's a chance that they are the same person? I think they're definitely connected.

I kind of wonder, because they're dressed similarly is the other thing. And there's, I think a complimentary nature to like the giant stature and the sort of like frailty of the waiter. So I sort of, my mind would go to like honestly like an astral projection. Like the giant is the astral projection of the waiter.

I can see that. And Cooper's able to like, come you in on that level. Yeah. And there's the other thing that we have to consider, which is we have the giant and then we have the man from another place.

We have the dwarf. That's true. I think a little person is. Right.

I mean, they say dwarf on the show. I know that that's not accepted, accepted, open-clature. Not verbiage, verbiage. Verbiage is for verbs though.

That's your grammar lesson from Madelson. But yeah, so I mean, there's maybe just by way of the kind of blunt, very hit you over the head contrast in stature there. Like trying to say that they are either alike or very different. I don't know.

Like from different origins perhaps. But there's something human about the giant though, because he can not human but like earthly about the giant, because he can interact physically with Cooper and take Cooper's ring. And take Cooper's ring. He can also turn into like fucking ball lightning as we've seen.

Do we haven't seen like, Mike or Bob do that? So who knows? Who knows? But the waiter seems very necessary for like the giant to appear is what's important in this game.

Yeah. Well, I also love that. I mean, the waiter is necessary because the waiter just pops out the gum, hands it to Leland, and then the waiter delivers that line. That gum you like is going to come back in style.

And it's like, bing, like, it's almost like you don't even need the shades of the, like, I mean, obviously what's happened is that Cooper has had this shared dream evidently with Laura Palmer. Which was covered in the note that Harold held on to selfishly. Yes. But so like Cooper recalls the dream.

And like when we see that scene, he recalls it pretty vividly. But does he quote the gum line then? No. Because he's talking about Laura.

Yeah. So like maybe it's just like, you know, it's like when you actually have a dream. And you're like, I remember roughly what happened. And you remember that people were saying things.

But after the fact, you're just like out of law. So like, I don't remember what was actually being said. Well, and the gum thing happens really early in the dream. Yeah.

So that happens. And of course then he's giving it directly to Lee and almost just to say like just to like point the finger. But yeah. And like no one feels that strongly about gum.

He's like, oh, only a demon would feel something about gum. Especially cinnamon gum. It's fucking red cinnamon gum. Exactly.

But bing, hooray. Mystery finally solved. Now characters in the show know what's going on, not just the audience. But wild and crazy.

But holy shit. Also the ring is back. Like the ring has manifested itself. If you are watching this show at this point and you're a hairy Truman thing about this whole thing, you think like, oh, this must be the crazy vision.

There's something. Not Cooper's not asleep in this moment. He's not like wiggin' out or anything. His ring literally falls to the ground in front of him.

And unless you like really want to stretch and be like, maybe like, I don't know, like fell out of his pocket. And this is just like, no. I'm just gonna come from the ceiling. There is some spooky genuine shit going on.

And I can't believe that the sheriff of town is in such a bad way that he's ignoring like 40 plus years of experience with this spooky shit. Especially when it's all coming to a head right now. Spirit in the Woods is one thing. Ring operating out of nowhere, another thing.

OK. OK. This is also where we get that great shot of Cooper giving the films up. Yeah, I saw that.

And I remember that you replied to someone's comment with that. With a GIF of that. And I was like, that is a very different connotation now. Yes.

Very, very different. Don't worry. I saw the murder. Pretty clever way they used to get Leeland back to the station though.

It was kind of transparent. Yeah. Just because of like, you know, Leeland, remember your murder charge disregarded your appointment to be Ben's lawyer. Yeah.

Yeah. Accompany as to the jail. Well, I mean, maybe they could just pretend that they're being nice because they're not going to be like, all right, Ben, I think they actually thought it was Ben. It might be at least a minor kindness to say, Ben, come back to the jail and also call your dumb brother Jerry because you have a kind of better lawyer than all your.

The boy genius, I believe, Ben calls on this episode. Poor jare. I mean, at least he got into Gonzaga, right? He might have graduated last in his class, but at least he got in.

That's true. That counts through something, right? He had to make some kind of threshold. Anyway, forcing Leeland slash Bob into the cell, which I love.

I mean, just shit. If there was any doubt in your mind, Bob's reaction just going completely. Going completely, yeah. Just the raw anger.

But it's a good move because they have no forensic evidence at this point. Yeah. Oh, yeah. So the confession is really the only thing they're going to go on.

Obviously, in like the real world of law enforcement, the idea of having a confession and no forensic evidence is pretty problematic. But that's how we do things five miles south of the Canadian border. So what are your thoughts on both Bob's confession and then Leeland's confession? And I mean, Leeland's passing.

What do you feel about these scenes? And what do you think the implications are? It gets into a really weird territory. Can I take a side bar for a second?

Sure. So there's a show on Sunday that's called Rectifier. Are you familiar with it? Not at all.

OK. One of those shows that was engineered to garner critical acclaim. OK. But the whole idea is that the protagonist has just been released from death row in Georgia.

And he's getting a retrial for a crime that he was convicted of at the age of 17. And the crime that he's been charged with is raping and murdering his high school girlfriend. And early on in the first episode, you get this moment with the witnesses who basically put him in jail where they're like, oh, now that he's out, we got to get our story straight or regroup or whatever. Which I took when I was watching the show to mean like, the protagonist didn't commit these crimes.

Whether or not he knows that because the protagonist doesn't clearly remember that night. It's like a whole thing, whatever. But apparently, other people have been interpreting that as like, oh, maybe he did. Maybe he didn't.

We don't know. That's the point of the show. But I feel super uncomfortable with the idea that we're supposed to be like sympathizing with a character like that. If that is the conceit of the show that you don't know whether or not he did it.