Episode 2 (Twin Peaks)
"Episode 2" | |
---|---|
Black Lodge featuring backwards speech and a mysterious shadow moving along the wall. | |
Episode no. | Season 1 Episode 3 |
Directed by | David Lynch |
Written by | David Lynch Mark Frost |
Production code | 1.002 |
Original air date | April 19, 1990 |
Running time | 48 minutes[1] |
Guest appearances | |
| |
"Episode 2", also known as "Zen, or the Skill to Catch a Killer",
Twin Peaks centers on the investigation into the murder of schoolgirl
"Episode 2" was first broadcast on April 19, 1990, on the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) network, and was watched by an audience of 19.2 million households in the United States, equating to roughly 21 percent of the available audience. "Episode 2" has been well-received since its initial broadcast, and is regarded by critics as a ground-breaking television episode. It has since influenced, and been parodied by, several subsequent television series. Academic readings of the episode have highlighted its depiction of heuristic, a priori knowledge, and the sexual undertones of several characters' actions.
Plot
Background
The small fictional town of Twin Peaks, Washington, has been shocked by the murder of schoolgirl
Events
The Horne family—Ben (
Bobby Briggs and
Dale Cooper receives a phone call from
) arrives later and immediately causes friction with Truman.James Hurley and Donna Hayward (Lara Flynn Boyle) discuss their new relationship, and kiss passionately on Donna's sofa. Elsewhere, Leland Palmer (Ray Wise), still mourning Laura's death, dances in his living room, sobbing and holding a portrait of Laura as he does so. He breaks open the picture's frame, cutting his hands, as his wife Sarah (Grace Zabriskie) screams at him to stop.
Cooper retires to bed at his hotel room, and experiences a strange dream featuring the one-armed man, who identifies himself as MIKE, and
Production
"Everybody's had that experience, like having a conversation under the influence of something late at night. You reach a point where you seem to know something. And the next morning, it's either absurd or you've forgotten it ... It was a little bit of an opening into something that was mysterious and tantalizing."
—David Lynch on the episode's red herring ending, in 2005.[5]
"Episode 2" was the second episode of the series to have been directed by series creator David Lynch, who had also helmed "Pilot", and would direct a further four episodes during Twin Peaks' initial run.[6] The episode was written by both Lynch and co-creator Mark Frost; the pair had co-written the prior two episodes. Frost would pen a further eight scripts for the series after "Episode 2",[7] while Lynch would write just one episode—the second season opening installment, "Episode 8".[8]
"Episode 2" introduces the character of The Man from Another Place, played by Michael J. Anderson. The Red Room seen in the episode's final scene was created from scratch by Lynch for the European release of "Pilot", and was not originally intended to be a part of the American series. Lynch was so pleased with the result that he decided to incorporate it into the regular series. The Red Room would later be revealed as a waiting room for the
Miguel Ferrer, who made his first appearance as Albert Rosenfield in this episode, had met Lynch while working on another film project that was also never made. Lynch remembered Ferrer when casting Twin Peaks, and sent him the scripts for both "Episode 1" and "Episode 2". Ferrer found the scripts difficult to understand until Frost gave him a recording of "Pilot", which cleared up the actor's confusion.[12]
Dialogue heard in the dream sequence uses a distinctive reversed manner of speech. This was achieved by recording the actors' line phonetically reversed, and playing this audio backwards. David Lynch had begun experimenting with the technique in 1971, and had originally planned to use it in his 1977 debut feature, Eraserhead, before it finally found use in this episode.[13] Describing the process of learning his lines backwards, Anderson notes that he first worked out the phonemes of each word rather than simply reading it back to front, and disregarded the inflection of any given word as this helped bolster the discordant effect of the end result.[14] The reversed audio was also altered with a slight reverb effect.[15] The actors were required to perform their movements backwards, as elements of the scene would be reversed entirely.[16]
Kimmy Robertson—who plays sheriff's office receptionist Lucy Moran—has described Lynch's directorial style as hypnotic, finding that his question-and-answer approach of discussing scenes with the cast was unique among directors she had worked with.[21] Robertson also noted that during the filming of Cooper's stone-throwing, Lynch "sat [the cast] down and told Kyle he was going to hit the bottle ... Kyle hit it, and everybody freaked out. It was like David used the power of the universe".[21]
Themes
Scenes in "Episode 2"—especially the rock-throwing scene in the forest—have been cited as introducing a spiritual side to the character of Dale Cooper, which would also be expounded in the later "Episode 16".[22] Simon Riches, in an essay included in The Philosophy of David Lynch, has noted that the Red Room dream sequence is an example of the difficulty in rationalizing a priori knowledge—the "lack of empirical evidence that ... a faculty of intuition exists" in the mind is here represented by the "nonphysical", dreamlike Red Room.[22] Cooper's heuristic approach "pointedly avoids the routine deductive apparati of logic, clues or muscle".[23] The fact that the series' protagonist embraces this intuitive manner of deduction sets Twin Peaks "at odds with the naturalistic trend in analytic philosophy".[22] This dreamlike approach is a hallmark of Lynch, who, according to Greg Olson in his book Beautiful Dark, "has always identified himself as an artist first, a man fascinated by spiritual realms who's committed to expressing his inner life".[24]
The episode's reliance on surrealism has also been seen as symptomatic of "a broader move away from social realism within television drama".[25] The episode makes use of strong color cues and unusual camera angles—in particular, Helen Wheatley, author of Gothic Television, describes the brown color palette and low-angle shots used to frame certain characters as creating "a mood of domestic terror."[26] Palmer's dance while holding his daughter's picture has been seen as "a time-honored metaphor for marriage", an "incestuous roundelay" which hints towards his abusive past.[24] Both incest and violent sexuality would become recurring themes for the series, examples of which include Palmer's later murder and possible molestation of his niece Maddy and Benjamin Horne's unwitting brush with incest with his masked daughter in the One-Eyed Jacks brothel.[27][28][29]
Broadcast and reception
"Episode 2" first aired on the ABC Network on April 19, 1990. The initial broadcast was viewed by 12.1 million households in the United States—which represented 21 percent of the available audience and 13.1 percent of all households in the country.[30][nb 2] This represented a drop in viewing figures from the previous episode, "Episode 1", which was seen by 14.9 million households, or 27 percent of the available audience.[31] The broadcast inspired several complaints about the sexual overtones of the scene in which the characters of Ben and Jerry Horne eat baguette sandwiches.[32]
The episode has been well-received critically. Writing for The Boston Globe, Gail Caldwell compared Lynch and Frost's script for the episode to the works of mid-20th century American writers Sherwood Anderson, Flannery O'Connor and Truman Capote, describing it as an "excavation of the fear and madness poised behind an ordinary small-town veneer". Caldwell also praised Lynch's direction, finding that several of the episode's "nerve-wracking" scenes lasted just the right amount of time to be effective, and noting that "the line between confronting the abyss and exploiting it is one Lynch walks again and again".[33] Writing for The A.V. Club, Keith Phipps rated the episode an A, calling it "one of the most peculiar hours of television ever to air on a network". He praised the episode's portrayal of the Black Lodge, called the dream sequence "some of the most disquieting filmmaking Lynch has ever done", and described its depiction as "a weirdly All-American supernatural system" that seems "completely terrifying".[34] Fellow A.V. Club writer Noel Murray felt that the episode pushed "into previously unexplored television territory", and that the climactic Black Lodge dream sequence came to be seen as "the signature moment in the entirety of Twin Peaks".[9] Den of Geek's Doralba Picerno has called the episode "truly groundbreaking TV material", noting the use of "surreal imagery with its roots in psychoanalysis".[35]
Writing for
The episode's ending was parodied in "Who Shot Mr. Burns?", a 1995 two-part episode of The Simpsons, in which Dale Cooper and The Man from Another Place were replaced by the characters of Chief Wiggum and Lisa Simpson, respectively. The backwards speech and unexplained shadow moving across a wall were included in the parody, which takes place in a detailed recreation of the Black Lodge.[40][41]
Notes
- ^ Although the series originally did not have episode titles, when it was broadcast in Germany the episodes were given titles that are now used by some fans and critics.[2]
- Nielsen Company—each ratings point represents one percent of all households in the United States during the year the series was broadcast; for 1990 a single point represented 921,000 households.[31]
References
Footnotes
- ^ "Twin Peaks, Season 1". iTunes Store. Apple. Retrieved September 6, 2012.
- ^ Riches 2011, p. 40.
- ^ David Lynch (writer and director); Mark Frost (writer) (April 8, 1990). "Pilot". Twin Peaks. Season 1. Episode 1. American Broadcasting Company.
{{cite episode}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ^ Duwayne Dunham (director); David Lynch and Mark Frost (writers) (April 12, 1990). "Episode 1". Twin Peaks. Season 1. Episode 2. American Broadcasting Company.
{{cite episode}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ^ Rodley & Lynch 2005, p. 170.
- ^ Odell & Le Blanc 2007, p. 74.
- AllRovi. Retrieved May 16, 2012.
- AllRovi. Retrieved May 16, 2012.
- ^ a b Murray, Noel (May 6, 2010). "Twin Peaks, "Zen, Or The Skill To Catch A Killer | TV | A Very Special Episode". The A.V. Club. Retrieved September 19, 2011.
- ^ a b Rodley & Lynch 2005, p. 165.
- ^ Rodley & Lynch 2005, p. 91.
- ^ Murray, Noel (December 11, 2009). "Miguel Ferrer | Film | Random Roles". The A.V. Club. Retrieved February 12, 2012.
- ^ Rodley & Lynch 2005, pp. 165–167.
- ^ Anderson, Michael J (narrator). Learning to Speak in the Red Room (DVD). 'Twin Peaks: The Complete First Season: Artisan Entertainment.
- ^ Blanco & Peeren 2010, pp. 288–289.
- ^ Byers 2001, 41:40–42:11
- ^ Byers 2001, 05:15–06:05
- ^ Byers 2001, 07:30–08:05
- ^ Byers 2001, 08:10–10:04
- ^ Byers 2001, 25:40–28:25
- ^ a b Anthony, Andrew (March 21, 2010). "Twin Peaks: How Laura Palmer's death marked the rebirth of TV drama | Feature | Television & radio". The Observer. Retrieved April 26, 2012.
- ^ a b c Riches 2011, pp. 39–41.
- ^ Nochimson 1995, pp. 146–147.
- ^ a b Olson 2008, pp. 289–290.
- ^ Wheatley 2007, p. 166.
- ^ Wheatley 2007, p. 165.
- ^ Lafky, Sue (October 1, 1999). "Gender, power, and culture in the televisual world of Twin Peaks: A feminist critique". Journal of Film and Video. Retrieved April 28, 2012.[permanent dead link](subscription required)
- ^ David Lynch (director); Mark Frost (writer) (November 10, 1990). "Episode 14". Twin Peaks. Season 2. Episode 7. American Broadcasting Company.
{{cite episode}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ^ Mark Frost (writer and director) (May 23, 1990). "Episode 7". Twin Peaks. Season 1. Episode 8. American Broadcasting Company.
- ^ Feder, Robert (April 23, 1990). "Winners or losers? // Spring series shoot for fall slots". Chicago Sun-Times. Archived from the original on October 13, 2013. Retrieved April 17, 2012. (subscription required)
- ^ a b Bickelhaupt, Susan (April 14, 1990). "'Peaks' Doesn't Overshadow 'Cheers'". The Boston Globe. Archived from the original on October 13, 2013. Retrieved April 26, 2012. (subscription required)
- ^ Gerard, Jeremy (April 26, 1990). "A 'Soap Noir' Inspires a Cult and Questions – Page 2". The New York Times. Retrieved September 23, 2011.
- ^ Caldwell, Gail (April 26, 1990). "Post-Modern Gothic: A Whacked-Out World in Twin Peaks, U.S.A." The Boston Globe. Archived from the original on October 13, 2013. Retrieved April 17, 2012. (subscription required)
- ^ Phipps, Keith (December 5, 2007). "'Episode 1' / 'Episode 2' | Twin Peaks | TV Club". The A.V. Club. Retrieved September 19, 2011.
- ^ Picerno, Doralba (March 31, 2010). "Twin Peaks Definitive Gold Box Edition DVD Review". Den of Geek. Retrieved September 20, 2011.
- AllRovi. Archived from the originalon June 26, 2012. Retrieved April 18, 2012.
- ^ Chaney, Jen (April 19, 2011). "'Twin Peaks': Celebrating the dreams sequence on its 21st anniversary". The Washington Post. Retrieved September 23, 2011.
- ^ Shales, Tom (September 30, 1990). "'Twin Peaks': The Fog Thickens; ABC's Inscrutable Series Resumes Its Weirdness". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on March 25, 2016. Retrieved April 17, 2012. (subscription required)
- ^ a b Siegel, Ed (May 8, 1990). "The Season's Real Peak: While 'Twin Peaks' Has Slipped into Parody, 'Shannon's Deal' Keeps Delivering the Goods". The Boston Globe. Archived from the original on March 4, 2016. Retrieved April 19, 2012. (subscription required)
- ^ Weinstein, Josh (2005). Commentary for the episode "Who Shot Mr. Burns (Part Two)" (DVD). The Simpsons: The Complete Seventh Season: 20th Century Fox.
- ^ Richmond & Coffman 1997, pp. 176–177 & 180–181.
Bibliography
- Blanco, María del Pilar; Peeren, Esther (2010). Popular Ghosts: The Haunted Spaces of Everyday Culture (illustrated ed.). ISBN 978-1-4411-6401-8.
- Byers, Frank (2001), Episode 2: Commentary (DVD), Twin Peaks: The Complete First Season: Artisan Entertainment
- ISBN 0-06-095252-0.
- Nochimson, Martha (1995). "Desire under the Douglas Firs". In Lavery, David (ed.). Full of Secrets: Critical Approaches to Twin Peaks (illustrated ed.). ISBN 0-8143-2506-8.
- Odell, Colin; Le Blanc, Michelle (2007). David Lynch. ISBN 978-1-84243-225-9.
- Olson, Greg (2008). Beautiful Dark (illustrated ed.). ISBN 978-0-8108-5917-3.
- Riches, Simon (2011). "Intuition and Investigation into Another Place: The Epistemological Role of Dreaming in Twin Peaks and Beyond". In Devlin, William J.; Biderman, Shai (eds.). The Philosophy of David Lynch. ISBN 978-0-8131-3396-6.
- Rodley, Chris; ISBN 0-571-22018-5.
- Wheatley, Helen (2007). Gothic Television (illustrated ed.). ISBN 978-0-7190-7149-2.
External links
- "Episode 2" at IMDb