“The milk will get cool on you. Pretty soon.”
Diane, this is Agent Cooper. Just wanted to leave a note that you should go down to the DVD store on Tuesday and pick up my copy of that show I was on. Fans have been longing to hear that tape recording for a long time and now they can have the second season on DVD.
Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee) is dead. She was found wrapped in a plastic tarp on the banks of a river. The local constabulary led by Sheriff Harry S. Truman (Michael Ontkean) is brought to the scene and the FBI is called. The Bureau sends Agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) to investigate the murder of the Homecoming queen. We find out that the town is full of strange goings on and that Laura was not the perfect person that the town made her out to be.
In fact, Twin Peaks holds a great deal of secrets that are revealed over the course of both seasons of the groundbreaking show. The mystery of who (or what) killed Laura Palmer is the hook that captured audiences and it was decided to reveal her killer during this second season of the show (from what I’ve heard against David Lynch’s wishes, the network demanded it be done).
Unfortunately, after this revelation the show seemed to stumble and seemed to embrace weirdness for the sake of weirdness. I guess that it had to be revealed and fans would go nutty if it was never revealed as Lynch seemingly wanted to do, but the show seems to run out of steam after the big revelation and limps to an ending that still really doesn’t wrap everything up.
I usually put an episode list hereabouts, but there are so many things and characters going on in the show that I’ll just give you a list of the players. There’s Leland Palmer (Ray Wise), Laura’s father, Sarah Palmer (Grace Zabriskie), her mother, and Maddy Ferguson (Sheryl Lee), her identical twin cousin, mill-owner Josie Packard (Joan Chen), businessman Benjamin Horne (Richard Beymer), Audrey Horne (Sherilyn Fenn), his teenage daughter, Doc Hayward (Warren Frost), Donna Hayward (Laura Flynn Boyle), his daughter and Laura’s best friend, and a whole cast of townsfolk and characters.
Wow, even just a list of characters would take up a large amount of space, suffice it to say that there are many stories, mysteries, and strange things happening in the small town of Twin Peaks. This season does find Agent Cooper shot and having visions of a giant, more strange happenings in the events leading up to Laura’s murder, and the final reveal of her killer. Agent Cooper’s deranged mentor Windom Earle (Kenneth Walsh) also shows up to play havoc with our wily agent.
It’s a cheat, I know, but there’s so much going on I would rather do it this way than spoil it for some of you. Needless, to say the show does start off with an interesting mystery, interesting characters and situations (although definitely on the weird side).
The second season is spread out across 6 discs and is presented in fullscreen as they were originally aired on television. Special features are rather nice for the Peaks fans. The first one is optional introductions by the Log Lady (Catherine E. Coulson) on each episode. These are surreal fun and were shot for when the series aired on Bravo. Very nice to have these. There are also a series of interviews that appear on each disc.
Disc 1 contains a 3 minute interview with Jennifer Lynch discussing the novel that she wrote “Laura Palmer’s Diary.” Disc 2 has an interview with director Todd Holland that runs 4 minutes. Disc 3 has a 4 minute interview with director Caleb Deschanel. Disc 4 has a 4 minute interview with director Duwayne Dunham. Disc 5 has a 3 minute interview with director Stephen Gyllenhaal. Disc 6 has a 2 minute interview with director Tim Hunter. Sadly, none of the directors contribute a commentary on any of their episodes.
Disc 6 also has a “interactive grid” that has interviews with actors Kyle MacLachlan (Agent Cooper), Madchen Amick (Shelly Johnson), Sherilyn Fenn (Audrey Horne), Dana Ashbrook (Bobby Briggs), Gary Hershberger (Mike Nelson), James Marshall (James Hurley), David Duchovny (DEA Agent Bryson), Kimmy Robertson (Lucy Moran), Don Davis (Maj. Garland Briggs), Mary Jo Deschanel (Eileen Hayward), Lenny Von Dohlen (Harold Smith), and Charlotte Steward (Betty Briggs). You can either play all (38 minutes total) of the interviews or chose to listen to the origin, production, or legacy sections of each actor separately.
The men behind the curtain, David Lynch and Mark Frost, don’t contribute to this set but you never expect David Lynch to show up for interviews (even though he has a role in the show). Twin Peaks is a show with a cult following but it’s also a compelling mystery that changed the way that we look at television today.
The series is given a very nice treatment and includes lots of special features that should please fans of the show but should also introduce a whole new generation to this innovative show.
Twin Peaks -The Second Season is now available at Amazon . As of yet, this version of the DVD is not available in the UK. Visit the DVD database for more information.
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