After a brief San Diego Comic-Con break, we’re back with another chapter of Twin Peaks Revisited, and in today’s episode, it’s out first re-cap of the show when it returned to Thursday nights after its long exile on Saturdays. This episode was written by Barry Pullman, and directed by James Foley, two veterans of the show. As usual, all the previous Twin Peaks: Revisited columns can be found right here , so it’s not too late to catch up. And this is, also as always, a spoiler-free recap for anything that takes place after the particular episode we’re recapping

Episode 25: “Wounds and Scars” – Aired March 28th, 1991

This episode opens with a somewhat cheesy montage of the “best of Josie and Harry make out” scenes. Harry Truman is shacked up in the Bookhouse, not sleeping and drinking himself into a stupor after Josie’s sudden death at the end of the last episode. Hawk brings Harry one of Norma’s breakfasts, made special just for him. Harry is far more interested in the whiskey. Hawk is basically in charge at the station now along with Cooper, and Harry reminds Hawk that he should be able to handle things at the station, after all, it’s a pretty simple town. “Well, it used to be.” he says. I mean, he’s right…it has been a busy/rough couple weeks in Twin Peaks.

At the Double R, Norma’s younger sister Annie arrives, played by a very young Heather Graham. Annie has just left the convent where she’s been the past few years, and she and Norma bond over their mutual dislike for their mother. Annie plans to work at the diner as a waitress. Also at the diner is Major Briggs, and the Log Lady enters and instantly notices the tattoo on the back of his neck, and recognizes it as something similar to something she has had since childhood.

At the station, Cooper is going over all the Interpol documents regarding Josie, Eckhardt, and that whole ugly situation, when Hawk walks in and tells him Harry is about to hit rock bottom. Cooper reminds him that he should be answering to Hawk (which he totally should) but Hawk says “you’re the senior lawman here Coop. Besides, I hate paperwork.” Cooper tells Hawk that Doc Hayward completed the autopsy on Josie, and that he couldn’t confirm cause of death. On top of that, the body only weighed 65 pounds. Cooper confides in Hawk the vision of BOB and the Little Man when Josie died. Hawk seems genuinely disturbed.

In Windom Earle’s cabin, he essentially has Leo Johnson as a slave, with the electrified collar around his neck. He has him bring him today’s paper, where Cooper has printed his response to Windom’s move. Windom instantly can see Coop has received help with the game, and is trying to make a stalemate, in the hopes that no one else dies. This makes Windom super pissed off, and takes out his aggression on Leo by beating him with a wooden flute. It’s not like Leo doesn’t deserve it, though.

At the Great Northern, Audrey Horne and Dick Tremayne are preparing a benefit fashion show for the whole “Save the Pine Weasel” thing Ben Horne has cooked up to stop the Ghostwood development project, and Audrey and John Justice Wheeler have some forced awkward banter that ends with Wheeler asking Audrey to go with him on a picnic. Meanwhile, Mr. Pinkel, played by David L. Lander (who cameoed earlier in the season as the insurance representative in Leo’s case) is going to give a talk on the preservation of the Pine Weasel at the event that night.

Back at the Bookhouse, Cooper comes to talk to Harry, who is still downing whiskey. Cooper decided that it’ll help Harry get over the death of his beloved Josie if he hears that her Interpol dossier confirms that among already being a suspect in killing Jonathan and knowing she killed Eckhardt, she has several prostitution arrests. All this news just makes Harry pissed off (justifiably actually; what good is this info going to do him now?? Where are your people skills, Dale??) “Harry, eventually it’s going to help to understand she was a hardened criminal…a killer.” Harry yells at Cooper to leave him alone, and ya know, I feel ya Harry. It’s only been a day Coop, give the guy some time to deal with shit. Jeez.

At the Packard home, the late Mister Eckhardt’s assistant, a woman named referred to simply as Jones, comes into Catherine’s office. She says she’s come to tell Catherine that Eckhardt and Josie are going to be buried side-by-side. “So they can keep an eye on each other.” Says Catherine. Catherine then stealthily pulls out a gun and asks Jones why she’s really there. Jones says there is no need for threats, she comes bearing a gift for her and Andrew from the late Mr. Eckhardt. It’s a mysterious black metal box, with no obvious way to open it. Jones slinks out and wishes Catherine good luck.

At the Hayward home, Donna answers the door to a kindly old man who calls himself Gerald Craig. Of course, we recognize the old man as Windom Earle in disguise. He talks about being an old medical school friend of Donna’s father, and says he’d like to live a small gift for him. He babbles on to Donna about a bunch of old people nonsense about appreciating your youth, and then leaves a small gift for Doc Hayward.

At the Station, Pete is continuing to tutor Coop in the chess game, trying to teach him how to make a perfect stalemate, but even chess expert Pete Martell knows you can’t have a perfect stalemate…some pawns will have to go. Just then, Major Briggs and the Log Lady come in, and together inform Coop that both of them have mysterious tattoos, each which appeared on their bodies when they both vanished in a flash of white light. For Briggs, it happened during his recent disappearance a few episodes back; with the Log Lady, when she was seven years old. She vanished for what people tell her amounted to a day, but like Briggs, has no memory of where she went for that time period. All she remembers is the light, and the call of the owl. Coop draws the two distinct symbols on the chalk board.

We join Audrey and her new beau on their picnic, where he’s serenading her with some old country song. It turns out that Billy Zane cane carry a tune. Who knew? Their entire relationship seems to be based on both of them being impossibly attractive, which (let’s be honest) happens all the time in real life, but makes for kind of boring television. Wheeler is really just there to be Audrey’s consolation prize now that Cooper is officially out of reach.

At the Hayward home, Doc and Eileen come home, and Donna tells her father that some old college friend of his showed up while they were gone. When she mentions the name Gerald Craig, Doc’s face goes white. It couldn’t possibly be Gerald Craig, because that was his old college roommate who died on a rafting trip when they were young. The number he left for them is for a cemetery, and the gift he left was a chess piece: Knight to King’s Bishop 3. Doc knows exactly who was there, and goes to tell Coop. And warns Donna not to let that man anywhere near the house again.

A the Hurley residence, Big Ed has Doctor Jacoby visiting to help explain to the delusional Nadine that they aren’t just “breaking up”, they’re getting a divorce. Nadine doesn’t seem too phased by this…after all, she’s now with high school jock Mike, but upon hearing the word “divorce” she suddenly realizes she’s gone blind in her left eye. Is this the first inkling that the old Nadine will return?

Back at the Hayward home, the door bell rings, and we see Benjamin Horne at the door. Eileen greets him, and Donna spies him whispering something into her ear, from the stairs. Well, this is all coming from left field.

At the Double R, Norma tries to get Shelly to enter the upcoming Miss Twin Peaks contest, reminding her that there’s a cash prize and a scholarship (although didn’t Shelly drop out of high school to marry Leo?) Shelly laughs it off, and does a pretty funny impersonation of a beauty pageant contestant answering the stupid questions they’re asked at these kinds of things. A Hell’s Angels type biker at the bar (who is, of course, Windom Earle, in his second disguise of the day) tell her that she’s very pretty and should enter. “I don’t think of myself as pretty,” Shelly says. I hate when staggeringly beautiful people say stuff like this.

Coop comes in and sits at the counter, when Annie comes to serve him some coffee as his waitress, and on first sight, he’s instantly turns into a schoolboy with a crush. As she pours him coffee however, he notices scars on Annie’s wrist. It looks like Norma’s sister has something of a tragic past.

Hawk comes into the diner, letting him know that they’ve got a problem at the Bookhouse. Harry has trashed the place, torn down everything not nailed down, and is waving his gun around. I love Michel Ontkean, but his “drunk acting” choices are basically just yelling everything at Cooper. It’s pretty bad. Anyway, Coop eventually convinces Harry to drop his gun, and Harry collapses into a bucket of tears, while his buddy Coop holds him. Awww. (Today, this moment would result in tons of slash fiction online.)  Hawk and Harry put Harry to bed, and have one of the Bookhouse Boys watch him for the rest of the night.

At the Great Northern, Nadine and Mike check in to the hotel as “Mr. and Mrs. Hinkman.” Mike has one glasses and a fedora, hoping for a Clark Kent type disguise. Regardless, two girls from school recognize him and give him away. Nadine gets irritated and crushes the bell as the front desk. She doesn’t need this high school hussies getting in the way of getting her groove on with Mike. Maybe they should have gone to that seedy motel where Ben and Catherine were carrying on back in season one.

Ben Horne is greeting guests at the Stop Ghostwood fashion show, which I have to say I’m impressed that they came up with so quickly considering he just unveiled the whole “Stop Ghostwood” plan the day before. Lucy and Andy are models in the fashion show, and are actually kind of hilariously awkward as they stroll down the runway. Catherine actually shows up to Ben’s event, wondering just what Ben is really up to with all this. He can’t possibly care about the pine weasel or the environement, and Catherine suspects he’s just trying to stop her development plans until he can get another crack at it. When he has the balls to ask her to cut them a check, she laughs in his face.

At the end of the fashion show, Dick Tremayne brings out Mr. Pinkel, who has a live pine weasel to share with the audience. Then, we launch into sitcom land, as the weasel bits Dick on the nose, causing him to run amok and scream, and the weasel then jumps into the screaming, panicking crowd. We even get a Pine Weasel POV cam, all while wacky music plays. Audrey falls off the stage and into the arms of the awaiting John Wheeler, who was conveniently there to catch her and kiss her. This entire two minutes or so is pretty terrible and just beneath this show.

We end our episode at the Bookhouse, where someone knocks out Harry’s guard. It turns out to be Jones, Thomas Eckhardt’s beautiful assistant, who then…. gets into bed with Harry? I have to say, that was actually a surprise ending. Who saw that one coming?

Episode Trivia

This is the first episode of the show to air after Twin Peaks‘ abrupt removal from the ABC schedule six weeks before, and C.O.O.P made a big effort to save the show. Twin Peaks was returned to its first season Thursday night slot in an effort to save the show, and while ratings did go up slightly, it wasn’t enough. Considering the whole “Weasel Riot” ending, it’s a surprise casual viewers came back at all the next week.

This episode marks Heather Graham’s first appearance on the show as Annie Blackburn, a character that was created after Kyle MacLachlan refused to play out the Audrey Horne romance subplot. Although a late comer to the show, of all the women of Twin Peaks, it was Graham who had the best post-Peaks career, starring in iconic movies like Swingers, Boogie Nights, Austin Powers, From Hell, and more recently, The Hangover and Horns (where she played a waitress in a small Pacific Northwest diner, in an homage to her role on Twin Peaks.)

The actress who plays Jones, Mr. Eckhardt’s assistant who gets into bed with Sheriff Truman and gives Catherine a mysterious “gift” box, is played by actress Brenda Strong, best known for her role as Mary Alice Young, the dead narrator on Desperate Housewives. Interestingly enough, the original actress to play the part of Mary Alice was none other than Laura Palmer herself, Sheryl Lee. Lee was replaced when the pilot went to series, and her part re-shot.

Final Verdict

This is a perfectly decent chapter of Twin Peaks, with the exception of the stupid weasel riot at the end of the episode. Sadly, “perfectly ok” wasn’t enough to ultimately make enough of a difference; Twin Peaks needed to come back to its Thursday time slot with a bang to hook viewers again, and this episode wasn’t it. Despite popular opinion among Peaks fans, though, I think Heather Graham is a fine addition to the show, and helps gives the show some new angles to play in this last stretch of episodes. Still, Harry’s bad drunk acting and the weasel riot easily make this episode not as good as the last one.

Episode Rating: 3  burritos out of 5