I watched the entirety of the intro. I've done this once before. It takes 42 seconds for the title to show, 52 for the first name (Kyle MacLachlan, of course). In total, the intro is 2 minutes and 35 seconds. Thank you, Lost, for showing the world the beauty of the short title sequence.
The episode starts with a character I've never particularly liked, Josie Packard, putting on make-up. She's only slightly an essential character, if memory serves, so I miiight say that starting off this epic show with a shot of her was a poor decision. But it does bring us to the house she lives in, where Pete Martell lives with his less than loving wife, Catherine Martell. Pete (the wonderful Jack Nance) is the character who discovers the body Laura Palmer, a much-loved high school girl, on the beach. Ah hah, now Lynch's thought process is clear. If he is to open the show in this setting, he's not going to gain any fans by focusing in on Pete or Catherine, but daaammmmmnn, is Josie fiiiine. (Ask the sheriff, he knows.)
Upon discovering the body (then not known to be Laura Palmer), Pete calls the police station, thus introducing more characters. Lucy, the receptionist, presents her oddities with her voice and some confusing phone dilema; Andy, the deputy, presents his oddities with his voice and some strange crying behaviors. Match made in heaven? Ain't it just. Then there's the sheriff, (Canadian heartthrob Michael Ontkean) stoic, heroic, all you could want, or so they say. And then the doctor, father of Laura's best friend, Donna. (He's just a swell guy. Just a super super swell guy.) They turn over the body, wrapped in plastic, and there, we have the shot of Laura Palmer's blue, dead body. Shock! Sentimental music.
As the episode progresses, we connect by phone from this person to the next. Laura's (completely nuts) mother looks for her daughter, calls the parents of Laura's boyfriend, Bobby (the father wears a military outfit always, the mother enjoys clicking scissors together), then calls her husband's work where we meet the husband, Leland, and Ben Horne, Leland's boss. Leland seems a little flustered, which can't be blamed, because his wife is clearly insane and his boss is an overbearing, money-hungry bastard.
And where does Leland work? The Great Northern! A hotel looking for investors. Ben Horne wants Josie Packard's land for the hotel -a point which he uses to sell to the investors- but he doesn't have it yet -a point which he chooses to not share with aforementioned investors. There are a whole lot of problems there, blah blah blah, subplot subplot. Honestly, it's not very exciting. I'm just going to skip that part for this episode. There will be plenty of that to come later, unfortunately. The endless drama between Josie Packard and Catherine Martell. Faaast forward. (But don't really.) Though! One interesting point: The scene with Leland and Ben discussing the Packard's land opens with a shot of a fireplace. Hmhmhmmm.
We then have a very moving scene. While on the phone with his nutso wife, Leland is approached by Sheriff Truman. Truman doesn't even need to say Laura is dead, Leland already knows, as does his wife. This is a reaction everyone on the show has when they learn that something is up with Laura, which is either a sign of poor writing, or, and most likely, is a reaction to Laura's personality. A girl who runs off in the woods in the middle of the night, saying, "Fire, walk with me."
And then there are tears. Here, let me show you some tears:
That is what Laura's mother looks like in every single shot she is in from now until the end of the series.Now let's briefly talk about Bobby, Laura's boyfriend. He's a football player who never goes to practice. He wants to be a tough-guy jock, but the weasily little guy falls short. He's cheating on Laura with a waitress high school drop-out, Shelly (gorgeous), but don't feel bad. Laura was probably cheating on Bobby with.. everyone? And Shelly, Shelly's married to a very menacing truck-driver, Leo. At least, Bobby is terrified of him, but then, Bobby is pretty much terrified of everyone.
And then we meet Donna, James, and Audrey. Donna is a clean-cut girl, James is another tough-guy wannabe, and Audrey, I'm in love with Audrey Horne.
Audrey drives to school wearing two-tone flats and changes into red high-heals at her locker. Audrey smokes cigarettes in almost plain view and puts them out in an ash-tray in her locker. Audrey loves mystery and stirring up trouble. Audrey wants to foil her father's plans, and does so quite marvelously by making a scene in front of the potential investors, planting fear in their very souls. "They found my friend Laura," she cries. "Lying face down on a rocky beach. Completely naked. She'd been murdered." While all the guys try to be tough, she's tougher than all, and doesn't give a damn.
Audrey Horne, I love you.
But back to Donna and James, who bore me endlessly. Donna is another one who knows straight away that Laura is dead from subtle hints. She sees a police officer inquiring after Laura's boyfriend, sees Laura's empty seat, and then a girl running screaming across the courtyard (wtf..), and knows, straight away. As does James, who breaks a pencil in one hand without thinking about it because remember, he's so tough. And Donna cries. Oh, why was Bobby's name mentioned? Because he's suspected of murder, of course. He saw Laura the night she died. Then, so did James. James loved Laura. "She was the one." But so is Donna, so let's not feel so bad for him.
After much pointless questioning, we discover that another girl is missing. Ronette Pulaski. She comes stumbling out of the woods onto the train tracks, beaten up, barefoot, disoriented.
I will stop this here, because after this, we meet Agent Cooper, which then is the start of something else entirely. Since this episode is so ridiculously long, I think it's best to split it up into two entries.
No comments:
Post a Comment