Thoughts on The Black Widow:

Ben Horne: Bobby, you’re standing in front of a mammoth sky scraper. A leviathan that rips a hole in the clouds. Now, what is the first question that comes to your mind? The first question that you ask yourself is; ‘what’s on the top floor, who’s up there in the penthouse and why.’”

Bobby pays another visit to Ben Horne, whose insanity is flowering wonderfully, like a mutant sunflower. When he’s not building “sky scrapers” out of his office furniture he’s reenacting the battle at Gettysburg, and apparently rooting for the South to win. What I like about his initial conversation with Bobby is the suggestiveness of the above line, given what we’re learning about the forms of metaphysical power that are manifesting themselves in Twin Peaks. It’s the sort of thinking/questioning that Cooper has been doing as relates to the Giant, the Little Man, and the various-and-sundry spirits and weird goings-on happening in Twin Peaks. It’s also the sort of questioning that I’ve been doing as an audience member. Who’s controlling this whole thing (if anyone)? Why are they there?

Ben Horne: “Show me something that I don’t already know.”

By hiring Bobby Briggs to play secret paparazzi and follow Hank Jennings around, Ben Horne and the show’s writers drag voyeurism-as-subtext back into the light.

Cooper: “What is it?”
Irene: “A puzzle…”

We rejoin Cooper, now dressed in civilian-as-lumberjack clothes and hunting for real estate in Twin Peaks. It’s awfully odd, seeing Coop without his slick suits, less buttoned-down than dressed down. Still, it’s also somehow fitting. Cooper is becoming more and more at one with the town he’s come to love, and his decision to buy property – first brought up back in the first season – makes perfect sense. It’s through that decision that we’re introduced to the enigmatic “Dead Dog Farm,” a place that seems to have an aspect of the supernatural about it. Irene the realtor describes it as “a puzzle,” which also describes the show itself. And as for that weird, offputting name? Irene tells Cooper that “Of all the people in the world the best and the worst are drawn to a dead dog. Most turn away. Only those with the purest of heart can feel its pain – and somewhere in between the rest of us struggle.”

That’s kind of nifty, and it continues to underline the qualities of compassion and empathy – two traits that Cooper typically has in spades. Of course, there’s a perverse reverse-angle to the sentiment as well – one that goes unspoken. It’s not just those who are “purest of heart” who are drawn to a dead dog, it’s also “the worst” sort of people. And as if to confirm this, Coop and Irene discover that the property has been used by drug dealers/drug smugglers in the recent past. Coop, stripped of his badge and his authority, tells Irene that they’ll need to call Sherriff Truman.

Judie: “…the number one thing to know about Nicky is that throughout his brief life he has been very confused and perhaps traumatized by a persistent random misfortune.”

Surprisingly, the Dick/Andy/Lucy storyline hasn’t worn out its welcome with me yet. I found its insertion into the events of “Arbitrary Law” to be bizarre and infuriating – when held up against a storyline like Leland Palmer’s, this Bizarre Love Triangle (holla, New Order fans!) pales in comparison. And, as always, there’s a running risk of Andy descending into utter Lenny-of-Mice-and-Men-style buffoonery. But I kind of love Ian Buchanan’s performance in the part, and I love the way he plays off of Andy particularly. He’s like a buttery/oily ingratiating version of Albert – contempt barely disguised by a veneer of urbane sophistication. I’m not sure where this Nicky storyline is going, but the sight of Dick and Nicky in matching outfits as Dick tries “manfully” to change a tire and Nicky annoys him was pretty amusing for this viewer. Your mileage may vary, as usual.

Dick: “Andy I believe that Little Nicky, incredible as it may seem, may in fact be the devil.”

I’m also admittedly intrigued by Nicky’s background, which involves his parents being killed, and eventually the possibility that ‘Little Nicky’ (Anyone else instinctively think of that stupid Adam Sandler movie whenever Nicky’s referred to that way?) is malevolent – a kind of proto-Orphan/post-Damien for the early 90’s – especially the way in which Dick voices this possibility to Andy, creating the oddest of potential bonds between them. And then of course, there’s having a case worker assigned to him who’s played by a quasi-unrecognizable Molly Shannon. It is BIZARRE to see Shannon pop up here. Her cadences and her mannerisms are so familiar to me from her years on SNL, but she’s so relatively subdued here that its as if we’re watching her performing under a skin she’ll soon shed.

Mayor Milford: “Doug… Oh I hate to say it, but I told you so.”

We rejoin Truman and Andy as they attend to Doug Milford’s dead body. He appears to have died before or after some vigorous sex with a young Robyn Lively (She’ll always be “Teen Witch” to me. Also: Doogie Howser, M.D.! The Karate Kid III! Silver Spoons! Punky Brewster! Knight Rider! Children of the 80’s, unite!). I guess that puts an end to the Dispute Between Brothers. I’m a big fan of the way Mayor Milford manages to finally “win” their argument, with a simultaneously petty/sorrowful “I told you so.”

But what’s the deal with “My Secret Life,” by Chris Gerrfey? Well, it’s not a “real” book as far as I can tell. So, given that, and given that we’re told nothing else about it, I’m assuming that what’s “important” (relatively speaking) about this book is the title: “My Secret Life.” That is, after all, what so much of Twin Peaks focuses on; the double existence, the doppelganger, the shadow-self, the secrets all people keep, and the ways in which those secrets can destroy them.

Teen Witch’s character (hey, even Mayor Milford calls her a witch!), Lana, gets attended to by Deputy Tommy “Hawk” Hill, aka Tommy Turquoise aka Optimus Smooth aka Ladies, Wait Your Turn, and Hawk turns the full magnitude of his surprisingly-inappropriately-timed Lady-Macking powers on Milford as she sits weeping after having apparently killed a man with her own particular set of powers, which seem to involve grievously injuring/killing the men who attempt to Mack her. A surfeit of characters with strange backgrounds and weird anti-superpowers (I’m only partially kidding) seems to be infusing the town of Twin Peaks. Both Nicky and Lana seem to bring misfortune to those around them. the Mad Pirate Nadine has, for some reason, super strength. There’s also Cooper, he of the Intuition and Prophetic Dreams and Noble Purpose. Is there a pattern here?

…Seriously, who hits on a woman who’s just unintentionally murdered someone in bed?

Hawk, that’s who.

The show itself seems to realize that this is (entertainingly) ridiculous, and so chooses to finish off this scene by having Andy undercut Hawk’s sudden gamma-assisted machismo-surge with a well-timed door-opening.

Coach: Boys, there’s a story about a great football coach… whose name escapes me at this time, who was dead set against having a black players on his team. Until somebody brought him the finest black halfback anyone had ever seen. And when what’s his name saw him run fifty yards and no one lay a hand on him he shouted, ‘look at that Indian go.’ That coach accepted that athlete’s desire to compete.”

Wait…what?

I have absolutely zero idea what to make of Nadine’s decision to move into the field of wrestling, but having competed in the sport myself I was surprised at the burst of sudden, unexpected nostalgia for a sport that I regularly cursed and would never willingly revisit. A former teammate once described the sport thusly: “Wrestlers are always trying to get other people to ‘join the fun,’ to be a part of the team, and we always tell people that it’s because the sport is challenging and rewarding to the body and the mind, because the competition is fierce and honorable, but the truth is that we just want other people to share in our neverending pain.”

Amen to that. Twin Peaks’ high school wrestling coach is another new character that I’m enjoying. I enjoyed his daffy “inspirational” speech featuring a coach who’s name escaped him and a black halfback who was also, apparently, an Indian. Or something. And while none of this is in any way “compelling” or “addictive” or whathaveyou, it is (for now) amusing. I hope Twin Peaks follows Nadine’s further adventures in flirting-via-assault.

While I’m not too troubled by the splintered focus of the show now, finding most of these plot-threads entertaining, if a clear step down from earlier episodes in terms of the kind of ooky-spooky atmosphere Lynch has evoked so admirably, I’m starting to understand the idea of this being Twin Peaks’ “fallow period.” While I’m enjoying characters like Dick Tremayne and situations like Nadine’s Bizarro-“Grease” regression, I’m also noticing that the show as a whole has taken on a kind of overall flatness. It’s gone from art house to Full House in some respects (especially technically – Caleb Deschanel shoots the majority of the episode like every other television show you’ve ever seen; like an episode of “Bones” if that episode had featured the characters on acid). This becomes most apparent to me when Donna pops back up, looking more and more Flynn Boyle-ish with every episode. Here are my issues/questions:

Does anyone other than Sarah Palmer and the Police know that Leland killed Laura? Was Leland posthumously charged? Looking back on the episode Dispute Between Brothers I’m sort of amazed I didn’t ask this immediately. Where’s the town-wide reaction to that news? Above and beyond that, both Laura and Maddie are dead. Why is Donna so chipper and emotionally okay with all of this?

The disappearance of Major Briggs continues to give us a cool/spooky/unearthly element to latch onto as we head deeper into Northern Exposure territory for the show overall. Colonel Riley’s introduction allows the show to feed us more exposition about what makes Twin Peaks “special,” and I’m generally a sucker for scenes where the military debriefs people on creepy things. These scenes are a close cousin to what internet film critic Vern describes as the scenes in which we the audience learn how much of a badass a character is.

Colonel Riley: “Our monitors are pointed at deep space but the messages we intercepted, that Briggs showed you, were sent from right here in these woods.”

Spoooooooky.

Riley asks Cooper if he noticed any wildlife prior to the Major’s disappearance – any birds, or owls. Cooper tells him that just before the Major disappeared he did indeed hear an owl (and we the audience saw one). We also learn that the messages that the Major shared with Cooper (“The owls are not what they seem” and “CooperCooperCooper” written over and over) originated from the woods around Twin Peaks – the very location that’s been the focal point of the figurative and literal heart of darkness in this town. The suggestion is that these signals came from earth and were sent up into space – a reversal of the sorts of “extraterrestrial transmission” we typically see in films and TV. What does this mean? Who knows! But of interest to me, mythically-speaking, is the primitive idea of a “Sky God” or “High God” that ancient cultures attempted to commune with.

Finally, Cooper brings up the words “White Lodge,” which the Major spoke directly before disappearing. He’s told that those words are classified, and that the Major’s disappearance is the sort of high-level security event that “makes the Cold War look like the sniffles.” Isn’t THAT intriguing.

Having been denied the illicit fruit of Dale Cooper, Audrey apparently decides to just grab the next walking meatsack that passes her by, selecting Bobby Briggs as her new flirting-buddy. I enjoy Audrey’s character, but she’s much more interesting as a fundamentally-decent person with an older-than-her-years, femme fatale façade. In the aftermath of her conversation with Cooper I worried that the show wouldn’t bother to keep her that complex, leaving her to two-dimensional vamping. While I’d never begrudge two-dimensional vamping from such an admirably three-dimensional woman, doing that would make her less interesting. But the show has kept Audrey firmly in Saucy Nancy Drew territory, loyal to Cooper and interested in helping him. This is confirmed when she reenters one of the Great Northern’s copious Secret Passages (all buildings should have secret passages – it makes life more interesting) in order to learn about the pictures that Bobby’s taken for Ben. Glad to see Audrey’s still indulging in skulking and skullduggery over stem-tying (not that there’s anything objectionable about that).

Catherine: “Here’s to me.”

The Catherine/Pete/Josie story continues to be weird and not exactly entertaining for me, but not boring either. It’s downright odd to see Josie in a maid’s outfit, serving the Martells as Catherine and Pete enjoy champagne and Pete strains at poetry to impress her. Catherine clearly hasn’t changed, enjoying torturing Josie slowly and openly seizing glory for herself with a man who already thinks she’s glorious.

Cooper: “He anticipated my response to his opening move perfectly. He’s toying with me Diane.”

We make a welcome return to Cooper and the burgeoning Windom Earle storyline. I like how they’re keeping Earle veiled, his presence portended in chess moves and in half-explicated scraps of conversation. I also like the continued threat presented by Jean Renault and his Evil Mountie Henchman. After all of the metaphysical tomfoolery it’s a mundane frame job that might serve as Cooper’s undoing. Starting down this road, plot-wise, was a wise move on the show’s part. Cooper disempowered is just as interesting to me as Cooper empowered. Seeing Cooper without the symbols of his office allows us to reevaluate him through a new lens.

And speaking of new lenses, Audrey pops up again to share Bobby’s pictures with Coop – pictures which show Hank Jennings, Ernie “The Professor” Niles, Jean Renault and his Evil Mountie Henchman at Dead Dog Farm. This photographic evidence provides Cooper with a seemingly swift path back into the good graces of the FBI, which is both reassuring and disappointing. I have to remind myself that this was a different era, in which storylines were dealt with in a much shorter stretch of time, instead of the more popular “decompression” method used so often these days. For a good example of how our storytelling has changed, examine the difference between a film like The Shadow (starring a pre-corpulence Alec Baldwin) and Batman Begins (starring a pre-Alec-Baldwin Christian Bale). In the former, we meet Baldwin as an opium dealing murderer who is tutored by a Wise Monk with the voice of a 70 year-old smoker to renounce his evil ways and fight injustice. We witness a scene in which the Monk tells Baldwin this, and then we cut to a scroll which explains that Baldwin trained in special arts to prepare himself to fight evil. The film then IMMEDIATELY cuts to seven years later, with Baldwin fully in control of his freaky plastic-face powers. There is no training. One minute, Baldwin is a long-haired, freakily-fingernailed nihilist living in abject sin, the next he’s a sleek, tux-wearing dandy who can somehow turn his face into rigid, unmoving plastic. Contrast that with Batman Begins, in which the majority of that film is devoted to showing us, painstakingly, how Bruce Wayne goes from pissy and isolated to…well…pissy and isolated, but with much cooler toys.

All of which is to say that drawing out the drama on something like Cooper’s suspension is something I’d expect to see now, in an age where every story has a prequel, every prequel expands every story beat, and events are given much more space to play out (see also: Lost). It’s not something that you did then, and when you did you were typically punished for doing so in terms of the ratings. Laura’s murder is a perfect example of this – that storyline could easily play out over several seasons in today’s televisual climate with these new, decompressed expectations, but waiting a whole SEASON to learn the solution to that mystery in the climate of 1991? That was apparently asking a lot of audiences at the time.

Hawk: “Harry, do you still have that bottle of Irish in your office? I want to put some in a little warm milk for the widow Milford.”

Yeah, Hawk knows where it’s at – it’s all about getting grieving widows nice and tipsy and primed for sweet, sweet, loving. That’s not creepy AT ALL.

Lana: “And then I said well what do you think underpants are for anyway?”

But hey, I’m all about Equal Opportunity Creepiness, which Lana decides to take advantage of as quickly as possible – somehow drawing all the men in her general vicinity to her and quasi-entrancing them as she tells wildly-inappropriate stories for their rapt attention. Is it just me, or was Lana just launching into a story about sodomy-by-horse when the scene cuts away?

Major Briggs: “How long have I been gone?”

The Black Widow ends on a perfect note, leaving me eager to see what happens next. As Bobby and his mother talk about the Major – as Bobby recounts for her the Major’s dream of a “big house made of white marble and lots of lights” where both father and son were “Living a life of deep harmony and joy,or something like that…” – Major Briggs reappears as if from nowhere, wearing what appear to be World War II aviator togs (implying some element of potential time travel, an aspect that makes perfect sense if we view the metaphysical aspects of Twin Peaks as existing “out of time,” something that’s been all but confirmed for us thanks to the kooky way in which Cooper and Laura communicated across time and space in Cooper’s vision). He’s returned, seemingly illuminated, and as the episode comes to a close his wife asks him if everything’s alright, to which he ominously replies: “No dear, not really.”

Perfectly tantalizing. Bring on the weird.

Masked Ball & The Black Widow (Twin Peaks S2, eps. 11 & 12)

Deputy Hawk: “Cooper, you may be fearless in this world. But there are other worlds.”

Welcome back! Lost & Found has been on a bit of a wobbly schedule of late, given the end of Summer, continued work on Back to the Island, a book compiling my thoughts on Lost, and a general increase in day-job responsibilities. Some of you have written to ask whether this column is going to go the way of “Star Trekkin’,” never to be completed. To you I say: Patience, please. This is a lot of fun, and I’m grateful for your readership. I’m not going anywhere as long as you’re interested in hearing what I have to say, but once in a while I’ll need to take a week off due to larger life things. I’ll just have to hope that’s cool with most of you. I know firsthand how frustrating it is to anticipate a weekly column and not receive it. So, thanks for the overall-kindness of your messages, and for your much-appreciated eagerness.

On with Le Show!

Thoughts on Masked Ball:

I watched Masked Ball this past weekend, and had hoped to use a transcript to pull quotes for this column. As it turns out, there doesn’t seem to be a transcript for the episode – just a “working draft” script. This means that I may pull some quotes that did not appear in the episode, but that do appear in the script, while discussing some of the events that take place during Masked Ball. Apologies in advance.

Cooper: “Harry, Major Briggs didn’t wander off on some work assignment. That flash of light I saw signified a power; a force that lives in those woods.”

We begin with a reminder that Major Briggs has disappeared into the ether, seemingly “abducted.” We learn that Mrs. Briggs has grown accustomed to the Major’s sudden disappearances, but she seems unusually unnerved this time. That becomes justified to us through the clear association between the Major’s disappearance and the still-unfolding mysteries that surround the Ghost Wood forest which borders Twin Peaks. Cooper sums this all up nicely in the line above – the question for us becomes “What power? ‘Good’ or ‘Evil’?” Or, as Ben Horne will ask in the next episode: “what’s on the top floor, who’s up there in the penthouse and why”?

And from there things get….a lot less interesting when the camera’s not focused on the Internal Investigation of Cooper. The feuding brothers idea is a cute one, but the whole “Mayor’s getting married again” subplot doesn’t do much for me except provide a few opportunities for these characters to quip to each other. Luckily, we spend a fair amount of time in this episode watching as Cooper has the screws put to him and starts to find his way in Twin Peaks without the familiar symbols of his office. It’s weirdly reassuring to me as a viewer to have most of the show’s characters rallying around Cooper in an effort to extricate him from the bureaucratic lobster trap he’s been caught in.

Cooper: “I’m talking about seeing beyond fear, Roger. About looking at the world with love.”

Cooper blows the minds of his fellow Agents by refusing to offer up a defense for his actions. Instead, he takes responsibility for actions that may have gone outside Bureau guidelines, then insists that he committed no criminal acts. He then proceeds to go all Hippy-Dippy on them, talking about knowing the moves he’s supposed to make, but finding himself able now to see “beyond the board” and into a greater game. This is the kind of dialogue I eat with a spoon, and I’m enjoying the continued sense of Cooper embattled but unbowed, convinced of the rightness of his actions in the face of cool dispassion and disbelief. It’s easy to root for him.

As for sub plots and side stories, we return to the Mad Pirate Hulk Nadine as she sorta inexplicably starts crushing on Mike Nelson, Bobby Briggs’ buddy. Did I miss something in the last episode where this was established? In any event, I’m looking forward to seeing Nadine’s efforts on the wrestling squad for personal reasons I’ll disclose in the next column. And in addition to Nadine’s sporting efforts we also pick up the thread of James’ story, something I’ve actively been dreading – for good reason, as it turns out. Those of you who warned me were correct. James’ story-arc is hella-boring. BlahblahEvelyn Marsh, blahblahMalcolm Sloaneblahblahnobody messes with Mr. Marsh…I so don’t care. Let’s agree to only bring this stuff up if it gives us the opportunity for a hearty laugh, ‘kay?

As it turns out this episode is, overall, also boring. There’s a lot of set-up, a lot of “quirky” behavior, a lot of talk. I’d be more worried about my experience of the show as a whole if the next installment didn’t restore my interest as solidly as it did. As it is, “Masked Ball” is a lot like earlier episodes like “Laura’s Secret Diary.” There’s not much to write home about, most of it isn’t bad per se, but most of it isn’t very good either. It’s just sort of…there. What I do like about Masked Ball are the ways in which these various subplots seem to pick up some healthy steam as soon as they collide with the next episode. A perfect example of this is Little Nicky, Dick Tremayne’s “Little Brother” from the Happy Helping Hands organization. His addition to the proceedings here is pretty shrug-worthy, and yet by the next episode I’m ready to follow to where this particular storyline leads, thanks to a clever/weirdo twist or two and some fun moments.

Deputy Hawk: “My people believe that the White Lodge is a place where the spirits that rule man and nature reside. There is also a legend of a place called the Black Lodge. The shadow self of the White Lodge. Legend says that every spirit must pass through there on the way to perfection. There, you will meet your own shadow self. My people call it The Dweller on the Threshold.”
Cooper: “Dweller on the Threshold.”
Hawk: “But it is said that if you confront the Black Lodge with imperfect courage, it will utterly annihilate your soul.”

And with that, Twin Peaks drops another mammoth brick of mythology into our laps. We’ve been dealing in abstractions, in ifs and maybes and with a set of metaphysical players whose motivations and allegiances are entirely unclear. With Hawk’s tiny morsel of exposition we’re suddenly presented with a possibly-clarifying larger narrative within which to place these figures: two Lodges which stand in seeming opposition to one another. The White Lodge, which Briggs has spoken of before, and which we might assume to be the place he was referring to when speaking to Bobby about a White house where father and son are reunited in joy and in communion, and the Black Lodge, which remains so far undefined to us, save to say that it is apparently “the shadow self” of the White Lodge. This language implies a kind of yin-yang relationship between the two legendary locations, and the parasitical qualities of Bob – rogue spirit and malevolent presence – fit nicely with what might be argued as the parasitical nature of the Black Lodge itself – dependant on the White Lodge to cast a shadow in order for it to exist. This sort of symbiosis is fitting for the show as a whole, and fitting given David Lynch’s expressed interest in Eastern concepts of metaphysics/transcendental meditation. Some folks have told me that the introduction of concepts like the Lodges ultimately make the show less exciting/interesting/whathaveyou, but personally I love this kind of stuff when it’s handled in an interesting way. So far, Twin Peaks is handling it very well.

Twin Peaks essential mythos revolves around broad emotional concepts like “Love,” “Fear” and “Courage.” In this sense its mythology reflects something more primordial and less regimented than many modern-era spiritual belief systems. As we go deeper into this final season I’ll be talking more about the possible inspirations for the concepts being bandied about here, and exploring them in more depth. For now, to preserve continuing mystery, I’ll just note that the process Hawk describes above – one in which the human spirit confronts “The Dweller on the Threshhold” and has their soul annihilated if they lack “perfect courage,” is at least vaguely reminiscent of many ancient tribal rituals typically associated with achieving manhood and/or achieving spiritual enlightenment. It simultaneously evokes the judgment mythologies of many religions, including the judgment of the scales as found in Egyptian mythology. I’ll be interested to see how and where Lynch and Frost’s invented cosmology lines up with these belief systems, and where it diverges and reveals itself as unique. Note, finally, that the concept of confronting one’s “shadow self” mirrors the obsession with twinning that this show has generally. That’s important, both for the text and for the subtext. More on this next week/the next few weeks.

But enough of my pointless pontification. We’ve got David Duchovony in a dress to discuss.

It’s one thing to see Molly Shannon pop up on this show acting less than Molly Shannon-esque. It’s quite another to watch as the future Fox Mulder shows up dressed as a woman. Every time I think Twin Peaks has hit the ceiling in terms of what it can introduce without losing me the show manages to do something like this: David Duchovony in drag. His character of Denise seems to be a friend of Cooper’s, perhaps romantically interested in him, and is assisting him in helping to clear Coop’s name. I can’t imagine that Denise will stick around for long but for now I welcome the delightfully incongruous sight of – again – David Duchovony in drag. It’s a hoot to watch as Denise turns Ernie “The Professor” Niles into the FBI’s informant with hardly any effort at all in the next episode. I’m looking forward to seeing how Denise and Ernie’s drug sting operation goes down.

We learn a bunch of stuff about Josie’s past in this episode that doesn’t interest me much, if at all. The moment she mentions that Thomas Eckhart was “my father. My master. My lover,” I pretty much tuned out. There’s also some business here regarding the shift in power at One Eyed Jack’s, but again, there’s nothing much to write about. Hank’s got the power now, and Ben’s gone mad. More on all of this on the next page.

Windom Earle: “Let me paint you a picture. My knights will skirmish. Lanes of power and influence will open to my bishops and rooks. Pawns will naturally be forfeit. I’m even prepared to sacrifice my queen because I assure you, dear Dale, my goal will be attained at any
cost. The king must die.”

Windom Earle rears his head again, and the evocation of Knight imagery, along with “King and “Queen” imagery is both apt considering the chess game these two men are playing literally and figuratively, and also quite appropriate to the metaphorical roles that these men have taken on. I’ve written at length before on Cooper’s similarity to the classical conception of the shining Knight (this association is almost immediately reinforced by Cooper’s dialogue with Audrey, when she asks rhetorically “Excuse me. Didn’t you…rescue me once?” Keep this dialogue in mind. I’m going to start breaking these allusions down in greater detail relatively soon.

Do you care about the wedding of Dougie Milford to Lana Milford? Yeah, neither do I. And so we’ll end this episode’s column on a brighter note – something I do care about and was pleasantly surprised to learn – Andrew Packer isn’t dead.

ENJOY A MUCH BETTER EPISODE….AFTER THE PAGE BREAK!