Twin Peaks episode review — 2.16 — Episode 23/The Condemned Woman
Original air date: February 16, 1991
Director: Lesli Linka Glatter
Writer: Tricia Brock
Rating: 7/10
Cooper and Sheriff Truman prepare the response to Windom Earle’s latest chess move, which leads to a call to Pete Martell.
Sheriff Truman is about to arrest Hank Jennings, but Hank wants to give him information on the attempted murder of Andrew Packard. When Truman declines, Hank mentions that he’s sleeping with the one that did it.
Albert tries to convince Cooper to arrest Josie, and Cooper finally agrees to talk to her.
Even though Ben is back, Audrey finds herself running more of the family business than she’d have expected. John Justice Wheeler arrives, and oh my God, he’s Billy Zane!
Billy Zane is basically my favorite actor ever, and it has little to do with his acting ability. Sure, I think there’s a natural charm and a quick wit about him, but he’s largely taken the roles of a hack.
And yet despite all that, he’ll go down in history in a way, for having not just a role in Titanic — the biggest movie ever that stars two of our generation’s biggest movie stars in Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet — but a huge role in the 3+ hour-long James Cameron epic. That just makes me so proud of him, honestly. He can make all the Survival Islands in the world, but you can never take Titanic away from him.
And even though Billy Zane shows up in just about the worst part of the series — after the solving of Laura Palmer’s murder, but before the Windom Earle stuff truly takes over — his presence here does boost Twin Peaks at least for me. And probably only me. But how often does being a big Billy Zane fan pay off? Not often, so it’s nice to let me have this one.
Anyways, enough about Billy Zane. So Nadine and Ed officially break up, even though I thought they sort of did that last episode. Josie faints at the sight of Andrew Packard, which honestly I thought happened a couple episodes ago.
Still, we’ve made some progress in moving past Ben Horne’s Civil War reenactment. And I think the whole Milford saga is done, too. So that’s two of the worst subplots in the history of the show that are done. Only Nadine’s high school shit to get through now.
Back to Billy Zane, actually, because he’s in the best scene of the episode. Ben Horne gathers Jerry, Bobby Briggs, Audrey, and John Justice Wheeler — who he explains as an old family friend of theirs that he basically invested in Great Expectations style. The best moment is when he unveils his grand plan to save the Horne family business in campaigning to save some endangered pine weasel that would be destroyed by Catherine’s newest development. It’s funny because of everybody’s reactions.
Shelly gets some kind of weird message telling her to go to the Roadhouse, and Ed comes and proposes to Norma.
Windom Earle and Leo Johnson — still not speaking — are just kind of hanging out. I don’t know. Not much intrigue there yet.
Norma comes and visits Hank in jail to ask him for a divorce. He seems understanding, but still wants Norma to provide an alibi for him to keep him out of prison. He then realizes it’s about Ed, and he calls her Big Ed’s whore, prompting this response:
It’s the exact same line as the one in Titanic, which would come out six years later. And it’s Billy Zane’s first episode on the series. That always struck me as a weird coincidence to me. I want to believe Billy Zane did a rewrite for Cameron.
Cooper, Truman, and Pete plan out some chess strategy.
Albert then pesters Cooper one last time to finally arrest Josie, and there’s a tacit emotional moment with Truman.
James is finally safe from the police, but Donna urges him to go out somewhere. He then begs her to go with him, but she won’t. And then he has to promise that he’ll come back for her, I guess. I don’t know what’s going on here. Make that only two of the four worst plots to be done, because I guess this is still a thing.
Sheriff Truman arrives at the Martell/Packard home, but Catherine and Pete tell him that Josie’s gone to the Great Northern, and she’s in trouble because of Thomas Eckhardt or something.
Thomas Eckhardt runs into Andrew Packard. He explains that Josie couldn’t bring herself to kill him.
Ben Horne assigns Jack Wheeler with teaching Audrey all about business, and we are now on Audrey Horne’s third will-they/won’t-they partner, and as much as I do love Billy Zane, this is probably the worst.
Audrey, Donna, and Shelly all meet at the Roadhouse and find that their three notes all came from the same message. It’s some kind of coded message from Windom Earle, who’s at the bar actually.
Cooper heads to Thomas Eckhardt’s suite at the Great Northern to find Josie. Before he arrives, there is an argument and a gunshot, and he breaks in to find Thomas Eckhardt shot, with Josie holding the gun.
She claims that Eckhardt tried to kill her, but Cooper isn’t buying it, and tells her that he knows she was the one who shot him. He asks her why and she explains that she knew she had to when he was in town, because he’d end up finding out about all her crimes.
She refuses to lower her gun, and Sheriff Truman arrives, pointing the gun at her. Josie then just collapses and dies.
Cooper then sees a vision of BOB.
I don’t think it’s just my love for Billy Zane that makes me say this had been the most interesting Twin Peaks episode in a while. I mean, that Josie stuff is definitely weird. And like I said, there’s that great pine weasel scene.
And of all the soap opera elements this show had in the second season that just wear you out, the Harry/Josie stuff sort of works.
