POP! Television: Twin Peaks – Leland Palmer

Spoiler Alert: This review contains spoilers for Twin Peaks and Fire Walk With Me.

Leland Palmer: [as BOB] Leland's a babe in the woods, with a large hole where his conscious used to be. When I go children, I will pull that ripcord and you watch Leland remember. Watch him!

Twin Peaks is a quirky show, with plenty of humour and fun oddities. But the light is contrasted with the dark; the show is centred around a murder mystery after all. And one of the key figures in that mystery is the subject of today’s review, Leland Palmer.

When we first meet Mr Palmer, he’s simply a bereaved father trying to keep it together after the death of his daughter. But as the series continues, the deeply unpleasant truth is revealed; Leland is the vessel for the mysterious BOB, and Laura was not only murdered by him, but the victim of his incestuous attentions for years prior. 

Leland’s complicity in his crimes is the subject of some debate. It’s suggested that Leland has been possessed by BOB since he was a young child, as a result of being molested himself. By contrast, Fire Walk With Me paints a somewhat different picture. BOB may be controlling Leland when it comes to the abuse and murder of Laura (and Teresa Banks) – but there’s no real indication of BOB’s influence when he earlier visits prostitutes. 

Of course, David Lynch is not really known for providing definitive answers, so I just go with the most commonly held opinion; namely, that Leland is largely ignorant of his own acts until the he kills Jacques Renault, one of the suspects in Laura’s murder. Although an all-round terrible person, Renault is actually innocent of the crime, so Leland murdering Renault of his own volition appears to provide BOB with a gateway to fully take over.

As is traditional with breakdowns or mental illness in pop culture, this is demonstrated in incredibly *cough* subtle *cough* form. Leland’s hair turns completely white overnight and he runs through the Great Northern Hotel singing showtunes from the 1940s. But I suppose some of it can be excused by him being literally demon-possessed by this point in the series.   

Naturally, the POP opts for this look, with white hair and white eyes. It is the more visually interesting option, but I do think it’s a shame that we don’t also have a “regular” version of Leland. I think I may pick an extra one up and just repaint the hair, eyes and hands, as that’s pretty much all that’s required. Also, the body would make for a perfect Carl Jung custom, if coupled with a Bernie Sanders head.   

It’s now been 26 years since Leland was revealed as Laura’s murderer…and although I love Twin Peaks, the show kind of fumbles a bit awkwardly after the big reveal. Nonetheless, Ray Wise’s performance as the tormented Leland is nothing short of excellent. What could have been camp, silly or contrived is instead a compelling, sympathetic and well-rounded character. Already an established actor by the time of Twin Peaks, he’s since gone on to have a fantastic career as a character actor – and now it’s only a week until he returns to our screens again. Roll on series 3!

POP! Television: Twin Peaks – The Giant

“It is happening again. It is happening again.” 

Though he only actually appears in a few scenes, the Giant is one of the most memorable characters in Twin Peaks. He’s played by Carel Struycken, who’s had lots of bit parts playing tall and/or unusual characters. Aside from Twin Peaks, his most high profile role was probably Lurch in the 90s Addams Family films.

A Lodge spirit who appears in the Great Northern Hotel, the Giant has a human host just like BOB and MIKE – an unnamed, elderly room service waiter from the Hotel, whose actions are obscure at best and the product of senility at worst.    

As with virtually everyone and everything involving the Black and White Lodges, the Giant is ambiguous. Initially he gives the impression of being a good guy; his initial information is helpful to Cooper, if cryptic. Later, he tells warns Cooper of BOB’s murder of Maddy, and he explicitly warns Cooper against Annie entering the ”Miss Twin Peaks” pageant. Sounds like someone who’s trying to help, right? But later we see him sitting alongside the Man from Another Place in the Red Room (whose own villainy was suggested in the final episode, and confirmed in Fire Walk With Me).  

So the Giant may have his own agenda, but I still lean toward seeing him as a good guy. Carel Struycken is set to reprise his role in season 3, so we may get a solid confirmation. Or we may get this.

Funko’s sculpting captures Struycken’s unusual features quite well, while still neatly fitting the POP format. The head is a little more egg-shaped than the usual rounded-off cube style, and they’ve made his body a little taller than usual to fake the height. He’s bigger than a regular figure, but not quite as tall as he appears in a show – though to be fair, an in-scale figure might have been too big to fit in a regular box. He’s depicted with his right arm raised, pointing with his index finger. I remember happening in the show, but can’t remember which scene it actually appears in. It makes sense for the character – I suppose they could have given him Cooper’s ring, but this is better.   

The first episode that the Giant first appears in is called “May the Giant Be with You”, and thanks to a good business decision by Funko, he can be with you. The POP version of the Giant was originally intended to be a chase version of Leland Palmer. Though a few packaged examples of the “chase” seem to have made it to retail, Funko realised that this was a terrible idea and decided to release him as part of the main series. In a world where it feels like common sense rarely prevails, it’s nice to see it triumph – a trivial victory in the grand scheme of things, but you need to take your wins where you can get them.

   

POP! Television – Twin Peaks: The Log Lady

“One day my log will have something to say about this. My log saw something that night.”

In a show that’s already studded with mysteries, riddles and bizarre characters, the Log Lady still stands out as one of the most enigmatic.

Derided as crazy by most of the town of Twin Peaks, we quickly learn that the Log Lady does have some kind of psychic insight into the strange events occurring in the town. But as with everyone else who’s got something useful to say (The Giant, The Man From Another Place, Laura Palmer et al) it’s couched in highly cryptic terms. Major Briggs comes closest to getting a straight answer out of her – and probably not coincidentally, he’s the character who treats her with the most respect.   

The POP is a solid recreation of her look on the show. If I had to pin down her style to four words, I’d call it “frumpy Sally Jesse Raphael”. Back in Stranger Things week I commented on the disparity between how people now view the 80s, versus how they actually looked. Twin Peaks was set in 1989, at the tail-end of the decade, and again, the clothes look dated – but not outrageously gaudy. So really, it’s pretty typical of what more conservative middle-aged women wore at the time.

Paint is mostly neat, though make sure you check the hairline and the log – these are the likely trouble spots. It’s an all-round solid POP. But with all of this said, I suspect the Log Lady will probably be the lowest-selling figure from the Twin Peaks line. Laura Palmer and Dale Cooper are the obvious pickups, and the rest of the characters scale down accordingly. I’m all in personally, but for more casual collectors, Log Lady is easier to pass on.    

Though Catherine E. Coulson passed away in 2015, the Log Lady will reappear in the 2017 revival as she had apparently already finished filming her scenes. She wasn’t my favourite character from the ensemble, but she was always entertaining. Who knows what the Log will have to share this time?   

POP! Television – Twin Peaks: Audrey Horne

Spoiler Alert: This review contains spoilers for Twin Peaks, Fire Walk With Me and The Secret History of Twin Peaks.

“They found my friend Laura... lying facedown on a rocky beach... completely naked. She'd been murdered.”

I’m actually a relative newcomer to the world of Twin Peaks. My mother was a huge fan back when it was airing in the early 90s, but I didn’t start on it myself until late 2015. It had been on my to-watch list for years, but there was always some complicating factor – generally that the series wasn’t readily available on DVD or was simply too expensive for my then-limited means. Not to mention that a number of the DVD releases have had issues, too.  

But boy, am I glad I did. It rapidly became one of my favourite TV shows, and one of the big standout characters is Audrey Horne. 

Initially a mischievous troublemaker, within a few scenes of her on-screen arrival she’s sabotaged a multi-million-dollar deal. Why? Apparently just for laughs. She provides the first hint that the town of Twin Peaks has plenty of strange secrets beneath the surface, by acting as its very own femme fatale. Of course, as the series goes on we discover that she does actually have a heart of gold (trite though the phrase may be) and she matures quite rapidly after meeting Dale Cooper. She’s not Laura Palmer’s friend per se, but she ultimately places herself in a number of high risk situations to help uncover the killer. She uncovers a lot of key clues -- if not the actual killer -- and in the process discovers that her own father was one of Laura’s several lovers. That's a conversation that no-one would ever want to have with their parents.  

In POP form, Audrey is depicted in her most memorable outfit – a red sweater and a plaid A-line skirt, accompanied by saddle shoes. Save for the muted colours, it wouldn’t have looked out of place on the set of Grease. This outfit has a threefold purpose:

1.  It somewhat resembles a school uniform (she is a high school student after all);
2.  Its retro look thematically reinforces the show’s noir elements;
3.  It’s also just something that a teen might have worn during the era. There was a big wave of 1950s nostalgia during the 80s – it’s one of the things that helped make Back to the Future such a big hit – and that had a flow-on effect to fashion, too.  

To reinforce her wannabe bad girl status, she’s also holding a cigarette. Just like the “tough” kids at your school used to. However, I’d say she pulls it off with a little more style…      

Audrey isn’t quit a compelling a POP as Dale, Laura or BOB, but she is a key character in the series and so it’s fitting that she made this initial line-up. Sherilyn Fenn is returning for the 2017 revival, so it will be interesting to see what Audrey’s been up to post-bank explosion – did John Justice Wheeler ever come back for her? And if he didn’t, did things ever work out with Coop? All will be revealed over the next few months.

POP! Television – Twin Peaks: Laura Palmer

Spoiler Alert: This review contains spoilers for Twin Peaks and Fire Walk With Me.

“I’ll see you again in 25 years.”

Poor Laura Palmer. Her murder kicks off the events of Twin Peaks, and in the process exposes the seedy underbelly of the seemingly idyllic little town.

In spite of her death, we still see quite a bit of Laura throughout the series, primarily in dreams and in the Red Room. But we never really see her alive until Fire Walk With Me, the prequel/sequel film released in 1992. It's a frustrating movie; watching in 2017, you can easily go and reference the series via streaming site or DVD. But I can see why it drove viewers up the wall in 1992. It has some great scenes, but was it really necessary? It raises just as many questions as it answers, and the tone is radically different to the wider series. Some of this was due to production problems and studio interference, but it still felt like a missed opportunity.

Nonetheless, it’s good to be getting Twin Peaks POPs. I imagine this figure will generate its share of controversy in the weeks to come, as it not only depicts a corpse but a nude one at that. It’s not exactly a throwback to McFarlane’s edgier days, but given the upset that the Breaking Bad toys caused a couple of years ago we can only assume that Funko has been wiser than to try and stock them at Toys R Us.   

When the control art was first released for these figures, I was quite unsure as to how Funko would pull off the construction of this figure; would everything be one solid piece and painted accordingly? Well, now that it’s in hand, it appears that they’ve taken a separate POP figure, and then used a softer plastic to mould the plastic wrapping. It’s an elegant solution, though I question its longevity – I can see it yellowing, hardening and cracking if it’s exposed to sunlight, but admittedly that’s just speculation on my part.  

And in what seems to be a first for Funko, Laura comes with two display options – there’s the stand which keeps her upright, but she also comes with a sheet of cardboard that depicts the rocky waterside she’s found on. This is a cool touch, and I hope we see Funko do more like it in the future.

I suspect Laura will be one of the best-selling POPs in the line. She’s one of the most unique figures Funko has yet released, and with the show about to return to the airwaves, interest in the series is the highest it’s been in years. It’s an unusual collectible, and it exemplifies Twin Peaks rather well – it will be eagerly seized on by fans and utterly baffle everyone else.  

POP! Television – Twin Peaks: Dale Cooper

Spoiler Alert: This review contains spoilers for Twin Peaks and Fire Walk With Me. 

“You know, this is - excuse me - a damn fine cup of coffee. I've had I can't tell you how many cups of coffee in my life and this, this is one of the best. Now I'd like two eggs over hard. I know, don't tell me, it's hard on the arteries, but old habits die hard, just about as hard as I want those eggs.”

Kyle MacLachlan should be a much bigger star than he is today, up there among the George Clooneys and Brad Pitts of the world. He’s handsome, he has charisma in spades and he can act too. But as we know, things don’t always go the way they “should”*. A few dud films in the mid-90s (like The Flintstones and the notorious Showgirls) meant his star began to wane right as it really should have been ascending. Nonetheless, he’s still carved out a career that plenty of other actors would kill to have – and next month he’s going to be back on our screens in his best-loved role, Agent Dale Cooper!  

I normally loathe using the word “quirky” to describe things, but I’d say that it’s probably a fitting descriptor for Dale Cooper. He’s relentlessly cheery without being annoying, far more capable than the average man but never condescending, and totally weird without being alienating. We need more characters like him on TV. And though I love The X-Files, Mulder – the more famous FBI agent of the two – pales in comparison.

In POP form, Cooper is (naturally) depicted with a mug of coffee, and giving the thumbs up. If they ever do a second version, he’ll hopefully be holding a piece of cherry pie and/or tape recorder. Nonetheless, they’ve definitely made a good choice by going with this pose. Paintwork is solid (though check the hairline before purchasing) and the sculpt is excellent. All these factors boil down to a must-buy for fans of the series; you could pass over the others if your budget or space is limited, but Agent Cooper is essential. To paraphrase the man himself – every day, once a day, give yourself a present. Don't plan it; don't wait for it; just let it happen. It could be a new shirt in a men's store, a catnap in your office chair, or two cups of good, hot, black, coffee…or a Funko POP.

For myself, I’m planning to pick up the whole line; between these guys and the Stranger Things POPs, Funko is really delivering some of their best quality work in years. But even more importantly, I'm really eagerly awaiting season 3. When we last saw Cooper, he was the new host for BOB -- with his "good" side seemingly trapped in the Red Room. What's been going on since then? David Lynch is not really known for giving straight explanations, but I'm sure we'll find out soon.

*Otherwise we probably wouldn’t have had to wait 25 years between Fire Walk With Me and season 3 of Twin Peaks, would we?  

POP! Television – Twin Peaks: BOB

Spoiler Alert: This review contains spoilers for Twin Peaks and Fire Walk With Me.

"Head's up, tails up, run you scallywags. Night falls, morning calls, I'll catch you with my death bag. You may think I've gone insane, but I promise, I will kill again!" 

Even accounting for it being a show oriented around a murder mystery, Twin Peaks touches on some surprisingly dark territory. And there’s no character that exemplifies it more than the show’s big bad, Killer BOB. 

A demon from the mysterious Black Lodge, BOB’s motives – or the full extent of his powers – are never really revealed throughout the series. But you can piece together bits and pieces; BOB and his fellow Black Lodge spirits seem to feed off the emotions generated by terror, and that terror is largely created through rape and murder. Using the human host of Leland Palmer, BOB has been able to carry on this way for a number of years – until, of course, FBI Agent Dale Cooper arrives in town. More mystically attuned than your average law enforcement officer, Cooper begins to realise there’s more at work in Twin Peaks than a simple serial killer.

Interestingly enough, the character of BOB was largely created by accident. While working as a set dresser on the pilot, Frank Silva’s reflection was caught in a mirror. On noticing the mistake, David Lynch decided he’d found his villain, and went from there – hence the street clothes. Coincidence? Perhaps in the real world…but in the universe of Twin Peaks, it’s just another example of synchronicity in action.  

BOB the POP is not quite as terrifying as his onscreen counterpart, but this may well be for the best. He’s got his hands clenched into claw-like gestures, and even without the snarling mouth you can pick up that he’s not a good guy. It’s an impressively cutesy take on a horrific character, and would fit nicely in with a horror collection even if you didn’t pick up any of the other characters from the line.  

Unfortunately, Frank Silva is unlikely to be appearing in this year’s revival of the series, unless it’s in archive footage – he passed away in 1994 as a result of AIDS-related complications. Whether BOB himself return remains to be seen, though I’d say it’s a safe bet he will. Perhaps the new host will even be Michael Cera? Stranger things have happened…