Who Killed Laura Podcast Ep. 3 - Do You Know Where Dreams Come From

The Who Killed Laura Podcast

WKLP Episode 3 - Do You Know Where Dreams Come From?

Scott and Chris are back with another episode of the podcast, this one focusing on Season One, Episode 3?s “Rest in Pain,” originally broadcast April 26, 1990.

The episode was written by Harley Peyton, who ‘80s kids may have first noticed as the screenwriter of 1987?s Less Than Zero, based on the novel by Bret Easton Ellis. Peyton would go on to write and/or produce some pretty poor films like Heaven’s Prisoners and Bandits in the early ‘00s and more recently worked on television series such as Dracula. Peyton was nominated for writing this episode, as was Mark Frost for writing the pilot. Before one argues that the split votes resulted in David E. Kelley winning for L.A. Law, Kelley was nominated with William M. Finkelstein for a different episode. Joseph Dougherty was also nominated, for thirtysomething.

As long as we’re talking Emmys, here are the Peaks nominations, with the winners in parentheses:

David Lynch - Outstanding Directing in a Drama Series for the pilot, (Thomas Carter - Equal Justice/Scott Winant - thirtysomething)(tie)

Kyle MacLachlan - Outstanding Actor in a Drama Series (Peter Falk - Columbo)

Piper Laurie - Outstanding Actress in a Drama Series (odd choice to push her as a lead actress)(Patricia Wettig - thirtysomething)

Sherilyn Fenn - Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series (Marg Helgenberger - China Beach)

Twin Peaks - Outstanding Drama Series (L.A. Law)

ABC did tie with NBC for most major nominations with 47, and won the most awards with 11, beating CBS with 10, NBC with 8, HBO with 3 and Fox with 2. HBO’s 11 nominations were primarily for original movies and specials; they were just starting with original series.

This episode had 16.7 million viewers, so another 2.5M dropped off from the previous week. There were at least two scenes in questionable taste featuring a male figure straddling either Laura Palmer’s corpse or her coffin, so perhaps the early ‘90s sensibilities of some fans were offended. The title of the episode is, “Rest in Pain.” As usual, we titled the podcast on a line of dialogue from the episode.

The episode was directed by Tina Rathborne, who would go on to direct one more episode of the series, episode #17. She previously directed Isabella Rossellini in the feature film, Zelly and Me, and of course, Rossellini was in Lynch’s Blue Velvet and Wild at Heart. Rathbone borrowed some bits from the previous episode’s dream sequence with Lynch’s permission, wanting to add visual flair to an episode she felt was heavy with characters sitting and talking. Rathbone would praise the banal, mundane elements of life in Twin Peaks and the boy next door character of Agent Cooper, which made the violent, lurid and surreal elements more striking.

Rathbone describes the series as a Bildungsroman, a German term for a novel of formation/education/culture, as Agent Cooper learns over the course of the series to become a more enlightened, well-rounded person. She also points out that in Cooper, Lynch and Frost introduced Carl Jung’s theories of analytical psychology, which deals with and introduces such concepts as the personal and collective unconscious, and places great emphasis on symbols, anima and animus, the ego, and the shadow.

The episode introduces two significant characters but also a secret group, The Bookhouse Boys, an extralegal fraternal order consisting of two actual police, Sheriff Truman and Deputy Hawk, as well as Big Ed Hurley. The setting for the Bookhouse was a real location, That Old Place Restaurant in Cornell, CA, much the same as seen on screen but with the bookcases and books added. Other episodes featuring The Bookhouse would feature a set, quite a bit larger and with more rooms than possible, based on the dimensions of the outside.

The Bookhouse Boys insignia is that of a tree with a golden sword essentially taking the place of the trunk and spine of the tree.

Miguel Ferrer debuts this episode as FBI agent Albert Rosenfeld, getting some great scenes condescending to Twin Peaks’ Sheriff's Department, whom he sees as backwoods clods. Ferrer, son of Oscar-winning actor/director Jose Ferrer, would reprise his role in TP:FWWM. His other film, TV and animation voice credits are too numerous to mention, including roles in the holy trinity of network investigative dramas, CSI, NCIS and Law & Order. Ferrer’s work as Albert was well-received by critics, and Ferrer was reportedly a welcome addition to the set, bringing a lot of laughter to his approach to the character.

Sheryl Lee doesn’t debut, exactly, but gets her first shot really acting and talking onscreen, not as Laura Palmer, but as her cousin, Madeleine “Maddy” Ferguson, a nerdier, brunette version of Laura who seems to be as decent and nice as many thought Laura was. She comes from Missoula, Montana, Lynch’s real birthplace. We’ll discuss duality in Lynch’s work down the road more, but let’s note here that Maddy’s name is itself a reference to one of the great cinematic explorations of duality, Hitchcock’s Vertigo, which featured Kim Novak as Madeleine and James Stewart as Scottie Ferguson.

We question the acting skills of Dana Ashbrook in this episode, a San Diego native with two sisters also in the industry, but he’s had a decent career as well, mostly in TV (CSI, Blue Bloods, Law & Order), and no doubt his appearance in an episode of Psych must have been a Twin Peaks parody, as the episode was titled, “Dual Spires.”

Thanks, as always, for listening and reading. We’d love to hear what you think, so please follow us on Twitter @whokilledlaura1, on Facebook and Instagram at Who Killed Laura Podcast, and email us at [e-mail].

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