Subject: Major Briggs is Back!
From: lecl@quads.uchicago.edu (elizabeth e. leclair)
Date: 1991-01-13, 06:53
Newsgroups: alt.tv.twin-peaks

    First, a brief editorial comment on the return of TP:        

AAAAAALLLLLLLRRRIIIIIIIIGGGGHHHHTTT, BAAAABBY!

   There were about twenty people gathered in festive mood for our ritual
of cultural renewal (i.e., watching TP) in the big-screen television room
last night.  It's a social experience that goes a long way.      

   My thoughts:

  -- In a single episode, Major Briggs has, IMHO, become the central figure
     of mystery in the town of Twin Peaks.  Remember the first few episdoes
     when he was just a mere militaristic shell, commander of a disfuntional
     family?  The narrative style developing his character has been patient 
     and great.  First his revelead "vision" to Bobby-- corny but it linked
     him with other visionaries such as Coop.  Then the owl message, and much
     later the conversation about the White Lodge.  During his absence, Lynch
     indirectly builds his character into something big; note the scene 
     where the Air Force commander suggests Briggs' capacity for some awesome
     power.  Finally, when Mrs. Briggs is sitting up on the sofa during the
     ominous storm (when was the last time you saw HER?), we get her sense
     of loss, but at the same time we know she knows more than we do about
     the Major's abilities and his disappearences.  

        When the Major reappeared as a weary aviator, materializing in the
     midst of a blackout and reuniting with his wife--  wow.  What a terribly
     human, but at the same time otherworldy scene.  Who else besides the
     giant can come and go like that?

        The TP bonus question (besides "WHERE is BOB?") is "WHAT is Major
     Briggs?"


--   Crticism of the week:  I'm dissapointed that we now have yet another
     battered wife in the show.  The James subplot is bad enough without
     still more intimations and/or displays of woman-beating, as we had in
     the Shelley-Leo encounters.  I guess now that Leo is spitting up soup
     the writers felt we had to return to the maintain the previous quotient
     by providing yet another beautiful female trapped by her husband,
     ready to be saved by her boyfriend.  Sick and pointless.

  Oh well, you win some, you lose some.  At least now there is some material
  to talk about!

Elizabeth E. LeClair
International House
(Lecl@midway.uchicago.edu)