Subject: Re: Major Briggs is Back!
From: mke@kaberd.UUCP (Mike Miller)
Date: 1991-01-14, 10:25
Newsgroups: alt.tv.twin-peaks

]From 3cpu!percy!qiclab!pdxgate!tektronix!zephyr.ens.tek.com!uunet!bu.edu!att!linac!midway!quads.uchicago.edu!lecl Mon Jan 14 10:19:32 PST 1991
]
]
]    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?"
I agree.  What the heck is Major Briggs anyway?  You forgot to mention the 
scene where he shows Cooper the "COOPER^3"  printout.  This also showed
him to be more then he had at first seemed.
]
]
]--   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.

I think it far more likely that James is being manipulated by (I can't remember
her name.)  and her brother.  I suspect that the story they are telling is 
atleast partially false.  We'll find out eventually I guess.  Of course,
I don't find myself caring very much about this subplot.  Compared to the Cooper
/Major Briggs one it is very dull.
]
]  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)
-- There is very little gray in the world. Most gray is an illusion, Meerly the result of many people's self sophistry combining, Until the truth is totally lost amongst the haze. pdxgate.cs.pdx.edu!agora!3cpu!kaberd!mke or mke@redsun.UUCP