Reviews in Pop Culture: Twin Peaks

Detail of "An Old Woman and Her Grandson" at Copro Gallery; Click for source

Agent Dale Cooper knows how to review a cup of coffee. Damn fine coffee. A damn good cup of coffee. Two cups of black coffee, hot.

The short words, the strong emotion, and the repetition; they make something truly memorable in a show full of memorable moments and characters.

But coffee and pie aren’t the only recipients of reviews in the show, there’s also the Double R Diner itself, set into a frenzy by the arrival of M.T. Wentz. For as unpredictable as Twin Peaks is, the sight of characters getting excited by a food critic (or a beauty pageant for that matter) seems out of form, but still rides that line between mundane and eccentric that keeps you watching and invested.

As in my last Reviews in Pop Culture post on Ocean’s 13, I will implore you to go enjoy the media I am about to discuss if by chance you haven’t seen it. Twin Peaks will embed itself in your brain and stay there for some time. You’ll be doing yourself a favor to rent out that space, trust me.

And some mild spoilers will follow. You’ve been warned.

So, the Double R Diner, home to damn good coffee. Home to cherry pie, boysenberry pie, and big scoops of vanilla ice cream, all offered with a smile by Norma Jennings.

Norma’s life has not gone the way she’d imagined. High school sweetheart of big Ed, Norma instead fell into a relationship with Hank, a man recently released from prison and back into her life, much to her dismay. But she has reason for hope when Hank starts working around the diner and mentions cleaning the place up for the traveling food critic M.T. Wentz.

The decor is polished, new menus line the tables, and Norma waits with anticipation, hoping a positive review will help draw business to the diner.

Of course, in many a situational comedy or drama, the people chasing the positive review rarely achieve it. But it’s often discovered that they were after something else the whole time.

While Norma works away at bettering the Double R, her mother Vivian pays a surprise visit, with a new husband in tow. It’s clear the women have issues, and these are only exacerbated by Vivian’s incessant criticisms of Norma’s cooking, recipes, and restaurant as a whole.

When M.T. Wentz’s review finally comes out, panning the Double R as nothing but the country stop it is, Vivian reveals that she is the critic, she wrote the review, she axed her daughter’s restaurant. But at least she’s dedicated to her job, right? As she says:

“Darling, I wanted to give you a good review. But this is just not a good restaurant! I can’t violate my professional ethics.”

I’ve heard you should never let love get in the way of business, but I don’t think there were many obstructions here.

So while Norma didn’t get what she wanted, she does stand up for herself, her restaurant, and her simpler way of life. She tells her mother to leave, and Vivian, with no torte or retort, simply does. She is silenced by her own criticisms.

There’s something to be said for trying to better oneself, but the key is that it must be for oneself, not for someone else, not to score high on someone else’s scale. Norma wasn’t unhappy with the Double R before M.T. Wentz came to town, and after all the effort of trying to make it something it wasn’t, she stripped it all away and put it back to what it was.

After all, it already had everything it needed to be great at what it was; good people, good pie, and damn good coffee.