Twin Peaks: Drive with a Dead Girl

 "Ben... as your attorney, your friend and your brother, I strongly suggest that you get yourself a better lawyer."

This episode, perhaps, may not stand out as much as some, but it's as engaging as ever as the many subplots continue to unfold. We see Leland's disturbing behaviour after last episode's events, but whenever he looks into the mirror... it's Bob. I love the many golf balls at the start! Still, those glances in the mirror aside, this episode is unusually devoid of the supernatural. Indeed, Harry even pushes back at Agent Cooper on this a little.

So much happens here, as ever. Hank's old cellmate Ernie marries Lorna's mother. Andy tells Lucy that he may be the baby's father. Ben is being set up by Catherine, unless he signs over all but the hotel. Both Harry and Pete are worried about what happened to Josie. Maddie's body is found. 

Interestingly, though, we're eight episodes into this season which, unlike the last one, has the then regulation 22 episodes expected by American network television, whereas last season was over at this point. There aren't clear signs of it yet, but I do hope this doesn't lead to unnecessary padding. Time will tell.

Twin Peaks: Laura's Secret Diary

 "He never exercises. He never washes his car. And he doesn't even own a sports coat!"

By Twin Peaks standards, this is a fairly par episode, despite the fascinatingly surreal opening. And yet there's so much happening.

Oh, there's plot. Harold Smith openly tells Donna about Laura's secret diary... and Donna confides in love rival Maddy of all people. Ben Horne persuades Agent Cooper to handle the ransom for poor Audrey, luring him to his death. We meet a delightfully eccentric judge. Josie is up to something with her cousin from Hong Kong. And then there's Hank abd the bizarre fight at the end.

But there's also pathos. Leland feeling such unbearable grief that he killed Jacques Renault, who wasn't even Laura's killer. There's weirdness, with Audrey's only scene being shot very trippily, with Jean shooting his colleague suddenly. Jean is quite the character, to put it mildly.

Yet what lingers in the mind is the humour, the subtlety of it. Lucy's love troubles with Andy and Dick, our twoabsurd comedy characters, are quietly hilarious. And then there's the little sub-plot of the secret restaurant critic. 

I very much suspect we're not exactly going to see all the threads drawn together. But I'm still loving this.

First Blood (1982)

"We ain't hunting him- he's hunting us!"

Appallingly, I'd never seen this '80s action classic until now. First impressions are that, yes, it's a superb action movie, crammed with sizzling set pieces, yet I came expecting a B movie, and what I got was unexpectedly full of pathos. It's 1982; the Vietnam War ended nine years ago for America. But it seems the returning soldiers were shockingly neglected, materially and emotionally, by their country. And, while this is often seen as a right-wing taking point, Rambo's sobbing breakdown before Colonel Trautman seems to be a rebuke at America's individualistic lack of social democratic institutions.

Anyway, this is an awesome film, and cleverer than it  looks. The initial scene establishes that his only purpose is to find his old friends from the war,  it now the last of them is dead, and he’s alone, alienated, in an America with no place for him. And when Will, a two bit sheriff of a shitty little town in Washington state (those accents are a bit southern, though- is this really accurate?) starts to persecute him for no reason it escalated into a war with a trained and flawless killing machine, leaving things to escalate and escalate with each set piece topping the last and every single minute being utterly gripping. And yet Stallone, playing the macho and taciturn Rambo, never loses sight of the character’s pathos.

The whole thing is brilliantly made, from the brief but shocking Vietnam flashbacks during the early police brutality scenes to the Dukes of Hazzard car chases, and the ever-escalating stakes are completely believable. A much better film, and one with much more of a heart, than I was expecting.

Marvel's Agent Carter: Smoke & Mirrors

"You can be whatever you want."

At last we have an episode which is directly, rather than implicitly, about the misogyny and glass ceilings present in 1947 and, let us not be complacent, today. It does this by means of a structural parallel between young Peggy (Margaret Elizabeth Carter!) and young Whitney Frost (Aggie) as they grow up as girls and young women in a man's world.

Peggy never was "ladylike" as a girl but learns to confirm, turning down the chance of a really cool job with the SOE to marry a dull bloke, be a housewife, be boring. It's her brother (Edward Seymour from The Tudors) who convinces her otherwise, albeit in large part by getting shot, and she never looks back.

Aggie grew up in much more humble circumstances, her genius-level intellect irrelevant as her mother shagged a creepy bloke ("Uncle Bud") in order to keep above watt. The harsh lesson she learns is that no one cares about women's' brains, just their looks, and she exploits this to become a Hollywood star.

Meanwhile, Sousa, Peggy and Jarvis discover that the whole conspiracy extends deep into the establishment, deep enough to (officially) stymie their investigation. Now it's just the three of them, although Sousa is justly annoyed at not being included from the start.

The attraction between Peggy and Wilkes continues to grow ("Still, it must be very... frustrating!") as the script acknowledges, without explaining, the mystery of how he can survive without food. He feel tired, drawn to give up and be taken to... where? Meanwhile, Whitney reveals to Calvin exactly what has happened to her. This season just gets better and better.