This week, Shawn and Gus meet up with Satan again in Twin Peaks. Okay, not really, but Ray Wise used to play The Devil on the CW's Reaper, and he joins his Twin Peaks castmates in this reunion episode.
Now, I've never seen an episode of Twin Peaks. Ever. As a result, the burning question for me was, "Am I going to enjoy this episode of Psych even if I know next to nothing about Twin Peaks?" Yes, but not as much as other episodes. I can only attribute this to my lack of familiarity with Twin Peaks, and not ever being particularly taken by the work of David Lynch. (I do have to appreciate any episode that makes references to Ridgecrest, the hometown of my college roommate, and Andrew McCarthy. His career's pretty much dead, but I liked him.)
Shawn and Gus are lured out to the strange little town of Dual Spires (ha) to investigate the death of a young woman named Paula Merral (an anagram of Laura Palmer). Unsurprisingly, what they find ends up being pretty crazy, including that you can make an entire owl out of cinnamon, and that Paula had previously faked her death to escape her abusive mother. They continue to poke around the residents of Dual Spires, all of whom are far more strange than their allegedly idyllic small-town lifestyle would have you believe. Gus sums them all up best when he refers to Jack as "a freaky dude living in a freaky place." The same could go for any one of the characters we meet. The problem for me is that they weren't an endearing kind of freaky; they were just unsettling and freaky, which didn't exactly make me want to spend time with them.
I did a little reading up on Twin Peaks during the commercial breaks of this episode, and from what I can tell, "Dual Spires" is pretty faithful to the show, down to the tone and haunting score, which is the most important thing about a tribute. The writing is certainly sly enough, with those little details and references that reward fans and those paying close enough attention. I'm sure that fans of Twin Peaks probably will be a lot happier with this episode, and I applaud the Psych team for being able to pull together the original cast and putting so much effort into the material.
It's just that for me, personally, this episode isn't my cup of coffee. I am completely down with the Churros, however.
Brittany Frederick
DigitalAirwaves.net
Examiner.com
Fanbolt.com
Starpulse.com
Twitter: @tvbrittanyf
