Your Mr. Peaks Knew It, but Didn’t Tell : Television: Producers David Lynch and Mark Frost murkily assign the guilt to Laura’s dad’s evil alter ego, we think.

Mr. Peaks speaks. . . .

ABC’s baffling, frustrating, exasperating, irritating, bewitching, teasing “Twin Peaks” finally made good on its promise to reveal the identity of Laura Palmer’s killer Saturday. And yes, just as I thought:

Laura was murdered by Bob, the evil alter ego of Laura’s father, Leland Palmer.

And yes, just as I expected:

That multipersonality wacko Leland put on plastic gloves and, as Bob, attacked Laura’s look-alike cousin, Madeleine, beating, hugging and kissing her, then slamming her against a wall with such force that she fell in a crumpled heap, whereupon he inserted a tiny letter of the alphabet under her fingernail as his wife lay on the floor nearby, apparently unconscious, while the ceiling fan spun and a Louis Armstrong record continued to rotate on the turntable. And, oh yes, the white horse.

Frankly, I expected something a little less obvious.

What’s that? You’re doubting Mr. Peaks? You’re recalling that your “Twin Peaks” guru earlier wrote that the long-haired Bob was actually a hero who had tried to save Laura and was anguished by her death, that I insisted to my many disciples calling from across the nation that Sheriff Harry S. Truman was Laura’s killer?

And you didn’t realize I was kidding then? That I was pulling everyone’s leg, exploiting their childlike naivete, that I had this mystery in the bag from the start? Please, I’m not a college graduate for nothing.

You actually think Mr. Peaks didn’t know that Leland would look into a mirror Saturday and see himself as Bob? You think Mr. Peaks hadn’t a clue that Special Agent Dale Cooper and Truman would accompany the Log Lady to the roadhouse, where the bald giant would reappear to Cooper in a vision and warn, “It is happening again,” just before Leland/Bob began doing his number on Madeleine back at the Palmer home?

Of course, I had it figured. But I didn’t let on out of consideration for executive producers David Lynch and Mark Frost, not wanting to blow their mystery, knowing that their ratings were bad enough as is.

Withholding the truth took enormous self-discipline.

When a recent caller predicted that Laura’s murderer would be revealed as Lynch himself (“It’s perfect,” he said. “The man who created her, destroyed her”), I feigned support for this baseless theory.

Mr. Peaks wanted desperately to point out that Bob spelled backward is boB, but held back.

When viewers began calling in droves to note the obvious, that Catherine Martell had been appearing in drag as a mysterious Japanese businessman, I played along, pretending this was more than a minor red herring. What I really wanted to do was toss it off and inform these innocents that Ben Horne would confess to his daughter, Audrey, that he had slept with and was in love with Laura, that Bobby Briggs would discover an audio tape hidden in the heel of the boot of spitting, drooling Leo Johnson, that poor Harold Smith would hang himself, that U.S. Navy personnel would bounce balls on the floors of the Great Northern Hotel, that Madeleine’s decision to return home to Missoula, Mont. (where Lynch was born, by the way), would trigger the Bob demon in Leland.

All of this, naturally, had become clear to Mr. Peaks weeks ago.

But not everything is clear. What I don’t understand is this: Why all the obfuscation?

Instead of telling Cooper, “There are owls in the roadhouse,” why didn’t the Log Lady just say to him: “Dale, boobbie, go to the roadhouse. The bald giant has some important scoop for you”?

And if the bald giant is such a smartie, why didn’t he come out with it instead of speaking in clouded riddles? This was an emergency, right? Why didn’t he just tell Cooper: “Look, Dale, babes, granted Ben Horne’s a major creep, but you’ve arrested the wrong guy. Better get over to the Palmer house fast because Leland is there knocking the stuffing out of little Madeleine”?

Even better, why didn’t the giant save valuable time by unloading on Cooper before he got to the roadhouse? The giant is such a prima donna that he needs a major production and can’t just whisper into Cooper’s ear?

That would have been logical. But noooooo! The way Saturday night’s program ended means that Cooper will probably take another two episodes to figure out that Leland is the Bob who murdered Laura, further extending a bloated storyline that even many of the most tolerant “Twin Peaks” devotees feel should have been resolved weeks ago.

Unless . . . unless . . . Bob didn’t really do it. The giant is right: It’s happening again.

Mr. Peaks has spoken.