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‘Twin Peaks: The Return’ Finale: No End and No Beginning

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By Caitlin Malcuit

It is happening again. The end of “Twin Peaks” has come, albeit a little more ceremonious. No time slot shuffling, no network exec interference—the end on David Lynch and Mark Frost’s terms (one of their terms, at least). Of course, we’re left with more questions than answers. But we’re also brought back to the start, the catalyst of it all: the girl found dead, wrapped in plastic.

Mr. C, having locked down the correct coordinates, drops by the forest clearing where Naido appeared. A trip through the vortex drops him in front of the Twin Peaks Sheriff’s Department. The eyeless woman begins to chirp loudly upon his arrival, stirring James and Freddie.

Mr. C approaches Andy, retrieving a picnic basket from his car. The deputy welcomes his long-lost friend and brings him inside to see the rest of the gang, running to find Hawk. With everyone is distracted above, Chad successfully pulls a key from the bottom of his boot, slipping into the evidence room to retrieve his gun. Andy stops in the holding cells, only to be held up by his disgraced colleague. Chad slowly approaches as Freddie winds up his gloved hand. The stars align: Freddie smashes his cell door right into Chad’s face.

Frank Truman meets with Mr. C in his office, as the doppelganger smirks through his scuzzy teeth that he’s in town for some unfinished business. Lucy receives a call at the front desk as the camera zooms in (resisting a “Vertigo” shot, however, which is too bad) as she exclaims, “Who?” She buzzes Truman, cautiously stating that he has a very important phone call on Line 2.

Dale Cooper is on the other line, sharing that he’s just entering the city limits and shouts, “Is the coffee on?” Truman stares at the false agent, then both draw their pistols. Mr. C shoots first, but hits the sheriff’s hat—the doppelganger slumps over as Lucy stands in the entryway, gun in hand. As the rest of the folks enter, Agent Cooper warns everyone to stay away from the body.

Hawk arrives just as Woodsmen appear, scraping at Mr. C’s body. Cooper runs in, staring in horror at the supernatural handiwork. A large blob rises out of the double’s stomach, floating up as BOB’s face materializes. BOB’s orb screams and rockets toward Cooper, knocking the agent to the floor. Freddie calls out to BOB, realizing that this is his destiny. BOB attacks the young man, but Freddie curls his glove hand into a fist and throws a punch. A couple of rounds later, one final punch breaks the orb into pieces. Cooper manages to place the green ring on his tulpa’s hand, sending the form back to the Black Lodge. “One for the grandkids,” Bradley Mitchum nods.

Frank Truman turns over the Great Northern key he received from Ben as the FBI arrives. Cooper notices Naido. The shot of his shocked face lays superimposed over the rest of the scene, hovering like Dorothy’s visage as she chants “There’s no place like home” over her clacking ruby red slippers.

Naido, if you haven’t guessed, is Diane, the real Diane (now with a red bob!) as Naido’s eyeless masking burns away. She says she remembers everything, sharing a kiss with Cooper. “Now,” he announces, more to us than the crowd in the Sheriff’s office, “there are some things that will change. The past dictates the future.” He looks back at the wall clock, stuck ticking in place at 2:53. He turns to face his old friends as his own face calls out, “We all live inside a dream.” He hopes to see all of them again, soon.

Friends old and new come together to vanquish the forces of evil. This is what everyone wants, deep inside their hearts. It would just be so tidy, wouldn’t it? Well, once Cooper, Diane, and Cole find themselves in the basement of the Great Northern, Cooper unlocks the door in the furnace room, keeping his friends back. “I’ll see you at the curtain call,” he says, walking into the space of the supernatural motel. There, he meets MIKE, who recites the “Fire Walk with Me” poem before leading Cooper to Phillip Jeffries.

Jeffries gives Cooper instructions to find Judy in his steam coding (the owl cave sign, diamonds that morph into an 8 or infinity symbol), as Cooper requests the date February 23, 1989. Steam and fan blades whoosh as the scene fades back to the night of Laura Palmer’s murder, footage from the “Fire Walk with Me” film now varnished in black and white. Cooper spies Laura in the moments leading up to her fateful encounter with Leo Johnson, Ronette Pulaski, and Jacques Renault, but he stops her in the forest. Laura takes Cooper’s hand when he reaches out to take her home. Laura’s wrapped up corpse disappears from the shores of the Blue Pine Lodge, as Pete Martell fishes in peace. In her home, Sarah Palmer grabs Laura’s homecoming portrait, smashing the glass frame to pieces. Has Laura been saved?

Hard to say—Laura disappears from Cooper’s grasp, her screams echoing into the dark woods.

Cooper is brought back to the start of “The Return,” meeting MIKE and the Arm, losing Laura again as she’s pulled through the ceiling, screaming. Leland begs Coop to find her. Dale’s endless twists and turns through the red curtains lead him back to the Lodge portal entrance at Glastonbury Grove, where Diane waits. Believing that each are who they say they are, Diane and Cooper drive down 430 miles of highway, sharing a kiss before they pass the point of no return onto a long, dark stretch of road, illuminated only by headlights.

The pair arrives at a motel; Cooper runs into the office as Diane sees a vision of herself appear next to the carport. The image disappears when Coop returns, both entering the hotel room. Something is off, though. Diane wonders, “What do we do now?” and Cooper replies just a little too sternly, “You come over here to me.” Again, they kiss, engaging in some somber lovemaking. Diane looks up at the ceiling in distress, covering Dale’s face. Cut to the next morning—Cooper wakes up, alone, in a new motel room. He reads a “Please don’t try to find me” note from “Linda” on the nightstand for “Richard.” Cooper departs this new motel in a new car, driving to the Odessa city limits, population 99,940.

Cruising through Odessa brings Cooper to a diner called Judy’s, and he pulls in for a cup of coffee. The waitress working is apparently not the one he hopes to see—he asks after another one, learning that she’s on her third day off. Some not-so-fine gents accost the waitress, and Cooper, in a more ruthless move than usual, knees one in the groin and shoots another’s foot—he takes their guns and drops them into a fryer. He gets the address of the other waitress, and goes to her home.

After knocking, the door opens to reveal a woman who looks identical to Laura Palmer—but she’s confused by the name. The woman insists that she is Carrie Page, but Cooper maintains his belief that she may be Laura and that he has to take her home to Twin Peaks. Carrie figures, ah, fuck it; she wants to get the hell out of Dodge anyway. She races to pack her bags (and a coat—it’s can get chilly in the Pacific Northwest) and invites Cooper in. Coop notices a dead man’s body sprawled in an armchair, bullet hole right in the forehead. His eyes wander to a figurine of a white horse on Carrie’s mantle.

More driving down long, dark roads—Carrie’s grateful to leave Odessa, but worries about the car headlights that tail them. She wonders out loud if they’re being followed, but it passes as Cooper glimpses up in the rearview. “It’s a long way,” Carrie sighs, cryptically following with, “In those days, I was too young to know any better.”

Cooper drives past the RR Diner down the streets of Twin Peaks. He asks if Carrie recognizes any of her surroundings, but she does not. They pull up to Laura’s house—she doesn’t recognize that, either. At the door, Coop knocks a couple of times before there’s an answer. A middle-aged woman with long hair—not Sarah—opens the door a crack. This woman, Alice Tremond, does not know the name Sarah Palmer, having purchased the house from a Mrs. Chalfont. Tremond and Chalfont are the surnames of an elderly woman used, likely a Black Lodge spirit, but Cooper never encountered her during his adventures. Laura did meet her, but the names don’t light a spark for Carrie.

Cooper starts back to the car, but stops, swiveling back to look at the house as Carrie looks on guardedly. The agent looks to the ground, asking, “What year is this?” Carrie blinks and looks up at her supposed home. The wind picks up as a whispered shout carries over, screaming, “Laura!” Carrie begins to shake, and she screams as Cooper whips around to look at her. The lights in the house pop and go out, static crackling.

Who is the dreamer? Whoever it may be in the world of Twin Peaks, “The Return” was the audience’s hypnotic jerk, rousing us from our television reverie, back to the beginning to experience this temporal loop all over again.

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‘Twin Peaks’ Part 12 Recap: The Ex-Files

By Caitlin Malcuit

The circular conversations and repetitions that fill “Twin Peaks: The Return” wrings out every last drop of patience that the audience can endure. We wait and wait and wait, but when we get something new, what a slap in the face it is. After all, things can happen!

Agent Preston is officially welcomed into the ranks of the Blue Rose Task Force. Albert explains to her it stemmed from Project Blue Book, the U.S. Air Force’s UFO study. Spearheaded by Philip Jeffries, agents Chester Desmond, Dale Cooper, and Albert were chosen to investigate the cases that Blue Book couldn’t answer—Albert wryly notes that he’s the only one of the group who hasn’t disappeared. Despite Gordon Cole’s reluctance to bring new folks into the fold, they think Preston’s got the right stuff. Diane enters through the red drapes of the den and is deputized to assist, because they really need her, and doesn’t she want to know what happened to her dear friend Cooper? After a moment, Diane pierces through the silence by wagging a two-finger salute: “Let’s rock.”

Diane is still under suspicion: she receives a text asking, “Las Vegas?” and replies, “THEY HAVEN’T ASKED YET.” Albert intercepts the message. This brings him to Cole, regaling a French woman with FBI tales. She exits after what feels like an eternity, but for all of the waiting David Lynch has us endure, this feels like the moment he knew Miguel Ferrer’s time was short. Through a blinking and misting stare, Cole throws his hand on his colleagues shoulder and says, “Albert…sometimes I really worry about you.”

In Twin Peaks, Truman and Hawk make separate visits to town denizens. The Sheriff has the unpleasant task of telling Ben Horne that his grandson Richard struck and killed the little boy at the crosswalk and is on the run. Miriam, now in intensive care, provided her witness account and awaits surgery. Ben offers his financial assistance to cover her medical expenses, as well as Cooper’s old Great Northern hotel key as a memento for the ailing Harry Truman.

Hawk stops at Sarah Palmer’s house after a breakdown in the grocery store. After clearing the Smirnoff stock and picking up a carton of Salems, the sight of brand new turkey jerky sets her off. Sarah screams at the clerks that men are coming and they have to watch out. This is enough to warrant a well-being check. A large thump rattles the Palmer house (and liquor bottles), and when Hawk asks if anyone is inside, Sarah says it’s just something in the kitchen. The deputy chief assures Sarah that if she needs help—help of any kind—just call.

Some story threads are condensed in “Part 12:” Cooper plays catch with his face outside with Sonny Jim. Jerry Horne runs through a field and trips. Carl helps out a trailer park resident who’s trying to make ends meet. Chantal and Hutch assassinate the Warden before a trip to Wendy’s.

After another Dr. Amp broadcast, we’re abruptly sent to a study where Audrey Horne (Sherilyn Fenn) stands, scowling at a man behind a desk (Clark Middleton). No longer the mischief-maker-turned-activist, she berates Charlie, her apparent husband, to come with her to the Roadhouse to find a man named Billy. Billy has been missing for two days. Charlie says he’s too tired and has a deadline, but Audrey leans in: she is sleeping with Billy. She even had a dream about him where he bled from his nose and mouth, and sometimes dreams harken a truth! If the Audrey of the original series was like a young Elizabeth Taylor, the Audrey of the return is the Martha to Charlie’s George.

The scene provides a mess of new names. Tina is the last person to see Billy, according to someone named Chuck, but Charlie was supposed to call Tina because Audrey can’t stand her. Chuck also stole Billy’s truck! Anyway, the two are in some sort of contract which Audrey threatens to renege on, and so Charlie calls Tina. He receives horrible news over the phone, but he refuses to share, seemingly at Tina’s behest. Billy, for what it’s worth, may be the farmer who was supposed to meet Andy in “Part 7.” Audrey is grinding her teeth, and ours are worn down to the root.

At the Roadhouse, we don’t see Audrey, but two new women: Natalie (Ana de la Reguera) and Abbie (Elizabeth Anweis). They’re waiting for someone too—their friend Angela. Angela’s going out with Clark, but Clark was seen with Mary. Suddenly, Natalie’s boyfriend Trick (Scott Coffey) dashes into their booth. Someone came at him headlong on the highway and ran him off the road. Could it have been Richard? If it is, he won’t get far—Red will find him and he’ll realize, as Diane did when plugging in the coordinates, all roads lead to Twin Peaks.

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‘Twin Peaks’ Part 11 Recap: Crust Desserts

By Caitlin Malcuit

During a game of catch, a boy goes to retrieve the ball he misses and hollers that he sees a body. But that body is moving—it’s a bloodied Miriam Sullivan, dragging herself through the woods. Her survival— one people hoped for, but couldn’t be certain of—is one of many pins and needles that “The Return” keeps sticking into the audience this week.

We witness Becky Burnett’s bug-eyed, crackling rage as she learns over the phone that her no-good husband Stephen is up to no good with another woman. Without a car, she begs Shelly for help once again, so her mother dashes out of the RR Diner. For her trouble, Shelly is flung off the hood after trying to stop her pistol-armed daughter from doing anything stupid.

Carl Rodd sees Shelly in distress and summons his VW shuttle express with an alphorn-like whistle to hitch a ride to town. He also has the Twin Peaks police dispatch at his disposal, contacting them via CB radio to get a direct patch through to Deputy Briggs—Becky’s dad. Carl’s consistently a badass.

In Buckhorn, South Dakota, the FBI crew checks out the sight of Major Briggs’ secret interdimensional hideaway. Diane hangs back, helping herself to a cigarette as per usual. Hastings, from the back of Detective Macklay’s cruiser, guides Tammy to the precise portal opening, but exhales sharply when he spies a Woodsman sneaking around the dilapidated shacks. Albert and Gordon also see the phantom, and press on through the fence.

Gordon steps up to the spot, his vision becoming distorted with licks of flame and blurs as the sky opens up in a tornadic swirl. To the others, it merely looks as if he’s raising his arms to the sky, but Gordon sees more: a stairwell appears, and a row of Woodsman are lined up, staring back. A crackle of electricity intensifies, but Albert pulls Gordon back in time. In a clearing to their right, there lies the body of Ruth Davenport.

Diane catches a glimpse of the Woodsmen while the others photograph the corpse, opting to stay quiet while she watches it slip through the cruiser unnoticed. Hastings cringes in pain with the sound of a crunch, and Macklay is sprayed with the result. The detective calls for backup and Diane peers through the windshield. “There’s no backup for this,” she says.

Because she left some extra peepholes in the other woman’s door, Becky’s parents sit her down to discuss an out from her marriage. Red crashes the family meeting to Shelly’s delight, and she pops outside to see him as Bobby looks on with a hangdog expression. While she’s trying to get her kid out of a bad situation, Shelly’s falling back into old habits herself by necking with a new bad boy.

Gunfire breaks the awkward tension as it hits the RR Diner. Bobby runs to investigate the commotion. A woman shouts down her hunting-fatigues clad husband for leaving a gun in the car, which his identically dress son found and shot out from the minivan window. Bobby empties the gun as the child stares him down like he doesn’t give a shit (his father doesn’t either, apparently). The car behind them honks incessantly, so when Bobby attempts to calm the driver down, she verbally honks that they’re late for dinner and an unseen “she” is sick—and “she” really is. A child in the passenger seat slowly rises, arms out like a zombie, vomit sputtering out of her mouth. The driver screams as Bobby stares dumbfounded. This just ain’t his day.

Hawk and Truman, back at the station, look over a magic map that always stays current, matching it to Major Briggs’ cryptic note. Hawk notes fire and corn stalk symbols to Truman—fire can be good or bad, depending upon its intention, but it’s not traditional fire either. It’s more like modern-day electricity. The corn stalks are blackened, signaling disease as opposed to healthy, fertile corn. The two come together to form black fire. Truman asks about the winged circle symbol at the map’s top, but is told that it’s something he doesn’t ever want to know about. The Log Lady calls as well, warning Hawk that there’s fire where he is going.

In South Dakota, Gordon tries to steady his left hand, now shaking after his experience in the portal. He requests to see the photos of Ruth’s arm, and more specifically, the coordinates written on it. Albert brings out the image, catching Diane mouthing the numbers to herself. The last few digits are smudged, but Albert doesn’t finish revealing where the initial set lead to before Macklay and Tammy appear with coffee and doughnuts.

In Las Vegas, Cooper barely absorbs the update that the insurance claim on the Mitchum brothers’ property is the real deal and that he, the lucky son of a gun, gets to break the news and a $30 million check to the fellas! As it turns out, the Mitchums have already requested a meeting with “Dougie,” thanks to Tony’s machinations, and want to take the agent out to dinner. Upon the 5:30 pickup time, the One-Armed Man beckons Cooper into Szymon’s coffee shop and he leaves with a cardboard box.

Of course, the Mitchums have other plans. Bradley talks with Rodney over their 2:23 p.m. breakfast about a dream he had. At first, Bradley’s anxious to cap Dougie, but as the time nears, the dream becomes clearer. He has reservations; after all, Ike “The Spike” is out of the way because of Dougie. Rodney calls bullshit, but Bradley insists that, in the dream, Rodney’s cut from the fly incident healed up. The bandage is ripped off—the cut is gone.

When Cooper arrives, Bradley freaks out over the sight of the cardboard box. He pleads with Rodney that they cannot kill Cooper if a certain item is inside, whispering the contents to his brother out of the agent’s earshot. Rodney confronts Cooper at gunpoint, demanding to know if a cherry pie is in fact in the box. It is so—Bradley’s vision is confirmed to be more pleasant than the ending of “Se7en,” and a frisking reveals the check for $30 million. Belushi’s stellar performance here is starting to make me forget about “According to Jim.” Almost.

The ecstatic Mitchums take their new best friend out to dinner, where they enjoy champagne and some “damn good” pie. Just as a note from the restaurant piano stirs a glimmer of recollection, Cooper is thanked by the other Silver Mustang winner. The former slot machine addict, cleaned up and reunited with her long lost son, smooches her dear Mr. Jackpots for having changed her life for the better, letting the brothers know that a very special man is in their presence. Here’s hoping he gets to turn things around for the town of Twin Peaks, and fast.

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‘Twin Peaks’ Part 10 Recap: We’re Up All Night to Get Lucky

By Caitlin Malcuit

Two prestige shows featured cameos by pasty musicians: “Game of Thrones” had Ed Sheeran, and “Twin Peaks” had Moby. That’s it—recap over.

Just kidding! Anyway, the brutality shifts from Las Vegas to Twin Peaks for an hour full of violence, suspicion, and visions.

We knew Richard Horne wasn’t above manslaughter, but he moves up to second-degree murder when he pays a visit to jovial schoolteacher Miriam at her trailer. She stares out defiantly through her screen door; his opposing reflection brings to mind the flashes of demonic killer BOB in mirrors. Miriam has told the police about the crosswalk accident, but is surprised that Richard hasn’t been arrested yet—it’s likely she told Deputy Chad, who would remain purposefully tightlipped. So, she sent a letter this very day to Sheriff Truman, telling him everything she knows, adding that if anything happens to her, it was Richard who did it. Richard rushes the trailer and brutally beats Miriam off-screen while he calls Chad to intercept the letter.

Fat Trout proprietor Carl strums his guitar until he’s interrupted by a shattered window, followed by screaming. “What a fucking nightmare,” he mutters before we find out the domestic situation inside: Steven Bennett, no longer so mellow from his cocaine high, berates and beats Becky. This echoes her mother’s old life with abusive ex-husband Leo.

In Vegas, Rodney Mitchum (Robert Knepper), last seen beating the Silver Mustang supervisor, is on the receiving end of pain himself when moll Candie (Amy Shiels) wallops him with a remote to kill a fly. After her protracted determination to swat the thing, she collapses into a hysterical mess, where Jim Belushi’s Bradley Mitchum enters and all jabber over one another like a scene from a screwball comedy. They settle down to watch the news, finding out Ike "The Spike" Stadtler was arrested and that his dispatcher “Dougie Jones” was their very own Mr. Jackpots.

As the Mitchums plot to meet with their winner, Duncan Todd summons a visitor to his desk: Tony Sinclair. The physically imposing Tony is putty in Duncan’s hands, obliging when told not to sit, not to speak. Mr. C’s treatment of Duncan is now transposed onto the insurance agent. The plan is to have Tony meet with the Mitchum brothers and convince them that Dougie Jones is the one caused their $30 million arson claim to be turned down. Furious, they’ll likely kill him. If not, Tony has to take care of Dougie himself.

Meanwhile, with a day off, Janey-E manages to get her “husband” into the doctor’s office for a checkup. Fascinated by his patient’s physical improvements, the doctor overlooks Cooper’s vacant replies. Janey-E practically has throbbing hearts in her eyes when she catches sight of his abs. Once they’re home, Cooper’s wife-but-not-really digs her shoes into the floor in an amorous daze, somehow convincing him to have sex. Despite the suspect nature of consent here, Cooper’s arms flail in ecstatic bliss, Janey-E moaning loud enough to wake her kid. But the sex isn’t enough to bring the agent out of his fugue.

In Buckhorn, Gordon Cole and Tammy Preston spy Albert dining with coroner Talbot, perhaps bonding over their shared ability to conduct autopsies. Albert later stops by Cole’s hotel room, but as soon as he opens the door, Cole is greeted with a vision of Laura Palmer sobbing in the doorway. He shakes it off, and Albert reveals that Diane’s text from Mr. C pinged off a tower in Philly, but Tammy traced it to a server in Mexico. She replied, too, “They have Hastings, he’s going to take them to the site.”

Tammy joins her colleagues to show them a photo related to the murder in New York. Mr. C, with an unidentified male, is shown visiting the room with the glass box.

Back in Twin Peaks, Richard continues to raise hell. After Chad successfully intercepts Miriam’s letter from the mail truck—under Lucy’s surveillance—Richard pulls up to his grandmother Sylvia’s house to grab money before he high tails it out of town. He chokes a safe combination out of Sylvia before he robs her of cash, silver, and her purse. She later calls her estranged husband Ben at the Great Northern Hotel, looking to be compensated for her ordeal, but he refuses. Ben hangs up, and in his frustration, asks assistant Beverly out to dinner.

Hawk receives another late-night call from The Log Lady, imparting a cryptic message:

“Hawk. Electricity is humming. You hear it in the mountains and rivers. You see it dance among the seas and stars and glowing around the moon, but in these days, the glow is dying. What will be in the darkness that remains? The Truman brothers are both true men. They are your brothers. And the others, the good ones, who have been with you. Now the circle is almost complete. Watch and listen to the dream of time and space. It all comes out now, flowing like a river. That which is and is not. Hawk. Laura is the one.”

She hasn’t steered him wrong yet! Does this mean that The Bookhouse Boys will get back together? The dream of time and space sounds not unlike Laura’s birth in Part 8. At the Roadhouse, Rebekah Del Rio closes out with the Lynch-penned “No Stars,” with Moby here on guitar. She sings “My dream is to go to that place/You know the one/Where it all began.” Perhaps the Boys will get to that place…whether it’s the Black or White Lodge remains to be seen.

P.S. Nadine finally did it. She figured out how to make silent curtain runners. There’s a retail location, too: Run Silent, Run Drapes.

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‘Twin Peaks’ Park 9 Recap: You’re Gonna Have Yourself a SCUB-y Snack

By Caitlin Malcuit

All of the dots begin to connect in “Twin Peaks: The Return” Part 9, the true-blue halfway point of this run. And like any good “Blue Rose” case, this episode all comes back to a body.

Mr. C, recovered from his ambush by Ray, comes upon a red bandana on a post and makes his way to a farm where Chantal (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and Hutch (Tim Roth) are waiting. They’ve dispatched the home owners and hook Mr. C up with a new truck and weapons while he catches up on his correspondence. First, he makes a call to Duncan Todd at the Silver Mustang, asking if he’s “done it yet,” then sends a cryptic text that reads, “Around the dinner table, the conversation is lively.” Mr. C tells Pumpkin, uh, Hutch to take care of a warden, with a “double-header” to follow in Vegas, and heads off after a smooch from Chantal.

On the FBI jet, Gordon et al. receive a call that diverts their return trip to Philadelphia. Col. Davis tells them the Buckhorn morgue has Major Briggs’ body. So off to West South Dakota they go. Already frustrated that she can’t check her phone, Diane needs some bribing with nips. Gordon also fields a call from Warden Murphy. Cooper escaped, causing Gordon to exclaim, “Cooper flew the coop!”

“Dougie” and Janey-E sit patiently in the Las Vegas police department, where Dougie’s boss talks with the three Detective Fuscos about his employee. Mullins tells them that Dougie has spacey moments following a car accident in his past, but otherwise isn’t sure why someone would attempt to kill him, being a “solid citizen” and all. Upon Mullins’ departure, one Fusco reveals that no info on Dougie Jones prior to 1997, leading them to float the witness protection program as a possible answer.  

David Koechner’s Fusco has an idea. He gives Cooper a new mug of coffee, and bags the old cup for DNA testing. The cop who has to log the evidence also lets the crew know that the would-be assassin is their old adversary Ike “The Spike” Stadtler, and they have his location (it ain’t the Waldorf). Meanwhile, Agent Cooper fixates on an American flag in the corner, then a woman walking by in red shoes, who guides his gaze to an outlet on the wall.

In Buckhorn, Diane waits in the morgue lobby, furious that she can’t smoke a cigarette there, because of all places! But she finally has a signal. It’s Mr. C’s text. Detective Mackley summarizes the murder from the premiere, noting that the deceased librarian Ruth Davenport ran a blog with her suspected killer William Hastings (Matthew Lillard) about alternate dimensions. In the morgue, Constance Talbot reveals Briggs’ body to Gordon, Albert, and Preston with a smirk and her magician’s flourish. Albert observes the paradoxical age of the body, and Talbot’s mischievous smile widens. There’s an adorable spark between the two—Talbot holds her own against Albert’s acerbic commentary ("When did he lose his marbles?” "When the dog got his cat's-eyes"). The mortician also shows off the inscribed mystery wedding band, and Gordon decides that they need a sit-down with Hastings.

Following the revelation that Cooper was the last person to see his dad alive, Bobby Briggs takes Deputy Hawk and Sheriff Truman to his mother’s house. Betty Briggs reveals that Major Garland said that one day, the trio would come and ask her about Special Agent Dale Cooper. He requested that she give them a special item, so Betty moves to a red arm chair and removes a small metallic tube from a secret opening in the frame. She tells her son that his father always had faith in him, knowing that Bobby would come a long way from his brooding teenage days.

At the station, Truman and Hawk haplessly try to figure out the tube as Bobby chuckles, because he knows how it works. They step outside, and Bobby throws the tube to the ground. It reverberates with a hum and then quiets, prompting Bobby to chuck again. Inside the tube is a slip of paper instructing the reader to head 253 yards east of “Jack Rabbit’s Palace,” with a specific time (2:53) and dates (10/1, 10/2) listed. Jack Rabbit’s Palace was Bobby’s make-believe hideaway during his youth. Truman realizes that Major Briggs really foresaw all of this, and makes a plan to head to the area. However, he uncovers another slip, showing a series of numbers and slashes, with “Cooper/Cooper” amongst them. “Two Coopers!” Hawk exclaims.

Back in Buckhorn, Agent Preston has a face-to-face with Will Hastings, who breaks down as he details the findings of his blog. He and Ruth visited another place where they came upon Major Briggs, who told the pair that he was in “hibernation.” Lillard’s performance here makes a strong case for an Emmy nomination, as he fluctuates between his impassioned recounting of supernatural trips and sobbing over a vacation he wanted to take with Ruth. Hastings says that the Major requested a set of coordinates, which Ruth took down on her hand—which is attached to her missing torso. When Hastings and Ruth returned to the alternate dimension, it seems the Woodsmen of the last episode descended upon them, decapitating Briggs, murdering Ruth and coercing Hasting’s wife’s name by force. Successfully picking the Major’s face out of a series of photos that Preston gives, Hastings says Briggs’ head ascended, uttering, “Cooper, Cooper” before disappearing.

In Twin Peaks, Jerry Horne is still stuck in the woods, imagining—or not—his foot talking back to him. His brother Ben still hears a mesmerizing hum in his office as Beverly attempts to seize a romantic moment, but he turns her down. Ben’s son escapes his room and collides with the wall. Naturally, we end at the Roadhouse, where Sky Ferreira continues her 2017 acting streak as the track-marked, rotten-toothed Ella. She scratches a horrendous rash under her arm while bitching to her friend Chloe that she was fired from burger-flipping for being high. But damn, that rash won’t quit, even with the melodic voices of Au Revoir Simone to soothe.

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‘Twin Peaks’ Part 8 Recap: Hangin’ With Mr. Cooper

By Caitlin Malcuit

If this wasn’t one of the most beautiful and harrowing hours of television, David Lynch wouldn’t be doing right by us. And amid the visual wildin’, we got some real, honest-to-god answers in Part 8 that led to—wait for it—more questions.

Dark Cooper and Ray (George Griffith), on the road after their prison escape, discover three mobile tracking devices on their car. They pass it off to the license plate of a truck ahead of them, and Cooper chucks the receiver out of the window. Ray, putting on airs of gratitude, thanks Coop for getting him out of the pen. He asks after Darya’s whereabouts, probably knowing that she’s dead, and asks where they’re going. “You’d probably like to go to that place they call ‘The Farm,’” says Cooper. He cuts through the shit immediately, telling Ray that he has something he wants. Ray says yes, he’s got it memorized—all the numbers. Naturally, Ray tries to extort Cooper in exchange for this information.

Cooper wants Ray to pull off the highway, and they follow the curves of the darkened road and the increasingly busted chevron signs, headlights dimly bearing down on the darkness in that true Lynchian dolor. Ray pulls over to relieve himself, and Cooper riffles through the glove compartment to grab a loaded handgun and hold his companion up. But Ray whips out his gun—no, not that one—and slugs Cooper with a few bullets ‘till he’s down.

The moment is cathartic for milliseconds before lights flash and sooty, ghostly figures mob Dark Cooper’s body and flail around Ray. The ghosts tear at Cooper’s body, patting his corpse to resuscitate, smearing blood from his torso to his face. Stuck in his horror, Ray watches as a tumorous blob rises from the body, revealing the grinning visage of BOB. He scrambles back to the car and jets, leaving Phillip Jeffries a voicemail saying that Cooper may have survived, but he saw something inside—“It may be the key to what this is all about.” Ding-ding-ding-ding!

“The Nine Inch Nails” play the Roadhouse with the appropriately discordant track “She’s Gone Away.” (Lynch and Trent Reznor collaborated on “Lost Highway”). Dark Cooper snaps awake as the music seizes.

Following the muted blues of the night drive, the show takes us to the black-and-white frame of White Sands, New Mexico in the early morning hours of July 16, 1945. A voice over a PA counts down, marshalling the flash of the first atomic bomb as Penderecki’s “Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima” pierces our ears and sends us on a 10-minute visual journey through the Brakhage-esque flickers and vapors of time and space. We see the ashen ghosts spill out from a gas station convenience store, and we also see the creature from the glass box spew out the blob that contains the demonic entity of BOB.

Upon a cliff surrounded by crashing waves sits a smooth, metallic building. Inside, the Giant and a woman named Senorita Dido (Joy Nash) play back the events following the explosion. They create a golden orb in response to BOB’s arrival, an orb with the face of Laura Palmer. Dido christens her with a kiss and sends her off to Earth to oppose the evil that stemmed from man’s hubris.

On August 5, 1956, in the New Mexico desert, an egg hatches and out crawls a creature akin to a frog and insect hybrid. Two young people (Xolo Maridueña and Tikaeni Faircrest) walk home in the night, because that always bodes well. As the evening grows darker, the coal-blackened—or uranium-burned, perhaps—ghosts prowl the arid landscape. One, called the Woodsman (Robert Broski), approaches a concerned couple in a car with his cigarette, telephone wires crackling around him. He asks over and over, “Got a light?” in a guttural sizzle that sounds as if tuning fork rolled through tar. The couple drive off screaming.

As the ‘50s boy drops the ‘50s girl safely to her home, the Woodsman approaches radio station KPJK. He enters as they spin The Platters’ “My Prayer,” crushing the receptionist’s head in his hand before storming into the DJ booth. The Woodsman seizes control of the microphone and repeats, “This is the water and this is the well. Drink full and descend. The horse is the white of the eyes and dark within,” over and over, causing any listeners to fall unconscious. Among them is the young girl, whose mouth drops open right in time for the creature to crawl right in for a tasty late-night snack. The Woodsman wraps up his time at the station, crushing the MC’s head before disappearing into the desert’s abyss, distant horses neighing in a frenzy.

See you in two weeks!

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‘Twin Peaks’ Part 7 Recap: A Little Ditty ‘Bout Coop and Diane

By Caitlin Malcuit

In one of his dictograph monologues, Cooper recites to his off-screen secretary, “The trail narrows, Diane. I'm close, but the last few steps are always the darkest and most difficult.” He records this when the mystery of Laura Palmer’s death comes to a head, but the reveal of her killer ultimately causes the trail to widen. It veers off into multiple paths even all these years later, complex and overwhelming like the choking overgrowth of the Washington state forest bed. Welcome to Act II of “Twin Peaks: The Return.”

At the sheriff’s department, Hawk shows Frank Truman the pages yanked from the bathroom stall—they are indeed the missing pages from Laura Palmer’s secret diary that chronicled her long-suffering teenage years at the mercy of BOB. One page in particular details a dream she had of Annie Blackburn (Heather Graham—not resurfacing this season), foreseeing Cooper’s entrapment in the Black Lodge. Hawk can’t figure out how or why the pages got to the police station, but knows only a handful of people saw Cooper when he came out of the woods in the last series’ finale, including Harry Truman and Doc Hayward.

Frank tries to bring his brother up to speed over the phone, but he’s far too sick to sit through the call (Michael Ontkean, like Graham, opted not to return). Next on the list is Doc Hayward; Frank dials him up on Skype after twisting a pine knot, raising his desktop monitor through his desk. Hayward, played by Mark Frost’s late father Warren, remembers the night Cooper came back well, saying that he acted mighty strange the next morning, especially after he snuck out of intensive care in full dress. The Doc recalls seeing a strange face form on Cooper’s own visage.

In South Dakota, Lt. Knox (Adele Rene) is surprised to find that the hit on Major Briggs’ prints actually led to a body. Just when it seems clear that the body is Briggs, the coroner mentions that the corpse is only in its late 40s (Briggs would really be in his late 70s).

The FBI crew also jet back to South Dakota after Gordon and Albert plead with Diane (Laura Dern) to take a look at the guy in federal custody. Ten minutes, tops, are all she’ll give Cooper, she says, and with great anxiety, she raises the partition. Diane stands to face “Cooper,” who claims it’s good to see her again. She leans in, asking when the last time they saw each other was. “At your house,” he answers, but does he really remember that night? Diane says it’s one she’ll never forget. We’ve never known the extent of her and Cooper’s relationship beyond his tapes, romantic or otherwise. But Diane is the closest audience surrogate we have while Dale is in catatonia. She bellows, “Who are you?” at the weathered, soulless face of Bad Dale. She knows, like we do, that there’s a problem. Diane tells Gordon that man was not the Cooper she knows—it’s not time passing, change, or the way he looks—it’s something “here,” she cries, motioning to her heart.

Bad Cooper has a way of getting to people, and that’s certainly the case when he wants to chat with Warden Murphy (James Morrison). “Cooper” has dirt on him involving the dog leg, a mistress, and a man named Joe McCluskey, so the warden caves quickly in supplying a cheap rental car and the release of Ray Monroe rather than let face his own demons.

Speaking of cheap cars, Dougie Jones’ now-charred vehicle draws the attention of local law enforcement. Janey-E strolls in to pick up her husband, and guides Cooper through the questioning. The car was missing, yes, but it was found. It blew up and there are multiple fatalities, and that’s all Janey-E needs to know or care about because she’s out stressed enough as it is, goddamn it! She and her husband have to go home to their son, and he’s waiting for supper. As the pair leave Lucky 7 Insurance, the assassin who ice-picked Lorraine last week charges at Cooper with a gun. Cooper’s agent instincts kick in as he dispatches Ike “The Spike” in short order, judo-chopping his would-be killer’s throat as Janey-E pulls him off.

As Cooper comes closer to returning, Twin Peaks walks us through the town’s parallel inscrutables. Deputy Andy meets with the true owner of the truck that Richard drove during the accident; Jean-Michel Renault of the Bang! Bang! Bar keeps his family’s brothel business running; Ben Horne’s probably going to end up having an affair with his assistant Beverly (Ashley Judd). Like Ben’s brother Jerry, we may be lost in the woods and not know where we are (“I think I’m high!"), but the trail will narrow again.

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‘Twin Peaks’ Part 6 Recap: Call It, Friendo

By Caitlin Malcuit

“Did you ever see the movie ‘The King and I?’” Red (Balthazar Getty) asks Richard Horne, the cretin found near the close of last episode. Their hawkish features stare each other down—one steely, the other snarling and antsy. Red, moving the cocaine through Twin Peaks, is getting to get know the town. And he asks Richard if he has his part of the dealing under control, because, “I don’t know you yet.”

We last saw both in the Bang! Bang! Bar, basking in their smoky and sleazy element. It’s clear that tough-talk-no-nerve Richard is the only one out of his in this bleak warehouse, as Red flips a dime, causing it to float and spin mid-air, materialize in Richard’s mouth, then drop back in Red’s hand. “Heads, I win,” he tells Richard. “Tails, you lose.” Whether Red is another agent of the Black Lodge or if this is a coked-out fever dream, well, we can’t make heads or tails of it just yet.

Cooper is still working out his supposed obverse, stranded outside of Lucky 7 Insurance and tugging at the oversized cuff of the lime sports coat. A kindly officer helps escort him back to Lancelot Court—to the house with the red door—and delivers “Dougie” to ever-frazzled Janey-E. She fixes him a sandwich, then leaves Cooper to tuck Sonny Jim into bed.

The Jones’ life is a story, despite the crushing debt Dougie saddled upon them, that finds light and levity under the weight of our anxiety. Cooper’s childlike fascination with Sonny Jim’s cowboy clapper lamp brings literal light to the situation. Janey-E looks to bust through the gloom, and she’s not going to take any guff. She answers a phone call from the collectors, naming the time, place, and what bag she’ll be carrying for the money drop. And once again, Cooper follows the sparkles: he scrawls nonsense images that will incriminate Tony all over the case files after a vision of MIKE tells him it’s time to wake up, and, more importantly, “Don’t die.”

The disquiet snaps back like a rubber band on skin as Richard drives back to Twin Peaks in frustration. Red kept calling him “Kid” and he resents the humiliation he endured at the warehouse. At the same time, Carl Rodd (Harry Dean Stanton), owner of the Fat Trout Trailer Park, hitches a ride into town. A tenant, Mickey, rides with him, as Carl grimly shares that he’s got nothing to look forward to at his age except the hammer slamming down. He kindly asks after Mickey’s wife Linda—maybe the Linda we’re on the lookout for—who just received an electric wheelchair that’d help with her war injuries a great deal.

At the RR Diner, a grateful patron tips well beyond her means for the double helping of pie she enjoyed, with Shelly declaring to her coworker that they’ll treat her upon the next visit. Richard speeds on the roads in a mix of rage and drug-induced exhilaration. Carl sits on a park bench and gazes up at the sky before being watching woman playing tag with her son. Richard sees building traffic at the stop sign and weaves around, and it dawns on you in horror that everyone is converging at this intersection. He hits the young boy as he crosses the street, witnesses wrought with agony as Carl cradles the mother and son, the diner patron staring down Richard as he races away from the scene.

The thunderclap of violence doesn’t cease—it seems that Lorraine’s number is up, definitely landing tails after her failed hit on Dougie. An assassin (Christophe Zajac-Denek) zeroes in on both of their photos in his hotel room. He targets her office, making short but gruesome work of Lorraine and a pair of her office mates. Surely Dougie is next, but maybe, just maybe the hit will be called off: Janey-E meets with a pair of goons, negotiating her husband’s debt from $52,000 to $25,000. If only I could do that with my student loans!

Deputy Chief Hawk lands heads when he drops a coin in the men’s room of the sheriff’s department. His eyes wander to the stall door, eyeing a Nez Perce logo. His eyes scan upward, noticing a screw missing from the corner, so he decides to go to town with a crow bar. He pries open the panel, discovering several handwritten pages inside. Back in Philadelphia, Albert is back to his foul-mouthed self, free from the confines of network standards and practices. He trudges through the rain, screaming, “Fuck you, Gene Kelly!” as the wind bends his umbrella. He sees a platinum blonde head of hair in a bar. “Diane,” he calls out, as Dale Cooper’s previously unseen and unheard recipient of the dictograph recordings turns to reveal the face of Lynch’s longtime screen siren Laura Dern.

“Hello, Albert.”

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‘Twin Peaks’ Part 5 Recap: Shovel Yourself Out of the Shit

By Caitlin Malcuit

After two consecutive weeks of doubleheaders where just so much happens, we finally come to the part where not a whole hell of a lot happens in “Twin Peaks.” Almost a third of the way in, Part 5 doesn’t stray too terribly far from the arcs in motion, as it inches toward gathering more pieces of this seasons’ mystery. But it’s okay because this is, in David Lynch’s grand scheme, an 18-hour movie.

At the Rancho Rosa development in Las Vegas, Dougie’s abandoned car still sits, unexploded from the car bomb attached by the two goons who tried to cap him earlier. The assassins check in, reporting over the phone that the car’s still there, no lights are on in the house. On the other line, Lorraine (Tammie Baird) swears at them, anxious that she’s going to be killed over this botched job. She slams the phone down and texts “Argent” to a black box that rings out into a dim basement.

Poor Cooper has to face the 9-5 slog in his garish, oversized lime sport coat, as Janey-E gives him a ride to work. As she ties his tie, Janey-E goes over the logistics of paying their debt, but Coop’s not listening. He catches a glimpse of a vacant Sonny Jim Jones staring out, which causes Cooper’s face to soften and a tear to roll down his face. The music here is reminiscent of the “Twin Peaks” theme, coming in on a light and airy breeze as if Cooper seemingly rediscovers a message he once transcribed to his trusty Diane: “At a time like this, curiously, you begin to think of the things regret or the things you might miss.”

Cooper staggers to work, perplexed by brass statue of a cowboy pointing a gun. He also points, still in mimic mode, and heads off into the direction of the big glass building in front of him. At the elevator bank, Cooper follows a coffee-gophering colleague like a cartoon hovers after the aroma of a pie on a windowsill. He’s clamoring for the stuff, bogarts someone else’s cup and sucks it down like a baby drinks a bottle. He enters Lucky 7 Insurance.

Inside, coworker Tony, played by real-life bad person Tom Sizemore, tells “Dougie” that he’s covered his ass while he was on his three-day bender. Frank, who’s coffee was stolen, gets a green tea latte instead. He likes it!

At the meeting, a green light flickers on Tony’s face as they go over an insurance claim, saying it’s a legitimate. Cooper exclaims, “He’s lying,” which causes tension because it turns out Tony’s a star agent. This leads to a talking-to by the boss, which triggers some vague recollection on Cooper’s part when he hears “agent” and “case files,” the latter of which he gets a load to work on as punishment.

More happens in Vegas. At the Silver Mustang Casino, Supervisor Burns gets the ever-loving shit kicked out of him by brothers Bradley (Jim Belushi) and Rodney Mitchum (Robert Knepper), no doubt a nod to Robert Mitchum. Dougie’s car explodes after some punks try to steal it.

In Blackhorn, South Dakota, coroner Constance Talbot (Jane Adams) determines the cause of death of the headless John Doe body found with the head of librarian Ruth Davenport: someone cut his head off! “Here’s the headline,” she deadpans, because Constance is still doing stand-up on the weekends. She has much better material than the pilot of “I’m Dying Up Here” did. Anyway, the man hasn’t eaten for days, but she found a ring. It’s inscribed with the message, “To Dougie, with love, Janey-E.”

At the prison, bad Cooper takes a good long look in the mirror as his black-pupiled, soulless visage gives way to the visual confirmation that BOB in indeed in the body, and “that’s good.”

A drop of Cooper’s room key to a mailbox brings us back to Twin Peaks and the sunny delights of the RR Diner, where a young woman named Becky enters (Amanda Seyfried, also known for playing a dead girl on “Veronica Mars”). She some cash from Shelley as Norma Jennings (Peggy Lipton) watches with concern. “If you don’t help her now, it’s going to get a lot harder later.” Shelly concedes, “We both know that, don’t we,” as they were two members of the rotten husbands’ club.

Becky’s hops into her boyfriend’s car, a weasel shit named Steven (Caleb Landry Jones) who bombed his interview earlier in the day. The camera fixes itself on the dashboard, echoing Shelley and Bobby’s romance in the 1990 pilot. Steven takes out a vial of coke that he’s mostly finished, but despite her scolding, Becky helps herself to a little anyway. We’re plunged into Becky’s ecstasy in a fish eye and saturated shot as the tune of ‘60s tune “I Love How You Love Me” lilts around her.

We’re treated to the sight of Dr. Jacoby, who now has a public access television show as Dr. Amp, bellowing, “It’s seven o’clock, do you know where your freedom is?” He’s lighting the lamp of freedom, literally a diorama lamp with the Statue of Liberty—it’s like if Infowars was charming. Among his viewers are Jerry Horne lighting up, eye-patched Nadine (Wendy Robie) smiling. Jacoby flips to a pre-taped segment of himself shoveling out of literal shit, hawking his supply of gold shit-digging shovels. Only $29.99!

Some of the shit Twin Peaks has to shovel out if is its cocaine problem, perhaps buoyed by the new troublemaker sitting in the Bang! Bang! Bar. Smoking under a “No Smoking” sign, a young man (Eamon Farren) is warned to cut it out until Deputy Chad of the TPPD—who made fun of the Log Lady’s prophecy last week—steps in, assuring the bar staff that he’ll take it from here. Chad smirks and asks for a smoke; the young man offers the whole pack, popped open to reveal a wad of cash. This intrigues a group of women, and one, Charlotte, asks for a light. The young man tells her to sit down, and as she does, he grabs and starts to choke and harass her. It’s a wildly uncomfortable scene, punctuated by the honking saxophone pulsing through the club, and another pang that this show isn’t always so good to women.

At the Pentagon, Colonel Davis (Ernie Hudson!) is told that they’ve got another database hit on fingerprints for Major Garland Briggs from the police in Buckhorn, South Dakota. All signs point to the John Doe’s body belonging to Briggs. Davis is wary—this is the sixteenth hit on the prints in 25 years—but if it pans out, the FBI has to know.

In Buckhorn, Evil Dale Cooper gets one phone call, but is aware that he’s being taped. Staring at his captors through the camera, he darkly declares, “I know who to call,” as he punches the numbers. Soon, the prison is plunged into chaos, alarms blaring, lights flashing. Amid the cacophony, Bad Cooper says, ”The cow jumped over the moon,” and hangs up, ending the discord.  

In Buenos Aires, an Edison bulb lights the dingy dark basement. The camera pans down to the black box. It beeps twice, then shrinks. 

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