Showtime’s Twin Peaks
Season 3: “The Return, Part 12”
Directed by David Lynch
Written by Lynch & Mark Frost

* For a recap & review of Part 11, click here.
* For a recap & review of Part 13, click here.
At the Mayfair, Gordon (David Lynch), Albert (Miguel Ferrer), and Agent Preston (Chrysta Bell) have a drink together, doing a toast “to the bureau.” We hear about Project Blue Book, shut down in the 1970s. Stuff we’ve heard of before in Twin Peaks, involving what later became the Blue Rose cases, things the FBI and the military looked into together, top secret, that were left unresolved from the program. This is where their “alternate path” of investigation comes from, and FINALLY WE ARE CONNECTING to Fire Walk With Me even more.
Who were the original agents involved? Phillip Jeffries, Albert, Chester Desmond, and Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan). Makes all the disappearances much more troubling than they are even on their own. So, now Agent Preston’s being inducted into the Blue Rose Task Force, a promotion she proudly accepts. Although it’s one not without its worries.
Diane (Laura Dern) shows up. Gordon and Albert want to deputise her, so she can help using her close knowledge of Cooper, what she’s picked up over the years about the Blue Rose cases. She’s not overly eager, further driving suspicion of her character. Something ain’t right with Diane, man.
In Twin Peaks, Jerry Horne (David Patrick Kelly) is still running around like a madman in the woods. At the grocery store, Sarah Palmer (Grace Zabriskie) picks up the essentials for her life 25 years on from the tragedy of her daughter Laura (Sheryl Lee), her husband Leland (Ray Wise) – and the essential is booze. She’s a haunted woman, it’s clear just by the look in her eyes. “The room seems different, and men are coming,” she begins raving, sounds of the Black Lodge swirling around her head: “Things can happen. Something happened to me!” She walks out having scared everyone near. But it’s clear Sarah hasn’t been able to get over her past. The spirits won’t allow it.
At the Fat Trout Trailer Park, Carl Rodd (Harry Dean Stanton) asks a tenant if he’s been selling his blood, and wondering why he isn’t getting paid for work he does around the park. Carl’s a good man, he waves the gentleman’s rent and gives him money for chores he does around the place. He’s literally keeping the tenants of the park alive at this point.
Deputy Chief Hawk (Michael Horse) drops by the Palmer place. Upstairs, the fan swings around; remember how the man behind the mask was under the fan, according to the masked boy in Fire Walk With Me? Very interesting image for Lynch to linger on. Are the spirits of the Black Lodge back in the Palmer house? Hawk’s curious about Sarah, realising she isn’t okay. There are bad things happening again in that place.

“It‘s a goddamn bad story, isn‘t it, Hawk?”

Diane gets a text, wondering about Las Vegas. She replies that they’ve not asked. Is this still bad Coop to whom she’s talking? Is it the doppelganger of Jeffries?
Or someone else? Oh, my.
Back home, Ben Horne (Richard Beymer) receives a visit from Sheriff Frank Truman (Robert Forster) about his grandson Richard (Eamon Farren), delivering the bad news that he’s the one who ran down the boy in the road. As well as tries killing the woman who witnessed the hit and run. And she’s about to die, most likely. This brings up the history of Richard, grandpa stating he’s “never been right.” Furthermore, the hotel owner gives over the key belonging to Agent Cooper’s old room, over two decades before, as a memento for the sheriff’s brother. Quite the coincidence, considering the case of ole Dale lately. All roads lead back to the middle again.
At his hotel room Gordon’s interrupted on a date by Albert, clearly with important news. An absurdly comic few moments stretches on and on as the woman gets herself ready to leave the men alone for a chat, becoming funnier with each passing glance, each glare from Albert, every sweet smile out of Gordon as he fawns over her. Literally in tears laughing. Afterwards, Albert relays the recent texts of Diane, keeping them curious about her behaviour.
Back to South Dakota, where Chantal (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and Hutch (Tim Roth) wait with a gun. Cars pull up at a house nearby. A man gets out, then Hutch puts a bullet right through his chest, and another in the back of his head. “Next up, Wendy‘s,” he says and they leave the man’s family to mourn his shot up corpse. One notch in bad Coop’s plan taken care of already.

“It‘s seven o‘clock. Do you know where your freedom is?”

I keep wondering about Doc Lawrence Jacoby (Russ Tamblyn) and his internet radio show. We’ve already see those lumberjacks, those dirty, bearded men covered in scorched engine oil, their assault on that town long ago. The voice through the radio. Can’t help be curious if this age’s radio, over the internet, will play a part for the evil spirits once more. Hmm.
We’ve waited so long, now we get to see her again – Audrey Horne (Sherilyn Fenn), baby! She’s searching for Billy, he’s been missing. And lord, has she not lost a bit of excellent attitude since last we saw her, particularly with her husband Charlie (Clark Middleton). They don’t so much have a marriage as much as they have a contracted agreement of a relationship. Aside from that, the disappearance of Billy’s shrouded in mystery. Audrey’s life has become no less complicated than it was as a young woman 25 years prior.
At the hotel bar Diane sits by herself, recalling the coordinates written on the arm of Ruth Davenport’s dead body. She types them in her phone finding they direct right to none other than Twin Peaks.
A conversation in the Roadhouse leads me to wonder if maybe the headlights one frantic man saw on the road were actually the lights of car at all. Perhaps the apparition of something else lurking around Twin Peaks in the woods. Something Project Blue Book never solved.
A solid episode because it doesn’t go into much of anything surreal, rather it stays on a plot, sticks to a few core bits. There’s plenty mystery, but Lynch and Frost keep things on an even keel. Interesting, though. A few real interesting moments that speak to large bits from Fire Walk With Me. I like how Frost and Lynch lay the groundwork as they go, coming back to things later on and tying it all together. One of the greatest parts of this revival is that they get to connect things to Fire Walk With Me, which really pull the mythology tighter into a larger, epic scale work of mystery, surrealism, and even drama as the regular lives of the Twin Peaks residents continues to interest all these years later.