Category Archives: Season 3

Fear the Walking Dead – Season 3, Episode 11: “La Serpiente”

AMC’s Fear the Walking Dead
Season 3, Episode 11: “La Serpiente”
Directed by Josef Kubota Wladyka
Written by Lauren Signorino & Mark Richard

* For a recap & review of the previous episode, “The Diviner” – click here
* For a recap & review of the next episode, “Brother’s Keeper” – click here
Screen Shot 2017-09-18 at 2.33.53 AMMadison (Kim Dickens), Qaletqa Walker (Michael Greyeyes), and Strand (Colman Domingo) are now on the road together, heading for the dam. Before that Over the highway, they come across a group of walkers and overturned cars in the way, a jam nearly the whole way up, far as the eye can see.
So, what’s Strand’s plan? “Jesus saves.” He tosses an electronic device out the window, letting it beep and draw the zombies out. This gives Walker room to use the eighteen-wheeler to push some of the wreckage out of the way. Then they’re through, they pass a large gate into a junkyard. Safe, if only for a while.
Strand is searching for a car, which he’s found. A beat up old Bug. Madison and Walker aren’t sure why he’s concerned with a shitty little vehicle. It’s because it hides a tunnel underground. When the Native leader worries for the truck, Victor reminds him: “The dead don‘t drive.” And so it’s down into the shitty sewers of America’s southern reaches for the trio, the best way forward.
Hold you breath.
Screen Shot 2017-09-18 at 2.44.25 AMThe further they go, the less Qaletqa trusts this man Madison used all his gold to free. He believes Strand is lost. Certainly, it isn’t altogether out of the realm of possibility. The dark stretches of tunnel go on for what feels like forever; walkers overhead occasionally, some in the tunnels themselves. Danger at every blind turn.
Soon, Strand admits to Madison he’s lost. He was searching for a symbol, the Proctor’s Eye(s). But he can’t find it. He also tells her about Daniel (Rubén Blades), his lie concerning Ofelia (Mercedes Mason). Although he’s pleasantly surprised when Madison tells him she’s at the ranch. They’ve got bigger worries, though. Walkers are coming.
Victor: “Ah, hope springs from darkness.”
This claustrophobic scene puts the trio in a tight pipe where they run into a stuck, bloated, rotting zombie. Madison puts a hatchet in its brain, then they’ve got to take the thing apart in pieces, passing it back, getting rid of the limbs, so on. A truly yuck task they share in all its gut sick glory.
Meanwhile, Daniel deals with fallout after firing on people when they riot over the water. Afterwards he finds Madison, Strand, and Walker coming out of a drainpipe. He finally discovers his daughter’s alive. Madison tells him about their water troubles at the ranch. However, this man is dangerous, this post-apocalypse zombie landscape has done nothing for mental state. No telling what he’ll do, what he’s thinking. He speaks with Lola (Lisandra Tena), just as Madison and Walker clash over how to handle the negotiations. Then they all meet, chat. Yet the answer is, no water for the ranch. No trading. Lola don’t play that shit.
Screen Shot 2017-09-18 at 2.53.18 AMWill the former relationship Daniel and Madison had, before the split of the group help? Will Daniel’s desire to see his daughter again aid the ranch in getting what they need? Lola clearly knows he’s a dangerous man, but he’s helped her a great deal, she has a sort of respect or care for him. Simultaneously, Walker isn’t happy with Strand, telling him that if Madison can’t make this deal for the water, the ranchers will suffer. Because the tribe comes first, and there ain’t enough water for everybody!
“There are those who want chaos, but violence begets violence.”
Strand starts uncovering the fact people don’t trust Daniel, that the man is also paranoid. There’s a scratch in the armour, and Efrain (Jesse Borrego) wishes that Lola would simply be done with the dam, “open the flood gates, let the river flow to the people.” He sees the power corrupting everybody in its own way.
Together, Walker and Daniel speak of Ofelia, the former telling of her bravery. The father hears about what she did at the ranch, poisoning people to supposedly save lives. This does nothing for the old man, knowing that his own violent genes have infected his daughter. Suddenly, he isn’t as happy to know where she is, knowing that when they come back together neither of them will be the same person they were before.
Now, Lola and Daniel are at odds, too. She isn’t sure about him anymore, knowing he’s a killer. She doesn’t like ruling through fear, she isn’t prepared to give up that “part of herself,” as Madison said. Then, she gives Daniel an ultimatum: do what she wants, or leave. He’s prepared to stay, right now.
And why? He also has an ultimatum, of sorts, for Victor – whatever the guy’s planning, it’s got to help them both, or else things are gonna get real fucking bad.
Screen Shot 2017-09-18 at 3.16.15 AMWalker’s already done. He’s kicking himself for listening to Madison, he’s leaving. Also says the ranchers must leave. Not enough water, no deal on the horizon. It’s over. This is putting Madison in a hard corner. She pushes Daniel, telling him Ofelia needs him. But that doesn’t work, not on a guy with a blackened, bitter soul.
Only the two of them left, Victor and Madison are going to head out. Well, after they watch a bomb blow up the water truck, busting the gates wide. After that the two of them, as well as Daniel, put down the walkers trying to enter the dam. “Down with the Water Queen” chants come from outside, people are also coming to make their way inside. Perhaps Daniel wasn’t so paranoid after all. Or, y’know, Strand made it happen.
Lola’s prepared to deal for guns, ammo, even with Efrain cautioning against violence. She wants to make the deal. Madison and Walker are headed to set things in motion, hopefully heading off any further nastiness. In five days, the pair must be back with the goods, plus Ofelia. They find Walker on the way, to his happy surprise. A rare happy end to an episode. Calm before the storm.
Screen Shot 2017-09-18 at 3.24.44 AMAnother solid chapter in Season 3, pushing forward several plots, giving us more character development, and much more. Just great writing. Truly love some of these characters, especially Strand, Madison, and Walker, all of whom are getting lots of time. Daniel is interesting, too. In a dark way.
“Brother’s Keeper” comes next. Wonder if we’ll see more of Troy. Hmm.

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Fear the Walking Dead – Season 3, Episode 10: “The Diviner”

AMC’s Fear the Walking Dead
Season 3, Episode 10: “The Diviner”
Directed by Paco Cabezas
Written by Ryan Scott

* For a recap & review of the previous episode, “Minotaur” – click here
* For a recap & review of the next episode, “La Serpiente” – click here
Pic 1Nick (Frank Dillane) is being punished for his role in helping Troy (Daniel Sharman), even if he did talk the guy out of some crazy shit. He’s being kept out in a can, a little slot to see outside; the hot box torture. Where he sees Troy talking to him, taunting. Afterwards he’s let out.
Or is he? No, it’s all a vision. No Troy, no getting out of his punishment.
Elsewhere, Qaletqa (Michael Greyeyes) and Madison (Kim Dickens) talk about things. What’s next for their shared group going forward. First thing to think about is collecting water, the survival elements. Walker’s taking care of the weaponry just fine, now that Troy is out of the picture.
At the same time, Alicia (Alycia Debnam-Carey) keeps an eye on her brother, on Jake (Sam Underwood), and her mother trusts her to keep the secret that they only have “6 weeks worth of water left.” Oh, damn. That’ll turn things bad. Nobody knows currently, except Madison, her daughter, and Walker.
Pic 1AMom goes off with Walker, while her kids stay at the ranch. Nick is out of his little tin can, a bit of water, cut free. The kids head home and Alicia tries keeping her secret, even from her brother. Upstairs, Jake is dealing with unhappy people concerning the rationing of the water. We see Alicia doing her best to speak strongly, convincing them to trust in the remaining Otto, that he has their best interests at heart.
On the road, Madison is dealing with her own shit. Like Walker mansplaining how to deal with children when he only has dogs of his own. Bless her heart, she gives him that biting sarcasm to shut it down.
Meanwhile, Nick receives a visit from the militia men still kicking. They’re happy he stepped up, even if it isn’t exactly what he was doing at the time. Right now, they’re looking to him for guidance. Leadership, even. Without guns he feels nothing is worth doing. So the lads have brought him “a gift.” A gun not under lock and key, controlled by the tribe. Fuck. I love Nick, but lord, is his judgement ever suspect at even the best of times. I’m afraid what might happen if he becomes the militia’s leading man, and more so if he’s unable to control them.
Along the street, Madison and Walker come across a large outpost, the Bazaar. They have to hand over weapons. They can trade items for time inside, which prompts Madison to reluctantly use her walkie as credit. No contact with her daughter, sort of a scary thing for any parent in this post-zombie apocalypse. Inside the Bazaar, they find every sort of item for sale and for trade, from basic threads, handbags, to motorcycles and tattoos. Just as it was once upon a time in America.
Screen Shot 2017-09-11 at 11.15.25 PMAlicia’s discussing with Ofelia (Mercedes Mason), Crazy Dog, the issue of people possibly taking twice their ration of water. Something a militia man claims. Things are uneasy, getting worse by the day. “Control your own people first,” says Ofelia; maybe bargaining with the woman who tried poisoning everyone on that land ain’t such a hot idea.
In secret, Nick and militia are talking over a possible attack to take back the land. He advises waiting, though everyone else is hot to trot. At least he’s got a brain, despite whatever course of action he’ll decide on eventually. Worse, Alicia’s found his gun, not happy. He tells her it’s mostly just to keep the militia in line, they listen to what he says. But there’s a divide between even family members, as the little sister clearly has problems with her older, former junkie brother being the favourite. Moreover, she feels that mom is “broken” and that they’re only following after her mad plans to make her love them, to be the good kids she expects.
Sad to see this scene juxtaposed with Alicia then calling over the radio, not realising her mother’s intentionally sold off the radio. She fucks up later, too. Telling everyone about the truth of the water situation. Yikes.
Nobody is happy, then a slight riot breaks out before Crazy Dog fires a gun, forcibly taking over the well. That doesn’t work – Nick stands his ground, others stand with him. Getting tense as hell up in HERE!
Alicia: “There is no them and us.”
At the Bazaar, Madison and Walker are angling to get a massive amount of water to keep the ranch going as long as they can. While the Native leader tries bargaining, Madison runs into none other than Victor Strand (Colman Domingo). He’s in a bit of trouble, as usual. She winds up helping, as does Walker, to get him out of a jam. Also sacrificing the possible water deal. Best thing is they’ve got Strand, who knows a place for water. When they get away and hide, he talks to the pair about the dam briefly.
Screen Shot 2017-09-11 at 11.25.01 PMScreen Shot 2017-09-11 at 11.28.29 PMThings aren’t so great for Strand, he has a debt that needs paying to the proctor of the Bazaar. He’s in chains until the debt’s paid off. Madison doesn’t want anything bad to happen to her friend. “The whole world is lost,” Victor tells her, pleading that she just leaves and goes back to her kids again. So nonchalant in the face of danger, always.
And in the meantime Walker’s fixed the water deal.
“My mother named me Victor because she knew I‘d always win”
Victor and other debtors are put out in the streets, where they’ve either got to clear out walkers, or perish. But someone’s paid his debt, leaving Walker vicious when he discovers what he was using to pay for the deal. Madison has plans, though. She wants to use her old buddy’s connections to find a more permanent solution to their water woes.
Nick and the militia have been gathering whatever weapons they can, from bow and arrows to hatchets and everything else in between. They’ve sneaked onto the tribe’s portion of the land. Alicia’s working with the Natives, having seen a diviner that sparked her interest. Simultaneously, Crazy Dog and Co. are about ready to start firing.
Will this spark violence?
No. Nick goes to see Alicia, the tribespeople working to save the land, to find a better water source. And this gives even Crazy Dog, the militia, the boost to perhaps come together. Maybe all they ALL need is to see there’s another way; a path to survival, for everybody.
Screen Shot 2017-09-11 at 11.44.16 PMExcellent first two episodes after the mid-season break. The whole Native storyline mixed in with the post-zombie wasteland is very interesting, as is the idea of the border, the whole concept of the water supply (a genuinely real world concern if the apocalypse of any kind does ever come). Love the writing.
“La Serpiente” is next. Can’t wait to see more of Daniel, Strand, and more of Madison being an ass kicker.

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Fear the Walking Dead – Season 3, Episode 9: “Minotaur”

AMC’s Fear the Walking Dead
Season 3, Episode 9: “Minotaur”
Directed by Stefan Schwartz
Written by Mike Zunic

* For a recap & review of the previous episode, “Children of Wrath” – click here
* For a recap & review of the next episode, “The Diviner” – click here
Pic 1“Death is Not the End” plays as we see how things are now at the ranch, since last we were with Madison (Kim Dickens) and her family, the remaining Ottos, Troy (Daniel Sharman) and Jake (Sam Underwood). And while things are okay, they’re certainly not great. They never are, not in the post-zombie apocalypse wasteland of America. Only gets so good. Nick (Frank Dillane) is getting closer and closer to Troy, fitting further into the militia-style living and I’m actually a bit worried about his mental state. Meanwhile, Alicia (Alycia Debnam-Carey) and Jake are living together, getting by, though he’s not feeling well; I wonder if his illness is serious.
The power structures at the ranch have changed, certainly. With the Otto patriarch gone, Madison is taking on bigger responsibilities, more leadership. Right now there’s trouble, and the tougher their group the easier things might go with Qaletqa Walker (Michael Greyeyes) and his tribe.
The trailers are arriving, Walker’s leading his people onto the land. But what will happen next?
Pic 1ATroy isn’t ready to “accept” only “tolerate” the tribe. His brother’s more willing to work with Walker, in order to make the transition smoother; Jake wants them all to survive, rather than a large number of them dying in a fight over the land. They’ve got the weapons and ammunition setup so that it takes both Jake and Walker to unlock the storage. They’ll attempt to co-exist.
My favourite thing about Season 3 is the dynamics of families. There are all sorts of father issues, mother issues, other familial issues plaguing characters. Nick and Troy talk about fathers, discussing their resentments for their own, their ends, so on.
South of the border, Daniel (Rubén Blades) is helping keep things on track, helping Lola (Lisandra Tena) take over as leader. I’m imagining he’s headed elsewhere, soon enough. Or perhaps he’ll surprise us. There’s of course more to come with Ofelia (Mercedes Mason) eventually, as well. If they ever come together again.
Rallying his group at the ranch, Jake makes the case to forgive, forget, to move on and try finding a way to live as one with Walker. “Fear creates fury, fury lets blood,” says the Native leader. He also says that Jeremiah’s “sacrifice” took away his grudge. Now, he’s ready and willing to fight the “hell outside” that lurks around them everywhere. And so all raise a drink with him.
Screen Shot 2017-09-11 at 9.42.04 PMYet all is not well. Because as long as Troy’s alive, and his lie about Walker’s tribe killing the Trimbles is allowed to live on, too, then there’s never going to be full peace. Never.
Out burying those old bones, Walker talks with Alycia. She doesn’t want him and her mother talking too much, believing it’s creating discord and mixed messages. The man knows Madison enough now to realise she’ll do what needs doing.
And there’s some nasty business brewing. A kid named Terrance (Phillip Fallon) takes issue with the death of Gretchen, supposedly at the hands of the tribe. He tries shooting someone, though he gets wrestled away, only injuring a man. Then a tribesman puts Terrance in a headlock, crushing his throat. The kid’s as good as dead.
Things have become very tense. Not only that, there’s two lies floating around: the lie about Walker, as well as the lie being kept about how Jeremiah officially died. Could get wildly ugly should the truth soon slip free.
Guns are being handed over at this point. Jake tries keeping the peace, and safety – “one pussy ass rationalisation,” says his brother – so he agrees to let Walker have control over the arsenal. Only problem is getting the guns from everyone, particularly Troy. That doesn’t go over. He pulls a gun, and while Nick tries calming things down nothing’s easy. This puts them in a terrible position. Walker believes it’s a lost cause. Madison wants to try talking him out of anything fucking crazy.
What we have now is an utterly insane moment for Troy. He’s ready to start popping heads with a sniper rifle from the top of his house. His new buddy Nick, despite his previous feelings, actually doesn’t want to see anything bad happen to him. But lord, it’s looking scary.
Screen Shot 2017-09-11 at 10.00.47 PMBefore Madison can talk the guy down shots rain down on the house, with Nick still inside. Men lay siege to the place, as Troy returns fire. When one of the tribesmen goes to stab Nick, guess who’s there to take the blade right through his hand? You guessed it. This puts the two young men in even further cramped situations. At the same time, Nick is seeing the path he’s almost set himself on, falling into the militia thinking that’s taken the younger Otto into dark, dark territory.
Finally, Nick pulls Troy to the floor, fighting with him to surrender. What stops everything? He admits to killing Jeremiah. This rocks Troy, allowing time for the men to break in the door and put an end to the gunfight. Simultaneously, Madison and Walker discuss what justice will come to settle things. Troy will receive exile. They want to punish Nick for joining him, but he only did it to keep peace amongst the groups.
Then there’s the relationship between Troy and Jake. It isn’t great. Especially not since the older brother has to tell little brother he’s being sent out into the wasteland on his own. All he asks is for Madison to take him out there on his final ride, so he can be sure nobody kills him instead: “I trust her.” A surprisingly easy goodbye.
Troy still doesn’t go easy. On the truck ride, before he’s let loose, he does some hardcore shit then kills one of the Native men. Madison aims the gun, pleading that he just leaves. Then they have a little discussion about his dear ole pa. Before she can pull the trigger, he knocks the gun from her hand. She manages to get it back, headbutting herself out of his grip.
In the end, he walks into the horizon. Gone. For now.
Pic 4Screen Shot 2017-09-11 at 10.08.36 PMGreat way to jump back into Season 3 after the mid-season finale! Love this series, almost at times more than The Walking Dead. Mainly because there’s a very desperate feeling of humanity slowly draining away in the earliest weeks and months of the zombie apocalypse.
“The Diviner” is next. Hope to see some more wildness, I’m sure we will.

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Twin Peaks – Season 3: “The Return, Part 18”

Showtime’s Twin Peaks
Season 3: “The Return, Part 18”
Directed by David Lynch
Written by Lynch & Mark Frost

* For a recap & review of Part 17, click here.
Pic 1In the Black Lodge, bad Coop (Kyle MacLachlan) burns. Before long he is nothing but a seed, a golden ball. A piece of hair is attached to it by the One-Armed Man (Al Strobel). It then grows into another person, another Coop. This is the new Dougie Jones they’ll be sending back to Las Vegas, to give Janey-E (Naomi Watts) her husband back. And hopefully, new improved Dougie.
Back in Twin Peaks, the real Coop (MacLachlan) walks with Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee), taking her back through the woods. Where they’ve heard a terrifying scream somewhere far off.
“Is it future, or is it past?” These words come up once more, having deeper resonance than ever before. Coop, he’s having more Lodge experiences, the meeting with the Arm. LITERALLY WHAT WE SAW AT THE BEGINNING OF THE NEW EPISODES, WITH COOP IN THE LODGE, WAS FUTURE. When he saw Laura sucked up into the sky. In the other room was Leland (Ray Wise), begging: “Find Laura.” Then he’s back in the woods, Diane (Laura Dern) waiting for him. They head back on out on the road together, another journey ahead of them.
What a fucking head trip. Frost and Lynch, blowing minds.
Screen Shot 2017-09-03 at 11.34.15 PM430 miles later, they reach their destination at some transformers in the hills. They drive  a bit further, electricity crackles. ZAP! They’re on a dark highway together, headed who knows where. Into the unknown. At least until they reach a quiet little motel. Coop heads in to get them a room. Inside, they keep the lights off, they make sweet fucking love.
Only something feels… ominous. Almost feels like the night Diane spoke of, the last night she saw Coop. Almost like the night Bob Cooper came back instead of the real Cooper.
In the morning Coop wakes to a note addressed to Richard, from Linda. He’s totally confused. He heads out afterwards by himself. There, he spots a place with a sign that says EAT AT JUDY’S. A quaint diner, the sort of place he’d love. Naturally, he stops in. They’ve got hot coffee, pie, the lot. There he gets into a confrontation with a cowboy hat wearing idiot harassing the waitress. The guy pulls a gun, so Coop kicks him in the dick and puts a bullet in the other guy’s boot who draws on him. Situation settled.
What Coop really wants is the name of the other waitress who works there. He gets her address before heading out. Where does she live? Fat Trout Trailer Park, #6. Yes, that one. There he finds a woman who looks just like Laura Palmer, only she’s Carrie Paige apparently. He isn’t convinced, so he speaks to her about Leland, Sarah (Grace Zabriskie). And the woman starts realising something’s not quite right in her life. Coop wants to take her home, to her mother’s place. To see if it’ll all come together. Probably good thing for Carrie, as she’s got a man with a bullet through his head rotting away on the couch. As well as a white horse figurine! Just like the white horse pictured below that Laura’s mother once saw in a vision during the original run of Twin Peaks.
Bob Living RoomScreen Shot 2017-09-03 at 11.57.47 PMOn the road again. Coop and Carrie/Laura notice there may be someone following them, or at least she worries that’s the case. As she falls asleep she rambles a bit, talking about the past. Something I love? Frost and Lynch know we’ve waited this long.
So what’s another drawn out bit of dread and wonder?! To me, it’s genius. And it also puts you on edge, something Lynch does very well with his brand of what I’d call psychic horror. He draws us in, keeping things in a lull. Until bringing out something entirely unexpected and often terrifying (i.e. the man behind the diner in Mulholland Drive, Bob’s infamous, slow move towards the camera in the original run of Twin Peaks, etc).
Coop and Carrie/Laura arrive in Twin Peaks. They pass the Double R, the familiar landmarks. Then they come to the Palmer house. He takes her by the hand leading her in, though she doesn’t seem to remember much. At the door there’s no Sarah Palmer, just a new owner. She says they bought the place from a Mrs. Chalfont – a name we know well from the original series and Fire Walk With Me. Coop also finds out this woman’s name is Alice Tremond; just like the old woman in Twin Peaks. Oh, the evil’s definitely sticking around in that house. Just doesn’t go by the name of Palmer anymore. Back in the Chalfont-Tremond family.
So they’re left with nothing, as they see it. Coop still feels there’s a connection, he knows something isn’t quite right. “What year is this?” he asks Laura/Carrie, his face devastated. Then from the house comes a noise, Laura knows who she is, what’s going, and she SCREAMS BLOODY MURDER.
Screen Shot 2017-09-04 at 12.14.38 AMScreen Shot 2017-09-04 at 12.15.23 AMI don’t care what anyone says, I loved this finale. Regardless of whether Frost and Lynch go on to make any further episodes or if this is truly the end, I’m satisfied. What did you want? What did you expect? I, for one, didn’t expect anything concrete. That’s not what this show was ever about. At its core, Twin Peaks is the story of the everyday and the spiritual, the philosophical intertwining. That’s why there’s the high and low mixed, the idea of evil spirits inhabiting things like the convenience store and dressed as bearded lumberjacks and all sorts of things. The core of the show was the brutality in everyday life, and how do we explain that? Well, you can’t. There are evil spirits such as Bob, they exist, and like we see in the Palmer house, they go on, and on, and on…
My theory is that this is Cooper’s version of Hell. Not that he’s dead, I don’t believe that. He’s sort of caught in the Black Lodge, in a sense, forever. Not physically, but mentally. Or perhaps physically. Maybe Coop messing around in between spaces of time created a whole new reality altogether, on a different wavelength. That Hell – represented perfectly by the Palmer house – also represents the cyclical nature of violence, how these evil spirits that have swarmed Twin Peaks for so long won’t ever truly leave, they cannot be driven out. Like the air blowing through the trees, they’re a part of Twin Peaks.

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Twin Peaks – Season 3: “The Return, Part 17”

Showtime’s Twin Peaks
Season 3: “The Return, Part 17”
Directed by David Lynch
Written by Lynch & Mark Frost

* For a recap & review of Part 16, click here.
* For a recap & review of Part 18, click here.
Pic 1Gordon (David Lynch) laments that he “couldn‘t do it” when it came to Diane (Laura Dern). But he and Tammy (Chrysta Bell) and Albert (Miguel Ferrer) talk about bigger things. 25 years ago, Gordon and Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) were told by Major Garland Briggs about an “extreme negative force” called Jau Dei long ago. Over time, it became Judy. This is what Jeffries talked about that day when he came back, what we see in Fire Walk With Me. Of course Phillip disappeared while searching for Judy. And Cooper, before disappearing, warned Gordon that if he were ever to supposedly vanish, they ought to do whatever possible to find him. Furthermore, Ray turns out to have been an informant, alerting the FBI that the bad Coop, the doppelganger is searching for Briggs’ coordinates. We’ve already see some of that, too.
Finally, Coop’s message before he left the hospital gets to Cole. The pieces are coming together for the FBI. “A Blue Rose Case, most definitely,” says Gordon. Now they’ve got to head back to little ole Twin Peaks all over again.
A shot of electrical wires in the darkness, electricity sparking. We’re with bad Coop in the car, on the road, just as we first saw him in The Return. At the same time, in Twin Peaks, the other prisoners see the woman from that place beyond the Black Lodge, the woman with the wounds for eyes. She makes almost monkey-like noises, driving the others insane. Can she feel the dark electricity coming with the doppelganger, bad Bob Cooper?
Note: There was a monkey face in Fire Walk With Me, behind the young boy’s white mask, we see it briefly as the mask comes off in a close-up shot. Another link in the chain, considering the woman’s noises are not monkey-like, they ARE monkey noises.
Pic 1AOut past Twin Peaks in the woods, bad Coop finds that hole in the ground, next to the thin white tree. Electricity crackles nearby. Then, one of the cyclones appears swirling in the air. And he disappears.
We’re in that auditorium-like place beyond the Black Lodge. Screens show images of the forest, the Palmer house, Major Briggs, Agent Cooper. The place is a massive industrial environment. Contraptions appear then retract. The Fireman (Carel Struycken) seems to direct the whole place. The screen shows bad Coop, off somewhere on a road.
Then he’s there on that same road, eyes onyx black. He’s right outside the Twin Peaks Sheriff’s Department. There’s Andy (Harry Goaz) in the parking lot, greeting whom he believes is his old buddy, and inside the poor women in the cell’s still going mad. Not to mention Chad (John Pirruccello) looks to have a hidden key. Meanwhile, nobody has a clue the evil walking amongst them. Although Andy might’ve had a premonition, or perhaps he saw something during his little trip out beyond the Lodge that he’s only now seeing fully.
Shit goes haywire once Andy goes looking for Hawk (Michael Horse). He runs across Chad, who’s gotten out and gotten his hands on a gun. But before he can do a thing, Freddie Sykes (Jake Wardle) uses his crazy fist he got from the Fireman to put the guy down. All is safe. For now.
Until Sheriff Frank Truman (Robert Forster) gets a call from the actual Coop while bad Coop’s sitting in front of him. Then before the doppelganger can put a shot in the sheriff, Lucy motherfuckin’ Brennan (Kimmy Robertson) puts a bullet in the bastard! YEAH! Our girl’s a hero, after all these years.
Lucy: “Andy! I understand cellular phones now”
But, oh, yes… the dirty, bearded men covered in scorched engine oil return. Lights flicker. They poke and prod at the downed doppelganger. Right as Coop arrives. Then when the men are done, a black, floating orb with Bob’s grinning face in it floats above them, attacking, threatening. Coop calls Freddie forward who says it’s his “destiny.” The orb comes at him, attacking. Until he whacks it with the glove a couple times. It hits the floor, then he punches it through, a blaze of fire erupting from the hole it leaves. Except that’s not enough, and the orb  comes back. One more punch sends the thing flying into pieces, Freddie left bloody, but standing. Afterwards, Coop lays the owl ring on his doppelganger, and the body evaporates.
Pic 2Screen Shot 2017-09-03 at 10.42.01 PMRemember the random room key? Well, Coop asks Truman if he’s got it. Full circle. Then he also sees the woman from that industrial place, recognising her. Once Gordon and the others show up, including Bobby Briggs (Dana Ashbrook), he fills everyone in on the madness that’s been happening around them.
In the face of the scarred woman, Coop sees the Black Lodge. Then a sort of empty crater of a face where Diane appears. Suddenly, the real Diane is back. Appearing in the room. She’d been trapped in the Lodge, in the form of that woman, just as Coop was once trapped in a form of his own, and her doppelganger was out causing mayhem. WOW! What a reunion.
Before anything else can happen a great blackness swallows everything. In a void of light, Coop, Diane, and Gordon walk someplace. They come to a door, where Coop uses his old key from the Great Northern. He leaves the other two behind, heading inside. There, he finds the One-Armed Man (Al Strobel), reciting the poem ending in “fire, walk with me.” More electricity crackling, and they’re off.
Coop goes to see Jeffries, the tea kettle. He asks about 1989, getting clues in the form of steam shapes: the owl symbol, two diamonds connected, an eight or an infinity symbol or a road with a car on it. All very cryptic, certainly. When they’re done the One-Armed Man speaks the word “electricity” …
and we cut to a spinning fan, the Palmer house, Leland (Ray Wise) staring out the window as his daughter Laura (Sheryl Lee) speeds off with a young James (James Marshall). A flashback. Coop watches the young lovers in the woods that night, professing their love. He’s even the reason she screamed for no apparent reason, believing she spotted someone, something. And she does see him later, in full view. “I‘ve seen you in a dream,” she tells him. He reaches out a hand, holding onto her. The dead body on the beach that day disappears, and Laura steps into the future, the present with Coop.
Pic 3Pic 3AWe see eerie visions of the Palmer house. The place pulses with electricity, it goes dark, reddish-tinted. Sarah (Grace Zabriskie) moans and cries in the background, sounds of agony and torment. Then she starts smashing the place up, she violently breaks the picture of Laura sitting in the living room.
Coop leads Laura back through the forest. In the dark they hear a vicious screaming. Soon, we see only red, the curtains flowing. Music. The end.
Only one part left.
Screen Shot 2017-09-03 at 11.13.47 PMWHOOOOOA. Frost and Lynch doing fan service in the only way they know how: ultra-surrealist magic. What a beautiful penultimate chapter to this amazing show. Good lord.

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Twin Peaks – Season 3: “The Return, Part 16”

Showtime’s Twin Peaks
Season 3: “The Return, Part 16”
Directed by David Lynch
Written by Lynch & Mark Frost

* For a recap & review of Part 15, click here.
* For a recap & review of Part 17, click here.
Pic 1More desolate highway. Lynchian trademark, including the ominous music. Bad Bob Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) is driving with his new pal Richard Horne (Eamon Farren). Soon they’re on dirt, heading further into darkness. Until they arrive at a lonely spot and stop. A place for which bad Coop received coordinates.
Bad Coop: “I‘m looking for a place. Do you understand a place?”
And now it sort of makes sense why Jerry Horne (David Patrick Kelly) has spent The Return in a state of hippy madness, wandering the woods. He’s wound up stumbling onto his own flesh and blood Richard with his new friend out in the dark, so he promptly whips out his camera to film. Meanwhile, bad Coop goes to a rock out in the nearby grass, sending his young protege directly to it.
Already we hear snippets of familiar sounds, the Black Lodge’s ambient noise calling, flickering on the light evening breeze. As Jerry looks on recording, Richard climbs the rock. Suddenly electricity crackles, tearing through the young man. Zapping him while he wails into the night. He disappears in its bright flash, soon he’s nothing, exploding to smoke, fizzling, popping. Bad Coop says nothing but “goodbye, my son.” Of course he had to be destroyed. Bob’s son couldn’t keep living, not in the real world, anyways.
Pic 1AWhat’s happening over in Vegas? Again we see the Hutchens duo, Chantal (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and Gary (Tim Roth). They’re camping out on that familiar street, in their van dressed as painters. Then they catch a glimpse of cars surely carrying G-men to the neighbourhood. The FBI are looking for, you guessed it, the Jones family.
We last saw the real Cooper a.k.a Dougie-Coop (MacLachlan) jamming a fork into an electrical socket. Naturally it’s landed him in the hospital, Janey-E (Naomi Watts) and Sonny Jim waiting at his side, hoping he’ll come out of the coma. The Mitchum brothers, Rodney (Robert Knepper) and Bradley (Jim Belushi), arrive to pay their respects, as well as bring a load of “finger sandwiches” and other things to keep them comfortable. Everyone’s hoping for the best. And just as the audience has been asking for 25 years about Twin Peaks in general, Bradley sums it up perfect with: “It was like, what… electricity?”
A FANTASTIC CUT to Gordon Cole (David Lynch) in the midst of a bunch of beeping, whining machines. He almost has this sense, as we cut back to where we’ve cut from: Cooper trapped in Dougie’s body, trapped in a coma, as the life monitor beeps with his sleepy heart. Just.. I mean… only Frost and Lynch together can make this sort of magic, and on television no less. Beautiful, haunting surrealism at work.
Pic 2The Hutchens’ run into trouble when a guy takes issue with them parking near his driveway. Rather than fuck around much more Chantal shoots at the guy, who in turn has his own gun in the trunk. All the while the FBI are right down the street. A nasty little scene ensues, Chantal takes several bullets, as does Gary.
At the hospital, a noise rings. Calling out. Then Coop wakes up from his bed, the One-Armed Man (Al Strobel) appears from beyond in the Black Lodge. “One–hundred percent” our man is BACK, BABY! FINALLY, AFTER ALL THIS TIME! The One-Armed Man provides him with the owl ring, and also has something Cooper calls “the seed.” Now they’ve got to take care of Bob, “the other one” still out there causing evil. Of course people are a bit bewildered once he’s back, though he plays along with his new family, his new boss. Only needing to eat a sandwich after his coma. Afterwards, he gets the Mitchums to charter a plane for Spokane, Washington, leaving a note with his boss for his true boss, Gordon.
Diane (Laura Dern) is rocked when she receives the text from bad Coop saying ALL with a big smiley face. What exactly does it mean? Something terrible, no doubt. This woman barely shows any emotion unless telling someone to fuck themselves. And now she types in a series of numbers, coordinates, surely. Following which she heads to the elevator, gun in her purse, that song we heard in Part 1 of The Return playing while bad Coop drove that dark highway plays again… she goes to a floor upstairs, heading towards a room. Cut to Gordon’s face, knowing she’s on the other side of the door.
Inside are Agents Tammy Preston (Chrysta Bell) and Albert Rosenfield (Miguel Ferrer) with Gordon. They all know she’s off. She necks a drink. Suspense each time she puts a hand in her purse. She tells them all about several years after losing contact with Cooper. She says he walked into her home one night. They sat and talked, he pressed her about things at the FBI. He kissed her, that’s when she knew there was something bad happening. She saw a strange smile (like the one on Sarah Palmer’s in Part 15?) on his face before he raped her. When he was finished he took her to an “old gas station.” That fabled convenience store.
Then Diane takes her chance, muttering “I‘m not me” and tries to shoot them. Tammy and Albert gun her down first. Quickly, she’s gone. Disappeared. “A real tulpa.” Out in the Black Lodge, Diane sits with the One-Armed Man. She’s been “manufactured” and now she’s deconstructing. Oh, and the seed? That’s those little orbs we see from out of the created forms in the lodge.
Pic 3Pic 3Cooper must say goodbye to the Jones family. An emotional moment, for all of them. Graciously, he thanks them for making his heart full. Then off he goes, back to his previous life. Although he promises Dougie will be back to stay, eventually.
MOTHERFUCKIN’ EDDIE VEDDER AT THE ROADHOUSE, MAMA! You know you love it. Because I do. Gorgeous song, that godly voice’s power behind the strumming (song’s called “Out of Sand”). Funny, how the time in the hourglass is measured by sand, and we’re literally running out of sand on this series.
Finally, Charlie (Clark Middleton) and Audrey (Sherilyn Fenn) get to the bar. After all their arguing, back and forth. Out of nowhere, “Audrey’s Dance” plays and everybody clears the floor. She’s surprised, but fast her reflexes take over, soon she’s out in front of everyone moving to the music. Isn’t long before a fight breaks out elsewhere.
And then Audrey begs Charlie: “Get me outta here.”
But she IS out of there. We zap to a stark white room, she’s looking at her worn face shocked in the mirror. Oh. My. God. Has she been living in an alternate universe Twin Peaks in her head this whole time?
Screen Shot 2017-08-27 at 11.50.05 PMScreen Shot 2017-08-27 at 11.53.38 PMThis is the one: the episode that changed everything. People have been complaining about so many things they perceived as loose ends, not giving the surrealist approach and techniques of Frost+Lynch the full series to play out. Because that’s their game, the long ball. Strap in. Only two episodes left, forever.

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Twin Peaks – Season 3: “The Return, Part 15”

Showtime’s Twin Peaks
Season 3: “The Return, Part 15”
Directed by David Lynch
Written by Lynch & Mark Frost

* For a recap & review of Part 14, click here.
* For a recap & review of Part 16, click here.
Pic 1Nadine Hurley (Wendy Robie) goes to see Ed (Everett McGill) over at the gas station. Her golden shovel in tow. She says she’s “changed” and realises he’s been a “saint” over the years. She knows she kept him and Norma (Peggy Lipton) apart, all this time. Of course he denies it, insisting there’s nothing to it. He already knows, from the rhetoric, she’s been tuning in to the show crazy ole Dr. Jacoby (Russ Tamblyn) broadcasts.
So Ed goes down to see Norma. Except her new guy Walter’s around. Life and love has passed Big Ed by, after so damn long. Heartbreaking to see. No matter how much coffee Shelly (Mädchen Amick) serves him. Or a “cyanide tablet,” as he mumbles to himself. But all he has to do is wait a few minutes, until Norma kicks that guy and his franchises and all that shit to the curb. She’s fine right there in Twin Peaks, the way it’s always been, the way it’s always been meant to be now with that final cherry on top for these two.
But as usual, there are darker things happening while all the sweetness runs its course.
Pic 2Bad Coop (Kyle MacLachlan) drives down a desolate stretch of road. Similar to how The Return began. Then he pulls up to a place we all know well – the convenience store. Someone waits outside to take him in. Electricity flickers, they disappear.
“I‘m looking for Phillip Jeffries”
A dark room. One of the dirty, bearded lumberjack men pulls a switch. Electricity flares. Visions of the Jumping Man (seen previously in Fire Walk With Me). Through a familiar doorway, bad Coop goes into the darkness led by the lumberjack. They head out into a place like a trailer par. Where a woman talks in that backward talk of the Black Lodge. She lets him in through a locked door, into place with a number 8 on the outside. Inside, a light blinks rapidly. Bad Coop finds a strange kettle-like contraption, through which speaks the voice of Jeffries. He answers bad Coop’s questions, they speak of the ’80s, after Phillip showed up babbling about Judy. He says that Cooper’s already met her before. Hmm. A telephone starts ringing, endlessly. And the answer about Judy never comes, as bad Coop’s transported outside after he answers the phone.
Who exactly is Judy, after all? Since Fire Walk With Me, it’s been a lingering question.
Well, this doppelganger then stumbles onto Richard Horne (Eamon Farren), who believes him to be the regular Cooper, gun drawn. He wants to take out the FBI man. Instead, he gets the shit kicked out of him. But he ain’t dead. They’re taking a ride together, now that bad Coop knows this young man’s mother is Audrey (Sherilyn Fenn).
In the background, the convenience store zaps with electricity, pumping out smoke. Creating. Destroying. Manipulating. What all evil spirits do. Eventually, the place disappears, all that’s left is trees.
Pic 2 (1)Out in the forest, Steven Burnett (Caleb Landry Jones) is with his mistress, gun in hand and tripping out. Things are not good right now, not for him. He’s a dangerous, unpredictable dude to be around. He’s in one hell of a bad way. Might not be walking back out of those woods.
And why? Did he do what I think he did? Has he hurt Becky (Amanda Seyfried)? Christ.
At the bar, James (James Marshall) says hello to Renee, but her husband isn’t impressed. So he beats the living shit out of him. Until Freddie (Jake Wardle) and his colossal glove step in to remedy the situation. Now we know he wasn’t joking about the Fireman (Carel Struycken). He really fucked those guys up, James and his buddy are headed for a cell tonight.
In Las Vegas, Duncan Todd (Patrick Fischler) and his assistant are assassinated by Chantal Hutchens (Jennifer Jason Leigh) with relative ease. She and Gary (Tim Roth) head for burgers after, as he rants about the “nation of killers” that America’s always been.
Elsewhere in the city Dougie-Coop (MacLachlan) is still eating, Janey-E (Naomi Watts) continually doting on her simple minded husband. ‘Cause now he’s got a rockin’ bod and the gambling issues are gone. Yet little bits of the true Cooper are there, hiding behind the veil. Just waiting to come back out again. He spies the electrical socket. Fork in hand – uh oh – he crawls towards it. Jamming the fork in, the electricity zaps, his wife screams.
Will it kill him? Or take him back?
Screen Shot 2017-08-20 at 11.03.44 PMHawk (Michael Horse) gets a call from The Log Lady, Margaret (Catherine E. Coulson). She tells him she’s dying. She says: “You know about death. That it‘s just a change, not an end.” This is the last time they’ll speak. She pleads that he remembers what they spoke of in the past. She says to watch for the “one under the moon at Blue Pine Mountain.”
Hawk gets Bobby (Dana Ashbrook), Sheriff Frank Truman (Robert Forster), Andy (Harry Goaz), and Lucy (Kimmy Robertson) together to inform them about Margaret’s death. As it is in a small town, those who knew her many years mourn her sadly.
Audrey and Charlie (Clark Middleton) are going to the Roadhouse. Things are still… strange. What’s going on with them? Instead of going out, though, they get into a bit of an argument. Escalating until she nearly strangles him.
At the Roadhouse, The Veils play “Axolotl” as various people mingle, drink, the same ole same. A young girl’s moved by a couple tough bikers, evidently they sit there often. Instead of getting up, the girl kneels on the floor and weeps, crawling into the crowd on the dance floor. Moments later she starts screaming uncontrollably.
We end on a shot under the credits of that trailer-like courtyard where bad Coop was taken. I wonder if we’ll see more in the last few episodes.
Screen Shot 2017-08-20 at 11.14.50 PMA few slow spots, I still don’t understand Audrey’s whole situation. Still, I feel like the biggest, most important Lynchian/Frostian mythologies are filling out. Eerie and strange Jeffries moments, too. Love those. Only several episodes remaining. I wonder if we’ll be left with some kind of devastating, near cliffhanger moment like Season 2 did 25 years ago. I’m betting yes, and Lynch/Frost will soak it in.

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Twin Peaks – Season 3: “The Return, Part 14”

Showtime’s Twin Peaks
Season 3: “The Return, Part 14”
Directed by David Lynch
Written by Lynch & Mark Frost

* For a recap & review of Part 13, click here.
* For a recap & review of Part 15, click here.
Pic 1Out in Buckhorn, Gordon Cole (David Lynch) calls Twin Peaks. He chats with Lucy (Kimmy Robertson), though between the two of them it’s painfully hilarious. She puts him in touch with Sheriff Frank Truman (Robert Forster). They talk about the “strange” things Deputy Chief Hawk (Michael Horse) found. The stuff from Laura Palmer’s (Sheryl Lee) diary, about the “two Coopers.” Quite helpful, considering what’s been going on lately, what Gordon and Albert (Miguel Ferrer) have been investigating.
1975, a murder in Olympia, Washington. This is the first Blue Rose Case. Albert tells Agent Tammy Preston (Chrysta Bell) all about it, a woman named Lois Duffy. Turns out she had a doppelganger. She was put up for murder, while the doppelganger disappeared. The arresting agents? Gordon Cole and Phillip Jeffries. When the double died she spoke the words: “I‘m like the blue rose.” We likewise get a mention of the word “tulpa” that comes from a mystic concept, translated from Sanskrit, referring to a thoughtform, something previously non-existent which comes into being through power of the mind. Interesting note.
Afterwards, Diane (Laura Dern) shows up, and Gordon asks her if the last night she saw Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) he mentioned Major Garland Briggs. When she’s shown the ring found in the Major’s stomach, it clicks: her estranged half-sister is Janey-E Jones (Naomi Watts), married to none other than Dougie Jones.
Oh, my. Things begin coming together.
Gordon talks about a dream he had, of Monica Bellucci (playing herself). He met her in Paris at a cafe. Cooper’s there, too. Only Gordon can’t see his face. Everyone had coffee, then Monica said the “ancient phrase… we‘re like the dreamer who dreams and then lives inside the dream.” Then she added: “But who is the dreamer?”
He sees his old self, from Fire Walk With Me. When Cooper was worried about a dream, the day Phillip Jeffries (David Bowie) suddenly turned up after years. This is when we saw the Jumping Man, as well.
Pic 1ABack in Twin Peaks, Hawk and the boys get Deputy Sheriff Chad Broxford (John Pirruccello) in handcuffs, after finding him out for his criminal shit. However, I worry. Because the dark little places in their town, the drug dealers that frequent their bars, their streets, it might not like if their network is compromised. Either way, it’s good to have out of their way. Hawk, Truman, Deputy Sheriffs Bobby Briggs (Dana Ashbrook) and Andy Brennan (Harry Goaz) head to the woods.
Briefly, we see electrical wires amongst the natural landscape. Crackling. Those evil spirits everywhere, the symbolic evil of modern man set in juxtaposition against the natural, green beauty of the world.
In they head together, through the bush. Bobby talks about his father, his connection to this place up in the forest: Jack Rabbit’s Palace. It’s a huge, ragged stump of a massive tree. A place of memories from Bobby’s younger life. They all put a bit of soil in their pockets, as per the note left. Further on they find a foggy place, electricity sparking. Suddenly there appears a naked woman, her face and eyes just brutal wounds. Isn’t she the one we saw in that strange place ages ago, in that odd industrial-like landscape where Cooper passed through? That other spot beyond the Black Lodge? Above our friends a cyclone appears, like the one Gordon witnessed. Electricity again crackles through its portal opening. They all look deep into it. A bright light burning.
And now, Andy is in that very same place where Cooper was, where the lady came from. The Fireman (Carel Struycken), formerly the Giant, greets him. Raising a hand. Andy looks at something that appears in his hands. A cloud of smoke wisps around him, evaporating up into the porthole light above. He stares silently into it, as it changes to a screen. Showing him images we’ve seen before: the gas station and convenience store, the dirty bearded lumberjack asking for a light, old memories of Laura Palmer, then the two Coops side by side, Lot 6 at the Fat Trout Trailer Park, among others.
Before too long Andy’s transported back, carrying the woman who appeared. He says they have to protect her. People are trying to kill her. Puzzled, though trusting his judgement, the others follow. Although not sure what happened to them.
Pic 2Pic 2AWe see a bit more of James (James Marshall), he works some kind of security job for transport, something like that. He doesn’t have much of a social life. It’s his birthday and even his co-worker Freddie (Jake Wardle) doesn’t know until he’s told. Poor James, always the lonely soul. Freddie wears one rubber glove, just one on his ring hand. He ends up telling a story about being sucked up into a cyclone in the sky, where he saw the Fireman, who gave him instructions to go find a specific rubber glove, in an open package at the store. This gave him a strange power, like an “enormous piledriver” for a hand.
He was also told by the Fireman to travel to Twin Peaks: “There you will find your destiny.” Most might take this as ridiculous. James has lived there all his life. He knows this place is magical, mystical, mythical.
Sarah Palmer (Grace Zabriskie) wanders into Elk’s Point #9 Bar, sitting down for what’s sure to be a long night in the bottle. People whisper as she passes, talking to themselves. Near her at the end of the bar a man approaches, she brushes him off. Guy doesn’t take her seriously, getting particularly nasty: “It‘s a free cunt–ry.” He pushes harder, saying she likes to eat pussy. Her reply? “I‘ll eat you.”
Like her daughter did in the first episode of The Return, Sarah opens her face. Like a mask. Inside is darkness, smoke, electricity. She closes her face, then quickly chomps a bite out of his neck. He falls over, bleeding out. Nobody sees a thing. Only his corpse. God damn. Now we know an evil spirit resides in her. Just a matter of what it means in the grand scheme of things.
And at the Roadhouse, a pair of women talk about a disturbing, bloody scene involving Billy. Y’know, the one Audrey (Sherilyn Fenn) is looking for. Or I assume.
Just another day in ole Twin Peaks, right?
Pic 3Pic 3AMan, I loved this episode. One of my favourites of The Return. Impressive, in many ways. Storylines coming together, mythology expanding and connections to Fire Walk With Me fleshing out. Beautiful stuff. Always great fun when these episodes end with a nice musical performance, too.
Is it next week yet?

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Twin Peaks – Season 3: “The Return, Part 13”

Showtime’s Twin Peaks
Season 3: “The Return, Part 13”
Directed by David Lynch
Written by Lynch & Mark Frost

* For a recap & review of Part 12, click here.
* For a recap & review of Part 14, click here.
Pic 1At the Lucky 7 offices, the Mitchum brothers – Bradley (Jim Belushi) and Rdoney (Robert Knepper) – are prancing around like they’re kings of the world. Marching in to see the boss, along with Dougie-Coop (Kyle MacLachlan), after a nice celebration. Bearing gifts, too. The brothers are quite happy with their big haul.
At the same time, Duncan Todd (Patrick Fischler) chastises Anthony Sinclair (Tom Sizemore), who’s only got one more day to do whatever it is he’s supposed to get done. Sinister stuff, no doubt.
Bradley: “A wrong has been made right and the sun is shining bright”
Over at the Jones place, Janey-E (Naomi Watts) receives a new jungle gym set from the Mitchums. Also noticing the beautiful car in the driveway, literally gift wrapped. Quite a change of pace from living with the old Dougie Jones. His wife is certainly thrilled.
Funny, how in parallel with the spirit of BOB, when Cooper came back out from the Black Lodge he became an agent of good, a positive spirit. Making lives better everywhere he goes.
Pic 1AMeanwhile, the bad Coop (MacLachlan) is meeting with a couple bad lookin’ dudes, including old pay Ray Monroe (George Griffith); he of course thought the guy was dead. Seems bad Coop – or Bob Cooper, if you will – is up against a tough arm wrestling competitor named Renzo (Derek Mears). If he loses he’s got to work for Renzo. If he wins, he’d be the boss of their whole organisation. He only wants Ray.
They sit to the table, rules are read out for all to hear. Then, the match begins. Renzo nearly puts bad Coop’s arm flat. But he holds on, he doesn’t let up, much as Renzo, the big brute tries. It’s like the evil entity isn’t even breaking a sweat. It actually becomes scary after a certain point. Especially considering Ray witnessed the weird voodoo shit which brought the guy back. It ends when bad Coop decides to lay the big man’s arm flat to the table, snapping it. He punches Renzo in the face so hard it sends him back, nose and forehead crushed in. Blood spurts from the open hole.
Who’s the boss now, bitch?
He and Ray get a bit of alone time, the latter taking a bullet first before they have a chat. Then he reveals who hired him to kill bad Coop: a man by the name of Phillip Jeffries. Or at least, that’s who the guy says he is, anyways. So, is it the real Jeffries? Or a doppelganger from the Black Lodge? Moreover, Ray was given the owl ring to put on him after he did the deed. Now, he’s made to put it on.
All the while people are watching on the camera in the other room. And who should walk in but Richard Horne (Eamon Farren). Oh, shit. This is a very, very interesting connection. Then before Ray gets a bullet in the eyes he mentions Jeffries, a place called The Dutchman’s. And after he’s dead, the ring disappears, flicking across the patterned floor of the Black Lodge.
Pic 2Pic 2AThe Dougie Jones plot thickens when the streams cross: he’s not just Dougie, he’s also a guy who escaped from a max security prison, as well as a missing FBI agent. Of course the Las Vegas cops laugh that off as total bullshit. Because, really, only in the Twin Peaks universe of David Lynch and Mark Frost would such a mad thing happen.
Sinclair’s got friends around town, including Detective Clark (John Savage), who’s clearly in dirty business with the insurance man. The Dougie plot lines are all going to come together in a spectacular whirlwind of shit by the end of this season. Sinclair has big troubles of his own, he wants to poison Dougie but Dt. Clark says. His cop friends work for his boss Mr. Todd, too. So he’s on a tight leash.
Out for coffee together, Sinclair and Dougie-Coop sit quietly at a table. When cherry pie takes our man away for a moment, his fellow insurance salesman slips a vial of poison in his cup. Luckily some of Dougie-Coop’s strangeness renders Sinclair into a blubbering mess, unable to finish the job. Back at Lucky 7, the boss hears Sinclair’s confession about what he’s done, working for Mr. Todd, so on. I love how Dougie-Coop has become this tabula rasa-type deity, without words – or at least with very few – he helps people get back to their better selves, he helps people get what they deserve, in many ways. This leads towards possibly testimony to take down Todd and his dirty operation.
Pic 3In Twin Peaks at the Double R, Shelly (Mädchen Amick) gets a call from her daughter Becky (Amanda Seyfried). She hasn’t heard from her husband Steven (Caleb Landry Jones). Who knows where he’s gone. Mom cheers her daughter up with the suggestion of cherry pie and ice cream. Yum!
Other things back home are uneasy. Ed Hurley (Everett McGill) has to watch Norma Jennings (Peggy Lipton) move on romantically. Although she’s doing well, Norma’s Double R is a franchise now, turning profits. But neither Ed nor Norma it seems have totally moved on from what they had together 25 years ago. Through her situation with the Double R, we see the modern world creeping into Twin Peaks. Lynch is a guy who loved an age gone by, so it’s fun to watch him and Frost contemplate how this little town’s being sucked in by the rest of the world around them, an inevitability for most small places nowadays.
Elsewhere in town, Nadine (Wendy Robie) has surprised Dr. Lawrence Jacoby (Russ Tamblyn) with a display in a shop window on the main street. She’s displayed one of the golden shovels, as well as her perfected silent runners for the drapes, after all these years! Bless both their hearts. Two fucking crazies.
At the Palmer place, Sarah (Grace Zabriskie) falls further into the drink, smoking more cigarettes than you can even imagine. Electricity snaps somewhere in the background now and then, boxing on the television. The place is like a dungeon. Creepy.
And then there’s Audrey Horne (Sherilyn Fenn), her husband Charlie (Clark Middleton). She isn’t well, screaming at him: “I don‘t even know who I am.” She also can’t remember where the Roadhouse is, which is very strange. There’s something not quite right about her these days. Remember, we’ve not yet discovered how she fared after the explosion in the bank a couple decades ago, we don’t know what this new situation, this contract of a marriage with Charlie is in truth. I suspect there’s so much more to it than we understand yet. Audrey always was a complicated woman.
Over at the Roadhouse we get a callback performance by James Hurley (James Marshall) playing “Just You” with a couple backup singers onstage, crooning the singer in that saccharine voice of his, as a woman watches him closely, lovingly, tears in her eyes.
Screen Shot 2017-08-07 at 12.03.01 AMLoved this episode. We’re getting bits and pieces that I want more of, specifically Audrey and Sarah Palmer. Some people can’t handle the slow, long build. But for me, it’s part of why Frost and Lynch are so powerful. They don’t have to rush. They don’t have to end each episode on a cliffhanger. They do things at a nice, steady pace, and if you can’t hang on for the ride: don’t.

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Twin Peaks – Season 3: “The Return, Part 12”

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.
Pic 1At 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.
Pic 1AIn 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.
Sarah: “It‘s a goddamn bad story, isn‘t it, Hawk?”
Pic 2Diane 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.
Pic 3Dr. Jacoby: “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.
Pic 4A 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.

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