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.
Nadine 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.
Bad 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.
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?
Hawk (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.
A 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.
Out 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.
Back 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.
We 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.
Man, 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.
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.
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.
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?
Dr. Jacoby: “It‘s seven o‘clock. Do you know where your freedom is?”
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.
Bad Coop (Kyle MacLachlan) and Ray Monroe (George Griffith) are following a tracking device out into the woods on a desolate road. They have a little chit cat, the latter apologises for taking off on his buddy. Seems like ole Ray is trying to squeeze a bit of cash out of the doppelganger, a bit of important information he knows is worth a few bucks. So he thinks. Along the dark road they stop so Ray can piss. He pulls a trick on the bad Coop and pumps a couple shots in him.
Nine Inch Nails plays for us in this episode, which is sexy as fuck. Two of my great loves coming together at once. Great goddamn performance, too. It’s so wonderfully filmed and for me it fits like a glove.
We’re taken further, as well. Lynch brings us into a suspended atmosphere where we come to a huge structure, almost an obelisk in the darkness. Inside is similar to an old apartment building from the early 1900s. There’s a woman looking upset. The Giant (Carel Struycken) is there, a concerned look on his face. And there’s a large transformer of some sort, it keeps making noise and lighting up, over and over, until the Giant turns it off. There’s a similarity between this place and the place where Coop wound up going through on his way back from the Black Lodge. So, is this like a type of Limbo, a Purgatory? If so, is the electrical transformer a vessel, or does it transmit messages?
Jump ahead to ’56. In the desert. An egg hatches, a creature slithers out and crawls through the sand. later, we see it closer as a half frog, half fly-type of thing. Like two pieces of a Biblical plague mixed together.
A young couple walks home alone together at night. The boy kisses the girl and heads off. The Lumberjack is still looking for his light, too. He walks into a radio station, finds one woman and puts a hand to her head, crushing it, or melting it. But either way: BLOOD! He does the same to the DJ. Everywhere in town the radio goes mad. Until the Lumberjack decides to use the airwaves to send a message: “This is the water. And this is the well. Drink full and descend. The horse is the white of the eyes and dark within.” Through the electricity of the radios and the airwaves, the Lumberjack’s words infect people all over town.
What a fascinating chapter. This was so spooky, unnerving, surreal. One of the greatest television episodes, of anything, ever. Definitely at the top of the surrealist pile for Twin Peaks. And strange as it was, it’s putting together parts of its mythology. One episode at a time. And what will become of the poor girl who swallowed that frog-fly-thing? Yuck.
Jerry Horne (David Patrick Kelly) is in the woods, a bewildered look on his face. More than just a good bake on from his killer bud. It’s like he knows there’s something bad in that forest. He calls his brother Ben (Richard Beymer). Seems as if he’s had his car stolen. Turns out he’s actually just high. Too high.
Out on the road Deputy Sheriff Andy Brennan (Harry Goaz) talks with a very nervous, paranoid man. They’re set to meet at 4:30. This guy seems like he’s up to no good, but I don’t see Andy as being the type to be up to anything shady. So what’s the deal?
On a lonely road, Andy waits for the paranoid man with whom he met earlier. At the guy’s house, we get the feeling of something ominous behind his open front door. Only Lynch could make a simple shot of a door like that feel creepy. One of the many reasons the man is a master filmmaker.
I love Lynch because he intrigues us, and he also gives us slices of anticipation where we see a long shot of the Bang Bang being swept, Jean-Michel Renault (Walter Olkewicz) at the bar working silently. And nothing happens, for so long. Because Lynch knows we’re paying attention. He doesn’t do this for shits, he does it to make sure we haven’t fallen off.
Another good episode, this one a bit less heavy on the surrealism and the absurd, more a classic episode of Twin Peaks we’ve come to know. I’m excited because with 18 episodes, Lynch and Frost have the opportunity to take their time a bit, which they do with relish. All the same it’s good, it isn’t frustrating for those of us Peakheads who love the mystery, the intrigue, the surreal. Can’t wait for the next episode already.
Twin Peaks as a series was, at the core, about very human issues; no matter the dreamy qualities. David Lynch has spent his entire career mainly dealing in surrealism. His aim is the human mind. Far out in the stratosphere as his imagery can get there’s always that humanity. I’ve attributed it to the spiritual nature of his filmmaking. Not religious: spiritual.
I get that people feel the film is disjointed. It’s disjointed in a purposeful sense. Lynch and co-writer Robert Engels begin with groundwork. Literally, we start with the investigation into the murder of Teresa Banks (Pamela Gidley) – this is the case similar to Laura’s which Agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) mentions in the initial Twin Peaks episode. Through this, as we catch the story of Agent Chester Desmond (Chris Isaak), we come across several of the basic concepts that come together throughout the series.
In addition there’s other moments which add up to show us how electricity is the major concept concerning spiritual beings in the Black Lodge. For instance, the owl ring we see Laura and Teresa wear is connected to electricity. The Man from Another Place says: “This is a formica table. Green is its colour.” Well, formica insulates from electricity. The owl ring is cut from that very table, which can be seen during both Fire Walk With Me and Missing Pieces when Lynch treats us to a lengthy sequence above the fabled convenience store, where the beings have their meetings (see table below).
So, wearing the ring is a kind of double-edged sword. It’s a marker to the evil beings, like Bob, and at the same time it’s able to keep the evil from entering them. We see this when Laura wears the ring. Bob lusts after her, wanting to “taste” through her. But he can’t because the formica owl ring pushes him back, insulating Laura’s soul from being inhabited by Bob. This makes it further clear that the spiritual beings – this includes all those above the convenience store, including the Man from Another Place, Mrs. Tremond(/Chalfont) and her grandson, the electrician, the two lumberjacks (one of whom may likely be the Log Lady’s husband) – they don’t only travel through electricity, in a sense they consist of electricity. Which is why Bob cannot enter those who bear the owl ring.
The good v. evil spiritual beings isn’t only evident in Fire Walk With Me. During the series, Coop comes in contact with the One Armed Man, Phillip Gerard (Al Strobel). He admits to having been corrupted by Bob – “I too had been touched by the devilish one” – though coming to his senses and to the light of God, which changes him. He becomes an agent of good.
Finally, we come to the human core. Even before we fall into the morbid story of Laura Palmer, Lynch shows us how even the heaviest mythology of Twin Peaks involves humanity. The convenience store is perhaps the best example. While Lynch explores these expansive concepts, existential thinking at the highest level, he remains connected to the real world, rooted in it – these spiritual beings not only look just like humans, they meet in a shabby room situated over a convenience store. In the real world Mrs. Tremond(/Chalfont) and her grandson live in a trailer park. These are ways in which Lynch says that the spiritual and the corporeal are interconnected, by barely a hair’s width. Living right alongside one another, on top of each other.
And this is the bottom line, the chief concern of the film’s thesis statement: spiritual, existential pain.
