And with another week in the rear view mirror, we return to Twin Peaks: The Return. This week we get our first one hour episode after two double sized weeks. The fifth part of Twin Peaks: The Return is very subtle on the trippy and weird visuals we saw in the first four parts and spends time putting puzzle pieces together, albeit slowly. Let’s jump into this but note there are spoilers all throughout.
1. A Day In The Life
As we saw last week, Dale Cooper is back in the real world but living under the identity of his doppelganger Dougie. Dale has no idea what’s going on and in this episode we watch him go through a day as Dougie. Kyle MacLachlan once again outright steals the show from everyone else because of how well he plays this. He’s so lost and confused but it is really funny. No one else seems to realize that something is wrong with Dougie but in Lynch’s world, this is how people are. They are self absorbed and lost in their own problems that they can’t or refuse to notice this. He’s childlike but in this episode we get a tease that he might just be starting to figure things out a bit. When the words “agent” and “case files” are said, we start to see the wheels turning in his head. There’s something there but it still may take time to get there. My biggest worry with this is that it will wear out its welcome. Eventually this needs to go somewhere. Dale needs to go back to Twin Peaks and not in the final episode.
2. It Begins To Come Together
Nothing that happens in the world of Twin Peaks is done by accident. If a murder is introduced in South Dakota, it will get picked up and it does in this episode in a big way. Two major things are revealed to us. The first is that a wedding ring was found in the dead body. It belongs to Dougie! The second is that the fingerprints that the military wouldn’t allow access to belong to Major Garland Briggs. In fact there have been 16 hits over 25 years and each one has been investigated and eventually been nothing. Why does a dead body in South Dakota tie to all these people so much? I have no theories as of yet but I love that this is piecing together like this.
3. Familiar Faces
Twin Peaks: The Return has strayed from being fueled by nostalgia and that’s a good thing. However, I do find myself wanting to see some old friends. This episode gives us a little of that as we get to see Norma, Shelly and the Double R Diner. They’re all still there and still in those same uniforms but Shelly has the sad complication of dealing with a daughter (played by Amanda Seyfried. I predicted she would be Norma’s daughter) who’s addicted to drugs. Meanwhile, Dr. Jacoby has become a guy with a webshow where he goes on about government conspiracies because OF COURSE he became that guy. It’s too perfect and Nadine of all people watches the show because OF COURSE she does. This kind of stuff isn’t taking up a huge part of the show but it could stand to take a little more time. I want to know how more of these people ended up. I want to see them again.
4. A Full Episode
When Twin Peaks: The Return was announced, David Lynch said multiple times that this would be a sort of 18 part movie. While I don’t doubt his vision, I think he should give himself more credit for actually putting together a cohesive television show. This episode goes to a bunch of different places but still feels like a complete episode. This moves really well and is probably as straight forward an episode as we’ll ever get with the show. It feels normal but that’s fine. Twin Peaks: The Return needs to do this to succeed on some level.
5. One Phone Call
At the end of the episode, we get caught up with Boop (Coop + BOB). He’s still in jail and very calm about it. Boop goes up to the mirror and looks into it, reminiscent of the final episode of the original run, and he remembers the moment that he took over Cooper’s body. Killer BOB is still in there and ready to strike. When he’s given his one phone call, he’s recorded and knows this and turns the tables on the warden entirely by dialing some kind of combination that sends everything in the prison into a frenzy. All we hear is him say “the cow the jumped over the moon” and then the scene cuts to a box that turns into a small little piece of metal. Again, what any of this means is beyond me at this point but it’s forward action. Boop is scary and clearly in control. It feels like getting caught was almost deliberate because of how thought out this plan looks. It cements him as the central villain, if there was any doubt before this.
