And with another week in the rear view mirror, we return to Twin Peaks: The Return. This was a much more straightforward episode than last week and it starts to tie things together a little bit more. We’re getting somewhere now and while we don’t get a ton of answers, the scope of this story is becoming much clearer. Be warned, there are spoilers throughout this.
1. BOOP’s Getaway
Tonight’s episode wastes no time catching us up with BOOP (BOB + Cooper). He’s definitely not dead and he’s made his way to a safe house where some of his drifter friends live. Tim Roth plays one of his buddies and gets him a phone, a car and a change of clothes. This isn’t a big scene by any means because the bulk of what happens in this episode doesn’t really hinge on this stuff too much but I find BOOP’s reach fascinating. He’s somehow built this big network of people to rely on without getting on the radar of law enforcement. This is a perfect combination of both BOB and Cooper’s abilities and I don’t think I’ve noticed that much until tonight. Both men are incredibly capable but when you combine Cooper’s intelligence and resourcefulness with BOB’s violent tendencies and ability to survive, you get a really scary dude.
2. A Glimmer Of Hope
We’re up to the 9th episode of this 18 part series so we are at the halfway mark. At this point, we still have a very confused and lost Dale Cooper. Tonight, we don’t spend a ton of time with him but there is a reason to hope a little more. Dougie/Dale and Janey-E are at the police station after the attempted murder against Dougie/Dale so there’s some waiting involved before they are questioned. Dougie/Dale is still just sitting around, watching the world happen around him but because of this attempted murder, the cops are digging, as they should. They realize something is not right with Dougie/Dale and do a background check. They discover that before 1997, there is no record of him. No jobs, no birth certificate, no social security number, nothing. He doesn’t exist until 1997 so they trick him into giving up his fingerprints and DNA by taking his empty cup of coffee for a new one.
As this is happening, Dougie/Dale is staring at the American flag, hearing “America The Beautiful” playing in his head until his attention it taken by a woman walking by in red heels. He’s staring at her shoes as she walks away and gets stuck on an outlet. It’s an outlet unlike the one he came out of and this is the glimmer of hope. He’s attracted to the color red and that may signify an understanding of the Black Lodge and he looked longingly on the outlet. It’s possible that he’s putting things together even more than before and I really hope he is. This could very well be my impatience talking and it probably is but I’m ready for Dale Cooper to be back. I’m ready for him to put things together and return to Twin Peaks to finish what was started 25 years ago. I worry this is getting dragged out a little too much but again, I think I’m just being incredibly impatient because Lynch and Frost have a story to tell here and I trust in their vision.
3. “Your father never lost faith in you”
One of the people we caught up with early on in this series is Bobby Briggs. Bobby Briggs is now a police officer and has been one for a while (this is 25 years later after all). The thing is, he isn’t really a different guy. He’s still Bobby Briggs but isn’t on the opposite side of the law now. He’s the man his father wanted him to become and Major Briggs is now a major player in this drama despite being gone for many years. Don Davis’ presence is being felt despite having passed away a few years ago. Bobby goes to his mother’s home because of what they’ve been discovering about Dale Cooper and the last time he met with Major Briggs. Bobby’s mother tells him that years ago, he knew what would happen. He had some kind of premonition or vision about what the future held and he always believed in Bobby.
Continued belowShe tells him that because he knew the man Bobby would become, he left something for him and had to wait until this conversation happened. Bobby, Truman, and Hawk are given a metal cylinder and Bobby realizes that this was deliberate because his dad knew that he would be able to open it. After it’s opened, there’s a message that once again, only Bobby understands since it references something from his childhood. This whole thing plays out incredibly well because it gets Bobby involved in the case in a bigger way and it continues to make Major Briggs a huge major player. I really liked being back in Twin Peaks so much in this episode and this was really the first time I felt any nostalgia.
4. The Horne Family Drama
My favorite character on the original series was by far Audrey Horne. I love everything about her and one of my biggest hopes was to see her involved in a big way in the revival of the series. Audrey has not appeared yet but because of Mark Frost’s “The Secret History of Twin Peaks,IN TO” we know that she survived the bank explosion. We also have the hints about Richard Horne (her and BOOP’s son?) so she’s somewhere. Tonight we get to see the various parts of the Horne family as Ben is still enticed by his secretary played by Ashley Judd, Jerry is on a horrible drug trip and the mentally disabled Johnny Horne has an awful accident. The Hornes are a major part of this town and because of Audrey, a major part of Dale Cooper’s history in the town. I think it’s interesting and worth pointing out that we keep going back to them. We’ve seen barely a hint of many of the original characters but Lynch keeps taking us back the Hornes. I am excited for the payoff to this.
5. “We met the major”
Matthew Lillard returns as William Hastings as we get to see the scope of what he’s been into. The last we saw him, he was being held on murder charges of a woman he was seeing. Hastings realized that the dream he had was true and initially I believed he was suffering from what Leland Palmer suffered from but this is a whole new can of worms that once again makes Major Briggs a huge part of this. Gordon is called by Knox who tells him that they have a body with Major Briggs’ fingerprints. According to her and the medical examiner, this is him so they are detoured to another part of South Dakota to take a look at this. When there, they are shown the body and taken to Hastings. Tammy goes in to interrogate him and he spills about everything. He tells them about his blog, (WHICH IS A REAL THING THAT INTOEVERYTHING HE SAYS) and what happened that night when he and Ruth met the Major and experienced another world, another reality he says. He breaks down crying for most of this because he knows no one will believe him but if you look at what’s transpired, it all really did. As a viewer, there’s nothing to say that he’s lying.
He’s a victim here of something related to whatever Blue Rose is and whatever is going on with the Black Lodge. He mentions lots of people being there and that makes me think of what we saw last week with the stranger and the people who followed him. This is a really chilling scene and Lillard honestly kills it. He’s so great and believable in this and you can’t help but feel bad for him. I think Lynch and Frost are fairly genius for working Major Briggs into this in the way that they have but the thing that really stands out is that they’re all closer to Cooper. I go back to my earlier point about being impatient but when the M.E. shows them the ring with Dougie and Janey’s names in there, I get really excited about them finding the real Dale Cooper like this.
What did you think of this episode? Got any theories? Let me know in the comments below!
