Twin Peaks: The Return Parts 3 & 4

Even after watching the first two episodes, going into 3 & 4 felt just as mysterious. I just didn’t know what to expect. With the initial two episodes, David Lynch and Mark Frost have laid such a broad canvass of locations and characters. I really couldn’t wait to get to the next parts. Before getting into parts 3 & 4 I wanted to make a quick comment on the opening titles. The original was so iconic.  I’m glad that Angelo Badalamenti‘s theme as well as the font and coloring have been retained. The new titles, however, seem to have more of an ethereal feel to them than the old show. But I think that makes sense with the way the new show has been playing out. 

Part 3

Episode 3 opens with Agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) continuing to fall through whatever he’s falling through. Soon he begins to see a billowing purple cloud in front of him.  He lands on what appears to be a balcony of sorts looking over an endless ocean. Everything is bathed in a purple darkness. He enters a nearby window into a large room with a woman (Nae Yuuki) seated on a couch. The woman appears to have her eyes sealed shut and speaks in unintelligible noises. The image begins to flicker as he approaches her and soon a loud banging is heard outside.

The woman with her sealed eyes combined with the color, the flickering image, and the noise she speaks reminds me of American Horror Story’s ads and bumpers. I also wonder, if I had Dr. Jacoby’s red and blue glasses could I see more going on in this room? What is that banging at the door?

On the wall is what appears to be some sort of safe with the number 15 on it. Cooper approaches it and the woman frantically tries to shoo him away. She motions for him to follow her up a ladder that goes to a door in the roof. From the roof the room appears to be a small box hanging in space with a bell shaped structure on top. The woman goes over to the bell and flips a switch that stops the banging, ends the flickering, and turns off the purple. She then falls off and plummets into infinity. Cooper, now alone, looks into the vastness of space around him.  Looking down he sees a ghostly image of Major Briggs’ (Don S. Davis) face pass below. The aberration speaks the words “blue rose.”

Are they ever going to tell us what “blue rose” means?

Cooper climbs back down into the room.  Another woman is seated on the couch. Copper approaches her and she turns around towards him. It appears to be Ronette Pulaski (Phoebe Augustine.) She looks at her watch which reads 2:52 then changes to 2:53. A light next to the safe turns on. The number on the safe has now changed to the number 3. The sound of crackling electricity rises up as it appears the safe may actually be a large power outlet. Out in the world, Bad Cooper is driving along appearing to grow ill. The outlet in the car begins flashing. Back in the room Ronette tells Cooper that when he gets there he will already be there. As Cooper nears the outlet he begins to get sucked in. Bad Cooper begins swerving off the road. As the banging outside starts up again, Ronette tells Cooper to hurry because her mother is coming. Cooper is soon sucked into the outlet. Bad Cooper flips his car and at 2:53 he covers his mouth tightly.

Remember the arm said to Coop that 253 is time and time. Clearly that is the time Bad Cooper is set to return to the Black Lodge. For some reason Augustine is listed in the credits not as Ronette but as American Girl. Why? Is she not Ronette here? Or is she someone else who resembles Ronette? Is she Ronette’s doppelganger? And who is “her mother?”

Outside of Las Vegas, in a development called Rancho Rosa, a man called Dougie, who looks like a puffy version of Bad Cooper, is with a nude hooker named Jade (Nafessa Williams.) On his left ring finger he is wearing the Owl Cave ring. His left arm goes numb and he collapses to the floor. Still tightly covering his mouth, Bad Cooper sees the image of the Black Lodge’s red curtains. Dougie struggles to get up before collapsing again and vomiting creamed corn. The curtains appear to him as well, then he vanishes. Bad Cooper sees an image of Dougie sitting in a chair in front of the red curtains. The image fades and Bad Cooper begins vomiting large amounts of creamed corn.

Who IS Dougie? Initially I thought it was Bad Cooper and that this woman had somehow rescued him from the car.

In the red room, Dougie looks around and sees Gerard. He asks what’s happening. Gerard tells Dougie someone manufactured him…for a purpose. Dougie’s left arm begins to shrink and the ring falls off just before his head explodes and he is reduced to a single gold bead. Gerard picks up the ring and bead. He places the ring on the black table last seen in Fire Walk with Me. In the room that Dougie vanished from, black smoke starts to pour out of a nearby outlet. Jade, who had been taking a shower, returns to find Cooper lying on the ground next to the vomit. Believing it to be Dougie in a nicer suit, she tells him they need to leave.

How was Dougie manufactured? Obviously Bad Cooper created him as a decoy to take his place in the Black Lodge.

Cooper is in a state of daze. He appears to have no knowledge of who he his or much of anything else. Jade asks if he has his keys. Giving no response, she goes through his pockets and finds the key to his room at the Great Northern. She gives him a ride into town leaving his car in the driveway. Two men (Bill Tangradi & Greg Vrotsos)with guns appear to looking for Dougie, most likely to kill him. Because his car is still parked out front, they assume he must be inside. One of them attaches a device to the underside of Dougie’s car.  He is unknowingly seen by a young boy (Sawyer Shipman) in the house across the street. The boy’s mother (Hailey Gates) sits at a table with drugs, cigarettes, and alcohol repeatedly yelling 1-1-9. Two South Dakota state troopers approach Bad Cooper’s crashed car. As one gets close to the open window he becomes sick from the smell. His partner calls for help.

I got so excited when she pulled out the Great Northern key for room 315. 3 and 15 were the numbers on the safe/giant outlet. Who is after Dougie? What is the meaning of 1-1-9? Is there some significance to this or is she just a junkie? Poor little boy, eating his broken saltines. Do they live that house or just squatting? That creamed corn must be one nasty smell.

In Twin Peaks (YAY!) at the Sheriff’s station, Hawk (Michael Horse) brings coffee and donuts into the conference room where Andy (Harry Goaz) and Lucy (Kimmy Robertson) have all the files laid out. Andy tells Hawk they’ve looked through everything and nothing is missing. Hawk asks if something is not there then how do they know it’s missing. They all sit down to figure this out. Lucy exclaims that she knows what’s missing. Back during the Palmer case she ate a chocolate bunny that had been collected as evidence from Laura’s room. Hawk assures her that’s not it. Meanwhile Dr. Jacoby (Russ Tamblyn) is spray painting gold those shovels he received at the beginning of part 1.

I loved the scene with Andy, Lucy, and Hawk. The dialogue they exchange gave me a huge smile and took me back to the old series. The short wordless scene of Jacoby painting the shovels felt very relaxing. These kinds of scenes can be nice but I feel anxious about getting on with it and back to the mysteries.

Jade drops Cooper off in front of the Silver Mustang Casino. She gives him $5 to call someone for help.  She recommends calling a doctor because she thinks he might have had a stroke. When she tells him he can “go out” of the car he gets a flashback of Laura in the red room telling him he can “go out” now. Without understanding what he’s doing, Cooper manages to get the $5 changed into quarters. He walks up behind a man feeding his own quarters into a slot machine.  The man hits a jackpot and yells out “Hellooo!” with his arms spread as his winnings pour out. Cooper sees the image of a flame with the floor and curtains of the red room inside hovering above a machine. He walks over and just like the man he observed he puts in a quarter, pulls the handle, stretches out his arms, shouts “Hellooo!” and hits the jackpot.

Josh McDermitt (Eugene on The Walking Dead) makes a quick appearance credited as Wise Guy. He walks around the corner when Cooper hits the Jackpot for the first time. He delivers a couple of lines about Cooper “breaking that one” and that he “broke it real good” before exiting the scene. Seeing McDermitt, who looked just like his character on Walking Dead, took me out of the scene for a moment. It probably would have been less distracting if he was playing more of a character than a Muppet Movie-esque cameo.

Ignoring his winnings, Cooper stands up and walks to another machine with the flame above it.  He repeats everything including winning the jackpot. An old woman (Linda Porter) stares at him as a casino employee (Sabrina S. Sutherland) comes over to tell him he’s won a massive jackpot. He sees the flame above the machine next to the old woman. He points her to that machine but she snaps back “NO.”  He goes to yet another machine with a flame, hitting yet another jackpot. The old woman runs over to see this then goes back to the machine he had previously pointed her to. She plays it and wins the jackpot.

The quirky humor in this scene feels like classic Twin Peaks humor. Since coming out of the Black Lodge, Cooper is like a child learning about the world for the first. He copies the actions and repeats the words of people around him.

In Philadelphia, Gordon Cole (Lynch) and Albert Rosenfeld (Miguel Ferrer) are in a meeting examining evidence in an ongoing case. Cole dismisses everyone except Albert and agent Tamara Preston (Chrysta Bell.) She has photos to show Gordon and Albert regarding a separate case. The photos are of the Glass Box, Sam and Tracey’s mutilated bodies, and the figure that killed them. They are interrupted with the news that Cole is receiving a call from Cooper. After speaking to the person on the other end he tells Albert that they are going to the Black Hills of South Dakota. And Tammy is going with them.

 Tammy is FBI agent Tamara Preston, the agent who is notating the dossier that is The Secret History of Twin Peaks book by Mark Frost. Cooper is NOT in South Dakota! He’s in Vegas!

The episode ends at The Roadhouse with a performance from The Cactus Blossoms.

Part 4

As Cooper continues to win jackpots at the casino the supervisor and pit boss stand around watching. The old woman from before comes to Cooper, calling him Mr. Jackpots, to see which machine she should play next. He points her to another winner. An acquaintance of Dougie’s by the name of Bill Shaker (Ethan Suplee) comes up to Cooper with his wife Candy (Sara Paxton.) Bill’s excited to see him but picks up that something is wrong. Bill mentions not having eaten since breakfast at home and Cooper picks up on and repeats the word “home.” Candy thinks maybe he doesn’t know where his home is. Bill tells him and they send him to get a cab concerned that something is really wrong with him.

Coop’s constant jackpots are crazy. Love the nickname Mr. Jackpots! The dialogue in the exchange between Cooper and Bill Shaker feels very Twin Peaks. Bill’s character reminds me a bit of Pete Martell.

As he’s heading for the door he is stopped and brought to the casino’s supervisor’s office. The supervisor (Brett Gelman) has all of his winnings bagged up for him. He offers him a room, a drink, some companionship…all on the house. Cooper continues to say home and so they put him in a limo.

The limo driver (Jay Larson) drops Cooper off in front of Dougie’s house. Cooper gets out and just stands there. The driver says he’ll wait with him. An owl flies overhead just before Dougie’s wife Janey-E (Naomi Watts) opens the door. She demands to know where he’s been and berates him for missing their son’s birthday.  They go inside and she opens the bag to discover “enough money to pay them back.” The money changes her attitude towards him to one of relief.

I really liked the limo driver. He just seemed like a nice guy.  Janey-E seems to have as many questions as I do. Who is it who needs to be paid back by them?

Before heading off to South Dakota, Gordon Cole is brought into the office of the FBI Chief of Staff by Bill Kennedy (Richard Chamberlain.) He asks Bill about Martha and if she ever fixed that thing with Paul. Bill assures him Martha is well and “Paul is now in the North Pole.” To this Gordon responds “Well there you go!” Bill leaves and Gordon sits down. Soon Chief of Staff Denise Bryson (David Duchovny) enters. Gordon tells her about Cooper. She raises concern about his taking agent Preston along. Agent Preston is young and beautiful and, as Denise says, she knows Gordon’s profile implying something about him. Gordon replies by telling her that back when she was Dennis, and he was her boss, she was a wild thing and he had enough dirt on her to fill the Grand Canyon.  But he never used it because she’s was such a great agent.

Denise continues to express concern regarding Tammy but acknowledges she is a good agent. She asks if Albert is joining him as well to which Gordon asks “Do birds fly?” Denise wishes him well and is sure he is onto something big.

Yay! It’s Denise.  But it’s not Cooper in South Dakota. What is Denise implying about Gordon and young female agents? What is all the dirt Gordon has on her? I love Gordon’s line about the agents that had an issue with Dennis becoming Denise, “Fix their hearts or die.” I hope this will not be the only time we see Denise.

At the Twin Peaks Sheriff Station Lucy is on the phone with Sheriff Frank Truman (Robert Forster) discussing the office thermostat.  The call begins to breakup. Lucy says she needs to hang up now because someone has just come in the front door.  She turns around and sees Sheriff Truman standing there holding the now disconnected cell phone. Lucy screams and flies backward in her chair. Andy runs to her side trying to bring her around.  He states he hates cellular phones because Lucy can quite grasp the concept that they are mobile.

Truman heads to the backroom where he gets an update from several deputies working in what appears to be a command center and dispatch. They mention a high schooler who has OD’d. As he leaves the room another deputy is at the far end of the hall walk away. Truman calls out “Bobby.” He deputy turns around revealing himself to be Deputy Bobby Briggs (Dana Ashbrook.) He mentions the overdose and asks Bobby if he’s aware of any drugs coming into the area.  Bobby says if anything was coming down from Canada he’d know.

Where did that large backroom command center come from? Did they have that 25 years or has it been added since? BOBBY BRIGGS IS A DEPUTY!!!!!! WHAT!!?? This has been the best moment of the season so far.

After trying to explain mobile phones to Lucy again, Andy joins Truman, Hawk, and another Deputy named Chad Broxford (John Pirruccello) in the conference room. Hawk is explaining Margaret’s log’s message. Chad wants to know why they are listening to this lunatic anyway. Truman sends him out the room but not before Chad mocks her a couple of times. Bobby enters the room and sees Laura’s (Sheryl Lee) picture laid out among the files. He freezes in his tracks and begins to sob. As he does, Laura’s theme begins to play on the soundtrack. He pulls himself together enough to ask what this is all about. Truman tells him it concerns Agent Cooper. Bobby mentions that Cooper was the last person to see his father alive. The day before Major Briggs died in a fire at his station, Cooper had come by the house to see him before leaving town for good. Truman asks what they talked about but Bobby doesn’t know.

I don’t like Deputy Chad. At first, Bobby sobbing when looking at Laura’s picture’s with the music playing seemed like he was just so overcome with emotion about her. However, when he says “Man, brings back some memories,” I wondered if the memories that came back involved him killing that man in Fire Walk with Me.

Deputy Jesse Holcomb (James David Grixoni) enters the room to tell Sheriff Truman there’s a man outside who wants to pay his respects to him. He goes by the name of Wally Brando (Michael Cera.) Andy and Lucy excitedly run out of the room to go see their son. Soon after Truman comes out of the Sheriff’s station to join them. Wally, dressed liked Marlon Brando in The Wild One and sitting astride a similar motorcycle, speaks with a Brando-esque affectation.  He tells Truman that he has heard Harry, his godfather, has fallen ill and so he has come to pay his respects and wish for a speedy and painless recovery. He has also come to give his parents his blessing to do what they wish with his childhood bedroom. They want to turn it into a study.

Where to begin about Wally Brando? Never did I imagine that Andy’s previous seemingly insignificant comment about Wally being born on Marlon Brando birthday would have a payoff. What was Wally like as a child?  Frank Truman definitely feels like he and Harry are brothers.

The next morning Cooper sits in Dougie’s bedroom with a bright green jacket laid out for him. In the red room Gerard (Al Strobel) appears to looking for something. Cooper soon sees the red room coming into focus with Gerard speaking to him. Gerard tells him he was tricked and there are now two of him in the world. One of them must die. As the image fades Cooper begins dancing like a child trying hold in his pee. Janey-E sees him like this and takes him to the toilet. Cooper begins to pee unsure of what’s happening but he soon gets it under control. When he turns from the toilet he moves towards the mirror staring at his reflection. The shot is reminiscent of the last shot of the season 2 finale.

I have no words for Cooper’s peeing scene. Other than that it felt like he was going to see BOB in the mirror. But that wouldn’t make sense.

Janey-E helps him to get dressed but finds his clothes are about two sizes too big. She leaves his tie untied because she “can never get that right.” Janey-E and Dougie’s son Sonny Jim (Pierce Gagnon) sees Cooper and the two exchange thumbs-up. When Cooper arrives downstairs for breakfast he has laid the tie across the top of his head like a headband. Seemingly amused by his “father’s” odd behavior, Sonny Jim smiles as he helps Cooper put butter and syrup on his pancakes. When Janey-E brings Cooper his coffee he seems to recognize it. However he takes a big swig and spits it out on the floor when it burns his mouth.

I really enjoyed the breakfast scene with Cooper and Sonny Jim. Sonny Jim seems like an easy going and unfazable kid. He doesn’t seem to be bothered the difference in his father’s behavior. Quick question: since his father Dougie is essentially a copy of Bad Cooper who is a doppelganger of Cooper. Does this mean that in a sense Cooper is still his father?  Just for a moment it seemed the coffee was beginning to trigger his memories. Also I noticed there is an owl cookie jar in the background.

In Buckhorn, Officer Talbot (Jane Adams) is trying to run fingerprints from the male body they found with Ruth Davenport’s head in her apartment.  However the results require military authorization.

So the military is blocking them from being able to ID the male body.  Does this mean the body is Major Briggs? We don’t know when he actually died and Bobby said he died in a fire. That means it’s very possible that they never found his remains. Maybe the military staged the fire and took him somewhere secret and he has been alive until recently.

Gordon, Albert, and Tammy arrive in South Dakota and are taken to the federal prison Bad Cooper is being held in. In the car ride over, Gordon, looking at the mostly flat landscape outside the windows, comments that they are nowhere near Mount Rushmore. Having anticipated Gordon’s comment Albert brought along a photo of the famous mountain monument. Gordon comments on their “faces of stone.” Albert says nothing but sits stone faced himself.

Albert’s own “face of stone” is fantastic. 

The three agents are taken to see Bad Cooper who has been placed in an isolation booth because everyone who has come in contact with him has become physically ill. They are shown the items that were found in his car: cocaine, machine gun, and a dog’s leg. Gordon is shocked to see Bad Cooper’s appearance. When they talk to him he seems different from the Bad Cooper we have seen on the show so far. He speaks as if his voice was being played at a slower speed. He tells Gordon he has really missed their time together and that he has been working undercover all these years with agent Phillip Jefferies. Bad Cooper says he was on his way to see Gordon when he had his accident. He repeatedly tells Gordon that he needs to be debriefed by him. He also says he has left messages so Jeffries knows it’s safe. Gordon is unsure when he’ll be able to get him out of the prison as the local authorities have good reasons to hold him.

Bad Cooper seems different as if BOB was in the creamed corn he vomited out and he is now just the doppelganger. However when he started talking about working undercover with Jefferies it seems like this is all part of his plan. I just don’t know what to think. I don’t trust him. Bad Caooper states “I’ve never really left home.” What did he mean by that?

The warden says they can hold him two more days. Gordon instructs them to give him his one private phone call and then tell him all about it.

Back at the airport, Tammy states that Bad Cooper was heading west when he crashed not east. Gordon asks her to excuse them for a moment. When she leaves he turns his hearing aid up to max so he and Albert can speak quietly. Gordon questions Albert about his strange reaction to what Bad Cooper had said. Albert confesses that he had authorized Jefferies to share some sensitive information with Cooper. Years before, he had received a phone call from Jefferies suggesting that Cooper was in trouble and needed this information. He told Jefferies who their “man was in Columbia.” A week later that man was killed. Gordon is stunned.

After a long moment of silence the two men share their concern about Cooper’s state. Gordon is bothered that Cooper didn’t greet him properly. Albert knows what he means. Neither understands what is happening but they agree it’s a “blue rose.” Gordon says that before going any further there is a certain person who needs to take a look at Cooper. Albert says he knows where she drinks.

Again…are they ever going to tell us what “blue rose” means? Also who is the “she” Albert is referring to? Is it Diane? Or maybe Sarah Palmer? 

The episode ends at The Roadhouse with a performance from Au Revoir Simone.

Final Thoughts

Four episodes in and I’m totally down with this show! Part 4 has been my favorite episode so far. It’s great to see some more of the classic Twin Peaks humor showing up. It’s always wonderful to see the familiar  characters return and I’m also enjoying the new characters as well. I can’t wait to see what else is going to happen. But at the same time I already feel sad that there’s only 14 episodes left.

Join me here each week during the season for recaps and discussion of every episode. Twin Peaks airs Sundays at 9 pm on Showtime.