Meet Mr. Jackpots.
Warning: Full spoilers for the third and fourth episode of Twin Peaks – which was released early on Showtime Anytime and is airing together on May 28th -- below.
Before Twin Peaks’ return, David Lynch – in the midst of an incredible amount of secrecy regarding any plot details – did give one tiny hint, saying that the prequel film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me was very important to the new episodes. The third and fourth episodes really reinforced this, as a ton of mythology introduced in that film turned out to be significant here, including more on Phillip Jeffries, the concept of Cole’s “blue rose” cases, and the green ring that was so key in that movie - as far as marking people who were either from or had been affected by the Black Lodge.
As I’ve mentioned before, I’m a big fan of Fire Walk With Me, so I say bring it on when it comes to all of this! The idea of the Blue Rose cases essentially was a little kernel of the X-Files before The X-Files, so I loved hearing Cole say, “It doesn’t get any bluer” to Albert.
It was great to see Cole, Gordon and Bobby make their return here (more on Bobby below), even as it’s bittersweet seeing the wonderful Miguel Ferrer back on Twin Peaks, knowing he passed away after production. Admittedly, Albert didn’t have a lot of standout signature lines here, but he had one perfect one, when he was told Bad Cooper was throwing up poison and replied, “Must have eaten locally.”
That extended opening with Good Cooper’s escape from the Black Lodge – or perhaps some purgatory type place outside the Black Lodge but not quite back in our world – was another exercise in David Lynch’s part maddening/part entrancing style. We didn’t just get the odd backwards speak played forward thing, but Cooper and those he encountered kept moving in a static, repeating style. It was incredibly artful and frustrating all at once, in that wonderfully Lynch manner. Things got really fascinating as we saw how Good Cooper’s escape was affecting Bad Cooper and… Dougie???
Evil Cooper puking up what looked to be creamed corn (Garmonbozia! Another big Fire Walk With Me connection) was delightfully gross, while Dougie’s arm going numb (oh, hey, another Fire Walk With Me introduced element) before he was pulled back to the Black Lodge was more mind-twisting fun.
Now why the hell does Dougie even exist? Good Cooper was trapped in the Lodge, while Bad Cooper took his place. So why was there this other, far less chaos-causing doppelganger also created in the midst of this? And why did he have the ring? And is there more than one ring? If there’s just one, the last we saw it was in The Missing Pieces (deleted scenes from Fire Walk With Me that seem to be considered canon) when that nurse took it from Annie’s hand. So A: What purpose was Dougie created for and B: How did he end up with the ring?
We continue to spend a limited amount of time in Twin Peaks itself, here mostly spent at the Sheriff’s Department. But those scenes gave us a ton to chew on, including a wonderful reveal that no, time hasn’t stood still after all. In the premiere, all we saw were old favorites Andy, Lucy and Hawk and it felt like nothing had changed at all in a quarter century except Hawk getting a promotion. But in these episode, we met Frank Truman (the ever-dependable Robert Forster) and he literally walked us into the present and a much bigger, more modern sheriff’s department in the back… one Bobby is a part of!
Bobby was a very interesting character to chart in the original series, going from an unlikable criminal thug to a more nuanced, sympathetic figure along the way. There’s something very gratifying seeing him now working as an upstanding citizen, even if his dreams of becoming a Ben Horne-type businessman clearly didn’t work out. And how perfectly Twin Peaks it was when he saw Laura’s photo (and other artifacts from her murder case) and broke down sobbing – and “Laura Palmer’s Theme” kicked in for the first time during the revival.
Good Cooper’s full return to our world was exciting to see… only to learn he’s come back at less than his full mental capacity, to say the least. Lynch and Frost are certainly making us wait and work to really, truly get Cooper back in classic form and while his journey through that casino was very amusing ("Mr Jackpots! Mr. Jackpots!"), I do hope he’s back to normal soon.
Let’s get into the bullet points, which I have plenty of, given how much there is to unpack here.
-Denise! Wonderful to see David Duchovny back as Denise Bryson and to see how well she’s doing for herself as FBI chief of staff.
-Several fans predicted Michael Cera would play Lucy and Andy’s son after he was on the cast list, but I doubt they guessed he’d be doing a Marlon Brando impersonation, while dressing like he’s in The Wild One. It was hysterical for many reasons, and I loved how Wally Brando both lauded his time in Twin Peaks (and his parents) while making it sound like it happened to someone else.
-Chrysta Bell made her debut here as FBI agent Tamara Preston, who was first introduced as the narrator of last year’s The Secret History of Twin Peaks book. We didn’t get a lot of focus on her yet (though Denise expressed concern Cole might have a more than professional interest in her), but that book made it clear she has done a lot of research on Twin Peaks. I will confess though that I’m bummed Annie Wersching (24) isn’t playing Tamara, after she voiced her in the audio version of the book.
-On the, “Hey, isn’t that…?!” front, besides Michael Cera, we also got Naomi Watts as Dougie’s wife and Pierce Gagnon (who proved to be quite a strong child actor in Looper) as his son, whose story is still continuing. On the other hand, The Walking Dead’s Josh McDermitt appeared for all of 20 seconds in the casino, while Ethan Suplee at least got a more extended scene as Dougie’s friend, while Richard Chamberlin popped up as Denise’s assistant. It really does seem that David Lynch got whoever he wanted to show up, even for the briefest of roles, because he’s David Lynch, this is Twin Peaks, and wouldn’t you want to pop up too?
-In the original series, Lynch and Frost showed they weren’t averse to having multiple characters with the same name, as "Mike" and "Bob" were both in play for two different characters each. This time, the name of note seems to be Bill, as we’ve met three people with that name already (Matthew Lillard’s murder suspect, Ethan Suplee’s businessman and Richard Chamberlin’s FBI employee).
-Lucy not understanding how cell phones work felt pretty lame and perhaps even out of character (I don’t recall if it was ever around Lucy, but I do believe cell phones were used a couple of times in the original series). And yet the power of Lynch/Twin Peaks is to take a beat like that and suddenly add poignancy to it, as Lucy’s lament about how this keeps happening felt so genuine.
-We got a nice deep cut call back here with the chocolate bunnies among the Laura Palmer murder case evidence, which goes all the way back to the pilot and a funny Cooper line to Diane about those bunnies.
-The second woman to appear to Cooper during his escape – who warned her mother was coming – was played by Phoebe Augustine, who played Ronette Pulaski in the original series. While her character her was listed as “American Girl,” it still was notable she looked like Ronette. Though it begs the question where the real Ronette is these days…
The Verdict
The third and fourth episode of Twin Peaks’ return finally brought Cooper out of the Black Lodge – only for him to not exactly be at his best. While not quite as strong as the premiere, there was still plenty to be riveted by here, as the FBI came back into play, and into Bad Cooper’s orbit, while we got a confusing (hey, it’s Twin Peaks!) but interesting introduction to Cooper #3, “Dougie,” and his family. We even got a trippy appearance from Major Briggs (the late Don S. Davis), whose mention of “Blue Rose” was one of many notable ties back to the mythology Fire Walk With Me added so many aspects to.
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