3x06 Part 6

The most difficult episode for me so far. In large part there's no sense of forward momentum, as Dougie/Coop's story has worn itself very thin. It's exasperating that none of his family or co-workers seem to realise that something is seriously wrong with him, and just carry on. The ladders and steps doodled on the case files were intriguing, though I can't tell you what they've signified to Dougie's boss. On the good side though, we get his wife (Naomi Watts) being absolutely amazing as she tells the debt collectors where to go.

Meeting Diane at long last brought a smile to my face, even though they've made Laura Dern look absolutely awful. I think Albert got the best line of the episode with his little Gene Kelly expletive. After meeting Richard Horne last week, it felt good to see him brought down a peg or two by his mobster boss, but the hit-and-run was horrific to watch. Luckily, Harry Dean Stanton was glorious and managed to bring a tear to my eye.

Most interesting was Hawk's discovery in the bathroom as he finally put together the clue of his "Indian heritage" and followed his instincts.

So, Coop needs to wake up and DON'T DIE. If he does, that will give BOB/EvilCoop free reign to stay in our world. Staying alive is going to be a problem if he has a short hitman coming at him with a twisted ice pick.

[6.7/10] One of the major criticisms about J.K. Rowling’s writing in the Harry Potter series was that she felt the need to describe every instance of her characters walking down a hallway or going up some stairs rather than just letting the audience pick up that Harry & Co. were moving from place to place. Sometimes, that’s what Twin Peaks feels like, where we spend five minutes watching Cooper scribble on an insurance form, or what feels like an endless amount of time with some random drug dealer flipping a coin around, or needing to see Carl (Harry Dean Stanton) drive from one place to another. It feels like wheel-spinning, like indulgence, like an effort to elevate the quotidian that forgets to be interesting.

And then it all comes together. Carl sits on a bench, seemingly resigned to the end of his life and wondering why he’s still around. He watches a young woman playing something like tag with her son. And then the poor boy is run over by the man who took the drugs from the random dealer (credited as Richard Horne, who looks like a cross between Matthew McConaughey and the “Dude You’re Getting a Dell” guy) in a freak confluence of events, and it’s absolutely heartrending.

Now maybe that’s a cheat from Lynch & Co. Maybe entirely divorced from all the setup, all those interminable scenes that feel like the Twin Peaks creative team screwing with the audience, the mere fact that a young child, in the midst of a joyful scene with his loving mother, meets a senseless end would tug at our heartstrings no matter what preceded it. But it gives a sense that whether we knew it or not, all of that boring setup was leading to this horrible, transcendent moment.

And that’s really all that I can hope for from Twin Peaks, in its new or its old formulation. I’ve made no secret of the fact that I think much of even its lauded original run is dreck. But every once in a while, a confluence of scenes, of moments, culminates into something transcendent, something that makes you take notice and realize that amid the opacity and convoluted qualities of the show, there’s still something incredible in the offing when the conditions are right.

Which is to say that I have little idea where the show is going with Albert meeting Dianne (Laura Dern with a platinum bob). I have little idea what the junkie mom screaming “one one nine” is building toward. I have only the vaguest knowledge why we spend so much time on Heidi, the giggling waitress at the Double R Diner, or what the deal with the random drug dealer and his seemingly magic coin is, or why we get another scene of Frank Truman’s wife with explanation that their son committed suicide. But all I can do is hope that it falls into the half of the show with a plan and a purpose that will become clear once everything is laid out, and result in something magical.

Because the scene with Carl is pretty magical. It’s interesting that Carl is one of the characters Lynch brings back and gives a pretty meaningful role in this episode. It’s striking how much The Return feels like as much if not more of a continuation of things set up in Fire Walk with Me as it does of the events in the original Twin Peaks series. (See also, the shot of that electric pole.) I’m sketchy on how far Deer Meadow is supposed to be from Twin Peaks, or where exactly Carl is when he witnesses these grisly events, but the connection gives it some extra force.

Carl’s words to the agents played by Chris Isaak and Keifer Sutherland in Fire Walk with Me stand out -- this is a man who’s “been places.” The fact that despite his apparent fatalism, he wanders into the street to comfort the grieving mother, and then sees what appears to be the boy’s soul or essence floating up into the ether, leaves an impression. This deadened man can still feel something, can still be moved, is still in touch, for better or for worse, with the parts of the world than tend toward the metaphysical more than the physical, and it causes him to be more in touch with his fellow man. I don’t know if it’s worth all that somnambulant build to that point, but by god, it’s a hell of a sequence.

It’s not all following up on Fire Walk with Me though. The iconic transition shot of a traffic light returns, and with it, we seem to get the payoff from the Log Lady’s portent that something was missing having to do with Hawk’s heritage. He finds a toilet stall built by a company with a Native American name, and one of the bolts holding it together is missing. Some deft crowbarring (and rebuffing of the cartoonishly jerkish Chad) allows Hawk to find what I imagine are the missing pages from Laura Palmer’s diary she mentioned to Harold. It’s a reasonably satisfying conclusion to that part of the mystery.

We also get more movement on the Dougie storyline. Again, I love the absurd comedy of existentialist commentary of his story, which feels like something Vonnegut or Heller would come up with. The fact that this catatonic man is caught up in this intersecting web of attempts on his life and trouble at work and family struggles with no one really seeming to notice that he’s not right in the head (his wife seems to suggest this isn’t unusual?) is out there. I’ll admit to wishing the show would get on with it already, but I still like the premise.

The actual developments are pretty simple. MIKE offers another warning to Good Coop, telling him to wake up and implying that if he dies, The Bad Dale wins and gets to stay outside the Red Room. Some supernatural force (Mike? Or just the power of light?) guides The Good Dale to make scribbles on his case files from work and expose some horrifying thing to his boss that assures his place at the company. Again, there’s a commentary there that people will overlook any eccentricity or clear plea for help if you’re useful to them.

On the more dangerous side of things, Dougie’s wife Janey proves herself a tough cookie, standing up to the bookies trying to strongarm Dougie for his gambling debts. (It probably goes without saying, but Naomi Watts is absolutely owning a kind of strange role and delivering a performance with real conviction here). The police are investigating Dougie’s blown up car, with a license plate likely sending them Coop’s way soon. And somebody (presumably The Bad Dale) signaled Jimmy Barrett to cue a little person with an ice pick to take out Dougie a woman whom, if I’m not mistaken, was trying to kill Dougie herself. It’s a little confusing, but presumably fits somehow into the intersection between mob operators attempting to rough up Dougie for his gambling debts and The Bad Dale trying to take him out so he can stay in the physical realm.
There’s a lot of strangeness and confusing elements here. (A shock for Twin Peaks, I know.) Some of it feels like a waste of time. Some of it feels like oddness for the sake of oddness. Some of it feels like David Lynch twiddling his thumbs on the screen. But some moments, where Twin Peaks delves back into its vaunted themes of the metaphysical interacting with the everyday, and innocence corrupted and destroyed by the evil in this world, it can still hit something transcendent, striking, and good.

From all of the reasons to watch Twin Peaks, I watch it mostly for its texture, its way of making me feel. At the same time, I normally like messing magic cubes around into a pleasant display of colors rather than trying to solve them. And I tend to forget about these two facts, but comments like some I've seen so far remind me that people overestimate linearity and getting the puzzles straight.

I watched it and, for me, this was one of the best episodes of the show so far. I read it as a showcase of jobs well done from the artistic direction, cast, soundtrack, and photography. The acting is over-the-top outstanding, especially from Naomi Watts' "dealing". The running over scene was very powerful and Hawk's plot development was highly promising. At the same time, Kyle MacLachlan keeps delivering his talent by consistently making you laugh and feel intrigued. If you are missing old Dale Cooper this much, you could totally rewatch seasons 1 and 2, but just let me have a few more episodes with goofy Dougie Jones. He is too much of a good character.

While some people's comments say it was boring, the chapter fascinated me and made me believe that the show is moving towards an interesting culmination of more nonsense. Or, may I say, a pleasant display of nonsense, that somehow makes sense in the end.

Let me make myself clear, I do not think it is wrong to sense your way out of mysteries or getting problems solved. However, sometimes feeling what the mess brings from you to yourself is the best way to go through it.

BRILLIANT EPISODE!