Twin Peaks Episode 306

 Episode 306: Don't Die 



Once again, this episode gave us some small little pieces of the overall puzzle, with some adding more to the bigger picture than others.  Though a lot it seemed like quirky character stuff, there were some random moments, that was pure Lynch and truly unsettling.  There were two bad asses in town this week, well in different ways.  The standouts in question being Dougies wife Janey (played with vim by Naomi Watts), and the town's latest slimeball Richard Horne, son of Benjamin.

After returning home from a night of stareing at the stature, Dougie is taking to town by Janey.  There's a madcap scene with his son Sonny Jim with father and son clapping the light on and off between them.  That is before Janey calls Dougie back downstairs to get back to work - she's discovered that Dougie owns some men money (from the casino), and takes exception to finding a photo of Dougie and Jade in the case file.  Perhaps exhange of the episode is when Janey questions him on it, and Dougie replies, "She gave me two rides!" To which Janey responds, "Oh I bet she did!" Watts plays this line perfectly somewhere between disgust and parody.  She dominates the scene.  This is a big episode for her character.  She sets up a meeting with the money men the next day.  Bless him Dougie has a bash at doing the work, but actually draws a series of lines, running up and down certain parts of the page.  These markings could represent those in the red room?  Anyway, there is some sort of electric connection between Dougie and the One Armed Man in the black lodge.  Crucially we see the sign shake in Twin Peaks.... The One Arm Man insists that Dougie wakes up...
With Gordon taking the week off, Albert tracks down the girl at the Bang Bang bar, and it in fact turns out to be Diane, appearing visually for the first time on our screens in the form of Lynch regular Laura Dern.  Appearing like a femme fatale in a grey wig, Diane deadpans, "Hello Albert." upon turning to meet his gaze.



In the most surreal scene of the episode Richard Horne (who we last saw threatening to rape the girl in the bar last week), shows up at a car dealership and talks about a drug deal with some unknown gang boss.  In a trippy exchange Richard tries to show the other guy he's the one in control, but through some sort of magic coin trick it is Richard who is shown to be rookie of the piece.  With Richard losing control this sets into motion a chain of events.

We see a welcome return for Harry Dean Stanton's Carl (as seen in the FWWM).  Carl is picked up in a van by some unknown guys.  Carl starts smoking, at which point the other guy tells him smoking is bad for him.  Karl shakes this off and tells the guy, he's been "smoking for the last 75 years." To be fair HDS is 90, so that actually could be true.  This again seemed like Lynch commenting on the world.  The director himself is a mad keen smoker.  We then intercut between Carl being dropped off in a park, to the double R diner with Shelley's friend with the annoying laugh, to Richard who is now more hyper than ever.  Things take a turn for the tragic as a boy is happily walking with his mother one minute, they pass Carl, then the boy wanders out in from of Richard's car in what seems a deadly slow motion movement.  Richard is so hyper and out of control, he cannot slam on the breaks fast enough, and runs the kid over.  Lynch pulls no punches, its a brutal moment.  Karl watches it all helpless.  As hard as it is to watch, its a wonderfully directed piece of discontunity action from Lynch.  The piecing of the chain of events together is solid world building too.  Now Richard is actually in Twin Peaks.  We know this because the inciddent happens outside of the Double R.  The outsider, overcome with an evil force has now left his mark on the town.  This is a big moment for sure.  Karl notices some sort of power striking the telephone mast?

In another sinister yet blackly comic Lynchian style death a small man looking at a picture of Cooper/Dougie and a picture of the red haired woman (again red being a key colour in the Twin Peaks verse) later hacks a woman down with a spike!

Dougie enjoys some more coffee at work as his boss grills him on the report.  The most interesting moment in this scene is Dougie's intranced stare at a poster of a boxer on the office wall.  Meeting the boxer's guise for a long take.  This might just be Dougie caught up in one of his dazes, or there might be some hidden meaning.  I heard on the internet that boxer and his name is related to one of Lynch's early short films.  Who knows?!  Anyway, in another entertaining and yet oddly powerful scene Janey, meets the casino guys in the park.  Giving them a piece of her mind, hearing how much money Dougie owns them, Janey goes on this brilliant rant about her and Dougie being in "99%ers and driving shitty cars! It was gold and it was a sign of Janey having a little more substance to her than the nasty, shallow house wife she appeared to be up till now.  Of course she gets her way and decides to give the goons just a little less than they wanted.  As Janey leaves, one of them adds, "Tough dame."

Back in Twin Peaks Hawk finds a note down the side of a toilet which maybe important?  And Frank gets some more shit off Dolores.  As one of the nasty cops mocks Dolores, we find out that her and Frank had a son who committed sucicide.  Again the title "Don't Die" takes on a more sinister importance.  Sharon Van Etten plays us out this week.

Episode MVP:  Janey
Not just did Watts shine once again in the role, but this week the character became more of a driving force on the plot.  Crucially we saw a complex and human side to the character.  Like she has a moral compass after all.  Think she has a very interesting role to play in the series moving forward.

Verdict: 
At first I thoughts this one was kinda a slow episode which throw some random pieces up in the air.  But thinking about it again, the theme of death was compelling and strange, and had many different links throughout the episode, from the tragic death of the boy, to the reveal about Frank and Dolore's son.  Then you have the One Armed Man telling Cooper/Dougie to "wake up", as he could be in danager of dying.  The lines between the evil lurking outside TP and the town itself seemed to be blurring.  Once again the show left me with plenty to think about.

Twin Peaks Season 305

Case Files 



As the title suggests, this episode sets in motion a series of mini-plots, or teases much, without advancing character story or too much, but at this point it is hard to judge whether what we see is just Lynch dropping in on certain characters to show us what they are doing 26 years later, or if there will be a greater significace moving forward.  The backend of the episode does pick things up.

A bruised looking dark haired woman is upset at two guys in a car.  They are outside someone's house and informs the woman that the lights are out so its hard to tell whose home.  After hanging up the woman starts typing numbers into a pager, which appears to be in a non-specific storeage facility.  In an interesting development Jane Adam's Constance reveals to a couple of detectives that the dead body was a guy who staved himself to death.  More importantly, Constance holds up a ring found with the body, with the names "Dougie and Janey E. Jones" engraved.

Dark Cooper has a flashback from the end of season 2.  He looks in the mirror and there is a sinister voice over, who I can only assume is Bob saying, "Pleased to see your still with me."  This scene takes on greater importance later. Besides just being a creepy scene this maybe shows that Dark Cooper like the other Cooper has a sense of morialty and is haunted by such a figure as Bob.  It becomes like the two sides of the character wrestling with itself, which is why Bob takes hold in this scene to remain in control of the darkside, and to keep the mission on track.

Enjoyed the appearance of Sheriff Truman's wife Dolores. She gives him shit over plumbing issues at home in maybe the most entertaining rant of the series so far.  And how else would you expect Truman to respond but with deadplan amusement.  Returning to the double theme, there are two different coloured cars.  One a red with a pattern drives off down the road.  A black one drives into a shot with loud music blareing.  I might be totally off the mark here, but I took this to mean that one car represented the good side of Cooper and the other the darkside.  With one car trying to help each side of the persona, or perhaps one against good Cooper/Dougie and the other helping him.  The next time we see the black car the guys in it, blow up another car in front of a young boy.

The Dougie side of this episode was probably my least favourite.  It was just an extension of him being a fish out of water and rubbing up sociality.  This week as we followed him around the work place there was a suggestion that Dougie maybe mentally handicapped, because of how others act around him.  The work scenes were solid, but they just felt a bit one note and didn't advance the character or story, but like so many things at the moment these scenes might have more purpose when we see where they are going.  I enjoyed Dougie chasing the co-worker with stack of coffee.  Any reference/gag about Coffee in a Lynch work is a delight. Dougie's response to the drinking the coffee (too fast as it happens), is showing Cooper still being cut off by human ways, so the alien taste of coffee causing a reaction of shock.  It was a nice touch.  Dougie works at a insurence firm and they are discussing a murder case, which I think might be the killing from the first episode.  Dougie is able to read the client and tells him that he is lying.  This gets him heat with the boss who gives him a case loud of work to take home, indicating that Dougie's future with the company may depend on it.  Dougie losing his job could get him even more hassle at home!

We get the first appearance in the new series of the Double R diner. Of course Norma and Shelly are still working there.  Norma observes a conversation between Shelly and a new character played by Amanda Seyfried who was later revealed to be her daughter.  It turns out that the daughter was borrowing money from Shelly, and its for her junkie boyfriend.  We get a classic Lynchian reverse shot from the perspective of the couple in the car, to Norma and Shelly back in the diner, and back again.  Its a smooth and powerful tranisition. What follows is the most visually arresting shot in the whole episode.  As the car drives away, the couple get high, and Seyfried's face lights up with bright and bold reds with a brand smile.  What makes the shot even more striking is how Lynch holds it for a number of seconds, making it even more dramatic.



The other hightlight of the episode was the payoff to the Jacoby shovel thing from last week.  The set up is that the Doc is hosting his own radio show to the people of Twin Peaks, including Nadine who is having a giggle at Jacoby's expense.  Jacoby is having an anti-capitalism rant.  This then cuts to a super cheesy advert with Jacoby using the shovels to try and dig himself out of deep mud! Including the line, "Dig yourself out of the shit for $29.99!" I just love the idea of a down and out Jacoby resorting to this sort of scheme.  Not to mention than it totally fits his crooked nature.  Like the reveal of Bobby last week, this was another beautiful twist, but of course very different.  There is a sting in the tail because when for the first time this season the episode doesn't close at the bar, though there it appears to be heading that way.  But then as this week guest band are playing we cut away to the stranger at the bar (whom I think was the one Shelly nodded at the end of the pilot).  There is an exchange of money between the guy and someone who tells a staff member that he will sort out the noise he's been making, this suggests some kind of drug or business transaction,  When a girl at the next table asks him for a light, he invites her over to his table, and then wraps his arm around her neck asking "If you want to fuck me"?  The girl clearly doesn't and when one of her friends tells him to let her go, he just tighters the grip.

The final part keeps the dopple Cooper plot bubbling.  Tammy is seen looking at two different photos of Cooper, then at some finger prints.  Back at the prison Cooper/Bob is given his one phone call.  As requested by Gordon last week, the call is being filmed, but the tables are turned.  Dark Coop somehow knows they are listening in (think that might be the Bob factor), makes out that he is going to call someone but then sets off a flash of thunder over the line.  He replaces the phone with us and the prison workers uncertain of what has just happened.  The episode concludes with Dougie just starring at a station outside the insurance company, he has been standing in the same place for ages.

Episode MVP: Dr. Lawerance Jacoby 
One of the joys of revisiting the world of Twin Peaks is just dropping in on the characters and seeing what they are up to now, and this was most unexpected reveal yet.  Though keeping with most of what the new series has produced so far, there is still a logic which works both on a everyday level and just in a mad Twin Peaks logic.  Again its a character beat which is reacting to a change in culture over the last twenty six years, but has a beautiful twist that by rebelling against a capitalist culture, Jacoby is actually embracing it by encourging the people of TP to invest in a capitalist style scheme.  That the neive and disturbed Nadine is one of Jacoby's followers makes complete sense too.

Verdict
Probably the weakest episode yet, but by the end of it I was more excited and maybe in weeks much of it might make sense.  Bits of it just felt like random character moments, there were a few unrelated scenes.  By the end things were building up a head of steam again with some intriging plots set up.  The weakest moments were those involving Dougie, but the Double Cooper plot as a whole needs to be slow paced, and is still a great hook.  What is going to happen, with his darker side is still very much in the air.  Though she wasn't given much to do Amanda Seyfried should be a solid addition to the cast, and like with other casting choices in the past, Lynch appears to be playing on her sweet, girl next door image, and twisting it into something darker, with her being seduced into drugs and hanging out with that jerk.  One weak part of that scene was that the guy she was seeing just seemed like a one note creep and the actor didn't bring much to the scene.  Drugs seemed like it could be a theme emerging in the new show, so that is something to watch in the coming weeks.  Think its only fair to judge this episode in a few weeks time in context of what is to come.

Twin Peaks S303 and S304

Call for Help  


This episode picks up with good Cooper still dropping through space on his way back to earth.  On his way he ends up on a strange looking purple planet.  Crashing through a cloud and into a purple planet, the sound effects are very high definition, and the visuals have a very psychedelic, but cartoony energy.  Its here that the extra budget Lynch has to work with compared with the limited budget of the real show shines through.  In another way much of the design of the episode, feels like Lynch ripping up the canvas and creating a new world, almost going back to his artist roots.  It is again important to me that this is a space away from earth.  The surface of the world feels plastic, and artificial, and you can almost feel the material that has gone into the design.

The classic Lynch eerie tone of dread and uncertainty creeps in, in the next scene with Cooper wandering around a weird house.  This again felt like Lynch experiementing with the more intimate digital camera, like in INLAND EMPIRE.  This made the scene all the more creepy, unpredictable, imerisvie, espcially since I was watching it late at night with the lights dimmed.  Cooper comes across a woman with her eyes blurred out, and crucially she has a 'Blue Rose' - this is a call back from Fire Walk From Me.  Last week's double seemed to indicate that much of this new series is going to link back to the film.  In a very odd, and random moment, the room starts to shake and Cooper is squeezed through a porthole and back onto earth, this connects to Dark Cooper/Bob who is driving (I'm guessing looking for Philip Jefferies), when suddenly he loses control of the car and crashes.  The other Cooper meanwhile has consummed the body of someone named Dougie.  It is noticable that he has no momery of who he is, either as Cooper or Dougie.  Dougie is with an attractive looking girl in a bed.  When she takes a shower in another connection moment, both Coopers vomit at the sametime.  This was a effective monster movie gross out style moment, again with a very Hyptic quality to it.  I also enjoy the level of detail we get about the connection between the two sides of Cooper.  When finding Cooper on the floor, the woman helps him get dressed and drives him to a hotel complex.  Along the way Cooper there is an attempt on Cooper's life from a shooting in a car, though Cooper is directed to duck at the right time by a street sign.  This appears to be a messge coming from above.

Within this fragmented Cooper stuff, we return to Twin Peaks the town.  There's some nice quirky humour at the station with Hawk, Lucy and Andy.  Lucy's suggestion that Hawk's native American history could be important to the investigation and to the missing chocalate bunny was just so cheeky.  Lucy, one of my favourite characters from the original cast anyway, has not missed a beat so far this season.  In another odd deveolpment Jacoby is spray painting shovels while in a creepy serial killer style mask....

Back at the hotel complex, Cooper gets lost in a casino and starts randomly playing the slot machines.
We then get the line of the episode as Cooper shouts "Hello"! at one of the machines and hits the jackpot.  Nothing seems out of the blue to the staff, untill Cooper starts winning multiple jackpots and suspicion strikes among the management.  The episode again closes in the bar with another band playing us out.

 

Episode MVP: Lucy 
Though I enjoyed Cooper's mad journey throughout the episode, the cut away to TP made for a nice catch your breath moment, and again Kimmy Robertson did so much with so little.

Verdict 
A mixed bag of an episode at least on my first viewing.  The opening was very exciting, as again it was Lynch not just doing the surreal stuff to the extreme, but again he offered the viewer another unique layer of his new world.  It was anything but predictable.  As things moved on, the events maybe seemed too random, and the plot lacking in momentum.  The second half the episode lacked that sinister edge of the previous two-parter, but at the sametime it wasn't entertaining enough to offer much of a contrast.  Unlike, the pilot this did feel a bit plodding at times.  Within context of what's to follow, and when I revisit it (which I no doubt will), chances are me not digging it as much as I was hoping to may turn out to be one big mad Lynchian dream on my part. Coop on the slots was worth the price of admission alone.  "HELLO"!

Brings Back some Memories
 

With Cooper wrecking havoc at the slots, this episode sees the debut of Lynch regular Naomi Watts (Mulholland Drive, Rabbits, playing a Rabbit in Inland Empire) as Dougie's aggressive wife, Janney E. Jones.  She makes her first appearance when Dougie/Cooper is chauffeur driven home from the casino and boy is she pissed! Questioning where he's been for hours on end, she's taken aback by his smart looking demeanor (it will become clear why the next day).  The rant comes to a sudden end when Janney discovers Dougie's winnings.  It soon becomes clear that the family have money issues.  Watts is a force of nature throughout this scene as well as the episode as a whole.  One of the hardest things you can do as a actress is to drop into a story with no context about your character, and to start off dialed up to eleven.  She pulls it off brillaintly.  A welcome return to the Twin Peaks verse was from David Duchovny as the FBI drag act Denise.  Considering how Duchovny perfected deadpan cool, in his landmark role as special agent Fox Mulder (in some way inspired no doubt by Agent Cooper) in The X-Files, then there is something mysterious about Duchovny repeating that performance for a brief scene behind drag, and sharing a scene with Lynch himself, resuming his role as Gordon.  The excange between the two gave me a warm, magical and fuzzy feel inside.  At one point Denise cooly tells Gordon, "I trust you and believe your on the trail of something big."  Gordon and Albert (Miguel Ferrer) are investigating the killing from the pilot episode.  And Denise now has a higher job ranking than Gordon.  In a neat twist, the FBI have divided its cases into two catagories, the ones marked by a blue rose, and everything else, marked by a red rose.  Red being the key colour in Twin Peaks...


In a hilarious scene back at the Sheriff station Lucy still stuck in the 1990s is overpowered by a cellphone.  As it happens its a trick from the new Sheriff and the other Truman brother, enter stage left, Robert Forster.  This casting again seems spot on.  Forster is a very watchable and charming character actor (his bails bonds man from Jackie Brown probably the most likeable character ever to appear in a Tarantino film).  His delivery of dialouge has the perfect blend of dry wit, and cool mystery, and his face always carries withit a world weary history.  Forster is credible as the brother of the old Sheriff Harry Truman (Michael Ontkean rumour has it has retired from the acting game, so sadly will not appear in this new series). On this first appearance, this Truman seems to have a different edge to him, but who knows what's behind Forster's steely eyes.... This was a nice tease.  Again Lucy shines as classic Lynchian outsider during the scene, with her discomfont at the invention and domaintance of cellphones in modern culture.  It wouldn't surprise me if Lynch has the same anxieties, certainly Twin Peaks as a town feels distached from such a modern obsession.  That the new Truman would play such a gag on Lucy, makes me think of him as a more modern sort of character.  Very much a outsider in the town.

The most dramatic reveal of this episode was the return of Bobby Briggs (Dana Ashbrook), and the discovery that he is now a deperty.  This sort of brings his arc to a nicely rounded full circle, and was certainly unexpected to fans who know Bobby from the old show and FWWM.  In the next breath, Bobby spots that iconic framed picture of Laura on the desk, Laura's theme comes plays for the first time in season three, the camera sharp cuts to Bobby's face, slowly closes in as Bobby is over come with emotion and breaks down.  Add this to the many iconic moments in Twin Peaks that will live on.  Such a great calling card for this new season, and probably Bobby's greatest ever scenes.  Its a big scene for me partly because it highlights that no one in Twin Peaks can escape the memory of Laura Palmer.  Its a truly haunting moment.  Ashbrook sells it very well too.

Another impressive piece of casting was Michael Cera of (Juno, Arrested Development).  Though I have mixed feelings on Cera, he was just the perfect choice to take the part of Lucy and Andy's son Wally Brando, with his wet around the ears oddballness.  And yes the last name is on purpose.  Wally is a walking, talking Marlon Brando lookalike, complete with biker jacket, and motorbike.  There is some doubt if Wally is Andy's son or Dick, the slimeball who Lucy had a brief thing with during the second season.  My guess is we will never find out the truth, because it makes no great difference to the overall story, and besides its a great little detail for Lynch to keep up in the air.  My own personal opinion is that Andy is the father, no question.  Wally makes a flying visit to his parents, passes on some nutty lines of philosophy and rides off into the moonlight...  Whether this is a one off appearance by Cera or not remains to be seen.  Think he makes sense as a cameo, who at the most appears two or three times.  A theory doing the world is that Wally's look and rambling is Lynch's response to the hatred that James attracts online.  Well anything is possible.





The next morning Dougie/Cooper gets has breakfast with his family, and is wearing a lime green suit and is clearly still totally baffled.  Much to the degust of Janney.  Gordon and Albert get a call about a Cooper sighting.  This moment called my bluff perfectly.  Of course I was thinking it was the real Cooper.  This episode gets back to some of the oddball comedy of the old show.  Love the scene with Albert, Gordon, and Tammy in the car, where Gordon confuses "Car sick" with "Korsakov"!  As it turns out, they are visting Dark Cooper/Bob who has been arrested by the local athorities.  As the talk to Cooper/Bob behind glass, the lighting of the scene and atmosphere is very creepy.  Lynch actually does a really great job in selling this scene.  Gordon isn't just a madcap creation, you can see something twig in Gordon that something is a foot as Dark Cooper/Bob mentions that he needs to get out to track down Philip Jefferies.  Lynch sells the moment with dead eyes, with just enough of a switch, so as its not over done, but is noticably.  The tension throughout the scene is wonderful.  Gordon asks if Cooper can be held till they get to the bottom of it, and they are told that he can be held for forty eight more hours.  Outside, Gordon and Albert discuss the fact that something isn't quite right.

Gordon: "There's only one girl who can help us out.  Do you know where we can find her?"  
Albert: "I know where she drinks"....



And we cut to the bar for what is becoming the normal closing to the episode, with this time the cool synth pop band Au Revoir Simone playing their track Lark out over the closing credits.  That final line and question mark left hanging is a great hook for the next episode.  Whether the girl in question is actually going to be drinking at that bar in Twin Peaks, or a different bar remains to be seen.  Because of Cooper's history with Diane, many are predicting that this will be her debut on the show.  My original reaction was that it must be Audrey! And on a purely biased level I am praying that it turns out to be the case.

Episode MVP: Gordon Cole 
Watts and Forster both made impressive debut, and Cera was cleverly weaven in the fabric of the show.  But not only did Lynch as Gordon have some of the most important scenes in the episode, he also proved that he has true dramatic acting chops, and that Gordon isn't just a one note character.

Verdict
After a bit of a misfire last time out, Brings Back Some Memories, got things right back on track.  Unlike the previous three episodes, it felt like a return to the core basics of Twin Peaks the original show.  Not just because of the quirky humour, and it being more plot driven, but it also had that slow burning mystery feel of the old show, with every piece of the puzzle feeling important to the bigger picture.  The tension between that, and the abstract feel of the doppleganger Cooper plot made for a very rich and edge of the seat episode.  There were some wonderful character moments, some promising debuts, again we were left with the sense that anyhing could happen next.  Trying to second guess Lynch just never ends well...