Eighth episode: Gotta light? / The Return, Part VIII

Content: Evil Cooper and Ray are driving on a highway after having escaped from prison. Evil Cooper mentions that Ray has some important information he needs to know but Ray refuses to tell him what he wants to hear. When they take a short break, Evil Cooper tries to menace Ray with a weapon but Ray has taken the bullets out of Evil Cooper's gun and proceeds to shoot him instead. When Ray is about to kill Evil Cooper for good, several strange entities looking like woodsmen surround Evil Cooper and perform a ritual to bring him back to life. A bubble with BOB's head inside seems to be a part of Evil Cooper's body. Ray is scared, drives away and calls Phillip Jeffries to inform him about what has just happened. He then seems to be heading for a place called ''The Farm''. After completing the ritual, the woodsmen disappear and Evil Cooper awakens. Back in 1945, the explosion of the first atomic bomb in New Mexico sets off a series of important events. A strange entity creates BOB as well as numerous other creatures. As a response to this, the Giant and a robust female create a golden bubble with Laura Palmer inside and send it down to Earth. Back in 1956, several of the woodsmen appear in New Mexico. One of them enters a radio station, killing a secretary and a menacing a disc-jockey. He proceeds to spread a cryptic message on air that makes several local residents, who are listening to the radio, lose consciousness. One of these residents is a young girl that has just been on a date with a classmate. Meanwhile, a strange creature hatches from an egg in the desert of New Mexico, flies to the young girl's bedroom and crawls into her mouth. Once the creature is inside the young girl, the murdering woodsman leaves the radio station, killing the disc-jockey in the process.

Analysis: In my opinion, the explosion of the atomic bomb led to the creation of the ultimate form of evil. This creature that gives birth to BOB seems to be the same creature that killed the young couple in the first episode and might be the entity referred to as ''mother'' in the third episode. As a response to this and in order to keep things in balance, the Giant and the wife create a creature that is going to become Laura Palmer. The young couple in New Mexico must be Laura Palmer's future parents, Leland and Sarah Palmer. There are two things that seem to be happening at the same time. The creature that is crawling inside Sarah Palmer's mouth has been sent by the Giant and the wife and is going to become Laura Palmer. At the same time, the woodsmen are preparing a counter-strike and hypnotizing the locals in order to prepare for BOB's arrival who is going to possess Leland Palmer which isn't shown on screen. This explains why Laura Palmer, who was supposed to be an example of purity, has become a fragile soul that has lost parts of its innocence when she got contaminated with BOB via Leland Palmer's semen. Laura Palmer is therefore both an angel and a demon. With this knowledge, she is obviously a threat to BOB which is the reason why he contaminated her and later on tried to possess her. Since he was unable to possess her, he killed her but instead of destroying her, she was sent to the Black Lodge and separated into two distinct entities representing her good and her evil side: doppelganger. This means that the other members of the Black Lodge who have doppelganger have probably the same or a similar origin as Laura Palmer. The woodsmen in the episode are victims of the explosion of the atomic bomb who haven't found their peace of mind and seem to be supporting BOB and the evil entity to get their revenge for the horrible things that have happened to them. The presence of the woodsman in the prison in the first episode and in the morgue in the seventh episode means that BOB alias Evil Cooper are informed about everything that is going on. Leland Palmer asked the Good Cooper in the Back Lodge to find Laura Palmer. Bringing her back to life in her purest form would mean that BOB and Evil Cooper are in danger and that's why they, their numerous associates and the woodsmen are threatening Douglas Jones, who is Good Cooper's host. This means that BOB's nemesis isn't Dale Cooper but Laura Palmer. The former represents the evil that men do and the latter the good that men do. This means that the strange entity that created BOB could be the devil or an immediate representative while the Giant who created Laura Palmer could be God or an immediate representative.

Description: The eighth episode is unlike any other Twin Peaks episode. It's extremely surreal and reminds of David Lynch's early works but also of Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey and David Cronenberg's The Fly with a touch of Ed Wood's Plan 9 from Outer Space. and similar vintage science-fiction movies. The episode is going to be extremely divisive. Those who want a coherent plot and a return to the classic characters of Twin Peaks might be so confused about this episode that they will give up on the series. Those who like all the works of David Lynch and like experimental and surrealist cinema will celebrate this episode as a milestone. David Lynch is taking a big risk with this episode but revolutions have always come with great risks. And this is what this episode actually is: a revolution in the history of film-making. 

Favorite scene: It's impossible to point out a specific scene. This episode is the best, most original and most revolutionary hour of film-making that has ever appeared on television. You have to experiment it multiple times in one shot, especially the sequence from 16:19 minutes to 56:40 minutes. David Lynch has written history and left a gigantic heritage with this unique piece of art. 

Rating: 10/10

Seventh episode: There's a body all right / The Return, Part VII

Content: Hawk and Frank Truman look at the pages torn from Laura's diary, which contain an entry about Annie telling Laura in a dream that the good Dale Cooper is trapped in the Black Lodge. Frank calls Harry, who is too unwell, so he speaks to Doc Hayward, who was also with Cooper after he came out of the Lodge. Lt. Knox from the Pentagon arrives in Buckhorn, and is stunned to find that the body is that of Garland Briggs, which has not aged in 25 years. Albert and Gordon convince Diane to speak to Cooper in prison—she reluctantly agrees, but leaves deeply upset over what occurred the last time she saw him. Andy investigates the hit-and-run incident, but the farmer who owns the truck Richard Horne was driving refuses to speak and arranges to meet him later, but never turns up. Cooper's doppelgänger blackmails Warden Murphy into releasing him and Ray. In Las Vegas, police visit Cooper at work to question him about Dougie's destroyed car. As Cooper leaves with Janey-E, Ike pulls a gun on them, but Cooper expertly disarms him as The Arm appears urging Cooper to "squeeze his hand off". Beverly tries to locate the source of a mysterious humming noise in Ben Horne's office, then returns home to her terminally ill husband.

Analysis: This episode seems to announce that Dale Cooper will shortly be returning to Twin Peaks as Douglas Jones. First of all, Douglas Jones' exploded car and the vicious attack by a hitman might soon lead to the F.B.I. getting involved and discovering that this man looks incredibly similar to Special Agent Dale Cooper. Secondly, Hawk and Truman have discovered the true meaning of the three pages torn from Laura Palmer's diary and have understood that Evil Cooper is a menace while Good Cooper must be helped by any means necessary. Thirdly, Benjamin Horne understood that the hotel key that was sent by mail is related to Special Agent Dale Cooper as well. Three different parties might therefore have realized that Special Agent Dale Cooper's actions in the past, present and future are going to be very important. There are a few more elements to analyze. Why does Major Garland Briggs' body looks like it didn't age in the past twenty-five years? The reason is that he was already killed by Evil Cooper twenty-five years ago but his body had been conserved and was only released from the Black Lodge recently. Evil Cooper seems to have used this body for several evil actions. The deceased Major Garland Briggs might even have been inhabited by an evil spirit from the Black Lodge that cooperates with Evil Cooper. Maybe his body was now released and discovered because it can only stay outside the Black Lodge for twenty-five years and has therefore become useless. The appearance of the body could be a warning from Evil Cooper to the F.B.I. to not interfere with him. What about the strange appearance in the morgue? I think it's the same entity that was seen in the prison in the second episode. My guess is that it's the evil spirit that possessed Bill Hastings and forced him to commit murders for Evil Cooper. It might try to sabotage the investigations on the mysterious murders and even menace local cops as well as F.B.I. agents. Maybe this spirit is a demonic doppelgänger of Ray who seems to be Evil Cooper's most reliable associate. Up next, why was Diane so scared to meet Evil Cooper again? She refers to something that happened between her and him twenty-five years ago and she is so nervous to talk about it that she drinks, smokes and swears throughout the entire episode. It seems obvious to me that Evil Cooper did something terrible to her. Maybe he raped her or performed an evil ritual on her to get some garmonbozia. Evil Cooper obviously tried to discredit Special Agent Dale Cooper in order to make people despise or forget about him in order to take his place in the earthly world. What's going on with the humming sound in Benjamin Horne's office? Obviously, spirits from the Black Lodge are mobilising since a confrontation between the two Dale Coopers seems to be imminent. The question is whether these spirits are good or evil. Since the Giant appeared several times in this hotel and even had a human host who was working there, it's possible that he uses the hotel as a portal once again, probably to get in touch with Douglas Jones or Dale Cooper to wake him up, so he becomes who he really is again.

Description: The seventh episode was pretty much on the same level as the previous episode. The start was much faster and gave a lot of information about the different side stories, the middle section was very intense leading to the climax when Douglas Jones got attacked by a hitman but the conclusion to this episode felt a little bit stretched. Especially the sequence at the Bang Bang bar overstayed its welcome. The acting of Laura Dern, Kyle MacLachlan, Naomie Watts and Christophe Zajac-Denek was phenomenal. However, my favorite character of this episode was a very quirky Gordon Cole portrayed by David Lynch himself. His dialogues with Laura Dern, Albert Rosenfield and several side characters had a perfect balance between comic relief and emotional seriousness. This episode shows that David Lynch is not only a great director, musician, painter and writer but also a stunning actor. David Lynch seems to fully convince in any form of art which might make him one of the most complete artists in the world.

Favorite scene: Once again, there were several interesting scene but the one that stood out for me was the attack on Douglas Jones. Douglas Jones was instinctively acting like Special Agent Dale Cooper as he protected his wife in the first place, then disarmed the ruthless contract killer and finally chased the hitman away. The slow and menacing build-up towards this scene, the intense climax and the aftermath with the numerous short interview sequences with several eye witnesses were perfectly acted, directed and executed. Ike "The Spike" Stadtler might become one of my favorite antagonists in the Twin Peaks universe.

Rating: 7.5/10

Sixth episode: Don't die / The Return, Part VI

Content: Police take Cooper to Dougie's home after he is found loitering outside his workplace. Janey-E receives a photo of Dougie with Jade and chastises Cooper for Dougie's infidelity but she seems to be willing to turn the page and support her husband. Cooper draws cryptic images of ladders and staircases on Dougie's case files, guided by lights on the pages. Mike from the Black Lodge asks Cooper to wake up and to not die. Dougie's boss is angry when he sees what Cooper did with the files until he recognizes a pattern in the drawings conveying information he finds disturbing, and finally thanks Cooper. Meanwhile, Janey-E meets the two criminals demanding $52,000 from Dougie and gives them $25,000, calling it her "only offer." Duncan Todd receives a message on his laptop and pulls an envelope marked with a black spot from his safe. A man with an ice pick receives an identical envelope containing photos of Dougie and Lorraine, then enters Lorraine's office and stabs her and two of her coworkers to death. Albert finds Diane, Cooper's assistant, in a bar. In Twin Peaks, Richard Horne meets a mysterious drug supplier named Red. He speeds recklessly in his truck, running over and killing a young boy. Carl Rodd witnesses the incident and attempts to comfort the boy's mother. Hawk drops a coin in the bathroom and sees that the stall manufacturer's logo is a Nez Percé chief. Noticing two screws missing from the stall door, he finds several written pages inside.

Analysis: Let's try to go chronologically here. First of all, I think Douglas Jones told the truth about one of his colleagues being a liar. The patterns he seems to discover with some help from the Black Lodge's residents seem to show that one of his colleagues faked wrongful insurance claims to get some cash and share it with two police officers who would approve his version of the events that never ever took place. However, giving this information to his boss could put Douglas Jones in a very dangerous position because the behavior of his coworkers has grown a little bit more tense. In addition to this, Douglas Jones seems to have several skeletons in his own closet and I'm not only referring to his gambling addiction and weakness for prostitutes. In the previous episode, one co-worker made an allusion to Douglas Jones as if Dougie had done something illegal or at least secret. Douglas Jones faces the constant risk to lose his wife, job or even life because of his former life as Douglas Jones and his new life as Dale Cooper. This could soon lead to an intense showdown. The next thing to analyze is the targeting of Dougie and Lorraine. Who wants to get them killed and why? My guess is that Evil Cooper is behind all of this. He wants Lorraine to die because she knows too much about the device related to the Black Lodge in Buenos Aires as Evil Cooper wants to be the only one to possess, know and control everything. He obviously wants Douglas Jones to die because Dale Cooper is the only one who could bring Evil Cooper back to the Black Lodge or even harm him. Hiring a hitman is Evil Cooper's way to protect himself and still being active despite being in prison. The third element to analyze is rather simple. Diane's appearance means that she is the one who is going to meet Evil Cooper to see what's wrong with him. My guess is that she will realize that he isn't who he pretends to be. The fourth element to analyze is Red's appearance. Is this guy just a drug lord or is he more than just that? I believe there is more to him because his magic trick doesn't just look like a trick, it looks like a supernatural capacity. Red might as well be a demon from the Black Lodge and could be or become an associate of Evil Cooper. I know this is a bold guess but that would be my prediction. The fifth and last thing to analyze are the pages Hawk finds in the bathroom of Twin Peak's Sheriff Department. First of all, where do these pages come from? There are two possibilities in my book. One could be that these are missing pages from Laura Palmer's secret diary or personal notes made by Dale Cooper. Anyway, I believe these notes are related to the fact that Dale Cooper is still caught in the Black Lodge. This is what the Log Lady wanted Hawk to find out. The second question is: Who put these pages there? Could it have been Laura Palmer herself before she died? I don't think this is probable because she didn't get these kinds of instructions and couldn't have predicted what would happen after her death. Could it have been Dale Cooper? I don't think so either because it's not like him to hide notes in a bathroom door. He would have thought of another way to send his colleagues or friends from Twin Peaks a message. Could it have been Leland Palmer? It's probable that he tore some pages out of his daughter's diary to blur the fact that he was controlled by BOB. Maybe Leland Palmer had a short and lucid moment and wanted to hide these pages in a safe place before BOB could possess him again and destroy them. Since there is no safer place than a police station, this theory seems the most likely to me.

Description: This episode is much better than the two previous ones and nearly reaches the level of the opening three episodes. The start of the episode is a little bit slow with Douglas Jones' struggles at home and at his workplace but the episode quickens up the pace after twenty minutes or so. Naomie Watts' character Janey-E Jones gets some more depth which is interesting, John Pirruccello's character Deputy Chad Broxford becomes more and more an interesting antagonist and we get some background information about Robert Forster's Sheriff Frank Truman and his deranged wife Doris Truman portrayed by Candy Clark. Many fans adored the short scene where Laura Dern is revealed to be Diane Evans, Special Agent Dale Cooper's former secretary. However, the most exciting moments for me are the appearances of two new creepy characters. First of all, we meet Balthazar Getty's Red, a mysterious drug lord who acts like a menacing sociopath who can shift from being casually friendly to becoming coldly menacing from one moment to the other. The magic trick he performs to confuse, dominate and menace Eamon Farren's Richard Horne, who is also a brutal psychopath, is both surreal and intense. The second new character is short-grown contract killer called Ike ''The Spike'' Stadtler, played by Christophe Zajac-Denek, who brutally slaughters one of his targets as well as two witnesses but only shows emotions when he realizes that his weapon broke. These two new villains, along with the developments of Chad Broxford and Richard Horne, are very promising for the upcoming episodes and show how strong the antagonists are in this third season. Let's just hope that a few powerful protagonists come around to support Dale Cooper.

Favorite scene: There were many stunning scenes in this episode but my favorite is the intense hit-and-run scene. The build-up is dramatic and tense, the climax is heartbreaking and horrifying and the aftermath is shocking at first but becomes almost spiritual and comforting. These three minutes are probably the most intense so far in the series and bring back the spirit that defined Twin Peaks in the first two seasons as well as in the movie.

Rating: 7.5/10

Fifth episode: Case files / The Return, Part V

Content: Cooper is dropped off at Dougie's workplace, an insurance company, still in a daze, although he reacts to a statue outside, the smell of coffee, and the words "agent" and "case files". The young boy across the road from Dougie's car goes to look at the device left by the assassins, but a group of punks break into the car which explodes. The Mitchums beat and fire casino pit boss Warrick after Cooper's winning streak. In Twin Peaks, Shelley lends her daughter Becky money, only to have her head off to take cocaine with her boyfriend. Dr Jacoby streams his conspiracy theory videos over the internet in order to sell his golden shovels, with Jerry Horne and Nadine Hurley among his viewers. Cooper's doppelgänger makes his phone call in prison, which causes the security systems to go haywire. In Buckhorn, an autopsy on the male body found reveals Dougie's wedding ring in the stomach. At the Pentagon, Colonel Davis is informed that the fingerprints on the Buckhorn body belong to Garland Briggs—the sixteenth set of such prints found over 25 years.

Analysis: There are quite a few things to analyse in this episode. First of all, it becomes obvious that Dale Cooper's presence in Dougie Jones gets more and more dominant. He reacts to the word ''agent'' because he was once a special agent and seems alert when his boss gives him some ''case files'' as Dale Cooper seems to remember that he was once working on case files himself. His admiration for the statue with a gun outside Dougie Jones' workplace underlines Dale Cooper's admiration for an elegantly dressed man with a weapon like he was twenty-five years earlier. Secondly, a woman that wants Dougie Jones dead and Dale Cooper's evil doppelgänger both make calls to a mysterious device in Buenos Aires. I believe the ultimate evil entity of the Black Lodge I mentioned before could be connected to this device. It's obvious that this entity must be extremely powerful when even a cold-blooded assassin like Dale Cooper's doppelgänger and a woman that hired several hitmen call for help at this specific place. Those who have watched "Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me" might remember that a certain Agent Phillip Jeffries, played by the late David Bowie, who had a cameo appearance in the F.B.I. headquarters, actually disappeared in Buenos Aires. It's possible that this agent is used as a shell by the evil entity and that it will make its appearance soon. Thirdly, we have the fact that the beheaded male body found in South Dakota has Major Garland Briggs' fingerprints on it as well as a ring that seems to belong to Dougie Jones. My explanation would be that the evil entity from the Black Lodge used parts of Major Garland Briggs' body to commit the crime in South Dakota. This crime now seems to be a ritual kill made for Dale Cooper's evil doppelgänger. As mentioned before, Dale Cooper couldn't return into his normal body possessed by his evil doppelgänger and came back to reality as Dougie Jones. By committing this ritualistic murder, the evil entity enabled Dale Cooper's evil doppelgänger to avoid going back to the Black Lodge and forced the real Dale Cooper to wake up in a fabricated body. This seems to lead to the conclusion that Dale Cooper isn't actually working against the evil entity but for it as a hitman. The fact that Major Garland Briggs' fingerprints were found sixteen times on different bodies in twenty-five years seems to indicate that we have to deal with a dangerous mass murderer worse than Cooper's evil doppelgänger or BOB.

Description: The fifth episode is the weakest of the new seasons so far but still fairly above average and quite on the same level as the fourth episode. Despite a slower pace than the first three episodes, there are still quite a few things happening in the fourth and fifth episode. Dougie Jones' story line is still amusing but also has a very sad touch because none of his family members, friends or work colleagues seem to realize that he needs help. Slightly amusing scenes such as Doctor Jacoby's conspiracy theory videos interchange with quite serious sequences such as the brutal sequence at the casino. Overall, the fifth episode isn't as light-hearted as the third episode and quite dark at times but not as unsettling as the first three episodes. It's probably the most balanced episode of the new season so far in terms of atmosphere, content and locations but Dougie Jones' story line gets slightly repetitive and some scenes such as the ongoing investigation in Twin Peaks are a little bit too slow, even by David Lynch's standards. On a side note, the fourth episode left us with a conversation between Gordon Cole and Albert Rosenfield about a person that could talk to Dale Cooper's evil doppelgänger but this story line wasn't picked up at all in the fifth episode which was slightly disappointing in my opinion. I hope this promising conversation will take place in the sixth episode.

Favorite scene: The scene at The Bang Bang Bar is truly haunting. A certain Richard Horne is smoking without permission and gets into a verbal conflict with a waiter. He then skillfully bribes security personnel and continues to provoke. He grows less and less sympathetic when he menaces a young woman who asks him to light her cigarette. This tense sequence is underlined by flashing lights, experimental jazz music played by a live band called Trouble and a vividly dancing crowd which recalls the nightmarish elements of David Lynch's "Lost Highway".

Rating: 6.5/10