Twin Peaks, third season, second episode: The stars turn and a time presents itself

Second episode: The stars turn and a time presents itself / The Return, Part II

Content: Bill Hastings struggles with his predicament. When his wife Phyllis visits him he attempts to confide in her about a dream he had in which he was in the victim's apartment, but Phyllis quickly turns on him, accusing him of carrying out an affair with her. It is also revealed that Phyllis herself had been having an affair with Bill's lawyer George. Bill returns to his cell, and a ghostly entity is seen sitting two cells away from him. Phyllis is shortly murdered in her home by the dark Cooper. In Las Vegas, a businessman tells one of his employees that a woman has received a job opportunity and that he is forced to do cruel things because someone terrible has entered his life. Attempting to obtain information through Darya, Ray, and another associate named Jack, Dark Cooper quickly perceives that his associates have turned on him. He toys with and murders both Jack and Darya, learning that Ray was apparently arrested and the three of them were hired to kill him. He also reveals that he is due to return to the Black Lodge soon, but has a plan to avoid this. The Cooper in the Black Lodge encounters both Laura and Leland Palmer, as well as an evolved form of the Man from Another Place, now manifesting as a skeletal tree topped with a flesh pod for a face. He is tasked with returning to the real world and returning his evil doppelgänger to the Lodge. The patterned floor of the Black Lodge gives way under Cooper, and he falls into the glass box in New York, manifesting seemingly moments before the young couple was killed. Cooper is then plunged into space. Meanwhile in Twin Peaks, Hawk continues his investigation into the Log Lady's cryptic words, and James Hurley shares a nostalgic moment with Shelly Johnson at the Bang Bang Bar..

Analysis: If we analyze Dale Cooper's comment and his appearance in South Dakota, it's probable that Phyllis is an evil doppelganger of a person from the Black Lodge and that she managed to control her husband and make him commit the murders of Ruth and the unknown man. Dale Cooper might kill her to buy some time. Maybe killing other doppelgänger makes him more powerful and could make him stay longer outside the Black Lodge than just twenty-five years. It's also possible that the evil Dale Cooper controls the businessman from Las Vegas that could recruit people to commit crimes for the evil Dale Cooper. The good doppelgänger from the Black Lodge seem to encourage the good Dale Cooper to get back to the real world in order to track down and find his evil doppelgänger and stop his killing spree. The person that hired the three associates of the evil Dale Cooper could be an entity that tries to become the most powerful one in the Black Lodge. Maybe this entity wants to gain the negative energy of the evil Dale Cooper to become the ultimate form of the devil. My guess would be that this entity is also behind the murders in New York and South Dakota in the first episode and that it somehow forces the businessman from Las Vegas to collaborate. Even though Dale Cooper's doppelgänger is truly evil, he might actually be the only one who could stop that other entity from becoming hell on earth. Maybe the fact that Dale Cooper's doppelgänger doesn't want someone else to become more dangerous than him is what pushes him not to return to the Black Lodge. He needs to face that other evil entity and exterminate it. This means that Dale Cooper's doppelgänger has to face several enemies: his three associates, the good Dale Cooper, the evil entity, the FBI and even several members of the Black Lodge who want him to come back.

Description: The second episode is much more surreal than the first one. It's also much darker even though ''only'' three people are getting killed in this episode. Especially the scenes in the Black Lodge with the tree are absolutely memorable. The talking tree and its doppelgänger make me think of the deformed baby in David Lynch's Eraserhead, representing something haunting and undesirable. In the real world, Kyle MacLachlan really convinces as sinister criminal without morality. His speech to his three associates about the fact that he doesn't do things because he needs them but rather because he wants them, is very dark, deviant and impressive.

Favorite scene: The second episode contains numerous memorable scenes but the conversation between the good Dale Cooper, the One-Armed Man and the plant in the Black Lodge is pure gold and could actually become a first cult scene of the strong third season.

Rating: 9/10