Twin Peaks, third season, seventh episode: There's a body all right

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