Rachel Bellwoar reviews the third and fourth episodes of Twin Peaks season 3…
The best part about Twin Peaks isn’t that Deputy Chief Hawk has to clarify that a chocolate bunny isn’t what Margaret’s log had in mind when it sent him a message. It’s that for a moment Deputy Chief Hawk isn’t sure. “Is it about the chocolate bunny?” he asks Andy and Lucy, and that’s one of the more routine questions found in episodes three and four.
Twin Peaks started with the murder of a teenage girl. It’s not a show that’s ever been afraid of having bad things happen to its characters but, while these new episodes have been far from humorless (casting Michael Cera as Wally Brando; Hawk’s “? Disturb” sign) they’re without the bright light that is Dale Cooper at their center. Imagining a man like Cooper stuck in the Black Lodge for twenty-five years is unforgivable, and David Lynch makes you feel what those twenty-five years have done.
In the opening to episode three, Dale is finally making his way out of the Red Room and into the real world again. As much as it is a relief to see Coop getting out, there’s no solace in this journey. Laura Palmer’s words weren’t wishy-washy but everything about this protracted exit, where the movement catches and sticks, points to the possibility that something could go wrong.
A blind woman, with skin over her eyes, motions for Cooper to be quiet with a finger to her lips. A knocking at the door, in conjunction with her gesture, makes us fear what’s outside when we don’t know if anyone, or anything, is there. She makes a slashing motion across her throat and it sounds like a knife cut. Similar to the sounds made when the shadow figure killed Sam and Tracey, this time you keep imagining the actions are violent. There’s no comfort in knowing this should be the end.
Picking up on the paranormal theme of the figure in the glass box, we have Cooper climbing a ladder onto the stars, where Major Briggs’ face appears in the sky. Twin Peaks’ resident paranormal investigator, he’s the exact face you hope to see in that moment but don’t know whether to expect (Don S. Davis passed away in 2008). Making the statement “Blue Rose,” Briggs continues the show’s recognition of Fire Walk with Me as fodder for the series.
It’s soon after this that we learn what made Bob so confident talking to Darya in episode 2. Dougie, a third Kyle MacLachlan doppelganger, has been created to take Bob’s place in the Black Lodge. Bob’s ex-partner, Mike, discovers the ruse. Dougie is wearing the same ring Mike wore in Fire Walk with Me, and he has the same tingling sensation in his arm that Teresa Banks had. Cooper gets sent out of the Lodge but Bob stays out, too, and there can’t be two doppelgangers free at the same time. One will have to die for the other to remain, and since the hit men waiting for Dougie (Cooper) failed, it’s unfinished business.
Cooper suffered trauma and it’s wishful thinking to hope he will snap back to his old self, out of the Red Room. Fun is had keeping viewers guessing what the clue will be that jogs Cooper’s memory. When Jade tells him to put on his “damn shoes,” will he think of “damn fine coffee?” Or give his thumbs up, when a woman needs help picking slot machines at the casino? Your heart sings to see the Great Northern hotel key in his pocket but it still doesn’t make Coop remember.
Albert and Cole are onto Bob’s existence but don’t know he’s not Cooper. More murder suspects come forward claiming they’re innocent, but Bob’s occupied, so might not be responsible. Bobby and Denise make their first appearances, there’s a woman who needs to see Cooper, and, for being a manufactured doppelganger, Dougie has a wife and a kid.
Episode two left Cooper falling into the “non-existent.” Episode three brought that fall to a close. “The absurd mystery of the strange forces of existence” (Albert’s words) continues.
Rachel Bellwoar
Originally published May 30, 2017. Updated April 16, 2018.
