Unmuffled Screams and Broken Hearts - 'Twin Peaks: The Return,' Parts 17 and 18

It's slippery in here.

[Note: This post contains spoilers.]

Twin Peaks: The Return // Parts 17 and 18 // Original Air Date September 3, 2017 // Written by Mark Frost and David Lynch // Directed by David Lynch

As was observed in this blog’s first post on Twin Peaks: The Return, the bleak Season 2 finale of Mark Frost and David Lynch’s original, groundbreaking show may or may not have been originally intended as the series finale, but it certainly feels more like a semicolon than a period. The same cannot be said of the finale to Twin Peak: The Return. Whatever one’s theories regarding the meaning of the new series’ final episodes, and notwithstanding what seem like dozens of unresolved questions and abandoned subplots, it absolutely feels like an ending. Just not the ending that viewers may have expected or wanted.

Like the first two episodes of the series, Parts 17 and 18 of The Return were aired back-to-back on the same night. Unlike Parts 1 and 2, the final two chapters virtually demand to be contemplated in relation to one another. In some ways, Part 18 resembles a rebuttal to Part 17 (and to the entire series). In the context of The Return’s sprawling, digressive bulk, it is indisputable that the finale resolves very little. (What has become of armpit rash girl? Or Beverly’s dying husband? Or Audrey fucking Horne??) Yet Part 17 has the unmistakable air of a narrative conclusion to the previous 16 hours. It is plainly a crescendo in which numerous characters converge for a climactic showdown and minor plot points come to long-delayed fruition.

The final defeat of Dale Cooper’s malign double Mr. C (both Kyle MacLachlan) and the otherworldly entity BOB (the late Frank Silva) unfolds like an early, low-budget X-Files episode filtered through art film sensibilities. Not only is the viewer given atypically gratifying payoff for story elements as diverse as the Great Northern Room 315 key and Deputy Andy’s prophetic visit to the White Lodge, but the supernatural villains are dispatched in a strangely straightforward manner. Mr. C is shot and killed by none other than sweet, guileless receptionist Lucy Brennan (Kimmy Robertson). Meanwhile, after emerging from Mr. C’s abdomen as a floating orb of putrefaction, BOB is literally punched to smithereens by Freddie (Jake Wardel) and his miraculous green gardening glove. Of all the fates one might have envisioned for Twin Peaks’ unearthly boogeyman, metamorphosing into a volleyball from Hell and then being walloped into oblivion by a super-powered Englishman was likely not high on the list.

BOB’s demise is so ridiculous and tonally jarring that the scene seems to have been plucked from another show, or even from a work of not-terribly-good Twin Peaks fan fiction. Is it really the case that the show’s embodiment of ravenous, corrupting evil can be obliterated with a powerful right hook? Combined with the worlds-collide uncanniness of seeing, say, Sheriff Truman (Robert Forster), Tammy Preston (Chrysta Bell), and Bradley Mitchum (James Belushi) in the same room, the sheer Evil Dead absurdity of the villains’ defeat gives the showdown the atmosphere of a fever dream about some other television show. For Twin Peaks—and especially for The Return—it all feels uncommonly neat and tidy, as exemplified by Candie’s (Amy Shiels) breathless glee that the Mitchum entourage has brought enough sandwiches to feed this sudden assemblage of characters.

However, David Lynch provides an unmistakable sign that this discordance—the ill-fitting piece crammed into place as a jigsaw puzzle nears completion—is not only intentional, but the symptom of a more profoundly disquieting idea. This the director achieves through a small but provocative gesture, superimposing Dale Cooper’s confused and faintly distressed face over the aftermath of the confrontation. Even as Cooper reunites with his former assistant Diane (Laura Dern) and quickly brings the gathered characters up to speed on what is happening, his own uneasy countenance hovers, Great Oz-like, over the scene, as though it were a reverie in Coop’s mind. Underlining the point, the FBI agent abruptly observes in an unsettling, slowed-down voice, “We live inside a dream.” (But who is the dreamer?) He also discerns that the time on Sheriff Truman’s office clock is fluctuating between 2:52 and 2:53, the latter summing to the “number of completion” described in Cooper’s earlier message to Gordon Cole. The world seems to be stuck on the brink of a gravid moment.

The victory against Mr. C and BOB is complete, but, unfortunately for all involved, this is not a sufficiently satisfying conclusion as far as Cooper is concerned. By way of the locked door in the bowels of the Great Northern, he enters the meeting place above the unearthly convenience store to confer with Philip Jeffries (Nathan Frizzell), still puffing away in the form of a teapot-like electric contraption. With Jeffries’ assistance, Cooper travels across time and space to the early morning hours of February 24, 1989, the proverbial ground zero for the violent tragedy that originally brought him to Twin Peaks.

In a scene that is amusingly reminiscent of Back to the Future II, he secretly observes events previously portrayed in Fire Walk with Me, and then waylays Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee) on her way to rendezvous with Leo Johnson and Jacques Renault. Cooper attempts to lead her by the hand through the forest and away from her fate, and in the process unravels 25 years of history (both in Twin Peaks the town and on Twin Peaks the show). Laura’s plastic-wrapped corpse flickers and vanishes from the riverbank near the Packard sawmill. Thrown into a howling, demonic rage, the entity that occupies Sarah Palmer’s form savages Laura’s framed homecoming photo with a broken bottle, but the image stubbornly refuses to remain mutilated. For a moment, it seems as if Dale Cooper has achieved the impossible and saved Laura Palmer. And then the floor drops out: Laura vanishes with a scream.

This is where Part 17 ends, and where Lynch shifts gears into a prolonged, listless epilogue, mutating the final hour of The Return in something bizarre, unpredictable, and inexplicably frightening (more so than usual). Cooper emerges from the past, apparently thwarted in his attempt to rescue Laura, and is greeted at Jackrabbit’s Palace by Diane. The pair of them then journey to an alternate portal several hundred miles away, along the shoulder of a highway and underneath some humming power lines. Cooper observes that “once we cross, it could all be different,” and they share a kiss before literally driving their car through the gateway.

The world that they enter is not the Black Lodge, or White Lodge, or some other surreal supernatural locale. Rather, they find themselves on an ordinary nocturnal highway leading to an equally ordinary desert motel. They secure a room and proceed to have uncomfortably detached sex as the Platters croon “My Prayer” on the soundtrack. (Intriguingly, this is the same song that was playing in Part 8 when the New Mexico radio station was commandeered by the Woodsman.) In the morning, Cooper is alone, finding a goodbye note in which Diane weirdly refers to him as “Richard” and to herself as “Linda.” Even more strangely, Cooper discovers that the hotel and his car now look completely different, and that he is in the town of Odessa, Texas.

What follows resembles a plodding, Lynchian riff on a stark Western crime thriller.  (The setting is significant: In Cormac McCarthy's No Country for Old Men, Odessa is where Llwelyn Moss sent his wife Carla Jean to keep her safe during his looming confrontation with the homicidal Anton Chirugh.) Guided predominantly by instinct, Cooper tracks down Laura Palmer, or at least a woman who he believes to be Laura Palmer. (He does take the time, however, to teach some leering wannabe cowboys a lesson for harassing a waitress, as if he were the brutally righteous, new-in-town lawman in a John Ford film.) The woman he finds, Carrie Page, is indeed a dead ringer for a middle-aged Laura. Even though she claims to know nothing about the girl Cooper is seeking, the name of Sarah Palmer seems to resonate with some faint memory in Carrie’s subconscious. Leaving the presence of a dead body in her living room pointedly unremarked-upon, she agrees to travel with Cooper to Twin Peaks.

A lengthy, mostly wordless passage then unspools, in which Cooper and Carrie drive through the night from Texas to Washington. Sporadically, the drone of the interstate is broken by another car’s dogged headlights (“Are we being followed?”) or by weary non-sequiturs from Carrie. Time seems to slip away ambiguously and eventually the pair arrive in Twin Peaks. Carrie attests that she recognizes nothing, but Cooper nonetheless drives her to the Palmer house. There, to Cooper’s confusion, the door is answered by a woman named Alice Tremond (Mary Reber), who has never even heard of Sarah Palmer. This revelation seems to jostle Cooper’s awareness that his situation is profoundly wrong somehow, and both he and Carried stand before the Palmer house in a daze of mounting apprehension. “What year is this?,” Cooper asks fearfully, almost to himself. From within the house, Carrie hears Sarah’s faint, distorted voice (“Laura!?”). Then she begins to scream, and the world plunges into darkness.

For Twin Peaks devotees who assiduously steeped themselves in the 18 hours of The Return in the hope that Dale Cooper would emerge victorious and goodness would be restored (at least in some small way), there is doubtlessly understandable frustration, even anger, with the show’s conclusion. A viewer could be forgiven for feeling aggravation that Mark Frost and David Lynch have succeeded in fooling them again, like Lucy yanking the football away from Charlie Brown at the last minute. Once again, the audience is denied answers to their nagging questions. Once again, the hero who is “supposed” to win is bested by the forces of darkness. Once again, Twin Peaks spends its last episode indulging its most cryptic tendencies instead of resolving plot threads.

However, as the saying goes: fool me twice, shame on me. If a viewer settled into The Return with the expectation that their questions would be satisfactorily answered—let alone that they would witness anything remotely like a happy ending—they have no one to blame but themselves. The Return’s devastating, seditious conclusion is not only consistent with the finale of the original series, but also with David Lynch’s post-Peaks filmography. Dale Cooper’s foray into Carrie Page’s “sideways universe” (to borrow from the Lost lexicon) bears a strong resemblance to the uncanny alternate realities encountered in Lynch’s Lost Highway / Mullholland Drive / Inland Empire triptych. What’s more, the horror of consciousness and perception that underlies these illusory universes has been at the heart of The Return from its first scenes. (Is it future or is it past?) The surprise is not that Frost and Lynch essentially unraveled the fabric of their show in the end, but that viewers ever expected a conventional television drama wrap-up from the creators that gave the world the blood-smeared giggle of “How’s Annie?”

Doubtlessly, every jot of The Return will be obsessively scrutinized in the years to come, with much attention paid to the film’s final episode and how it retroactively changes the preceding 17 hours. Certainly, there are plentiful clues in the text that permit study and exegesis, such as a curious proliferation of pale horses. However, given that, 40 years later, there are still fragments of Eraserhead that remain stubbornly inscrutable, it seems doubly pointless to rush forward to decode every detail. (“Break the code, solve the crime,” has always been Twin Peaks’ fundamental lie.) Like all of David Lynch’s work, The Return is not completely impenetrable to reason, but it cannot be adequately assessed unless the emotional responses it elicits are acknowledged and examined.

There is so much warmth to be found in The Return—humor, splendor, and excitement—one is hesitant to focus exclusively on the fears it explores, or worse yet, to reduce its staggering breadth to a single moment of elemental terror. What cannot be denied, however, is that the potency of the series' concluding moments are founded on the preceding 18 hours. Without arm wrestling and golden shovels and frog-locust things and a boxed cherry pie and all the rest, the annihilating darkness of Part 18’s last breath is not nearly as potent in its door-slamming finality.

In Béla Tarr’s brutally nihilistic masterpiece A Turin Horse, the resigned sigh that concludes the film is predicated on 140-plus minutes of repetition and hopelessness. The former achieves its apocalyptic power through the latter. Similarly, Laura Palmer’s final shriek of terror in Part 18 of The Return is the stuff of nightmares, not only because of Lee’s singular scream (Jesus, that scream), but because it punctuates a massive work that repeatedly expresses the anxiety of depersonalization (the unreal self) and derealization (the unreal world).

In part, The Return’s interest in such fears lies in their psychological ramifications in the real world. Notably, Audrey’s mysterious plight illustrates how easily unreal sensations can spiral into a panicked, paralyzing existential crisis for those suffering from anxiety disorders. However, The Return is particularly preoccupied with the unreality of dreams, fantasy, and fiction—and to what degree such ephemeral worlds can be thought of as “existing” at all. It’s perhaps intellectually precarious to advance a Grand Unified Theory of Twin Peaks: The Return at such an early date. However, this theme is undeniably essential to an appreciation of Frost and Lynch’s idiosyncratic and shrewdly metafictional approach to the very idea of a Twin Peaks revival. At risk of sounding glib, The Return is a show about itself. It is concerned with creation, consumption, television, television shows, television show revivals, audience expectations, the emotional ownership of fiction, and the “realness” of fictional people and worlds.

That last item is a recurring thematic element in The Return, but in Part 18 it takes center stage. If Fire Walk with Me can be regarded as David Lynch’s effort to restore Laura Palmer’s humanity and agency, The Return is a corrective in the other direction: an acknowledgement that Laura Palmer is a construct, doomed to follow the dictates of her dual Cartesian demons, Frost and Lynch, for the entertainment of millions. Although the viewer knows Who Killed Laura Palmer in the proximal sense, the query persists in other forms, leading the questioner down rabbit holes both mythological (Is Judy ultimately responsible for her death?) and extra-textual (Is David Lynch responsible?). Perversely, by asking the question, the viewer is obliged to murder Laura Palmer all over again. By reviving their television series after 25 years, the creators are exhuming her corpse, breathing life into her, and then once again allowing her to be murdered, millions of times over. She must be murdered, or, as when Cooper takes 18-year-old Laura's hand in the woods, Twin Peaks the show will become something unrecognizable. (Not Twin Peaks?)

Twin Peaks is not merely about Laura Palmer the murdered girl and the Dale Cooper the FBI agent, but also about "Laura Palmer" and "Dale Cooper," the characters on the television show Twin Peaks. Regardless of whether one views the sideways universe of Odessa, Texas in Part 18 as an alternate timeline, a sanctuary dimension, a demonic prison, or whatever else, it is not where Laura and Cooper are “supposed” to be. It is Not Twin Peaks. They sense it, deep within their (nonexistent) bones, that something is not right. Twin Peaks has its own gravitational field. Like water flowing downhill or iron filings skittering towards a magnet, Dale Cooper will always seek out Laura Palmer, alive or dead, no matter what names they go by in any given reality. Dale will always be the questing detective, and, as the corpse in Carrie’s house attests, Laura will always be the archetypal Lynchian “Woman in Trouble”.

Confronted with the façade of the Palmer House and an echo of her mother’s voice, Carrie suddenly comprehends who she is. She’s the girl who’s full of secrets, the murdered homecoming queen, the body wrapped in plastic. She has been abused, raped, and murdered by her father countless times, and will be again, for eternity. She screams when that glut of garmobonzia, the pain and sorrow, comes flooding back. However, she also screams because she understands a deeper, sanity-splintering truth. “What year is this?” Cooper asks, but he’s not truly asking about the date. He’s asking, “How did I get here? How do I work this? Am I right? Am I wrong?” In that moment of comprehension, he has achieved an awful enlightenment: He is living in a dream (a television show), but he is not the dreamer. Neither is Laura. They are tulpas, projections of the minds of Mark Frost and David Lynch. They are manufactured.

Unmuffled Screams and Broken Hearts - Twin Peaks: The Return, Part 16

One hundred percent.

[Note: This post contains spoilers.}

Twin Peaks: The Return // Part 16 // Original Air Date August 27, 2017 // Written by Mark Frost and David Lynch // Directed by David Lynch

It was a long time coming. The Lodge entity MIKE (Al Strobel) gives distorted, matter-of-fact expression to the thrill that Twin Peaks devotees likely feel when Dale Cooper’s (Kyle MacLachlan) eyes snap open in Part 16 of The Return, “You are awake. Finally.” Significantly, it isn’t Cooper-as-Dougie that sits up in a Las Vegas hospital bed, but the genuine article, the earnest FBI agent who immediately begins rattling off commands to everyone around him, albeit in that agreeably decisive way that compels listeners to leap to their feet and follow his directions. Dale Cooper is back, after 25 years in Black Lodge purgatory and some 13 episodes of exile in the metaphorical wilderness of suburban banality and gangland peril. Even Mark Frost and David Lynch, despite all their artistic nerve, can’t resist the hokey fanservice twinkle of Cooper announcing, as though directly to the audience, “I am the FBI.” Hell yes.

The old Dale Cooper’s return is a sequence of unabashed elation, but also one that feels wholly earned. At times, it’s been admittedly frustrating that the Coop viewers knew and loved has effectively been absent for the first 15 episodes of The Return. However, as his awakening in Part 16 illustrates, sometimes absence indeed makes the heart grow fonder. The long slog back to full cognizance makes the sudden return that much sweeter, and the attendant sense of a looming Cooper vs. Mr. C face-off that much more exhilarating. The viewer is no longer anxious for Cooper’s safety as they were when he was fumbling about in his Dougie haze, perilously vulnerable to manipulators and murderers. The FBI agent’s spry self-assurance hasn’t faded in the least, and seeing it in action once again gives one hope that the stony, ruthless Mr. C might have a worthy opponent at last. (Now it’s a boxing match!)

If there’s an immediate bittersweet element to Cooper’s awakening, it’s the unfortunate implications for Janey-E (Naomi Watts) and Sonny-Jim Jones (Pierce Gagnon), who are suddenly without a husband and father. The real Dougie Jones is, of course, long dead—or, a bit more accurately, recycled. However, as expressed through the muffled personality of Dale Cooper, “Dougie” changed the lives of the Joneses for the better, and not just with the jackpot-winning assistance of the Lodge. Indeed, while shuffling his way through Dougie’s life, Cooper has improbably acted as a spiritual good luck charm, giving second chances and opportunities for nobility to everyone he touches, from the endlessly appreciative Mitchum brothers (Jim Belushi and Robert Knepper) to the newly remorseful Anthony Sinclair. (Everyone except Ike the Spike, perhaps, but Las Vegas is certainly better off without him.)

When Cooper earnestly confides to his alter ego’s family that, “You have made my hearts so full,” he’s not humoring them in the least. He recognizes that, though “manufactured,” Dougie Jones was granted a little slice of everyday heaven (a home, family, and steady job), only to squander it by being a dishonest, good-for-nothing creep. Coop has spent enough time with Janey-E and Sonny-Jim to discern that they deserved better than a cheating, dissolute tulpa. Perhaps not all is lost, however. Cooper’s gift of a tuft of his own hair and his directive to MIKE to “make another one,” could be part of his endgame with Mr. C, but they alternatively could be his final gift to the Joneses, in the form of yet another Dougie.

Part 16’s other major story turn occurs when Diane (Laura Dern) finally reveals her true allegiances to her erstwhile FBI allies. This double-cross is not as central to the plot as Cooper’s return to consciousness, and it hasn’t been simmering for nearly as long, but it’s nonetheless a development that astute viewers likely saw coming. When Diane receives an opaque, weirdly menacing text from Mr. C, ":-) ALL," it seems to trigger a Manchurian Candidate-style programming, compelling her to text back the coordinates she’s memorized and to then put a permanent end to the meddling of Gordon (David Lynch), Albert (Miguel Ferrer), and Tammy (Chrysta Bell) with the snub-nosed revolver in her purse. (Just in case there were any lingering question as to where her loyalty lies, Lynch reprises the freakishly slowed-down “American Woman” from Part 1 while Diane nervously approaches Gordon’s hotel room.)

Naturally, Diane fails to get the drop on the FBI agents, because they have been onto her from the beginning, but the key revelation that emerges from her betrayal is that she isn’t Diane at all, but another tulpa. Although, in fine Diane fashion, once she is returned to the Lodge, she does spit a final “fuck you” at MIKE before disintegrating into black smoke. Her artificial nature does raise an obvious question: Where is the real Diane? The tulpa offers a hint before she draws her revolver and vanishes, repeating dreamily, “I’m in the sheriff’s station.” (As shrewd viewers have pointed out, only one letter distinguishes “Naido” from “Diane.”)

Given the gob-smacking drama of "Diane's" treachery and corporeal dissolution (!), it’s all too easy to overlook what is perhaps the most meaningful detail in her final confrontation with the FBI agents. Her flustered, shuddering description of her traumatic encounter with Mr. C many years ago is colored by the same sense of panicked de-realization that characterizes Audrey Horne’s plight. “I’m not me!” Diane cries over and over, creating a feedback loop of overwhelming dread. This sort of dissociative confusion is a recurring (and escalating) motif in The Return. In fact, one might assert that the dominant mood of the new series is an awareness that something is not quite right (or downright horribly wrong) about otherwise familiar people, places, and situations. Like one’s own home as experienced in a nightmare, it is recognizable yet noticeably, disturbingly “off.” (Gordon himself has an earlier moment like this, wherein he stands in bewilderment in his room full of blinking, humming Bureau computers, as if seeing them for the first time and finding them vaguely alien and repellent.) It’s a sensation that hearkens back to Phillip Jeffries’ terrified pronouncement in Fire Walk With Me, “We live inside a dream!” This in turn elicits Monica Belucci’s kōan-like query from Part 14, “But who is the dreamer?”

Most viewers have been fervidly longing for Cooper’s return since the new series’ beginning, and many have suspected Diane’s betrayal for some time, but Part 16 is otherwise an episode characterized by upended expectations. This serves as a warning to the viewer, that not all their wishes will be fulfilled exactly as anticipated, and that some plot turns will zig when the viewer is presuming a zag. The abrupt, ignominious demise of the odious Richard Horne (Eamon Farren) is a conspicuous example of this contravention of assumptions. Despite setting him up as one of the main players in the Twin Peaks subplots, the show unceremoniously disposes of Audrey Horne’s vile spawn in a shower of electrical sparks. After Richard is disintegrated by some sort of Lodge booby trap, Mr. C’s only reaction is a detached “Oh. Goodbye, my son.”

As the show’s various factions converge at the Jones home—assassins Chantel (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and Hutch (Tim Roth); the Las Vegas FBI; and the Mitchum brothers' entourage—the viewer senses an overdue confrontation brewing. However, the clash that unfolds is unconnected to Dougie; it's an essentially random explosion of flared tempers and over-the-top violence. It’s not the FBI or the Mitchums who ultimately take down Chantel and Hutch, but a neighbor (Jonny Coyne) who objects to their van's blocking of his driveway. The argument escalates with perplexing speed into a full-on automatic weapons shootout in the middle of the subdivision, while the hapless Agent Wilson (Owain Rhys Davies) looks on. It’s a gratuitously violent and blackly comical scene, more akin to Breaking Bad in its setting and tone than anything else going on in Part 15. Bradley Mitchum wonders aloud while hunkering out of sight, “What the fuck kind of neighborhood is this?” but he might as well be asking, “What the fuck kind of show is this?” Wasn’t this a Twin Peaks revival at one point?

It’s the episode’s closing scene that deepens the atmosphere of unpredictability into the downright bizarre, mingling it with Diane’s existential freak-out. At the roadhouse, Eddie Vedder—drolly introduced by his given name, “Edward Louis Severson”—performs a song on acoustic guitar in his Into the Wild folk mode. During the performance, Audrey (Sherilyn Fenn) and her husband Charlie (Clark Middleton) enter and take up positions at the bar. Their presence in the “real world” of the road house momentarily dashes suspicions that their interminable quarrel was unfolding in some surreal alternate reality. Then the emcee (J.R. Starr) gleefully announces “Audrey’s Dance,” the crowd wordlessly parts, and those synthesized vibraphone notes kick in. Just like that, middle-aged Audrey is 17 again, drawn onto the dance floor by the irresistible jazzy waves of Angelo Badalamenti’s “too dreamy” score.

It’s a moment of nostalgic ecstasy for long-time Twin Peaks aficionados, but also one of unnerving confusion. Why is the crowd quietly watching and swaying in harmony as Audrey writhes alone on the dance floor? Why would the emcee announce Audrey and why would the band play her iconic theme music? What the hell is happening? Suddenly, an accusation of infidelity among the onlookers erupts into a bar fight, seemingly a routine occurrence at the roadhouse during this season. Visibly frightened, Audrey begs Charlie to take her away. Then, with a jolt, she is abruptly in an abstracted space illuminated with hideously stark white light, staring at her worn-down reflection in a mirror. “What?,” she gasps, “WH-WHAT?”

Audrey is not where, when, or who she thought she was. He briefly-glimpsed surroundings offer virtually no context, but it is so aesthetically distinct from anything else in Twin Peaks—either in the real world or in the realm of the supernatural—that it feels utterly jarring. Is she still in a coma brought on by the bank vault explosion from the Season 2 finale? (Janey-E’s observation earlier in the episode potentially foreshadows as much: “When people go into a coma, they can stay there for years.”) Is Audrey institutionalized? Is she trapped in some Lodge-directed dream or purgatory? What relevance does this baffling revelation have for Cooper’s story and for those of the show's countless other characters? What does it mean for the roadhouse scenes previously presented on The Return? Nothing is certain, but Monica Bellucci’s words echo again: We are like the dreamer who dreams and then lives inside the dream. What little assurance the viewer might still possess that any given thing on Twin Peaks is “real” has begun to dissolve and run through their fingers.

Unmuffled Screams and Broken Hearts - Twin Peaks: The Return, Part 15

I want you to think real hard about what you’re saying, because you’re not making any sense.

[Note: This post contains spoilers. Updated 8/30/17.]

Twin Peaks: The Return // Part 15 // Original Air Date August 20, 2017 // Written by Mark Frost and David Lynch // Directed by David Lynch

Part 15 of Twin Peaks: The Return feels unmistakably like a turning point for both versions of Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan). The real Cooper, still mentally hobbled and still ensnared in the suddenly charmed life of Dougie Jones, attains what appears to be a long-awaited moment of clarity. Despite all the signifiers of his old life that have previously nudged Coop’s subconscious—coffee, pie, an American flag, a policeman's badge—he’s never made the leap to a true awakening. The cue that finally unleashes a thunderbolt of recognition and urgency for Cooper is not one of these tangible talismans, but the name “Gordon Cole.” Those words are uttered by director Cecil B. DeMille, playing himself in Billy Wilder’s scabrous Hollywood satire Sunset Boulevard, but they naturally catch Cooper’s attention on account of his former superior at the FBI. (This constitutes a Möbius strip of a meta-reference, given that Lynch originally named the FBI director after the little-seen Paramount executive in Wilder’s film.)

For a moment, it appears that Cooper might be dislodged from his Dougie fugue by the mere mention of this name, but Coop's reverie is shortly derailed by the electrical crackling that he perceives to be emanating from a wall outlet. Drawn by perhaps both the unnatural sound and memories of his exit from the Black Lodge, Cooper approaches the outlet and probes at it with a fork, with predictable results. It remains to be seen whether this literal shock will either jolt Cooper back to his old self or forestall the awakening that seemed imminent moments earlier, but it’s notable that electricity (the otherworldly fire of Twin Peaks’ mythology) is once again presented as the medium for a potentially profound transformation.

The nefarious Mr. C, meanwhile, has an overdue meeting with the mysterious Phillip Jeffries, who has evidently undergone a striking transformation of his own. Arriving at the hellish convenience store that serves as a lair and/or rendezvous point for the entities of the Black Lodge, Mr. C demands to see the former FBI agent, and is dutifully escorted through decrepit hallways, ethereal forests, and a fleabag motel by a sooty Woodsman. He then comes face-to-face with an entity that claims to be Jeffries, although the federal lawman now inhabits the form of an electric, bell-like contraption. Broadly reminiscent of devices previously seen in the White Lodge, this machine emits buzzes and clanks, spews silvery vapors from a spout, and speaks like David Bowie with a hambone accent. (The role of Jeffries is credited to the late Bowie based on Fire Walk With Me footage, but the “teakettle's" lines are voiced by Nathan Frizzell.)

Mr. C and Jeffries have a rather murky exchange about a woman named “Judy,” previously mentioned by the teleporting, time-traveling Jeffries when he briefly appeared at the Philadelphia FBI office in Fire Walk with Me. Not only does this inanimate Jeffries seem unaware of the assassination plot against Mr. C, but he also somewhat bewilderingly reminds Cooper’s evil double that “you’ve already met Judy.” The primary takeaways from this conversation are that Mr. C may have misconstrued some of the events that have occurred in recent days, and that Jeffries may be mistaking Mr. C for the real Dale Cooper. ("You are Cooper," the teakettle intones with relieved finality.) Jeffries “writes” some geographic coordinates via puffs of steam, and these numbers appear to match up with those previously seen scrawled on the arm of Ruth Davenport’s corpse.

As Mr. C departs, another curve ball is delivered: Richard Horne (Eamon Farren) appears and aims a gun at the doppelganger, evidently having followed him from the Farm in Montana. Richard has just enough time to confirm what viewers have long suspected—Audrey Horne is his mother—before Mr. C disarms him, gives him a swift ass-kicking, and forces the younger man into his truck. “We’ll talk on the way,” is the only explanation Mr. C is willing to give to his putative spawn for the moment.

The anti-climactic nature of this belated face-to-face encounter between the show’s father-and-son villains is emblematic of The Return’s methods. The new series is built around a sense of escalating momentum towards a destination—it’s right there in the title, after all—but Mark Frost and David Lynch have made a habit of mutinously delaying and subverting almost every anticipated incident. For Richard, his confrontation with the man he has seen only in photographs is a sobering and potentially revelatory moment, concluding a week when he’s otherwise careened from one violent outburst to the next. To Mr. C, however, Richard is merely a mild annoyance who is quickly dispatched and then dragged along on the off chance he might be useful.  Similarly, Mr. C finally squares off with the enigmatic Jeffries, who has harried the doppelganger's steps from afar, only to discover that the former FBI agent is no longer a man, but a riddle-spouting contraption squatting within the Black Lodge.

Dale Cooper’s maybe-awakening is likewise consistent with the series' treatment of crucial events that have been long-awaited (or at least long-telegraphed). Cooper has spent 13 episodes of the new series in a shuffling daze, shaking the cobwebs loose from his old self with agonizing slowness. While this episode suggests that Gordon Cole’s name has at least roused Dale Cooper’s consciousness into wakefulness, the outcome of Cooper’s subsequent electrocution is left blatantly ambiguous. Is the old, earnest FBI agent of the original series finally back, or has have those 120 volts smacked him down into yet more gormless Dougie Jones lethargy? Is Cooper even alive after such a potentially fatal shock?

Viewers have been waiting for this moment, but consistent with the approach in evidence throughout the season, the show’s creators couch such scenes in uncertainty, uncanniness, and the unforeseen. This phenomenon is signaled in small, subtle ways throughout Part 15. The haziness of Cooper’s fate is mirrored in that of a barely coherent, drug-addled Stephen (Caleb Landry Jones), who appears to kill himself off screen in a fit of existential panic. Exacerbating the mystery, Stephen’s distraught girlfriend Gersten (Alicia Witt) is too disoriented by the narcotic spectacle of her woodland surroundings to check on him, notwithstanding her cloying concern for him.

James’ (James Marshall) attempt to greet his married crush Renee (Jessica Szohr) as politely and innocuously as possible almost instantly escalates into an all-out barroom brawl—albeit one that the iron-fisted Freddie (Jake Wardle) ends just as swiftly by unintentionally one-shotting their assailants into critical condition at the ICU. Later in Part 15, road house patron Ruby (Charlyne Yi), slouching harmlessly in a booth as she waits for her companions, is aggressively relocated by a pair of bikers, leaving her confounded to the point of terror. (As with the hysterical driver in Part 11, Ruby's pitiful crawling and horrifying shrieks give expression to the viewer’s dread that the old Cooper might never return.)

Crucially, Part 15 also offers a balm that mitigates these passages of dismay and confusion, although it counter-intuitively presents it at the episode’s beginning. After being denied a happy ending for decades, high school sweethearts Norma Jennings (Peggy Lipton) and Ed Hurley (Everett McGill) are at last given a chance to be together. Inexplicably awakened to a newfound self-awareness and positivity by Dr. Jacoby’s paranoiac ravings, Ed’s wife Nadine (Wendy Robie) apologizes for her lifetime of erratic, unpleasant behavior and releases him from any obligations to her, sending him into Norma’s arms with her blessing.

Ed arrives at the Double R to share the good news with Norma, but is crushed when she abruptly puts him off to confer with her partner Walter (Grant Goodeve). Ed is momentarily despondent—His order to Shelly (Mädchen Amick): “Coffee… and a cyanide pill”—but Norma is merely meeting with Walter to permanently divest herself of the Double R franchise locations. Ed closes his eyes in an almost meditative attitude as Norma disposes of Walter and the potential distractions of a tri-state pie empire. While Ottis Redding’s “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long,” croons from the diner’s jukebox, Norma’s hand appears on Ed’s shoulder and he opens his eyes. At long last, all is right with the world for Twin Peaks’ most star-crossed of lovers. It's a hint that not everything will end in tears as The Return nears its conclusion.

Some miscellaneous observations:

• The award for best deadpan line reading of the episode goes to Clark Middleton, who responds to Audrey’s (Sherilyn Fenn) provoking jab, “I like Billy better,” with a dry sigh: “Sensational.”
   
• Over the course of recent episodes, Audrey’s seeming inability to walk out her front door to look for her missing lover has increasingly recalled the plight of the aristocratic party guests in Luis Buñuel’s surrealist masterpiece The Exterminating Angel. Abruptly and inexplicably incapable of leaving their host’s home, the party-goers descend into hysterics and treachery as their captivity stretches into untold days and weeks. Buñuel famously refused to explain his allegorical intentions, but the film functions so effectively due to the sheer, unexpected intensity of its absurdly nightmarish scenario, any potential metaphorical reading is almost beside the point.
   
• Janey-E’s (Naomi Watts) shrieks of alarm when “Dougie” shocks himself and shorts out the house is eerily reminiscent of Watts’ screams in the final, bloodcurdling minutes of Mulholland Drive, complete with similar strobe light effects. Watts’ chilling outburst is likewise echoed in Ruby’s strange fit of terror on the Bang Bang Bar's dance floor.
   
• Stephen's nearly incoherent ramblings prior to his apparent suicide attempt suggest a dadaist riff on the renowned "To Be or Not to Be" soliloquy from Act III, Scene I of Hamlet. Notwithstanding its bizarre imagery of a rhinoceros, bottled lightning, and the color turquoise, Stephen's ravings indicate a hesitation as he weighs the release of oblivion against the possibility of an ambiguous afterlife (or other lingering quasi-existence).
   
• Hutch’s (Tim Roth) self-serving characterization of the United States as “a nation of killers” hearkens back to Buella’s observations from Part 1: “It’s a world of truck drivers.”
   
• The lines spoken by Gloria Swanson as Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard have a distinct resonance now that series’ characters and factions are finally converging—geographically and psychologically—on the town of Twin Peaks: “I’m not worried. Everything will be fine. The old team together again. Nothing can stop us.”
   
• The encounters that Mr. C has above the convenience store plainly occur outside the normal bounds of time and space. This is only confirmed by the fact that said store flickers and vanishes from the wooded clearing after he and Richard depart the area. However, not only does Mr. C reach this supernatural locale via truck, but Richard manages to surreptitiously follow him there in his own car. The notion that Lodge-associated locales can be both spiritual and physical places (at least for a time) is not new, but there’s something confoundingly odd about characters literally driving to a demonic, trans-dimensional hideout.

Unmuffled Screams and Broken Hearts - Twin Peaks: The Return, Part 14

Sure is a mystery, huh?

[Note: This post contains spoilers.]

Twin Peaks: The Return // Part 14 // Original Air Date August 13, 2017 // Written by Mark Frost and David Lynch // Directed by David Lynch

An “eventful” episode of Twin Peaks: The Return is admittedly a relative thing, but by this series’ skewed standard, Part 14 feels like a particularly dense chapter. In part, this impression may exist because the previous three episodes made such a show of withholding dramatic satisfaction and challenging the viewer’s patience. However, it’s also indisputable that there’s a lot to chew on in Part 14—and not just the necks of sleazy truckers, either. Not all this narrative red meat is “action” in the conventional sense. Indeed, some of Part 14’s most stimulating passages involve characters telling stories to other characters, whether literally or through images. However, virtually every scene in this episode features some notable incident: confirmation of (or elaboration on) pre-existing suspicions; genuine left-field revelations that re-contextualize events up to this point; and even some honest-to-god forward motion with respect to the plot. There are also relatively opaque conversations between new characters, because this is Twin Peaks: The Return, after all.

Mr. C and “Dougie Jones” do not make appearances in Part 14, which allows the episode to spend more time in Twin Peaks itself. In the wake of the natural pivot point in Part 8, the show seems to have turned its attention increasingly towards the titular town, and Part 14 in particular seems to bestow Twin Peaks’ citizens with a goodly chunk of screen time. This further enhances the steadily mounting impression that the show’s events are converging on the town, and that the inevitable confrontation between Dale Cooper and his malevolent double will unfold there.

Certainly, Part 14 depicts instances where the supernatural entities of the White and Black Lodge intrude into the physical reality of the town in the most vivid manner imaginable. Granted, Twin Peaks has been the setting for some unsettling, even downright inexplicable moments, from a vomiting zombie-girl to Carl Rodd’s vision of a departing soul. Yet nothing shocking and otherworldly has yet occurred in Twin Peaks on the level of the murderous glass box wraith, or Mr. C’s Woodsmen-mediated resurrection, or Bill Hastings’ imploding skull. That changes in Part 14, which not only serves up the surprise of a demonic Sarah Palmer (Grace Zabriskie) ripping open a man’s jugular with her teeth, but also the sheriff department’s long-awaited appointment with the White Lodge portal, an encounter that leaves blind and mute Lodge denizen Naido (Nae Yuuki) in their care.

Sarah’s gruesome attack on the trucker (John Paulsen) is obviously the more shocking of these two scenes, albeit one that has been subtly foreshadowed over the past two episodes. The revelation that Sarah is host to a malicious Black Lodge entity is admittedly alarming, and the jump scare when she lunges at the harassing creep’s throat is gratifying in a slasher movie way. However, it’s Zabriskie’s performance that makes this sequence truly creepy, from the quietly desperate way she appends a “please” to each deflection of the trucker’s advances, to the languid challenge in her acidic remark to the bartender (Eric Ray Anderson): “Sure is a mystery, huh?” Moreover, there’s something indefinably unnerving about this attack occurring in a public place where bystanders are lingering only a few feet away. Did no one notice Sarah removing her face? Or is this just another example of the subjectivity that seems to be at work in any brush with the Black Lodge?

Still, notwithstanding the shock of Sarah Palmer’s bloody feast, the sheriff and deputies’ encounter with the White Lodge gateway is arguably the more significant development where the series’ plot is concerned. Of all the people to be transported bodily to the Lodge and presented with a kind of visual Cliff Notes on the show’s mythos, Deputy Andy Brennan (Harry Goaz) was not high on the list of potential candidates. (Not the least because the new series has tended to portray Andy and wife Lucy as even more absurd space cadets than the original series ever did.) Certainly, among the four men who trek through the forest to Jack Rabbit’s Palace—the other three being Sheriff Truman (Robert Forster), Deputy Hawk (Michale Horse), and Deputy Briggs (Dana Ashbrook)—Andy seemed the least likely to be the designated envoy to the Lodge.

In Twin Peaks, however, the supernatural world is nothing if not inscrutable. The Giant (Carl Struycken), who at long last properly identifies himself as “the Fireman,” shows Andy a conspicuously cinematic montage of scenes from the past and future. When he emerges from the White Lodge, Andy is uncharacteristically focused and decisive, carrying the weakened Naido back to the sheriff’s truck and indicating they must keep her presence at the station a secret. How he gleaned this information from the Fireman’s cryptic highlight reel is unclear, but this again points to the idiosyncratic nature of the paranormal in the world of Twin Peaks. Gordon’s encounter with the Black Lodge vortex in Part 11 illustrated that different individuals can all perceive the same phenomenon differently. This emphasizes the slippery nature of the Lodges and their associated phenomena, but it also notably reflects the myriad reactions to Twin Peaks itself, which different viewers might regard as a work of genius, inscrutable garbage, or anything in between.

Later in the station’s holding cells, Andy and Lucy (Kimmy Robertson) give Naido clothes and attempt to reassure her, although the woman persists in her fearful, unintelligible chattering. The sheer uncanniness of the situation—an unearthly Lodge entity sitting in the Twin Peaks sheriff’s station, swaddled in a fuzzy pink bathrobe—is only heightened by what follows. Deputy Chad (John Pirruccello), newly arrested for his corrupt dealings, screams in annoyance at a bloody-faced drunk (Jay Aaseng) who sluggishly mimics both Chad's words and Naido’s primate-like whimpering. This scene carries a disorienting and distressing air, evoking a similar sequence from the original series, wherein a jailed Bobby and Mike Nelson inexplicably barked and brayed at James Hurley like ravening dogs.

The notion that visitors do not necessarily experience the Lodge exactly as the show portrays it seems to be confirmed in a later scene featuring James (James Marshall), who is revealed to now work as a security guard at the Great Northern Hotel. By way of explaining the green rubber glove her always wears on his right hand, fellow guard Freddie (Jake Wardle) recounts his own mysterious encounter with the Fireman. As Freddie tells it, the otherworldly giant provided him with absurd yet very explicit instructions to follow, resulting in the permanent attachment of the glove to his hand and the gift of superhuman strength. (James’ sober, respectful attentiveness during this story, never once interjecting with skepticism or prodding questions, is one of the nicer touches in this episode’s script.) Besides setting up the possibility of an arm-wrestling match with Mr. C—one can dream!—Freddie’s story underlines the subjective nature of the Lodge, and the extent to which the spiritual receptiveness of the individual visitor seems to play a role in their experience.

Elsewhere, Part 14 provides validation of some long-standing Twin Peaks theories. It is revealed that FBI agents Gordon Cole (David Lynch) and Phillip Jeffries (the late David Bowie, seen in footage from Fire Walk with Me) were once partners, and it was the pair of them that originated the X-File-like Blue Rose classification for certain exceptional cases. As Albert Rosenfield (Miguel Ferrer) explains to newly anointed task force member Tamara Ferguson (Chrysta Bell), the first Blue Rose involved a woman who appeared to murder her own doppelgänger, which has obvious relevance to the Dale Cooper / Buckhorn investigation. Tammy astutely describes the double as a tulpa, a term that originated with Tibetan Buddhism—Tibet again!—and is often conceptualized as a mystical emanation or being created from psychic energy. This intriguingly recalls the gold cloud of motes that emerged from the Fireman's head and coalesced into the Laura Palmer orb in Part 8.

Gordon later recounts a puzzling dream to his agents, one in which the Italian actress Monica Bellucci (playing herself) delivers a message and reminds him of the day an incoherent Jeffries briefly appeared at the Philadelphia FBI office. The accusing exclamation Jeffies directed at Dale Cooper (“Who do you think that is there?!”) now seems much more relevant, although like Annie Blackburn’s message to Laura just before her murder, is suggests a muddling of timelines. The real bombshell drops after Diane Evans (Laura Dern) joins the group and learns of the wedding ring recovered from Garland Briggs’ stomach. Diane reveals that she has a half-sister named Janey-E who is married to a Dougie, which matches the ring's inscription and at long last connects the FBI investigation with the show’s events in Las Vegas. At first, this out-of-nowhere revelation seems somewhat contrived—even a little precious, at least for Lynch—but once the implications are permitted to simmer for a bit with Diane’s skulduggery for Mr. C, the Diane / Janey-E link ultimately provides more questions than answers.

Late in the episode, yet another pair of heretofore unseen roadhouse patrons, Megan (Shane Lynch) and Sophie (Emily Stofle), discuss the former woman’s distressing encounter with “Billy,” who seems to be the same man that Audrey Horne previously identified as her missing lover. Megan’s description of Billy’s appearance—blood gushing “like a waterfall” from his nose and mouth—echoes Audrey’s dream, while also suggesting the battered drunk previously glimpsed in the sheriff’s holding cell. (The excessively gravid, mannered way that Sophie asks, “What’s your mom’s name?,” feels purely like an instance of Frost and Lynch needling their viewers.) While this scene seems to tamp down fan speculation that Audrey’s storyline from Parts 12 and 13 is a dream or delusion, it doesn’t really clarify the essential question: What happened to Billy?

This is consistent with Part 14’s overall preoccupation with vivid stories that reveal information but don’t actually provide clear answers: Albert’s summary of the first Blue Rose case; Gordon’s description of his dream and Jeffries' appearance; the “Black Lodge’s Greatest Hits” film that the Fireman shows Andy; and Freddie’s eager account of his magic glove’s origin. (Bobby’s reference to the “tall tales” that he and his father once shared at Jack Rabbit’s Palace also alludes to this theme.) These stories expand The Return’s universe, flesh out existing mysteries, and establish connections between the show’s numerous subplots, but they don’t explain anything.

Freddie’s tale is emblematic of the storytelling approach that Frost and Lynch favor in this episode—and throughout the new series, for that matter. While the green glove anecdote carries additional meaning for the viewer, it’s just an amazing story to James. Its value is not primarily derived from the answers it reveals, but from the emotions it evokes; partly due to the extraordinary nature of the events Freddie describes and partly due to the colloquial, enthusiastic way that Freddie describes them. The uncharacteristic clarity of the Fireman’s instructions, at least as Freddie understood them, is no accident. It’s a case study in the limitations of lucid storytelling. While Freddie’s path was laid out with precision, his destination and what it all means remain obscure. Echoing the way that Gordon unabashedly drank up his “friend’s” ostentatiously sensual exit from his room in Part 11, this episode urges the viewer to follow James' example, to savor the experience of a good story rather than demanding immediate, straightforward answers (which may not be forthcoming anyway).

Some miscellaneous observations:

• Supernatural surrealism notwithstanding, this episode’s most random moment of Lynchian oddness is surely Special Agent Headley (Jay R. Ferguson) inexplicably losing his shit and pounding his fist on his desk: “Wilson, how many times have I told you? This is what we do in the FBI!” Speaking of which, wouldn’t the FBI’s search for Dougie Jones have been almost immediately resolved if Gordon had just given the Las Vegas office Janey-E’s name as well?
   
• Monica Bellucci’s dream message to Gordon Cole—“We are like the dreamer who dreams and then lives inside the dream”—is a line that Lynch purportedly quoted when introducing screenings of Inland Empire. The phrase is a stylized version of the Mundaka Upanishad 1:1:7, as rather freely translated by Thomas Egenes and Kumuda Reddy in Eternal Stories from the Upanishads. The original, as translated in Max Müller’s seminal 1897 first volume of Sacred Books of the East:

As the spider sends forth and draws in its thread, as plants grow on the earth, as from every man hairs spring forth on the head and the body, thus does everything arise here from the Indestructible.

• Consistent with the Arthurian allusions that have previously cropped up in The Return, Andy has some parallels to the legendary hero Percival, a Knight of the Round Table who first appears in Chreiten de Troyes’ 12th century French romance Conte du Graal. The character also shows up in Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur and Wolframm von Eschenbach’s Pazival, the latter of which was adapted into Richard Wagner’s celebrated 19th century opera. The perception of Andy as naïve and dim-witted yet virtuous mirror’s Percival’s persona as it is typically portrayed. Shielded from the evils of the world by his mother, a young Percival one day sees three of Arthur’s knights and immediately resolves to join their ranks. His mother dresses him as a fool so that he will be rebuffed at Camelot, but to the amazement of the court, Percival slays a malevolent red knight and earns his place at the Round Table. (This echoes Andy’s shooting of Jacques Renault in the original series.)
  
  Late in von Eschenbach’s version, Percival meets holy man in the wilderness and learns from him the meaning of the Grail mystery, which has obvious similarities with Andy’s visit to the White Lodge in Part 14. The most widely-known story involving the knight, however, is that of the Fisher King, a magically wounded monarch whose realm lies in ruin. Percival is initially unable to lift the king’s curse because he does not understand the riddles hidden in a series of objects, which points to Twin Peaks’ long-running interest in codes, clues, and obscure meanings. The Fisher King tale foreshadows Andy’s potential role in returning Dale Cooper to his old self. Notably, similar Arthurian motifs are central to Terry Gilliam’s 1991 feature The Fisher King, which also centers on a man whose mind needs healing. Gilliam’s film is deliberately ambiguous as to which of its two lead characters is the metaphorical king and which is the knight, although it is Robin Williams’ homeless, traumatized Parry (Parcival?) who suffers visions of a marauding Red Knight.
   
• Sightings: Monica Bellucci is best known for portraying Bond girl Lucia in the 007 picture Spectre, Persephone in the Wachowski sisters’ Matrix series, and Alex in Gaspar Noé’s arthouse provocation Irreversible. Shane Lynch, who plays roadhouse patron Megan (daughter of Tina) is best known for her guest appearances on the 90210 revival and for Jason Reitman’s notoriously insufferable film Men, Women & Children. Megan’s friend, Sophie, is portrayed by David Lynch’s wife Emily Stofle, who also appeared in Inland Empire and alongside Marion Cotillard in the director’s short film Lady Blue Shanghai.

Unmuffled Screams and Broken Hearts - Twin Peaks: The Return, Part 13

Starting position’s more comfortable.

[Note: This post contains spoilers.]

Twin Peaks: The Return // Part 13 // Original Air Date August 6, 2017 // Written by Mark Frost and David Lynch // Directed by David Lynch

For long-time Twin Peaks devotees, the arrival of a new season after a hiatus of over 25 years evoked understandable excitement, but also a gnawing anxiety. The years spent revisiting and scrutinizing the original series had naturally created a sense of fond attachment to Mark Frost and David Lynch’s creation, warts and all. However, anyone who has cultivated an admiration for Lynch’s work can acknowledge that much of its power lies in its ability to disrupt the viewer’s comfort zones. The Return therefore elicits two opposing reactions in the Twin Peaks enthusiast: a nostalgic longing for everything to be exactly as they remember it; and a rebellious glee at the prospect of Lynch figuratively burning his most recognizable creation to the ground. Like Audrey in Part 13, the viewer is ensnared by competing impulses: “I want to stay and I want to go.”

At the most reductive plot level, The Return concerns Dale Cooper’s journey back to old self and to the town of Twin Peaks, but the new series is also broadly about the emotional turmoil involved in revisiting anything that elicits strong emotions. It’s about running into an old friend or lover, visiting a childhood home, or witnessing the revival of a favorite television show. There is comfort in familiarity, but because everything changes with time, such reunions also carry a risk of alienation and disappointment. Part 13 acknowledges the joy that reconnecting with history can elicit, but it also serves as a warning about the perils of figuratively traveling back in time. Frost and Lynch suggest that dwelling excessively on the past—or worse, trying to recapture or recreate it—can lead to paralysis and purgatory. In this, the show aligns itself with the outlook of Fred Madison from Lynch’s Lost Highway, who explains that he prefers to leave the past as remembers it, rather than how it actually happened.

In the town of Twin Peaks, many characters are stuck repeating the same mistakes they’ve always made, or vainly striving to reclaim something they lost long ago. It’s a theme that the show has often highlighted in recent episodes, but it’s never felt as profoundly sad as it does in Part 13. When Bobby Briggs (Dana Ashbrook) drops by the Double R for dinner, rather transparently hoping to run into his ex-wife Shelly (Mädchen Amick), it’s a bittersweet moment, but it one that also carries the sour tang of irony. Bobby has become a better person in the past 25 years, but in shedding the juvenile, hot-headed aspects of his personality, he’s lost the bad boy erotic heat that caught Shelly’s eyes so long ago. He’s turned into his generation’s Ed Hurley (Everett McGill), who is still pining for high school sweetheart Norma Jennings (Peggy Lipton). Ed and Norma remain friendly, but the romantic happiness they briefly grasped at the end of Season 2 is evidently long gone. As Ed explains to Bobby with unintentional frankness, “Nothing happening here.”

Norma, for her part, is still drawn to assertive men with big schemes, although she’s traded felonious sociopaths like her ex-husband Hank for the MBA polish of Walter Lawford (Grant Goodeve), a buzzword-spouting entrepreneur who’s helped her franchise the Double R name and its celebrated pies. Lynch frames Walter such that Ed is visible in the background, slightly out of focus but painfully attentive to the conversation between Norma and her new business and romantic partner. Underlining the point with aching melancholy, Part 13 concludes with a ponderous scene of Ed eating Double R takeout in his gas station, silently sipping soup and reflecting on regrets as cars pass in the night.

Sarah Palmer (Grace Zabriskie) continues to wallow (perhaps justifiably) in alcohol and depression, as a 15-second clip of a vintage boxing match plays on a loop on her enormous television. “Now it’s a boxing match!,” the announcer enthuses as the action in the ring escalates, but after the fifth or sixth repetition, the exclamation has become thoroughly lifeless and enervating, amplifying this deliberately sluggish sequence’s air of entrapment. Conversely, there’s a genuine sweetness in the scene where Nadine Hurley (Wendy Robie) and Dr. Jacoby (Russ Tamblyn) reconnect after seven years, even if both characters aren’t exactly well-balanced individuals. It’s one of Jacoby’s golden shovels that catches the doctor’s eye, prompting him to drop by Nadine's drape runner store. This is consistent with The Return’s assertion that emotions can be valid even when they are built on a foundation of illusion and falsehood.

That theme is also evident in the episode’s penultimate scene at the roadhouse, wherein Shelly’s young friend Renee (Jessica Szohr) is rendered misty-eyed by James Hurley’s (James Marshall) performance. There’s a definite meta-textual aspect to this sequence, in that James’ falsetto rendition of “Just You” in Episode 2 of Season 2—with Donna Hayward and Maggie Ferguson on backup—remains one of the original series’ most divisive moments. Whether the old-school Twin Peaks fan finds James’ original performance touching, cheesy, or utterly intolerable, Lynch’s recreation of it here constitutes yet another instance of the new series’ amiable “Fuck You” gestures. It also underlines the disorienting sensation that Twin Peaks has been preserved under glass for two and a half decades, but with enough telltale differences to render it all the more uncanny.

The most significant and easily overlooked aspect of this scene, however, is the presence of Renee. The actress who portrays her is, not incidentally, at least a decade too young to have experienced the original Twin Peaks phenomenon firsthand. That Lynch shows her character reacting with authentic and unabashed sentiment to James’ performance further emphasizes The Return’s insistence on the subjectivity of emotional experience. This isn’t like Shelly observing that, notwithstanding some fans’ disdain for the character, “James was always cool.” It’s a new character, played by an actress who was six years old when Twin Peaks premiered, being moved by a performance that does not carry the same nostalgic baggage as it does for the viewer. For every middle-aged Peaks aficionado who gasps or groans at those first bars of “Just You,” there is a newcomer who is experiencing it for the first time, and their response (whether touched, amused, or repulsed) is no less real.

Concluding a plot point from a few episodes past, the Detectives Fusco (David Koechner, Eric Edelstein, and Larry Clarke) learn that Dougie Jones’ fingerprints match an escape federal convict and a missing FBI agent, but chalk this up to a bureaucratic error. Accordingly, Dougie’s prints go into the trashcan, and the Las Vegas investigation—which briefly seemed so promising—loops back to square one. This facepalm-worthy moment of missed opportunity dovetails with the notion that while it might be comforting to revisit (or stubbornly remain) in the past, it’s not always fruitful, and can even be counter-productive. This theme is echoed in the Tarantino-esque exchange between Hutch (Time Roth) and Chantel (Jennifer Jason Leigh), who conflate the drug abstinence of contemporary Mormons with the polygamous practices of their church’s past.

Part 13’s thematic preoccupations find their most potent expression in the episode’s standout sequence, in which Mr C. (Kyle MacLachlan) eliminates the traitorous Ray (George Griffith) by arm-wrestling his way into the leadership of a criminal gang. There is an undeniably amusing element to this ridiculous showdown, evoking the campy 1987 Sylvester Stallone vehicle Over the Top. Mr. C even calls out the stupidity of the gang’s rites by mocking it as “nursery school” nonsense. The lead-up to Mr. C’s match with the group’s massive champion, Renzo (Derek Mears), has a sports flick / crime thriller vibe reminiscent of any number of direct-to-VHS features about underground martial arts tournaments. (This episode’s funniest line might be Frank Collison’s consciously stilted delivery of “Commence... arm wrestle!”) In this case, the tone is given a hint of added absurdity by the ludicrous floor-to-ceiling video monitor in the gang’s austere warehouse lair ("the Farm"), and by a tweedy accountant fellow (Christopher Durbin Noll) who seems out-of-place among outlaw biker types but still manages to be coldly menacing.

When the contest commences, this passage takes on the shading of a horror film, with the snapped forearm from David Cronenberg’s The Fly leaping to mind, to nauseating effect. Mr. C’s eerily composed demeanor is justified when it quickly becomes apparent that—by dint of the Lodge’s power—he can beat Renzo without breaking a sweat. Rather than end the match quickly, however, Mr. C toys with his opponent, repeatedly and effortlessly returning their arms to an upright stance while Renzo strains, purple-faced and trembling. “Starting position’s more comfortable,” Mr. C observes with just the barest hint of ridicule, as though giving voice to Frost and Lynch’s disparagement of Twin Peaks nostalgia. Indeed, Mr. C’s stony cruelty in this scene has a vividly metaphorical dimension, in that it echoes the way that the viewer has been tugged this way and that by the new series. David Lynch is in complete control, and his whims dictate whether the viewer will experience agony or respite. Although the show’s periodic check-ins with old friends in Twin Peaks have the soothing quality of the familiar, that comfort is undercut by the changes that time has wrought, and by the anticipation of the suffering yet to come.

Part 13 adds an additional twist to this ambivalent depiction of reunion and relapse by heightening the long-simmering suggestion that Twin Peaks is experiencing a temporal scrambling. In some instances, this is hinted at through design choices in scenes that have little to do with the town of Twin Peaks. Examples include the discordant, arrhythmic conga music that accompanies the Mitchum brothers’ (James Belushi and David Koechner) celebratory arrival at Lucky 7 Insurance, or the mindless way that Sonny-Jim Jones (Pierce Gagnon) repeatedly traces the same path through his gaudy new gym set.

However, the scenes in Twin Peaks itself are where The Return exhibits its most explicit indications of temporal weirdness. Numerous references to specific dates and incidents have previously suggested that these Twin Peaks passages are being presented out of order, and that they may be unfolding either well before or after the events in Las Vegas, South Dakota, and elsewhere. Part 13 is the point at which these apparent discrepancies seem to reach a critical mass. What previously might have been dismissed as honest continuity errors have begun to resemble deliberate monkeying with the show’s timeline. For example, Bobby’s conversation with Ed and Norma at the Double R appears to occur the evening following the discovery of Major Briggs’ secret message in Part 9, but before Becky Briggs’ (Amanda Seyfried) jealous rampage from Part 12.

Lynch is not a filmmaker who typically indulges in this sort of Westworld-style narrative trickery, but he does enjoy violating the rules of the medium, and there aren’t rules much more inviolate than the presumption that scenes edited to adjoin one another are happening roughly concurrently. Yet Part 13 also offers signs that this chronological puzzle is more than a strictly formal choice on the part of the director. The old boxing footage that Sarah Palmer listlessly watches emits a burst of audio static when it loops back on itself, evoking the electrical phenomena associated with BOB and the Black Lodge. Furthermore, an eagle-eyed viewer on Reddit noticed that the episode’s final scene contains a subtle tidbit of strangeness: As Ed stares out the window of his gas station, his reflection in the glass “glitches” as though experiencing a temporal hiccup. It’s an almost subliminal detail, but nonetheless unsettling. Ed, for his part, appears to notice this anomaly, and it’s as much this as thoughts of Norma that provokes his disconcerted brooding as the episode’s end credits roll. Something is dreadfully wrong in Twin Peaks, on a level that goes beyond the banal miseries and supernatural evils that have plagued it before. It’s as though reality itself is beginning to break down.

Some miscellaneous observations:

• Beyond Mr. C’s revenge and Anthony Sinclair’s (Tom Sizemore’s) tearful change of heart, Part 13 advances the series’ myriad subplots with typically tiny nudges. However, the episode does establish a potentially significant connection between two storylines that have remained relatively segregated until now. While Mr. C’s unseemly dealings don’t seem to have much to do with town of Twin Peaks, Richard Horne (Eamon Farren) is shown to be hiding out at the Farm. This startling revelation provides a link between Twin Peaks’ narcotics underworld and the far-flung criminal circles in which Mr. C prowls, although its implications regarding Richard’s suspected parentage are still ambiguous.
   
• Walter’s discussion with Norma about her flagship diner’s under-performance and potential changes to her pie recipes is drolly suggestive of the arguments one imagines Frost and Lynch might have had with ABC executives about the direction of Twin Peaks once upon a time. “Norma you're a real artist, but love doesn't always turn a profit… It’s just about tweaking the formula to insure consistency and profitability.”
   
• Sonny-Jim’s backyard play set is a damn peculiar work of design, from its illuminated circus midway arch to its prison yard spotlight. (The appearance of a spotlight, it should be remembered, typically coincided with BOB’s acts of violence on the original series.) The truly striking detail, however, is the relentless music box tinkling of the most famous motif from Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake. The ballet’s plot has obvious parallels with Twin Peaks, featuring as it does supernatural doubles, wicked curses, and a warlock who assumes the form of an owl. Just as suggestive, however, is the work’s role in the political culture of the Soviet Union. Filmed productions of the ballet were often broadcast on television during periods of official mourning, and eventually during times of political turmoil as well. An endless loop of Swan Lake was memorably shown on state-controlled television while the failed 1991 anti-Gorbachev “Bathhouse Plot” unfolded—coincidentally, just two months after the final episode of the original Twin Peaks aired in the U.S.
   
• Audrey’s description of her uncanny, anxious sensation suggests the episodes of de-realization that can affect individuals with epilepsy, migraines, or mental illnesses. British author Simon Winchester wrote vividly and candidly about his struggles with such dissociative attacks of jamais vu (the complement of déjà vu) in his memoir The Man with the Electrified Brain. Charlie’s obliquely threatening response to Audrey’s near-hysterical state—“Do I have to end your story too?”—seems designed to exacerbate rather than soothe the unreal sensation his wife is experiencing. This and other peculiar aspects of their interaction lend it the tone of a psychiatric therapy session rather than a domestic quarrel, stoking suspicions that Audrey’s subplot is not all it appears to be.
  
  Interestingly, Audrey apprehensively observes that “It’s like Ghostwood here.” Presumably, this is a reference to the national forest near Twin Peaks, not the scrapped country club development her father once envisioned for the area. Ghostwood, it should be remembered, includes key mythos locations such as Owl Cave and Glastonbury Grove, indicating that Audrey has some peripheral awareness of the reality-warping character of these Lodge-associated locales.
   
• Even when he’s playing sad sacks and burnouts, Tom Sizemore almost always brings an air of tightly-wound physical menace to his characters. Accordingly, it’s unexpected and a little amusing to witness his portrayal of Anthony in this episode, where he grovels and blubbers like a guilty school boy. His confession regarding his crooked insurance schemes and attempted murder of Dougie plays like a more comedic version of Matthew Lillard’s hysterics from a few episodes ago.
   
• Sightings: Hulking arm wrestling champion Renzo is portrayed by Derek Mears, a prolific actor and stuntman whose most conspicuous claim to fame is playing rebooted iconic movie monsters like the Predator (2010’s Predators) and Jason Voorhees (2009’s Friday the 13th). Frank Collison, who appears as Renzo’s lieutenant Muddy, is a long-time character actor most familiar as telegraph operator Horace on the long-running Western Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman. Veteran film and television performer John Savage portrays Anthony’s contact in the Las Vegas police, Detective Clark. Savage is probably best known for his roles in The Deer Hunter, The Godfather: Part III, and The Thin Red Line, as well as on Jessica Alba’s breakout series Dark Angel and the period supernatural drama Carnivàle. Norma’s partner-slash-boyfriend Walter is portrayed by Grant Goodeve, whose first major role was on the popular Dick Van Patten sitcom Eight Is Enough, and thereafter became a ubiquitous television presence from the 1980s into the 2000s. Jessica Szohr, who plays James-adoring roadhouse patron Renee, is most recognizable for her long-running role on the New York WASP soap Gossip Girl.

Unmuffled Screams and Broken Hearts - Twin Peaks: The Return, Part 12

It’s a goddamn bad story, isn’t it?

[Note: This post contains spoilers.]

Twin Peaks: The Return // Part 12 // Original Air Date July 30, 2017 // Written by Mark Frost and David Lynch // Directed by David Lynch

As this site has previously observed, Twin Peaks: The Return has repeatedly indulged in mischievous meta-commentary about the experience of watching it. As series director, David Lynch has habitually drawn out scenes to absurd lengths, in contravention of the customary rules of television narrative. Sometimes this has a deeper purpose with respect to theme, mood, or characterization—e.g., the hypnotically slow zoom into the Trinity atomic explosion in Part 8. However, just as often Lynch seems to be sadistically tweaking the viewer’s patience. It’s all too easy to read sour amusement in the way that Lynch and co-writer Mark Frost have continually pushed some key story milestones, like the re-emergence of the old Dale Cooper, further and further down the road. Relatedly, they often allow the show’s characters to function as viewer surrogates who give voice to the longing, confusion, and annoyance that the creators imagine the audience must be feeling.

This impulse on the part of Frost and Lynch reaches a kind of audacious, alienating crescendo in Part 12, in which the denial of audience gratification becomes a palpable ambition. Most of the action in this episode proceeds at a comically languid pace, from the elliptical conversations to the simple action of a character leaving a room. The centerpiece of this inclination is the much-anticipated appearance of Audrey Horne (Sherilyn Fenn). Of all the fates that viewers might have imagined for Twin Peaks’ adolescent brunette firecracker, a loveless marriage of convenience to a tweedy, dyspeptic accountant likely did not rank high on the list of possible futures. Moreover, Lynch and Frost strand Audrey’s scene in a kind of narrative purgatory, isolated from the rest of the episode’s events. She and her husband Charlie (Clark Middleton) argue about situations and characters that are completely unknown to the viewer, in particular the apparent disappearance of Audrey’s lover, Billy.

The exasperating nature of their conversation, and Charlie’s generally tepid, unhurried demeanor—down to the way he dials a rotary phone—make this scene maddening, but it’s Audrey’s reactions that paradoxically turn it into a marvelous bit of self-commentary on The Return. As though she were a viewer standing outside the show, watching her own scene unfold at a molasses-slow pace, Audrey fidgets through a succession of frustrated sighs, squints, eye rolls, appeals, and profanity-studded invective. She’s obliged to listen impotently as Charlie consults over the phone with Tina, who may or may not know Billy’s whereabouts, only for her husband to reveal nothing of his conversation. This provokes her already frayed patience to snap in disbelief: “YOU'RE NOT GOING TO TELL ME WHAT SHE SAID??”

This scene might be the harshest manifestation of Part 12’s penchant for withholding and prolonging, but it’s far from the only candidate. The agonizingly leisurely way that Gordon Cole’s (David Lynch) Francophone “friend” (Bérénice Marlohe) removes herself from the FBI director’s hotel room is perhaps the most conspicuous such sequence, due to the minimal dialogue and Albert Rosenfield’s (Miguel Ferrer) unamused passivity. Significantly, both Gordon and his lady friend take unabashed pleasure in the seductive production she makes of her leave-taking. Lynch’s beaming reaction is perhaps the clearest indication that, yes, he really does derive enjoyment out of fucking with his audience.

There’s also the nearly word-for-word repetition of Dr. Jacoby’s (Russ Tamblyn) Internet rant from several episodes prior, complete with pre-recorded shit shovel sales pitch. Or the abundant awkward pauses in the conversation between Gordon, Albert, Tammy (Chrysta Bell), and (eventually) Diane (Laura Dern), culminating in the latter’s silent preparation of a vodka on the rocks. Or the teasing way that the Room 315 key rests on the desk during an extended back-and-forth between Ben Horne (Richard Beymer) and Sheriff Truman (Robert Forster), as though mocking the viewer with the possibility that Ben will fail to mention it. Or the inclusion of yet another ambiguous exchange at the Roadhouse where unfamiliar characters discuss other unfamiliar characters.

It would hardly be surprising if some viewers regarded these passages as frustrating, since they most certainly are. That frustration, however, is not an artifact of sub-standard screenwriting, but a deliberate and essential aspect of The Return. Perhaps more than any other show in memory, this new iteration of Twin Peaks does not give a fuck about the viewer’s expectations. Its aim is to provoke rather than to entertain, and specifically to provoke in a way that pushes against the conventions and limitations of the medium. The Return is a hand grenade lobbed at the fundamental assumptions about episodic narrative television and how it is “supposed” to work. Yet what's striking about Part 12 is how mellow the show seems to be about its heresies, as if it's urging the viewer to just relax and enjoy the moment rather than wringing their hands about the when, why, and how.

Despite itself, the show often entertains as a side effect of its provocations. Its dominant mode is not disdainful deconstruction but disarming unpredictability. Indeed, Part 12 is often astonishingly funny in its most absurd, patience-straining moments. The French woman’s exit from Gordon’s room, for example, veers back and forth between amusing and annoying multiple times in the space of minutes. Ultimately, the underlying point of this extended gesture seems to be the "live in the present" sentiment mentioned above. Notably, Albert's stony reaction to Gordon's excitement over a bottle of good Bordeaux prompts the older man to express concern about his fellow agent's well-being. If you can't appreciate fine wine and a beautiful woman when they're right in front of you, what's the point of it all?

Moreover, the episode often wryly acknowledges its methods through dialog. Gordon’s appeal to Albert and Tammy at the beginning of the episode (“Please speak succinctly!”) comes off as ironic in retrospect. In light of a brief check-in with “Dougie Jones” (Kyle MacLachlan), Charlie’s observation to Audrey regarding Billy plays as a notification to the viewer that no, the old Dale Cooper will not be appearing just yet: “He’s out there somewhere, but you’re not going to find him tonight.” As though speaking on the behalf of the impatient audience, Chantel (Jennifer Jason Leigh) maintains to Hutch (Tim Roth) that there’s just no time to torture the warden before they murder him on Mr. C’s behalf. (Providing the most uncomplimentary product placement in television history, she declares that she is hungry for Wendy’s.)

Sarah Palmer (Grace Zabriskie) delivers Part 12’s most caustic line directed at the show itself, when she rhetorically snaps at Hawk (Michael Horse), “It’s a goddamn bad story, isn’t it?” The Return is kind of a bad story, in the sense that a “good” story in the realm of narrative television has narrow constraints that this show can’t be bothered to obey. Ironically, it’s Sarah’s breakdown and her tense conversation with Hawk that most resemble vintage Twin Peaks, with its distinct evocation of menace in mundane, daytime spaces. Sarah’s rambling meltdown at the store counter seems to touch on her memories of Laura, and the scene is backed with a menacing, distorted musical cue taken from Fire Walk with Me. (As is Diane’s mimicry of the series' vaguely threatening line, “Let’s rock!”) While Part 12 doesn’t provide any explicit scenes of Black Lodge forces, a suggestion of their power can be discerned in the puzzling sound from Sarah’s kitchen, and in that ominously humming ceiling fan, still spinning away. Something lurks within the Palmer house yet, and Sarah is alone with it.

Some miscellaneous observations:

• Fathers are a major motif in this episode. Ben Horne observes that his grandson Richard “never had a father,” suggesting that this has contributed to the young man’s violent, anti-social behavior. Later Ben reminisces about a bicycle he owned as a boy, which he valued less for its features than because his father had given it to him. Sonny-Jim (Pierce Gagnon) attempts to coerce his father into an archetypal backyard game of catch, but Cooper-as-Dougie just stands there unresponsively as a baseball bounces off his head. The warden’s young son (Luke Judy) discovers his father sprawled dead in front of their house, the victim of two bullets from Hutch’s sniper rifle.
   
• The notion that the FBI has been following Tammy’s academic and professional life since she was in high school speaks well of her abilities, but it’s nonetheless kind of creepy.
   
• Diane’s peculiar, out-loud enunciation of the word “co-or-din-nates” may be a mnemonic device, allowing her to call up the numbers she saw in Part 11 from the depths of her apparently eidetic memory.
   
• It’s unclear why the turkey jerky display at the grocery store triggers Sarah Palmer’s meltdown, but it’s worth noting that individuals with PTSD are often unable to articulate why certain stimuli can provoke an acute emotional response. It may be salient that the package’s logo bears some resemblance to the owl glyph associated with the Black Lodge, while the brand name, Albatross, evokes Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and bird's association with a psychological burden. Furthermore, Sarah’s question about the jerky—“It it smoked?”—suggests the sooty Woodsmen and the smoldering, extra-dimensional convenience store where they dwell.
   
• Much has been made of the apparent discrepancies in the show’s timeline, and the possibility that Frost and Lynch are cross-cutting between storylines that are occurring over different, non-overlapping periods. Such theories received a bit of a boost in this episode by a conspicuous contradiction: After Albert observes that it’s 11:05 p.m., Lynch cuts to the opening of Dr. Jacoby’s show, which, as he announces, begins at 7:00 p.m. Even accounting for time zone differences, these adjacent scenes cannot be unfolding concurrently.
   
• Charlie’s reference to some “fishy” papers that Audrey wants him to sign—and his reluctance to do so without his attorney’s guidance—calls back to the original series. At one point Catherine Martell discovers that Josie Packard had taken out a lucrative life insurance policy on her, declining to sign when an agent brings the irregularities of the policy to her attention. Audrey also threatens to renege on an unspecified contract out of frustration with Charlie’s tepid ineffectualness, prompting disbelief on his part. This mirrors the tension that Frost and Lynch are deliberately eliciting in the relationship between Twin Peaks and its audience, placing the implied artist / viewer “contract” in jeopardy.
   
• Audrey and Charlie’s conversation about the mysterious Billy, Tina, Chuck, and Paul (and a stolen truck) tracks somewhat with the saga of Richard Horne’s hit-and-run. Part 7 included a scene with a man (identified in the credits only as “Farmer”) who had an anxious confrontation with Andy about his truck, and then subsequently failed to show up for an arranged meeting with the deputy. It’s conceivable (if a bit unlikely) that this is Audrey’s missing lover Billy. Notably, Part 7 concluded with a man bursting into the Double RR and asking urgently, “Anybody seen Billy?”
   
• Gordon’s trembling hand from his brush with the Black Lodge in Part 10 is echoed when Trick (Scott Coffey) holds up his hand to Natalie (Ana de la Reguera) and Abbie (Elizabeth Anweis), illustrating how shaken he still is about his accident on the way to the roadhouse. Intriguingly, Trick claims he was pulled from his car by a “farmer.”
   
• Sightings: Clark Middleton, who portrays Audrey’s husband Charlie, is best known for his appearances on the paranormal thriller series Fringe and in films including Sin City, Kill Bill Vol. 2, and Birdman. (Middleton’s stature and physical disabilities are a product of juvenile rheumatoid arthritis.) The role of Gordon’s lady friend is performed by French actress Bérénice Marlohe, known in America primarily as the Bond girl Severine from Skyfall. Mexican actress Ana de la Reguera, who plays roadhouse patron Natalie, is most familiar to English-speaking audiences from the Jack Black comedy Nacho Libre and numerous television series, including Eastbound & Down, Narcos, Jane the Virgin, and From Dusk Till Dawn. In the role of accident victim Trick is Scott Coffey, who previously appeared in Lynch’s Mulholland Drive, Lost Highway, and Rabbits shorts.