Justin Mazaleski
Well it’s been 25 years since Episode 4 and finally I am back to review Episode 5! Ok, so it’s only been two weeks between episodes. Never again do I want to wait two weeks for more Twin Peaks. I have tasted the sweet nectar of the Douglas Fir tree, NOW I NEED MORE. And unlike Bad Cooper, I DO NOT WANT, I NEED.
This week’s show seemed to be a lot more fast-paced than previous installments. Gone are the 20 minute-long excursions into the echo chamber of outer space — now things are getting snappy! NOTE: David Lynch’s version of ‘snappy’ is still slow compared to everything else on television. But that’s the way we like it. Let’s check in on our Twin Peaks world tour:
LAS VEGAS: At the Silver Mustang casino, heads are rolling after Dougie Jones’ 30 consecutive mega-jackpot wins. Bradley Mitchum, who is apparently the casino owner, stops by to kick the crap out of the manager. And hey, it’s James Belushi starring in something that doesn’t suck! He exudes true menace as he instructs the fired casino manager to leave town and never return, and I almost forgive him for being responsible for 182 episodes of ‘According To Jim’. Three girls in pink dresses watch with disinterest as the Mitchum brothers do their business and I had a deja vu moment as I recalled Frank Booth assaulting Jeffrey Beaumont in ‘Blue Velvet’ as the pink lady danced on top of the car. These brothers are not to be messed with, and I have a feeling we will be seeing them again. I really hope they don’t harass Dougie next because I don’t think his fragile mental state would be able to handle it.
BUT WHERE’S DOUGIE?: He’s really our Agent Cooper and he’s finished his coffee and on his way to work, of course! First, he has an odd, emotional moment as he watches Sonny Jim sit in the car. Then Janey-E is dropping him off at his workplace, Lucky 7 Insurance. At this point I’m thinking ‘Ok, surely once Zombie Cooper shows up at work, SOMEONE will finally realize there’s something wrong with him. It’s not like he can put in a productive workday, right?’
Well, I was wrong. Cooper follows the aroma of coffee and ends up in his office. He barely functions during a company meeting, in which his only contribution is calling out a colleague for lying to the boss. Cooper is made aware of this lie by seeing a shimmering green light — is this another side effect of having been in the Black Lodge? The Lodge now gives gambling tips and exposes liars. Doesn’t seem like such a horrible place to me, upon thinking about it. After the meeting, Dougie’s boss calls Cooper into his office and expresses his disappointment in Dougie’s recent performance at work. He hands Cooper an armful of case files and demands to have a report on them in the morning.
This leads to a wonderful, hilarious scene as Cooper attempts to exit the building but ends up just standing in the elevator surrounded by his disgruntled co-workers. I watched this elevator scene twice and I laughed even harder the second time. If Kyle MacLachlan doesn’t win an Emmy for this performance, they should stop giving out acting awards. HE’S JUST THAT GOOD. Finally, Cooper ends his workday by staring at a statue in the office plaza for about four hours. Let me just say that I wish I could get away with this level of mindless incompetence at work and still have a job the next day. Somehow, I have a feeling that Cooper will be facing sudden unemployment himself if he doesn’t find a way to get home and work on those files.
BUT BEFORE LEAVING LAS VEGAS: Cooper’s room key for the Great Northern turns up in Jade the Friendly Hooker’s jeep, so she promptly drops it in the nearest mailbox. I can’t wait to see the reaction when the key finds its way back to Washington state. Across town, Dougie’s would-be assassins continue to search for him. Their ‘boss’ is an anxious woman who sits at a desk and texts a message to a black box in Buenos Aires, the last place Agent Jeffries was seen before he started traveling through dimensions way back in 1987 (more on this later). The goons who are out to kill Dougie continue to half-halfheartedly stake out his car at the Rancho Rosa development.
Also watching Dougie’s car are a bunch of low-level thugs who may be the men who want $50,000 from Dougie or they may just be a bunch of car thieves. Whoever they are, they try to break into Dougie’s vehicle and in doing so, end up triggering a device that causes the car to explode. Meanwhile, the little boy who lives across the street wanders off while Junkie Mom is ‘napping’ in a chair. He almost winds up being a victim of the car explosion but instead just witnesses it from a few feet away. The explosion scene is pretty amazing in every way. I was on the edge of my seat, wondering if David Lynch was capable of blowing up a little boy onscreen. Luckily for the boy, he avoids catastrophe and escapes the incident with a cool story to tell his friends (if he HAS friends. It doesn’t seem like Junkie Mom is the type to arrange a lot of play dates). Lastly, one of the wannabe car thieves throws a rock at the boy, which I found slightly amusing for some unknown reason. I guess you just don’t see many grown men hurl rocks at boys on TV these days, and it turns out it’s pretty awesome when it does happen.
BUCKHORN, SOUTH DAKOTA: Last week we got about 20 seconds of screen time in Buckhorn. This week we are treated to a FULL MINUTE of the Ruth Davenport murder case. This investigation is really moving along, huh? However, we got a huge bombshell in this magic minute: It seems that Dougie Jones’ ring was found inside the headless body! I can’t begin to imagine how this occurred. My initial assumption was that this headless corpse must be the body of the ‘real’ Dougie. When his head disintegrated in the Lodge, somehow the rest of him ended up in Buckhorn. But when you assume…
THE PENTAGON: Wow, this is starting to almost feel like an episode of ’24’. The military is alerted when Major Briggs’ fingerprints turn up in the Buckhorn murder case. It isn’t specified just HOW the fingerprints turned up, though. Is Briggs the headless corpse? Or were his prints just FOUND on the headless corpse? And how can either of these scenarios even be possible? And when we find the answer, what will it mean? Arghhhgjklgh!!! This is all too much for me this week. I really hope we get more on this story next Sunday, because it seems to be the key to so many of the show’s mysteries.
TWIN PEAKS: Dr. Jacoby transforms into confrontational TV personality ‘Dr. Amp’ and peddles his golden shovels in a cheap commercial. If Nadine is entranced by your idea, you know it has to be pretty out there. We get to meet Frank Truman’s wife Doris. I’m not sure what to make of this woman except she really hates leaky pipes, black mould, and she doesn’t seem to be a lot of fun to live with. Elsewhere at the sheriff’s station, Andy and Hawk continue to pour over the Laura Palmer case files, with no breakthrough as of yet. Mike Nelson pops up in town, conducting a brief job interview with a big-time loser named Steven. We later discover that Steven is dating (or more likely married to) Shelly’s daughter Becky. At the RR Diner (yay, we finally get to see the diner again!), Becky shows up to drop off a bag of bread for the cook and to ask her mom for money. Norma chastises Shelly for bailing out Becky and Steven, and I couldn’t help wondering why Shelly is still working at the RR after all these years. Maybe she’s a partner in the business by now? Regardless, it is sweet and comforting to see Norma and Shelly together again in their smart waitress uniforms.
Becky goes out to Steven’s car to give him the $72 she squeezed out of her mom. He tells Becky that he got ‘great feedback’ from his job interview (a ridiculous spin on a situation if I’ve ever heard one) and then gives her some cocaine, which she snorts off his hand. I am aware that sometimes a girl will get involved with the wrong type of guy but Becky seems to have married a TOTAL DUD. He’s an unemployed cokehead and it’s sad to see her so entranced by him. After tooting it up in the car, they drive off together and we are treated to about a minute of bliss captured on film as the Paris Sisters’ ‘I Love How You Love Me’ blares on the radio and the camera centers on Becky’s joyous face as she loses herself in the music, the drug high, and the love buzz of her pathetic husband. No one can capture a beautiful young woman on film quite like David Lynch. This scene is enthralling and bursting with life and please please please let Twin Peaks: The Return go on forever, because I can’t imagine trying to enjoy other television shows after I’ve seen this one.
We go back to the Roadhouse where ultra-creepy Richard Horne (possibly Audrey’s son? Oh say it ain’t so!) sneaks a cigarette box full of payola to Chad, the cop who hated on the Log Lady a couple of episodes back. Does this have to do with the Chinese designer drugs that are making their way through town? I’m gonna guess the answer is yes on this one. Then Richard verbally and physically assaults a teenage girl in full view of her friends and the rest of the Roadhouse crowd, grabbing her by the neck and telling her how he is going to ‘laugh when he fucks her’. Why is no one running over and stopping this crude assault? Who is Richard Horne anyway? Maybe he has some pull in the town or maybe everyone is just scared as hell at the sight of him. I have to say, I don’t blame them if they are.
THE ADVENTURES OF A DOPPELGÄNGER: Bad Cooper is still holed up in prison. We finally get confirmation that BOB is still inside of him when he looks into a mirror, treating us to one of the most horrific moments of the series thus far. This just makes me curious: If BOB is ‘still with’ Bad Cooper, then does this mean that the doppelgänger is being possessed by BOB, much like Leland was in the original series? Who is Bad Cooper then? He comes from the Lodge, but what is his master plan? I think we are getting closer to finding this out
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The final scene of the episode involves Bad Cooper getting a chance to make a phone call from prison as the warden and others watch on television monitors. Bad Cooper makes a reference to ‘calling Mr. Strawberry’, but it seems ‘he isn’t taking calls’. Whoever Mr. Strawberry is, the mention of his name really freaks out the warden. Then Bad Cooper punches in a bunch of numbers on the telephone keypad, which sets off lights and alarms all over the prison. During the ensuing chaos and noise, he utters six words into the phone receiver before he hangs up: ‘The cow jumped over the moon’. What could this possibly mean?
BUT WAIT!: Way out in Buenos Aires, Bad Cooper’s cryptic phone message causes the black box to beep and then transmogrify into what looks like a crumpled ball of silver. AND THAT’S THE END OF THE EPISODE, KIDS. We have to wait a full week before we can even hope to find out just what the hell is going on in Argentina.
MORE THINGS THAT HAPPENED:
— It was a true joy watching Frank drink his green tea latte. He thought he wasn’t going to like it, then he sat there sipping it with a childlike smile. It makes me want to drink one myself, if only I could find a decent coffeehouse in the town where I live.
— Agent Tamara Preston gets a brief scene where she seems to realize a discrepancy with Agent Cooper’s fingerprints. Could this be the proof the FBI needs to discredit Bad Cooper? I hope so. I have a sinking feeling that the doppelgänger is going to escape from prison soon and all hell is going to break loose.
— Does telling a girl that she has ‘majestic tits’ really get her excited?
— If Dr. Jacoby can make money selling useless golden shovels for $29.99, then I have about 200 potential business ideas that I need to get off the ground. And how about that tacky Statue of Liberty light and flashlight with wings? Dr. Amp is an insane, marvelous little entrepreneur. I even want to drink some of his huckleberry extract with my next meal.
— This week’s Roadhouse band is called ‘Trouble’, a one-off musical group featuring Riley Lynch (David’s son) on guitar. I was really digging their song. It intensified the mood of the already-disturbing Richard Horne scene and it also reminded me of Fred Madison’s sax blowing in ‘Lost Highway’.
That’s it for today, friends. Hang loose, haoles! Tune in same time next week at the top of Whitetail Peak!
