Twin Peaks, season 3, part 5 recap: are we finally getting something akin to a plot?
Five hours in, Mark Frost and David Lynch’s sprawling supernatural drama still feels like it’s still only just beginning. This episode added half a dozen new faces to an already heaving cast, each with their own secrets and troubles. Some may turn out to be central characters, others might never appear again - or could suddenly resurface nine episodes later.
This ever-growing web of intrigue is exactly what makes Twin Peaks so compelling, but in the words of Dr Jacoby (Russ Tamblyn), sometimes you just want to “shovel your way out of the s--- and into the truth”.
The truth-shovelers and mystery-solvers were largely mute this week. In one scene, Deputy Hawk (Michael Horse) wordlessly shuffled paperwork. In another, FBI agent Tammy Preston (Chrysta Bell) frowned at fingerprints in silence.
In a third, Sheriff Frank Truman (Robert Forster) sat impassively while his wife Doris (American Graffitti’s Candy Clark) harangued him about a leaking pipe, in a long and only mildly amusing monologue. Still, at least one burning question was answered:
We learnt the truth about the shovels
In the first episode, psychiatrist-turned-recluse Dr Jacoby bought some shovels. In the third, he painted the shovels gold. And tonight, after five hours of television, we finally reached the third act of this nail-biting subplot.
Jacoby, it transpired, has become a guerilla shock-jock, broadcasting a rickety TV show from his shack in the woods. “This is Dr Amp, doing the vamp for liberty, climbing the ramp for justice, and lighting the lamp of freedom!”
As Jacoby, Tamblyn is clearly having the time of his life. His paranoid rant (“The f------ are at it again! The same vast global conspiracy!”) smoothly transitioned into a sales pitch. “This is your shiny gold shovel. Two coats, guaranteed! Shovel your way out of the s--- and into the truth! Only $29.99, plus shipping.”
We cut to his viewers, who turned out - charmingly - to be two of the most endearingly unhinged characters from the original show. Eyepatch-wearing wrestler Nadine (Wendy Robey) was hooked, while marijuana-farmer Jerry Horne was clearly on Jacoby’s wavelength, chuckling at the broadcast between tokes. After all, there’s precious little else to do in this town Speaking of which....
Something finally happened in Twin Peaks
So far this year, Lynch and Frost have done their best to convince us that Twin Peaks doesn’t matter. The town, of course, not the show.
This season has hopped from Buenos Aires to Las Vegas to New York to North Dakota, and it's in these far-flung locations that the plot has taken place. Meanwhile, the only the happening back in the titular Washington burgh was a slow debate about chocolate bunnies. Brief appearances from old characters (such as Ben and Jerry) felt like a sop to existing fans, only there as light relief.
But a long-overdue return to the Double RR Diner (home of that damn fine cherry pie) finally seemed to kickstart something close to a plot.
First, though, we were reunited with Mike Nelson (Gary Hershberger). Once the short-tempered pal of Bobby Briggs and underage boyfriend of Nadine, former drug dealer Mike is now a responsible adult, and able to sneer down his nose at wastrel Steven Burnett (Caleb Landry Jones) in a brutal job-interview.
Nonetheless, scrawny cocaine addict Steven put a positive spin on events to his wife Becky (Amanda Seyfriend), who could well turn out to be this season’s Laura Palmer: another troubled, beautiful girl, mixed up with all the wrong people and too many drugs.
To support Steven’s habit, Becky has been borrowing money from her mother - none other than our old friend, Double R waitress Shelley (Mädchen Amick), who shared her woes with the diner’s owner Norma (Peggy Lipton). Will the younger generation be forced to repeat their parents mistakes?
Round the Horne
We still haven’t been reintroduced to Audrey Horne (Sherilyn Fenn), but as the credits rolled we learnt that the episode’s vilest character shares her surname. Richard Horne (Eamon Farren) is pure evil. To make this clear, he was pictured smoking under a “no smoking” sign. To make this clearer, he then seemingly bribed the Bang Bang bar’s bouncer, passing him a cigarette packet stuffed with banknotes. To make this even clearer still, Horne then grabbed a girl called Charlotte by the throat and threatened to rape her – a scene which felt like exploitative overkill.
But who is he, and how is he related to Audrey? All we know is that he’s the most frightening character in the show so far – with one exception...
Shall I call Mister Strawberry?
Just in case we’d forgotten that the body of Special Agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) has been possessed by lank-haired demon Bob (the late Frank Silva), we had a brief flashback to Bob cackling inside the Red Room - and a clip from the horrific, mirror-smashing cliffhanger that ended season two. Bob’s poor taste of hairstyle might be the reason why Cooper’s body is now looking more and more like The Room director Tommy Wiseau. But what about his mind?
Staring into his jail-cell mirror, Bob smiled: “You’re still with me. That’s good.” If part of Cooper’s psyche is still trapped in his old body with Bob, this could explain why the “real” Coop is still wandering around in a semi-conscious funk.
Bob may be behind bars for now, but he’s still terrifying. Using his one statutory phone-call (“Shall I call Mister Strawberry? No…”) he dialled a number with far too many digits in Buenos Aires. When he intoned the words to “Hey Diddle Diddle” down the phone, the police station’s lights began to flash, a strange black box turned into a stranger black lump, and this reviewer hid behind the sofa.
A sticky end for Garland?
Bad news for thoughtful, kindly Major Garland Briggs (the late Don S Davies). It turns out the missing Major’s fingerprints are a match for those on the mangled corpse discovered in the season premiere.
Lightening this dark moment was Jane Adams - a wonderful new addition as chirpy, wise-cracking forensics expert Constance Talbot, the polar opposite of her dour predecessor in the morgue, Albert. Let’s hope this wasn’t her only appearance.
Briggs’s body, sans head, had a wedding ring lodged in its stomach - apparently the ring that the absurdly named Janey-E (Naomi Watts) gave to her husband Dougie. Speaking of which...
How to succeed in business without really trying
Despite being a shuffling zombie with poor bladder control, Cooper has done a decent job of passing for his lookalike, debt-ridden insurance agent Dougie Jones. It’s certainly not a positive reflection on the insurance biz.
Lured into Dougie’s office by the Proustian scent of fresh coffee, Cooper made it through a management meeting almost without a hiccup. Except, of course, for accusing a senior colleague of being a liar. His untrustworthiness was represented by a green light flashing above his head, much like the ominous lights which tipped off Cooper about how to win endless jackpots at the casino last week. Speaking of which...
The casino owners aren’t pleased
This week introduced Jim Belushi as irate casino owner Bradley Mitchum (and Robert Knepper as his brother Rodney), who sacked sweaty pit boss Warrick (David Dastmalchan), assuming he was in cahoots with Cooper after the agent’s implausible winning-streak lost this casino $425,000. Of course, Mitchem couldn’t just fire him. Instead, in a typically Lynchian moment, Warrick took a violent beating while a trio of identically dressed chorus-girls looked on with blank indifference. The brothers Mitchum and weaselly Warrick can now join the queue of people with a grudge against Cooper. Speaking of which...
Rancho Rosa Estates: not the friendliest neighbourhood
While Dougie-Cooper was enduring a botched seduction attempt in the office bathrooms, at least two different sets of criminals were on the lookout for him. Luckily, a carbomb planted by one bunch of goons ended up killing the other bunch, in an explosion at Rancho Rosa Estates, the pink suburban wasteland where Dougie was last seen with plucky sex-worker Jade (Nafessa Williams). Jade appeared here, briefly, to chuck Cooper’s Great Northern hotel key in a nearby mailbox, after spotting its Twin Peaks return address.
That explosion, meanwhile, was witnessed by an impressionable young moppet, the son of a drunken drug-addict who lives across the road and spends her days fiddling with a deck of cards. This is the second time we’ve seen this as-yet-unnamed character (played by Hailey Gates), so it seems likely that she’ll turn out to be important. But who is she?
