**Turn back now if your log is afraid of spoilers. I would also like to add that I haven’t recapped “Twin Peaks” since episode six of The Return and therefore, yes, while I’ve watched it, you’re going to have to bear with me as I don’t know the super details as much as the next person**
It seems like every episode of “Twin Peaks” is either its most surreal, its most nightmarish or its most absurd. David Lynch seems to push the edge of the envelope each time out and just when you think you’ve seen it all, “Twin Peaks” surprises you. And in episode 16, “Twin Peaks” did once again, surprise, but perhaps not in the manner with which the viewer might expect delivering perhaps one of the most emotional and genuinely heartbreaking moments ever witnessed in the three seasons of the show. Perhaps more importantly, startling revelations gave way to uncomfortable truths, belated awakenings, goodbyes and offered deliverance to some key characters. One thing is clear, the end is in sight.
Several scenes were key, but none more important than the return of Agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan). Left in a coma after the electrical socket accident of episode 15, Cooper, seemingly dazed and confused as faux Dougie all season long, finally came out of the fog and returned to the Dale Cooper you’ve known and loved in the original series. Yes, this means, no more torpid Dougie. Cooper is himself, crisp, sharp as a tack and eager to get back to FBI business.
What happened exactly? Well, in addition to the shock back to reality, Mike, the One Armed Man from the Black Lodge, appears and seemingly helps him come back to life. He gives Coop the green ring, tells him he still has the golden seed, and the FBI agent gives him a lock of his hair (perhaps to create his own doppelganger). It’s all a long story, but all you really need to know is Dale Cooper is back, and it’s as if the show received a crackle of its own with his return.
Coop wants to rejoin the team and fly to South Dakota with the help of Bradley and Rodney Mitchum (Jim Belushi who has been fantastic this entire season, and Robert Knepper who’s also quite terrific). But before he can jump on a plane, Cooper must say goodbye to his “wife,” or more accurately, Dougie’s wife Janey-E Jones (Naomi Watts) and their son Sonny Jim Jones (Pierce Gagnon). It’s a heartbreaking scene: Janey and Sonny Jim are relieved that Dougie (actually, the fully realized Cooper) is out of his coma, but it’s all a whirlwind to them as he’s no longer catatonic, and is firing on all cylinders. Before they can even enjoy Dougie’s return, Cooper must bid them farewell. There’s heartache and terror here: is the husband and father leaving for good? Cooper must pretend, for their sake, that all is fine and he will return, but he slips up the lie, leaving them both in tremulous fear. Janey-E see through it all. “Whomever you are,” she says through a mask of tears, “thank you.” “You filled my heart up,” he says as our bottom lips quivered. And with that, that’s probably the last we’ll see of the Jones family. But it’s as earnest and beautifully sad a scene you’ve ever seen in “Twin Peaks.”
What happened to Dougie? Well, as Mike told him episodes ago, he was “manufactured,” which means he may have never really existed in the true sense and may have simply been a tulpa/construct tool of the evil Dale Cooper doppelganger. Translation? Dougie is likely gone and poor Janey-E and Sonny Jim have no husband or father (this is my reading and I could totally be wrong and that would make for a welcome, heartwarming reunion. Don’t @ me). But it’s as if the cobwebs have been shaken loose and with purpose, as Dale Cooper is heading home to crack this sprawling, epic, supernatural case.