Dream Baby Dream
What else? Dirty Dale finally meets his ending. The sequence in the Twin Peaks Sherrif’s office is spectacular, perhaps the closest thing that Lynch has ever made to a suspenseful action set piece, with several nail-biting threads burning down like wicks to a detonator. The short version is, Cooper bears down on Dirty Cooper masquerading as the good FBI agent, but the Twin Peaks Sherriff’s staff receive a phone call just in time and use their wits to kill the doppelganger. Of course, the dark demons who have put him back together in the past try and resuscitate him, but Cooper, using the one special ring seen throughout the series, destroys him. Sort of! Out of the blackness of the False Cooper rises a black orb of Bob (!!) – Laura Palmer’s evil spirited killer from the original series.
There’s a major throw down and it becomes Freddie’s moments. Who? Freddie Sykes (Jake Wardle), the English-born security guard working at the Great Northern Hotel, who’s been in the Twin Peaks jail for several episodes. In a Lynchian inexplicable flourish that you’ll know if you’ve followed the show, Freddie wears a green glove that gives him super human strength and the Fireman (The Giant) told him one day when he was sucked into the vortex of the White Lodge, that his destiny lied in “Twin Peaks.” Somehow, Cooper knew this (probably through all those impenetrable talks with The Giant) and calls upon Freddie to defeat Bob. After a long and bloody skirmish, he vanquishes the evil spirit for good. The sequence is a homecoming too. Cooper finally comes back to “Twin Peaks,” reunites with old pals, if ever so briefly, and the whole gang appears – Cole and the FBI too.
It soon gets weird and unnatural again (not that this whole sequence wasn’t batshit crazy already). “We live inside a dream and I hope I see all of you again, every one of you,” Cooper says vanishing before he is invited to fire walk with MIKE, the one-armed man and meet with Philip Jeffries, now a kettle-shaped device emitting a white aura, who gives the agent information about where to find Judy. Seriously, if this sounds convoluted it is only in the sense that “Twin Peaks: The Return” was knottily plotted with interconnecting callback moments that wouldn’t surface until several episodes later. Lynch and Frost’s narrative is like a screenplay ripped apart and put back together in collage form. “Twin Peaks” spans two seasons of network TV, a feature-length movie, and SEVEN books, including “Twin Peaks: The Final Dossier” that doesn’t come out until October 2017 (presumably the DVD will be out by then to coincide with the release.). “Twin Peaks” is hyper opaque.
If it sounds like I’m explaining everything that happened in the last two episodes (ha!), this is really just a greatest hits surface reading. Through the darkness of future past, Lynch and Frost create a staggering epic enigma of transcendent narrative that is still reverberating like so many loose film sprockets on a broken projector.
“Twin Peaks The Return” purposefully collapses in on itself in its final moments, bending the continuity of time. And Cooper even uses the supernatural ability to walk through eras to ‘un-kill’ Laura Palmer on the day of February 4th, 1989. The way the logic-defying show seamlessly incorporates old footage into the new series is nearly breathtaking in the way that further heightens the already-chilling melodrama. Cooper has essentially rescued Palmer from the past. “We’re going home,” he says, only to lose her in the slippery inter-dimensions, that grating scratchy sound denoting some kind of wickedness abrading away in the back of the sound design.
Cooper, who may not be the Cooper we know since passing the 430 mile threshold of electricity, rediscovers her in the finale episode as the aforementioned character Carrie Paige and he takes her to Twin Peaks, Washington to try and see if the city, its people and her parents will reawaken her to who she truly is. None of it ends well, but none of it is clear either. What disturbs and unsettles one last time is Sheryl Lee’s viscerally piercing scream when Laura Palmer hears her name whispered in the wind and the show fades to black.
As all the pieces came together, as much as the can or Lynch narrative, the slightly-less oblique “Twin Peaks,” was mesmerizing in its conclusion; a swirling atonal symphony of hazy meaning and unnerving imagery both exhilarating and blurred.
“Twin Peaks: The Return,” is typified in its consummating sex scene between Dale Cooper and Diane. It’s a staggering, career-making statement – genuinely sensual, awkward, odd, unintentionally funny and then growing more bizarre, frightening and ultimately mysterious. The scene, which goes on agonizingly long per David Lynch perquisite, contains a legion of sensitivities and the skill with which the filmmaker can layer and influence emotion through a scene is what makes the director such a giant of cinema (edit note: In a rewatch, you can add confusion to this scene; she’s not sure who this Cooper really is and that’s a whole other story).
To some, “Twin Peaks: The Return” was ultimately dumbfounding, which can be thrilling if you let it. Others were appalled by its lack of lucidity, and to some, the series ended on yet another cliffhanger. I see it as a rebirth and a new mystery unfolding, another petal to the Blue Rose case that just fell to the ground in slow motion. Though it may never be solved.
Where will it go next if it ever goes anywhere? The door is clearly open, so Showtime, it’s your move. In the meantime, may the road rise up to meet your wheels. Or as longtime Lynch musical collaborator Julie Cruise sings in the show’s final song, “the world spins” and who knows where it will go.
