‘Twin Peaks’ Episode Season Five Recap

**Spoilers ahead**

A more straightforward episode, less surreal and less absurdist comedy like episodes 3 and 4 respectively, episode 5 “Call Me,” is where some of the plot or story of David Lynch’s “Twin Peaks” starts to come into relatively sharper focus. The expanse of the narrative keeps widening, and what used to be a show that generally stayed in the sleepy, but eccentric confines of Twin Peaks, has grown exponentially. While all roads now lead to South Dakota, “Call Me” mostly takes place in Vegas where the payment of bad debts may arrive too late. Switch on the GPS, as “Twin Peaks” might be best broke down by location as of right now, but for all its quirks, this is perhaps the most relatively “normal” episode with essentially no scenes in The Black Lodge, ghosts, or unearthly worlds. In fact, it feels like a classic “Twin Peaks” episode.

Las Vegas, Nevada: Dougie Jones (the real Dale Cooper, Kyle MacLachlan) is still mentally lost. He’s an inveterate gambler and owes $50,000. This is likely the reason everyone’s trying to kill him, but there’s clearly more to it. From a pair of hitmen to a cadre of thugs, everyone wants to know where Dougie is. But they don’t seem to know he lives with his wife Jane-E (Naomi Watts) and their kid in the suburbs. Instead, those on his heels keep casing the house of a neighborhood where Dougie’s car is still parked (the one we saw in episode 3 when he was with the call girl). Of course, as per previous episodes, Dougie’s already won $425,000 in the Vegas casino so it’s matter of paying back the $50,000 he owes, but that will evidently come later. Still, in his semi-catatonic stare, Dougie goes to work for an insurance firm (cue Tom Sizemore cameo) and tries to fumble through the day, producing some amusing results.

Most shows tend to have an A, B and C storyline structure, and “Twin Peaks,” as you might expect, is more A, E, P, Q and maybe Z. So, while “Call Me” centers on Vegas and Dougie, there are myriad threads still being tied together.

South Dakota: Doppelganger Dale rots in prison and appears to have psychic telekinetic powers. He disrupts the electromagnetic communications of the prison he’s in with one phone call — like it’s called in from another dimension. Or at least that’s what it sounds like. Before he hangs ups and everything mysteriously returns to normal, he says into the phone, in typical Frost/Lynch strangeness, “The cow jumped over the moon.”

The most important element of Doppelganger Cooper’s narrative in this episode is the reappearance of Bob, the old serial killer and main murderer that spawned Lynch and Frost’s story, to begin with. Cooper looks at himself in the mirror, flashing back to the final “Twin Peaks” episode of the original run, where he did the same, only smashing his face into the glass and revealing Bob’s presence on the other side. It’s basically confirmation that Bob is still lurking inside his head. “You’re still with me, that’s good,” he says to his reflection.

There’s more: General Garland Briggs (Don S. Davis) who was presumed dead in a fire in the original “Twin Peaks,” has been spotted in South Dakota as well. He actually already appeared in this season’s episode 3, but as a blue apparition (and it was hard to tell that it was him). Meanwhile, after an autopsy by the coroner (a hilarious Jane Adams), a ring is found in the belly of the murder victim, and it’s a band given to Dougie from his wife Jane-E. How did a wedding band end up in a dead person’s stomach? Time will obviously tell.

Twin Peaks: Not much has changed in the town. Norma’s (Peggy Lipton) daughter Becky (Amanda Seyfried) asks her and  Shelley (Mädchen Amick) for money, but it’s for something unsavory and it involves her boyfriend, Steven Burnett (Caleb Landry Jones), a total fuck up and coke head. Chief Deputy Hawk (Michel Horse) is still trying to piece together the clues from the Log Lady but hasn’t gotten anywhere.

Buenos Aires, Argentina: The weirdest shift from “Call Me” comes from this South American city. You probably never thought you’d hear R&B hip hop beats in a David Lynch project, but here they are. We’re introduced to a woman in black, looking bruised, and a little worse for wear, who is upset and scared that Dougie hasn’t been killed yet. She’s in possession of a call box, that pages her hitmen. Later in the episode when it receives Doppelganger’s Cooper’s call and opaque message, the box then shrinks and appears to morph into a smaller box.

Other appearances and ephemera:

Jim Belushi appears as the casino owner livid that Dougie won nearly $50, 000 dollars. He beats the casino supervisor (comedian Brett Gelman) and tells him to leave town.

— The meth mom who lives across the street appears strung out again and her son begins to mess with Dougie’s car to deadly results for some of the gang members chasing him.

— Dr. Lawrence Jacoby (Russ Tamblyn) is spray painting the shovels he ordered in episode one, gold and spouting a lot of strange nonsense in a pirate radio/internet broadcast that’s hard to keep up with aside from some crazy conspiracy theories. “Shovel your way out of the shit!” he says.

Jane Levy appears as Elizabeth in the Bang Bang Bar with her friend Charlotte (Grace Victoria Cox) who has an ugly, near sexual-assault run-in with Richard Horne (Eamon Farren). With the last name connection, he might be the son of Sherilyn Fenns Audrey Horne character.

— The band that plays in the bar is Trouble, led by Lynch’s own son Riley Lynch