Twin Peaks: The Return episode review — 3.17 — Part 17/The Past Dictates the Future
Original air date: September 3, 2017
Director: David Lynch
Writers: Mark Frost & David Lynch
Rating: 9/10
With Cooper finally being back, you’d think the episode would start with him, but instead it starts with Gordon Cole explaining some of his last interactions with Cooper to Albert. Cooper and Cole, just as Philip Jeffries before them, were after the entity Jowday, now known as Judy. Cole receives the message from Bushnell Mullins, and the FBI is headed to Twin Peaks.
In Twin Peaks, we have a scene in the jail cells which basically just serve to remind us of who all is there: Deputy Chad, Freddie, James, Naido, and that drunk bleeding guy.
Mr. C makes his way through the Twin Peaks woods, apparently with his eyes set on the Palmer house. He goes through that portal in the woods that took Andy to the Fireman, and the Fireman redirects him to just outside the sheriff’s station.
He’s greeted by Andy, who at first doesn’t seem to think anything’s wrong. Nobody really notices anything’s wrong (other than Naido downstairs of course) until they get a call from the real Dale Cooper, and Lucy realizes that he’s the real one because he wants coffee.
But before that, Deputy Chad escapes from his jail cell. When Andy goes downstairs, he’s about to get shot by Chad, but Freddie with his glove saves the day.
Upstairs, by the time Sheriff Frank Truman realizes anything is wrong, Mr. C pulls a gun on him. Before he can kill him, though, he’s shot by Lucy.
This sort of corresponds to one of the visions Andy had when he was with the Fireman, though we never actually saw Lucy with the gun. Andy brings Freddie, Naido, and James upstairs, and the Woodsmen arrive to work on Mr. C’s resurrection or whatever.
Cooper arrives, with Mitchum brothers. BOB then emerges from Mr. C in the form of a great big floating orb. Think Phantasm, but bigger and more menacing (though less gory).
Freddie steps forward, and Cooper apparently knows who he is. As the orb attacks him, apparently biting him, he fights back, pounding it again and again with his glove, until he bursts it into a bunch of little pieces.
The scene is so interestingly and atmospherically shot that I find myself enjoying it, even if the essential concept behind it is probably my least favorite thing in the season.
Cooper places the ring on Mr. C’s finger, and Mr. C is then taken to the Red Room.
Cooper receives the room key from Sheriff Truman, and Bobby arrives. Cooper explains everything — or as much as the script will let him — as Gordon Cole, Albert, and Tammy arrive. All this is shot with Kyle MacLachlan’s face superimposed. It’s very strange.
Naido then becomes Diane, and I guess this is technically the first we’ve seen of the actual Diane.
In a lot of ways, this whole BOB orb thing really seems like the climax of the season. It’s really had the most things leading up to it. But it’s not the true climax, I guess, and that’s good, because it’s really not all that satisfying. I really hate the Freddie plot point, though I do sort of enjoy the character. It’s just that he’s never given anything more to do than just use his glove. And we are only told how he gets the glove via exposition, and it ends up playing out in a very conventional way that isn’t suited to Twin Peaks.
Cooper tells them all, “We live inside a dream” and “I hope to see you all soon,” before everything goes dark and he’s basically swept away to another dimension with Diane and Cole.
There’s that noise from the Great Northern again, this time coming from that basement room that James apparently checked out once.
Cooper tells them not to follow him. He disappears behind a door, and MIKE takes him through the convenience store to Philip Jeffries. Cooper demands to be sent to February 23, 1989, the date of Laura Palmer’s murder, to find Judy. Jeffries does say that Gordon will remember the unofficial version. I suppose this has something to do with Gordon’s earlier vision of Laura Palmer outside his hotel room.
We then see black and white footage from Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me of James and Laura shortly before she was to leave to go with Jacques and Leo.
She finds Cooper and goes with him to get away from her fate, but she’s also swept away while screaming.
We then see history erasing before our eyes, as Laura’s body is erased from the shore, and Pete Martell goes fishing as originally planned, never to find her.
At the Palmer house, Sarah freaks out and breaks the iconic picture frame of Laura’s photo, but can’t seem to actually break the photo. I don’t think this is from 1989, but it’s some kind of reaction in the present to the past being retroactively changed. But I’m not certain of that. All the Sarah Palmer stuff is really weird this season.
Julee Cruise performs “The World Spins” with The Chromatics at the Roadhouse.
This episode is hugely consequential, while still keeping everything open for at least one last hour.
I do like this episode. As an exercise in David Lynchian surrealism, it’s the second best from the season only to Part 8. It’s just not the most satisfying on its own, with the whole Freddie thing. There is still a ton of tension in everything leading up to the real Cooper arriving at the sheriff’s station, and the blending of reused footage from Fire Walk with Me with new footage with an older Kyle MacLachlan is remarkably done. This episode is really, creally creative.
