My Thoughts on Showtime’s Twin Peaks Episode 6
Jonathan Barkan
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And so another Sunday is upon us, which means Showtime’s “Twin Peaks” is back with a brand new episode. Continuing the trend of bringing forth one mystery after another while seemingly not answering any previously brought up, the show still managed to charm and delight with its characters and their odd, yet endearing quirks. Well, except for Richard Horne and Chad. But that’ll be discussed down below, lest I give anything away.
With this episode, we’re 1/3rd of the way through the “Twin Peaks” revival on Showtime. How does it feel to be this far along? Find out in my review below!
We open with Cooper still standing outside Dougie’s work next to the cowboy statue where we last left him. Subtle, yet beautiful new music from Angelo Badalamenti plays while the security guard who told Dougie to stop loitering helps him get home to Jane, who has been waiting for him. After eating a sandwich, he goes upstairs at her behest to say goodnight to Sonny Jim, who wants Dougie to stay with him until he falls asleep. There is a wonderfully innocent and delightful moment between father and son as they play with a clap-activated light switch, one that fills Cooper with delight.
Meanwhile, downstairs, Jane opens an envelope that was on their doorstep and, furious, immediately calls Dougie down. In the envelope is a picture of Dougie and Jade, whom Cooper admits to knowing in his own broken way. Jane is understandably shaken and demands answers from Dougie but is interrupted by a phone call from the person owed money by Dougie. She sets up a meeting to pay back the amount and, even through her anger, gives Dougie a kiss on the top of his head, something that obviously means a great deal to Cooper judging by his reaction.
As Jane walks away and Cooper is left at the dinner table, he vaguely sees the one-armed man again in the Black Lodge. He is told that he must wake up with “her” while also being told over and over, “Don’t die.” Cooper then looks over the case files he was assigned and sees little balls of light in certain places on the pages, some moving, some stationary. He makes annotations based on these lights and their movements in the form of shapes, shadings, and more.
When Cooper goes to Dougie’s work the next day, his boss calls him to his office right away, where the case files are immediately investigated. The boss is at first exasperated, unable to make sense of Cooper’s “childish scribbles.” Suddenly, the boss finds a trend and is shocked by what Cooper has found out, even if we do not get the information. Something is obviously wrong and the boss holds Dougie to secrecy, pleased by the work that was done.
During this, Jane waits at the park to meet with the guys who are owed money by Dougie. She is explained why Dougie owes nearly $52,000, which boils down to bad sports bets. After an impassioned speech, she tells them that she’s only paying $25,000 and hands a wad of cash over. The men are shocked, yet somewhat delighted by her attitude, calling her a “tough dame.” Watts’ performance here is one that mixes fear of reprisal and frustration at how life’s cards have been dealt. Their respect for her is fully earned, and I don’t think we’ll be seeing them again, although you never know in the world of “Twin Peaks.”
There’s a short scene with Albert, who is driving in the rain while he talking to Gordon over the phone. He goes to a bar whose neon sign slightly resembles the Bang Bang Bar’s sign. Albert spots a blonde, and we’re introduced to Diane Evans, played by Laura Dern. After two years of seeing Diane as a cassette recorder, it’s shocking to see her in the flesh. Although she barely speaks, only to say “Hello Albert,” seeing her is enough to feel like the wait was worth it.
There’s a very important side story that begins when Richard Horne is in the midst of a drug buy. The drug dealer, who looks and acts like a modern day greaser, is completely full of himself. The relationship between Richard and the drug dealer is obviously very tense and new while the drug dealer’s guard, who is armed with a very large gun, is obviously tickled pink by the exchange happening in front of him.
At one point, the drug dealer flips a coin and it seems to hang in the air for far too long, defying gravity, before suddenly falls in Richard’s mouth, who takes it out and holds it with his fingers. Strangely, the dime then falls out of the air and into the dealer’s hand, mysteriously vanishing from between Richard’s fingertips. The dealer claims to have won the coin flip, although what he won we don’t know. What we do see is that Richard is scared and furious as he drives away in a rage.
Back in Twin Peaks, we meet Carl, played by Harry Dean Stanton. He gets in a shuttle service and offers a seat to a neighbor who has to pick up the mail for Linda. The two engage in small talk about smoking, their relationships, what they do in Twin Peaks… It’s a harmless and casual encounter, one that gives the town a sense of life.
At the Double R Diner, a woman can’t stop gushing over the pie and coffee, so Shelly and Heidi (played again by Andrea Hays) decide to treat her the next time she comes in.
Back to Carl, he watches a mother and her son play in the park. There’s a sense of innocence in these moments, a feeling that the world isn’t full of mystery and terror. However, the boy then runs away and the mother chases after him, only to see Richard Horne run him over without stopping in a horrific hit-and-run. The boy is obviously dead and Badalamenti’s music is a callback to his compositions for The City of Lost Children. Carl watches a yellow mist emerge from the boy and head into the blue sky. He then sits next to the grieving mother, who holds her bloody child.
Richard Horne stops his vehicle on the side of the road to inspect the damage caused by hitting the young boy. There is blood on the front of the truck, which he cleans off callously. There is no sense of remorse in what he’s done.
After this tragedy, we go back to the surreal aspects of the show, where we return to the office of the mysterious businessman played by Patrick Fischler from the first episode, who sees a red box on his laptop. Shocked, he immediately opens a small safe, takes out an envelope, and begins typing. All we see of the envelope is a simple black dot, about a centimeter in diameter, on the front.
Moving to a motel, a short man rolls dice over and over and writes down the results. Then, the envelope with the black dot on it is slipped under his door. He opens it to reveal a picture of an unknown woman and Dougie. Picking up an ice pick, he outlines the woman’s face before stabbing her picture followed by stabbing Dougie’s, leaving the icepick in the middle of his face.
We go to an office where we see the woman from the envelope photo. The short man rushes into her office and stabs her mercilessly with his icepick. It’s a vicious moment, one that rivals the intensity of the strange glass box creature from the second episode. A woman who witnesses the murder is chased down and also slain, although offscreen. As the short man walks away, he mourns his icepick, which bent during his rampage.
In the Twin Peaks Sheriff’s station, Hawk is in the police bathroom washing his hands when some change drops from his pocket, one coin rolling into a stall. It’s a buffalo nickel, the Native American chief head faded over time. Looking around, he sees that the manufacturer of the stall door is Nez Perce, which has a Native American chief for a logo. Upon further inspection, Hawk sees that the stall has a few missing rivets, which leads him to pry it open. While doing so, Chad, another officer, tries to ask him what he’s doing, only for Hawk to pay him no mind. Inside the door, Hawk finds pieces of paper that have a lot of writing on them. The first thought is that they are pages from Laura Palmer’s diary, although there is nothing to confirm it.
Meanwhile, the Sheriff’s wife is yelling at him again about her father’s car and the shoddy work done on it. Chad tries to say that he wouldn’t take that kind of behavior, but the dispatcher tries to put him in his place. However, Chad is taking none of it, going so far as to mock the sheriff’s son, who committed suicide.
As with every episode so far, we end with a performance at the Bang Bang Bar, this time of Sharon Van Etten performing her track “Tarifa.”
This is the first episode where I feel that not too much was offered in the way of progressing the story. Incidentals were taken care of, such as Dougie’s gambling issue, but the greater story doesn’t feel like it made much forward momentum. Rather, this episode felt more like a chance to slow things down, to ease back on the vast amount of information we’ve been given. With so much in front of us, this episode elected to focus almost primarily on characters we’ve already seen and/or know about rather than introducing new ones.
While this may feel like a slight to those who have been waiting so long, I see it in a completely different way. Part of the charm of “Twin Peaks” was that it never forced itself to push a story along for the sake of pushing a story. It let things happen naturally and we got to experience the town just as much as the mystery.
A third of the way through this revival, there are so many storylines on our plate that nothing else could be introduced and we could simply try to unravel these for the next 12 episodes. But of course that’s not how Lynch and Frost work. As always, next week can’t come soon enough.
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