Twin Peaks “Part 6” is as always written by Mark Frost and David Lynch, who also directed. Unfortunately, Cooper seems to still be absent, despite being told to wake up. We get lots of clues, but it’s not entirely clear what they relate to. While I’m enjoying the mind puzzle of it all, this episode really felt like it could have benefitted from some judicious editing. Every so often, Lynch gets caught up in his own vision to the point of belaboring.
As the episode opens, Dougie/Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) is still standing at the statue. He’s told there’s no loitering and says his name is Dougie Jones. The Security officer Juan Carlos Cantu) finally takes him home. It’s a good thing that the house has a red door, so he’s able to remember it and of course, it’s a nice echo of the red room. Dougie is fascinated with the Security officer’s badge – and I was really hoping that it might finally jog something loose.
Janey-E (Naomi Watts) apologizes for not remembering that he doesn’t have his car and then fixes him a sandwich. Even though she tells the Security officer that Dougie is a bit vague on a good day, she’s finally decided that she needs to take him to the doctor.
Janey-E sends Dougie up to say good night to Sonny Jim (Pierce Gagnon), and it’s still a little funny how much trouble he has figuring out how to get upstairs. Sonny Jim is reading – what looks to be a Hardy Boys book – so maybe he’ll be the one to figure out the mystery of what’s going on with Dougie? He invites Dougie to sit on the bed with him. He asks Dougie to stay with him while he falls asleep – and hilariously turns the light on to fall asleep. Dougie is fascinated by the clap on/clap off light – until Janey-E opens the envelope.
Janey-E is understandably furious at the picture of him with Jade (Nafessa Williams) – who he happily tells her gave him two rides! The phone rings and Janey-E sets up the meeting for the next day – after finding out how much Dougie owes. She points out that if they break his legs, they’ll never get their money. She sets the meet up at the park at the corner of Guinevere and Merlin! Does that make Dougie Arthur or Lancelot? Is this Camelot? It certainly could be the fairytale homelife that FBI Agent Cooper would never have. Naturally, Janey-E will be carrying a RED purse.
The meeting means that Janey-E can’t take Dougie to the doctor. She also tells him to get to work on the files. Once he’s directed to the Lucky 7 files, he gets to work on them. We get the classic Twin Peaks stoplight. There is plenty of red and green imagery to go around in this episode. And then we’re back with the One-armed man (Al Strobel) in the red room. He comes to Dougie and tells him that he has to wake up. How many of us were screaming YES!! Wake up! He also tells Dougie not to die. Dougie sees little bits of light on the files – much like he saw the green light on Tony – and starts making what looks like nonsense scribbles on the files. Maybe it’s just me, but this scene seemed to go on a lot longer than it needed to.
Meanwhile, Albert (Miguel Ferrer) is out in the field and checks in with Gordon (David Lynch), who is tucked away somewhere having a drink. I loved Albert’s “Fuck Gene Kelly you motherfucker” as he battles against the rain and into Max Von’s Bar. No singing about a love of rain for Albert! And then we finally see who Laura Dern is playing – DIANE!!! Can’t wait to see more of her – and if anyone will know the real Dale Cooper, it’s her.
Creepy Richard (Eamon Farren) from the bar is running drugs. His dealer – Red (Balthazar Getty) tells him he can pick the rest of it up at Maryanne’s. Red is another odd character, who may have been sampling the sparkle a bit too much himself the one bringing the drugs down from Canada. He tells Richard that he doesn’t know him yet – and that’s a problem – so he’s going to be watching him. Richard doesn’t like being called kid, but Red keeps calling him Kid and tells him he’ll kill him if he steps out of line.
Red does a trick with a dime, and it hovers in the air – Richard thinks it’s in his mouth – and then it falls back into Red’s hand. He tells Richard that the dime is him as tails and Red as the head – either way Richard loses.
We find ourselves at the trailer park with Carl (Harry Dean Stanton). Bill is driving Carl into town and he gives Mickey (Jeremy Lindholm) a ride into town to pick up Linda’s mail. Carl’s reason for going into town is just to have a reason to get out of the trailer park. All Carl is doing is sitting on a bench smoking and looking at the sky.
Miriam (Sarah Jean Long) is in the Double R and Shelly (Madchen Amick) tells her that she’s one of the best pie customers they have. She leaves a tip she can’t really afford after buying coffee for one of the mothers of her students. Shelly suggests that the next time Miriam comes in, they treat her to pie.
As Carl watches, a mom (Lisa Coronado) and her son (Hunter Sanchez) run by playing tag. It gets a smile out of him as he drinks his own Double R coffee. Meanwhile, Richard is driving recklessly and too fast because he’s high. Richard runs down the boy as he’s crossing the street. Miriam sees him drive by – and he sees Miriam. As Carl watches he sees a green light leave the boy and go up into the sky – the boy’s soul? It’s certainly reminiscent of the green lights that Dougie has been seeing. We get a close up of a power pole with the number 6 on it.
Duncan (Patrick Fishchler) is working on his computer and a red box suddenly appears. He then goes to his safe and takes out an envelope that has a red dot on it.
Back at Rancho Rosa, Dougie’s blown up car is being taken away. The police find the plates on the roof of the house. The Druggie Mother (Hailey Gates), yells 1-1-9 as she hears the cop on her roof.
In a hotel room, a guy – Ike “The Spike” (Christophe Zajac-Denek) is keeping track of his dice throws in a notebook. He receives an envelope with a red dot – the same as earlier? There are two photos in the envelope – one is the woman who we saw last week – Lorraine (Tammy Baird) – and the other is Dougie! He goes to her office and stabs her to death with an ice pick. He’s pretty unhappy when it ends up bent.
At work, Dougie has fun with the elevator and enjoys his coffee. There is no sign that he’s waking up. Bushnell (Don Murray) calls him into his office. Dougie sucks on his coffee as Bushnell looks at the scribbles on the files. He’s angry, until it starts to make sense to him. We see that in his day, Bushnell was a boxer. Once he understands, he thanks Dougie and tells him to keep it to himself. Dougie can’t even figure out how to shake hands – and simply mimics Bushnell – the way he was mimicking the boxing photo. Bushnell tells him that he’s “an interesting fellow.” With any luck the boxing stance has imprinted and when the guy comes to kill him maybe he’ll be able to defend himself.
Janey-E meets with the bookies – Jimmy (Jeremy Davies) and Tommy (Ronnie Gene Blevins) and they explain to her how he owes them $52,000. She reads them the riot act, and tells them that “they’ve been shit on enough.” She’s not giving them what they are asking. She’s giving them $25,000 – and that’s all they’re getting. Watt is terrific in this episode. I loved her reading them the riot act and them just taking it! They dub her a tough dame.
Richard drives his truck out into the country and washes the blood off the grill with water. Not exactly a forensic countermeasure.
At the Sheriff’s station in Twin Peaks, Hawk (Michael Horse) is washing his hands when he drops a coin and it rolls into a stall. He picks it up – it’s an Indian head coin. He sees that the door of the stall is made by Nez Perce manufacturing – and there’s another Indian head on the logo. There’s the sign of his heritage that he’s been looking for. He sees that the panel on the door is loosed and pries it open. Chad (John Pirruccello) comes in, and Hawk tells him to use another restroom. Hawk finds a letter in the door.
Doris (Candy Clark) comes back and now she’s livid that her father’s car hasn’t been fixed. Frank (Robert Forster) takes her to his office to try to calm her down. Chad proves he’s an idiot by saying he wouldn’t take that off of her. Maggie (Jodi Thelen) tells him that Doris wasn’t always like that, but their son committed suicide. Chad mocks him for not being able to take being a soldier.
We seem to have gotten somewhere, but it’s hard to say exactly where. I’ll be a lot happier once Cooper is truly back on the job. I can’t wait to see Laura Dern in action as Diane! What did you think of the episode? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!
