Cynthia Lauren Tewes | Through the Shattered Lens

The latest episode of Twin Peaks begins, appropriately enough, in Twin Peaks, with a group of kids tossing a baseball around outside of a trailer park. When one of them misses a catch, he chases the ball out into the middle of the road.

Needless to say, this scared the Hell out of me.

Seriously, we all know what happens when you run out into the middle of the road in Twin Peaks. Richard Horne appears out of nowhere, screaming about cocaine, and basically runs you down in a stolen pickup truck. Needless to say, I was totally prepared for this kid to die but it didn’t happen. Instead, he spotted a seriously injured Miriam (Sarah Jean Long) dragging herself out of the woods. Apparently, she survived being attacked by Richard at the beginning of last week’s episode.

Speaking of trailer park drama, someone calls Becky Burnett (Amanda Seyfried) and informs her that her good-for-nothing husband, Steve (Caleb Landry Jones), is at an apartment with Gersten Hayward (Alicia Witt). Enraged, Becky screams that she doesn’t have a car. However, she does have a mother, Shelley (Madchen Amick) and Shelley knows a little something about bad boys. When Becky calls and says that she needs her mom’s car, Shelley runs from the diner and heads to the trailer park.

When Shelley arrives, she discovers that Becky 1) has a gun and 2) wants the car so that she can track down Steve and shoot him. As Shelley gets out of the car, Becky jumps in and starts to drive off. Shelley jumps onto the hood of the car but ends up flying off as Becky speeds out of the trailer park. Fortunately, Shelley only ends up with a skinned knee. Carl (Harry Dean Stanton), who has apparently seen his share of Becky and Steve’s drama, uses a flute to summon a VW microbus and soon, Carl and Shelley are on the road!

It turns out that Carl also knows Maggie (Jodi Thelen), the dispatcher at the sheriff’s office. While sitting, with Shelley, in the back of the microbus, Carl calls Maggie and asks to be put through to Deputy Bobby Briggs (Dana Ashbrook). That’s right — Becky is Shelley and Bobby’s daughter! (Okay, that’s actually not a huge shock but seriously, I’ve been wondering if the revival would ever acknowledge Bobby and Shelley’s relationship in the original series.) Shelley tells Bobby that Becky has a gun and they’re not sure where she went.

“Oh God,” Carl says, in a tone of voice that suggests he’s not particularly shocked by any of this.

Meanwhile, at an apartment building, Becky bangs on the door to Room 208. When the woman in the next room pops out her head and announces that “They just left,” Becky responds by shooting the door six times. (And, literally everyone in Twin Peaks responds by calling the sheriff’s department.)

Meanwhile, in South Dakota, Gordon (David Lynch), Albert (Miguel Ferrer), Diane (Laura Dern), Tammy (Chrysta Bell), MacKlay (Brent Briscoe), and Bill Hastings (Matthew Lillard) pull up in front of the deserted farm where Hastings claims he and Ruth Davenport found the portal that led them to Major Briggs. Let’s see if I can keep straight what happened here:

A fat little Woodsman kept appearing and then vanishing. Gordon, Albert, and Diane all spotted the Woodsman. None of them seemed to be particularly surprised.
Gordon, and only Gordon, saw a swirling vortex, much like the one from Donnie Darko, appear in the sky.
Gordon nearly got sucked into the vortex. Before Albert pulled him back, Gordon saw what appeared to be three Woodsmen standing on a staircase.
Gordon and Albert stumbled across the headless body of Ruth Davenport.
Sitting in the backseat of MacKlay’s car Bill looked really concerned and I was briefly reminded of Lillard’s performance in 13 Ghosts.
That fat little woodsman snuck up behind MacKlay’s car. Diane saw the woodsman but said nothing.
MacKlay glanced in the backseat and started to scream.
Everyone else glanced into the car.
Suddenly, Bill Hasting was missing the top half of his head.
“He’s dead,” Gordon commented. (Lynch delivered the line with perfect nonchalance.)

That night, at the Double R, Bobby sits in a booth with Becky and Shelley. Becky says she wants a divorce but that she also still loves Steve. Bobby tells her that Becky is going to have to pay for the door, which Becky is not at all happy to hear. Bobby goes on to reveal that he’s convinced the Sheriff not to arrest Becky and that he’s through allowing Steve to get away with stuff. From now on, if Steve breaks the law, Bobby’s not going to step in to protect him from the consequences. When Bobby and Shelley offer to help her get away from Steve, Becky suddenly starts to defend her abusive husband. It’s a touching and rather sad scene, a chance to see Bobby and Shelley as true adults. However, it all ends when Red (Balathazar Getty) walks up to the diner. Shelley’s face lights up as she runs outside to see him. Meanwhile, Bobby and Becky exchange looks. Just as Becky is blind to Steve’s true character, Shelley is blind to who Red is.

(Shelley went from Leo to Bobby — back when Bobby was still a drug dealer — to Red. Shelley! I like bad boys too but goddamn … you can do so much better! Gordon Cole, for instance, was in love with you…)

As soon as Shelley reenters the Double R and sits back down with her daughter and ex-husband, gunshots ring out! Oh my God, is Red trying to kill Bobby!? Or is one of Red’s enemies (Richard maybe) trying to kill Shelley!? Those were my first two thoughts but no — it turns out that a kid accidentally fired a gun that he happened to find in his parent’s SUV. Bobby immediately brings order to the scene and it’s interesting to see just how much of a responsible adult and authority figure Bobby Briggs has actually become.

(Still, I always wonder if everyone’s forgotten that Bobby murdered a Canadian drug smuggler in Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me. Bobby shot off the top of his head, in much the same way that the fat little woodsman ripped off the top of Bill’s head.)

The scene ends on an odd (and rather grotesque) note when Bobby tells the woman in the car behind the SUV that she needs to stop honking her horn. The woman shouts that she has to get home and that they have miles to go. She also says that the passenger in the car with her is sick. In the passenger’s seat, a zombiesh girl looks at Bobby and starts to spit something up.

At the Sheriff’s Department, Truman (Robert Forster) and Hawk (Michael Horse) look at a map, trying to pinpoint where Major Briggs’s note told them to go. Actually, they have two maps. Truman has Google Earth while Hawk has an old Indian map. The Log Lady (Catherine Coulson) calls and asks if Hawk has found something. “My log is afraid of fire,” she explains, “There is fire where you are going.”

Back in South Dakota, Gordon is concerned because his hand is shaking. (In the original series, a twitching arm or hand often indicated that BOB was entering our world from the Black Lodge.) Albert shows Gordon a picture that he took of several numbers that were written on Ruth Davenport’s arm. Albert believes that the numbers are coordinates. Diane smokes. Tammy and MacKlay come by with donuts and coffee. “Ah!” Gordon shouts when he sees the donuts, “the policeman’s dream!”

In Las Vegas, everyone is still hilariously unaware that Dougie (Kyle MacLachlan) is an empty shell who is mostly concerned with coffee and shiny badges. Bushnell Mullins (Don Murray) tells Dougie that it’s obvious that Dougie’s “investigative work” has exposed a connection between police corruption, organized crime, and the insurance industry. As Mullins praises Dougie for his hard work, Dougie blankly drinks his coffee. Mullins says that, despite their fearsome reputation, the Mitchum Brothers are not involved in any of the corruption.

“It’s somebody else,” Mullins says.

“Somebody else,” Dougie repeats.

“That right,” Mullins agrees.

It turns out that the Mitchums want to have a personal meeting with Dougie about their claim. (Of course, we know that the Mitchums want to kill Dougie because Tom Sizemore’s Anthony Sinclair framed Dougie for cheating them out of a claim.) Mullins gives Dougie a $30 million claim check to the give to the Mitchums and then explains all of the weird technical stuff that will allow the firm to make money even as if it pays off a huge claim. I couldn’t really follow it but Mullins was certainly proud of himself.

Mullins says that the Mitchums are sending a car to pick Dougie up for their meeting. Does Mullins realize that the Mitchums are planning to kill Dougie? And could that be the real reason that Mullins gave Dougie the check, as a way of convincing the Mitchums not to kill him? I’m not sure.

Fortunately, while walking out to the waiting limo, Dougie sees MIKE (Al Strobel) beckoning him to enter a small pastry shop. Dougie buys a cherry pie. As we shall soon see, MIKE is still looking out for him.

Dougie is then driven out to the desert by the same limo driver (Jay Larson) who previously drove him home from the casino. The Mitchums are waiting for him but it quickly turns out that neither Rodney (Robert Knepper) nor Bradley (Jim Belushi) is really that enthusiastic about killing Dougie. Despite the fact that he’s been having dreams about murdering Dougie, Bradley is especially reluctant. After all, Dougie took care of Ike the Spike for them. Plus, there was more to Bradley’s dream then just killing Dougie. Bradley just can’t remember what exactly.

They’re even more reluctant once they discover that 1) Dougie is carrying a pie with him (just as he was in Bradley’s dream) and 2) Dougie has a huge check for them. So, instead of killing Dougie, they take him out to eat. Dougie especially enjoys that pie. The old woman from the casino happens to enter the restaurant and she tells “Mr. Jackpots” that, ever since he helped her win all that money, her life has been perfect! Yay! Everyone’s a winner!

All in all, this was a pretty good episode. It was good to see that the story’s moving forward. I’m really liking Bobby Briggs (and Dana Ashbrook) as the voice of moral responsibility and the Las Vegas story remains far more entertaining than it has any right to be. And now that Gordon has seen the woodsmen, what will happen next?

I can’t wait to find out!

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