Twin Peaks: The Return - Episode 7 "There's a Body All Right"

Slead Score: A-

Hold onto your bob cut platinum wigs, Twin Peaks is giving us a reason to keep laser focused.

The seventh hour in this epic 18-hour film is nodding that the first act is ending, and we can get into some real business again. While having Twin Peaks back, in general, is a beautiful thing, it's been difficult to deny the constant addition of new characters and blatant disregard for streamlining a plot has been grating. This criticism comes at a cost, of course, as feeling anger after asking for pure Lynch driven material is like asking for the freshest form of fish and being mad when someone throws you into a lake. If anything, what part seven has done is reignite the hope that all of these scenes of Dougie clutching his crotch and Richard needlessly running little boys over on the road might come together into a brilliant plot we never expected. In part six, we were given the briefest of glimpses at not only the mysterious Diane but the plot surrounding good Cooper and bad Cooper fighting to stay in reality. Part seven has given us a solid thirty minutes of that narrative thread unraveling, and boy was it riveting. 

Suddenly, the pace that would feel normal on any other series seems rapid, almost to the level of sensory overload because of the speed Lynch has been pushing us since The Return first aired. This whiplash is good though, like a splash of cold water to remind us we have so much farther to go and there's still plenty to discover. Albert informs FBI director Cole that Diane won't deal with anything related to Cooper anymore, and while she tries to stick to this plan, it just takes Lynch's loud but jovial performance as Gordon to lull Diane into joining their cause. Her hesitation immediately grabs us with intrigue because if anyone is going to want to give Cooper a chance, it's going to be his most trusted ally. However, she seems completely shut off from discussing him, making it clear she's dealt with bad Cooper, or Bob, since we last left Twin Peaks so many years ago. Laura Dern as Diane is a magnificent choice on Lynch's part, not only because of their previous work history together but because Dern is an actress that puts everything out there for us to sift through. For a character, who has been traumatized by Bob but lived to tell the tale, to once again stand face to face with pure evil is equally badass and heartbreaking. Once Diane sees Bob behind the glass, warbled voice and black eyes staring back at her, Dern's performance makes the pain and anger Diane feels palpable. She knows without a doubt this is not Cooper and she puts aside her anger to openly warn Gordon he cannot be trusted. Apart from the scene being overall brilliant and chilling, it also sets in motion that bad Cooper must be taken care of, which takes on more weight when he threatens the warden with a mysterious name drop. Bob does escape by the end, meaning Dougie better watch his back. 

Keeping stride with the intrigue of Diane, we jump back to the Great Northern, where Ben Horne and his assistant, once again played by Ashley Judd, deal with a strange humming sound coming from an unknown area of the hotel. Even in these seemingly random moments, we retrieve more ties to Cooper, as Judd shows off the old hotel key that was mailed back to Twin Peaks, reminding Ben of the days of Laura Palmer and Cooper's insistence on finding her killer. Crosscut this with Sheriff Truman going over the hidden pages of Laura's diary with Hawk, where we learn more and more people realize Cooper is in trouble and needs to be brought back from somewhere. While these are all teases, it's at least picking up little pieces across the many narratives we've established so far, making it feel like an actual television show again, and not just Lynch's greatest joke on all of us for asking for more of the story. Even Doc Hayward Skypes in to talk about his recollection of the last time he saw Cooper sneaking out of the hospital. This is all leading us to the end of act one of this long movie, folks. I'm calling it!

Of course, it wouldn't be an episode of The Return without some scenes of Dougie doing something absentmindedly, and this week it was all about scribbles—again. Somehow the spirits of the Black Lodge are still giving Dougie the clues to point out the bad deeds of his coworkers at the insurance company, but now they're also keeping him alive and well. Everyone's favorite small assassin returns to take down his ultimate target: Dougie. However, the talking tree that used to be a small dancing man (gotta love Lynch and Frost) jumps in to egg on Dougie to take the assassin's arm for himself. What does this mean? We'll probably never find out, but hey, Dougie becomes a hero, and it seems that Janey-E is finally happy with something that her bumbling husband has accomplished. Speaking of Janey-E and Sonny Jim, there is no way they are just ordinary people that are organically part of Dougie's family. I smell spiritual reincarnation around those two, but more on that in the coming weeks. 

While this episode has been chock-full of information and excitement, it wouldn't be a part of this new season without an extended scene of nothing, so this week we have a 5-minute long stretch of a man sweeping up peanuts. I like to think this is a clever metaphor for pushing together all of the little plot threads to finally get down to business, but I'll never know if that's true.