Sunday, August 27, 2017

Twin Peaks: The Return 3x16 Recap: "Part 16: No Knock No Doorbell" (Isn’t It Too Dreamy?) [Contributor: Erin Allen]

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"Part 16: No Knock No Doorbell"
Original Airdate: August 27, 2017

Okay, I said that Part 15 might be a perfect episode, but THIS really is. Lynch keeps topping himself.

Say what you will about evil Mr. C, but he did get his demonic spawn, Richard, zapped out of existence. Peace out, Dick. Mr. C wasn’t too broken up about it. He merely said, “Goodbye, my son” with minimal emotion and then went on his merry way after trying to send a text to Diane.

A lot of action happens at The Jones’ house while they are at the hospital with a comatose Dougie. Chantal and Hutch show up first, waiting to assassinate Douglas Jones. Then the Las Vegas FBI shows up finally identifying the correct Mr. and Mrs. Jones. The Mitchum Brothers’ circus (as Chantal aptly describes them) arrive to stock the Jones’ home with food. A neighbor comes home and takes issue with Chantal and Hutch parked too close to his driveway. Naturally, a bloody gunfight ensues. That was pretty intense, and ended with The Hutchens dead and the neighbor arrested. Well, that escalated quickly. I went from being worried about Chantal’s last bag of Cheetos to mourning her death.

Now about that comatose Dougie. He is no longer comatose nor is he Dougie. COOP IS BACK, Y’ALL! Can I get a thumbs up? And he’s not back just a little bit, but “ONE HUNDRED PERCENT.” MIKE updates him and gives him the owl cave ring. Cooper asks MIKE if he has the seed. Apparently that’s what the gold ball bearing left behind by Dougie is called. Cooper plucks some of his own hair out of his head and gives it to MIKE. “I need you to make another one.” I think he is having MIKE make another Dougie to go live with Janey-E and Sonny Jim. When he says goodbye to them (which is a real ugly-cry moment) he says, “Dougie, I mean, I, will be back.” He lets the Mitchum Brothers in on what’s going on as they make their way to Twin Peaks.

It was shocking to have Cooper back so instantly. He was immediately back to his old self. Even the Twin Peaks theme music started to play. “I am the FBI,” he tells Bushnell. Suffice it to say, I was ELATED, and may have even blacked out from joy for a second. That’s possible, right?

We go from happy shock to devastating shock. Diane receives the text from Mr. C, and it sends her into an anxious fit. She says, “I remember” and texts him back the coordinates. The music that played when we were first introduced to Mr. C back on Part 1 begins to play as Diane makes her way to Gordon. This is incredibly tense because we were just shown that she has a gun in her purse and this song introduced an evil character all those weeks ago.

She finally tells Gordon, Tammy, and Albert what happened that night that Cooper came to see her. It was about three or four years after she had stopped hearing from him. He was very interested in what was going on at the Bureau. He kissed Diane, and that is when she sensed that something was very wrong. Laura Dern gives an achingly gripping performance as Diane, telling the agents that Cooper’s doppelganger raped her. He then took her to an old gas station, most likely the convenience store. As she recalls this nightmare, she glances down at the text message and has a frantic realization. “I’m in the sheriff’s station. I’m not me. I’m not me.” She pulls her gun, but Tammy and Albert were ready and shoot first. Diane’s body disappears with a bang. Tammy thankfully voices what my stress addled brain would’ve eventually got to, “They’re real. That was a real tulpa.” So if the real Diane is at the sheriff’s station, is she Naido? Oh, wow!

Diane’s doppelganger appears in the Red Room. MIKE tells her that someone manufactured her and she’s like no, duh, but in her more colorful language. She disappears in a similar manner as Dougie did on Part 3, leaving behind a “seed.”

The cut to The Roadhouse indicates that the episode is almost over, but, holy moly, what happens in those last minutes is INSANITY. First it’s Eddie freakin’ Vedder introduced with his birth name, Edward Louis Severson. As I listen to his eloquent song, “Out of Sand,” I wait for the credits to start rolling. They don’t. Instead Audrey and Charlie walk in! After Vedder finishes his song, the MC says, “Ladies and gentlemen, Audrey’s Dance.” OH MY GOD. Her music starts to play, and my eyes instantly fill with tears. The dance floor clears, and Audrey Horne dances dreamily as the crowd watches her and collectively sways. It is the most beautiful thing ever. At times during her dance, she had a huge smile on her face, genuine bliss. The reverie is broken by a man running through and attacking another man. Audrey runs to Charlie and tells him to get her out. Smash cut to Audrey looking at herself in a mirror. She is not made up the way she was at The Roadhouse, and she is scared and confused of her own image. WHAT THE WHAT? Electricity crackles and we cut back to The Roadhouse stage where the band continues “Audrey’s Dance,” but it is backwards! Audrey must be in a lodge of sorts.

So, Richard is dead, Cooper is back, Diane is gone (or what we thought was Diane), Audrey is waking up, and Chantal ate her last Cheeto. Cooper is headed to Twin Peaks, and all we have left is the two-hour season finale. “I have no idea where it will lead us, but I have a definite feeling that it will be a place both wonderful and strange.”

Stray Observations:

  • Jerry witnessed the death of Richard, but I’m not sure what that means that he was there. He just blamed his binoculars for the whole ordeal. 
  • I had three minor heart attacks from this episode. Cooper’s revival, Diane’s doppelganger reveal and demise, and Audrey’s dance followed by evidence of her being trapped in a dimension. 
  • “: - ) ALL.” What does Mr. C’s text mean?
  • I wish they made a bigger deal of Cooper drinking coffee on the way to the plane. I mean, it’s his first cup of coffee after being back as himself! It was more of a production for Bradley to get his bloody mary. 
  • “Here’s to us, Audrey.” “Here’s to Billy.” Is Billy Cooper in Audrey’s dimension? She says she’s in love with Billy. She needs to find Billy. It’s possible, no?
  • Some of the lyrics in “Out of Sand” seem to really fit The Return: “I am who I am / Who I was I will never be again [...] I stare at my reflection to the bone / Blurred eyes look back at me / Full of blame and sympathy”

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