10 Things We Learned From Twin Peaks: The Return Part 12
5. "Every Day, Once A Day, Give Yourself A Present..."
So said Special Agent Dale Cooper during the original series. The Return - the prospect of which Lynch was considered "dead as a doornail" - feels like a gift wrapped by a man who previously never expressed a prior interest in returning to his own oeuvre. The man besotted with the continuing story has until now never really told one.
That man has also given himself a present in the way of Berenice Marlohe - a classically beautiful French actress with whom Cole shares a bottle of Bordeaux and over whom he slobbers. "Would you please ask your friend to wait downstairs?" Albert requests. The act of leaving Cole's hotel room becomes a protracted exercise in subverted seduction. 'French Woman', beaming, puts on her cardigan. Cole's face lights up. Albert, audience surrogate, looks on with a detached sneer. French Woman performs a sort of couch-bound can-can to show off her pumps. "Tres chic!" remarks Cole (not for the first time in this paragraph, your writer had to delete and replace the letters L-Y-N-C-H). She then applies her lip stick, as Cole juts out his own, part emulation, part wish fulfilment.
It's a strange scene - a sexualised shaggy dog story ending in a delightful vegetable-based joke - one that shouldn't work. It's a near-octogenarian indulging his renowned love of beautiful women, but Colynch elevates it from sleazy to warm with his hilarious reaction shots.