10 Things We Learned From Twin Peaks: The Return Part 5
2. Correction: Richard Horne Is The Scariest Thing
Echoes of Lynch's earlier work reverberate around The Return.
We've seen and heard the industrial aesthetic and harrowing sound design of Eraserhead. The disparate but interconnected plots of Mulholland Drive serve as the guiding narrative. The fractured psyche, first explored in Lost Highway, remains Lynch's preferred overarching theme.
We have now been introduced to the spiritual offspring of Blue Velvet's Frank Booth (and the presumed biological offspring of a to be determined branch of the Horne family tree) in Richard Horne. Like Frank, he is almost impossibly repugnant. He smokes bang in front of a No Smoking sign at the Roadhouse. He hands the Sheriff's station mole - the Log Lady skeptic - a huge wedge of cash concealed in a cigarette packet.
He then - in broad view of everybody - strangles and threatens to rape a woman unfortunate enough to ask for a light. It's shocking, uncomfortable stuff, played out in front of a Red Room-esque curtain and strobed backdrop. "Do you wanna f*ck me, Charlotte? Do you wanna f*ck? I'm gonna laugh when I f*ck you, b*tch!" The material is much in the over-the-top vein of Blue Velvet's criminal underbelly. Eamon Farren's Richard Horne renders it utterly menacing; his sharp, angular features cast him, phrenologically, as a handsome sociopath.
The echoes of the Black Lodge are intriguing. Whose offspring is Richard? Did Mr. C pay one last visit to Audrey before removing himself from the grid? Two Coopers. Two sons? More duality...