10 Things We Learned From Twin Peaks: The Return Part 6
"What kind of world are we living in, where people can behave like this?"
It Is Happening Still: When are we going to get to the Fireworks Factory of a living, breathing, restored Special Agent Dale Cooper?
Milhouse Van Houten's classic whine has become shorthand for the impatience experienced when confronted with a challenging work. It was a problem shared by Sopranos creator David Chase, who seemed to delight in wilfully subverting his audience's expectation of a traditional crime saga by dragging out the domestic troubles of Soprano's other, biological, perceived more mundane family. Chase's frustrations with his audience became apparent onscreen, even if they were subtextual and unintended.
The continued Dougie Jones arc has triggered eye rolls from a portion of the fanbase who just want to see an Agent Cooper with the cognitive ability to give himself a present. David Lynch and Mark Frost are giving their audience the gift of Cooper; it's just tightly wrapped, enclosed in a Russian doll. They are both conveying the threat of the Black Lodge to inform the necessary dramatic heft and rewarding those enamoured with the beloved protagonist by parceling out his idiosyncrasies at a narcotising pace. In a show set between two worlds, we are getting the best of both.
"The beauty is in the doing," David Lynch once remarked of his creative process. Those taking in his art would do well to receive it in kind.
10. The Dougie Jones Arc Is Showing Signs Of Wrapping Up
"Don't die," ran the episode description, the pattern of which, thus far, is extracted from the dialogue.
Phillip Gerard materialised in the living room of Dougie Jones to deliver that message. "You need to wake up," he intoned gravely. "Don't die. Don't die. Don't die." Dale Cooper barely heeded the warning because he remains in a catatonic state. Those unable to reconcile the character - and specifically, the way in which the outside world reacts to him - were assuaged when he was dropped off at his home by a security guard. He was concerned with Dougie's mental state, at which point Janey-E was finally moved to arrange medical treatment. The incongruity of the character is dissipating in parallel with the character itself, slowly subsumed by Agent Cooper.
In the meantime, more signs of Cooper's reemergence into the world became apparent. Cooper felt distant echoes of his past life when mesmerised by the security guard's badge. He also played a childish game with Dougie's young son and used his inherent, dormant deduction skills to identify the cooked case files of Tom Sizemore's Anthony Sinclair.
Lost amid the Fireworks Factory impatience experienced by some is how crucial this arc is to both the dramatic heft and powerful mythology of the show. What would it say about the Black Lodge, if one could recover from it with a degree of ease?