10 Things We Learned From Twin Peaks: The Return Part 6
7. Richard Horne Is Worse Than We Could Have Thought
We were told to expect something far darker than even the original series, one reading of which is a harrowing account of systematic incestuous abuse. In Part 6's standout sequence, we were jolted out of any remaining notion of the amber-hued comfort of the original series when Richard Horne drove a truck through and instantly killed a young child, literally driven to fury by Red's condescension.
It was an upsetting gut punch of a scene, sold with histrionic grief with lingering reaction shots by the cast of extras. Horne, directed with an odd sympathy - or at least infantilisation - by Lynch during the aforementioned scene with Red, was concerned only with his being caught by the rotund schoolteacher introduced in the Double R earlier. He is a terrible human being, if in fact he meets that biological classification.
The circulating theory that Horne is the b*stard child of Audrey and Cooper's doppelgänger has strong elements of fan fiction, but the similarities between the characters - conspicuous and perhaps crucial, given the series' overarching theme of duality - lend it some credence.
The use of the word "kid" in Red's magic show evoked another link, as did Horne's characterisation; like Cooper, he is evidently an abnormal man child struggling to bridge the chasm to adulthood.