10 Things We Learned From Twin Peaks: The Return Part 7
8. The Charred Spectre Has Returned
In the two-hour premiere, we encountered a strange figure in the jail cell - a charred spectre adorned in a hat, as anachronistically dressed as it was jarringly out of place in the human realm of South Dakota. David Lynch subsequently told us to watch out for who he would only refer to as "that guy". He reappeared in Part 7 to power what elsewhere was a straight reality with pure nightmare fuel.
As Lieutenant Knox removed herself from the morgue to relay a troubling message - more on that imminently - concerning the presumed body of Major Briggs to superior Colonel Davis, a blurred figure emerged from a distant corridor. It lurched slowly towards Knox, only partly revealing itself, with trademark Lynchian dread. An ominous, low frequency hum heralded its arrival in another superb use of sound design, rendered yet more effective by the near silence soundtracking scenes elsewhere.
What the figure is, what it represents, who it has inhabited, where it is from - nothing is clear. It echoes BOB in that it seemed to vacate the Bob Hastings vessel when he had been incarcerated. It is also somewhat reminiscent, with its caked-in make-up, of the dumpster monster from Mulholland Drive. Has it been incinerated, walking with fire, or is it covered in or even made up of the scorched engine oil of Glastonbury Grove?
For a horror which cannot be articulated, to paraphrase James Hurley: it all makes some sort of terrible sense that it exists.