10 Things We Learned From Twin Peaks: The Return Part 7
3. Portent Or Memory?
In another standout scene, in the Great Northern, Ben Horne and assistant Beverly followed the sound of an ethereal, high-pitched hum reverberating around the hotel walls.
"When did you first start hearing this?" Ben asked. "Sometime last week," Beverly offered. "But I think it's louder now." This was the first real textual evidence that the relationship between Dale Cooper (for whom the sound seemed to act as some sort of beckoning portent) - and the relative lack of Angelo Badalamenti's score - is symbiotic.
Ben asked Beverly not to move, asking where she thought the sound was emanating from, cracking a faint glimpse of a smile. The two then moved towards it, together, in a flirtatious dance. Then, Beverly handed Ben the hotel keys Jade recovered from Dougie - at which point the musical connection with Cooper became apparent. It was not the only echo from the hotel's past. Lynch's camera lingered on the wooden panelling of the hotel walls, into which Josie Packard was trapped 25 years ago. Pete Martel could still see her face. Can we still hear her voice?
Ben Horne was both arch villain and redeemed community leader in the original series. The Return - a richer, more pathetic beast - casts him between those two worlds. He is reluctant to follow through on what is presented as a reciprocated attraction, but even at his most reluctant, his inner core is destructive, even if indirectly. He doesn't know it - but he is "f*cking" with Beverly's terminally ill husband, Tom,
It was a wonderful, ambient, multi-purpose scene, propelling multiple narratives forwards at once - two birds with one stone, as The Giant (or ???????) would have it.