We’re now into the second half of this series – or 18 hour-long movie as David Lynch would have us approach it – and we’re still none the wiser when it comes to the fate of Dougie Jones/Good Coop. In this 10th episode, there were diversions, some unsettling scenes (in a more subtle way than the kinetic scarefest that was the epic episode eight) and a few, just a few, more hints at where this might go.
Like the Lady Lady said at the end of the episode – the electricity is humming – Twin Peaks continued to meander along with sequences of seemingly inconsequential nothingness until something flickered dangerously.
We started the episode back in Twin Peaks, with shots of characters who live in the trailer park, including Carl Rodd and a fast unravelling relationship of Steve and Becky Burnett. And Richard Horne. The grandson of Benjamin Horne, he’s been nothing but trouble intermittently throughout the series, but his provenance is yet to be explained (fan theories abound that he’s the son of Audrey Horne and Bad Coop, who, um, impregnated her while she was in a coma. If this is true… lordamercy). We saw him in this episode be badder than he’s ever been – he beat to death a witness of his hit-and-run, coerced the oafish Chad into hiding a letter to the police that the newly deceased and aforementioned witness had sent, and violently robbed his grandmother in front of her distressed, mentally disabled son (while a toy teddy bear repeatedly chirped, “Hello, how are you today Johnny?”). It was pure horror but in a different form: not so much visceral but symbolic.
Next, we were off to South Dakota, where Dougie Jones was undergoing a medical. Janey-E had taken him to the doctors to try and get to the bottom of his peculiar behaviour, but all she got was a re-invigoration of her feelings for him. Whereas Old Dougie was overweight and unhealthy, Dougie/Good Coop revealed that he now had a ripped body, surprising and impressing his doctor, and his heart and lung capacity, and his blood pressure was just perfect. Janey-E couldn’t believe what she was seeing, to the extent that she took him home and took him to bed immediately (Dougie/Good Coop’s involuntary flapping of arms during their lovemaking was much chortlesome).
But you get the impression the car-sharing between Dougie and Good Coop might be coming to an end, because there’s trouble ahead for him/them – the insurance fraudsters in Vegas had Dougie’s co-worker Anthony come into the office and demanded that he visit the Mitchum brothers, making sure they knew that Dougie was screwing them over so they would get rid of him once and for all (one way to collect your debt, I guess). So the almost comedy villains, the Mitchums (as opposed to the Mitchells), began to spit with fury and vowed to hit Dougie Jones hard when Anthony spun them his yarn. I do wonder whether this threat might just see Good Coop finally come out of Dougie and be the Good Coop we know and love (and desperately want to come back to us). But then again I said that what feels like five weeks ago.
(One extra word about the Mitchum brothers strand. It’s not my favourite, but I do like strange symbolism of Candie and her hostess pals. They’re so vacant and so Stepford Wives in their uniformity, they’ve started to look threatening and a bit ghost-like whenever they lean up against that office wall.)
The most intriguing action in this slow-moving episode concerned Gordon, Albert and Tammy. Albert had brought Gordon some information, and when the shouty one opened the door to his hotel room, he was overwhelmed by a vision of Laura Palmer. It was freakish, unexpected and unsettling (Badalamenti’s score started to rev up in a way we’ve not really heard yet, which might be portentous). Albert informed him that Tammy had traced encrypted messages from Diane’s phone, telling a mystery caller that ‘they have Hastings and they’re taking him to the site’. Diane in cahoots with the bad men? Nooooo. And when Tammy handed over a recently harvested image of Bad Coop standing in the same New York room where the big glass box/portal was, my mind started racing a bit: what was he doing there and what had he got to do with that place?
We left our dear Log Lady reciting another poetic prophecy to Hawk: Laura is the one.
Finally, things might just be beginning to stir.
Paul Hirons
@Son_Of_Ray
For all our Twin Peaks news and reviews, go here
The Killing Times 
Reblogged this on Wheels of Laughter.
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You’re right, the Mitchums are shallow at best – together with young Horne they form a pseudo-Tarantino segment of the current series that it’s hard to get through. I was almost relieved when Laura appeared behind the door, because she was a reminder of what Twin Peaks is about.
I hope the cheap gore and boring mobsters are worthy adfitions in the end.
Still, weak episode.
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