Twin Peaks
3.16: No knock, no doorbell.
(SPOILERS) Well, he’s back. Finally (Mike was speaking for the entire
viewing audience there). And he’s 100%! That Lynch faded in the Twin Peaks theme to announce the fully
restored Special Agent Dale Cooper is indication enough that Coop’s the show’s
emotional anchor, its comfort and strength, and without him, however good the
show is – and it has been very, very good – there’s something missing. Not that
the show should be mired in formula, but Coop-free, the Twin Peaks-verse is a starker, more forbidding place. The other
event of the episode – and No knock, no
doorbell is brimming with them, so maybe that’s being a little subjective –
is the insight into what is going on with Audrey.
I admitted in the last review that I was coming around to
the idea of Audrey in a coma, but the flash we receive here suggests something
else, something equally traumatic but not yet entirely discernible. My first
thought was a variant on this, that she’s quite in a mental institution, hence the
apparently white surroundings and her patient-type garb. One would presume as a
result of the actions of habitual rapist Evil Coop (“Goodbye, my son” is the most succinct, no-nonsense version of Darth
Vader conceivable). But then, how would Billy factor into this, since it
appears he is a real character (perhaps he has been in and out of the same facility,
currently residing, or rather drooling, in a prison cell?) And who knows how
long Audrey has been in there, if indeed that is what has befallen her? And if
it is, what’s the betting Charley’s actually an orderly?
But that reading would be to discount the parallels between
Audrey and Diane, and Lynch and Frost are surely presenting them in a manner
that is non-coincidental. We now know the Diane we’ve seen this season isn’t real,
and yet there appears to be a bleed-through of her real self – wherever she may
be – to the Tulpa. So maybe the Audrey we’ve been watching is experiencing something
similar. She is Tulpa Audrey, trapped
in the Black Lodge like Diane (or the gas station), trying to get out, and as
she does so reverberating around the Great Northern. Certainly, the band
playing backwards against red drapes over the end credits leaves little room
for interpretation. And just as Tulpa Dougie has Janey-E, so Tulpa Audrey has
Charlie.
Agent Tammy Preston:
They’re real. That was a real tulpa.
Lynch isn’t pulling any punches with Evil Coop’s diabolical
behaviour, that much is evident, but the qualities of his thought-form facsimiles
are less transparent. The precise nature of the “tulpa” relationships to the
original self become more speculative, not clearer, here. Coop appears fully cognisant
of everything that occurred to him as Dougie Coop when restored, perhaps even
more so, perhaps even from when Tulpa Dougie was still knocking around. At
least, he seems entirely conscious of the bond Tulpa Dougie has with his family
and the necessity of Dougie, an unnatural being, meriting a place in the world,
hence requesting that Mike fashion another body.
With Tulpa Diane, the fate of her original is unclear (the
pointers may tend towards her being Naido – “I’m in the sheriff’s station because, because I’m not me” – but
maybe Naido’s Judy since she’s the one making monkey noises. Hell, maybe Diane’s
also Judy; that would explain why Evil Coop has met her but doesn’t realise it).
She remembers the night Evil Coop came by (four years after actual Diane had
last seen him: “As soon as his lips
locked mine something went wrong, and I felt afraid”), and it seems the
message sent by Evil Coop, ostensibly an instruction – to kill Gordon Cole,
one assumes, making her sending the co-ordinates immediately after (“I hope this works” – the correct
coordinates this time?) an attempt to placate him? – triggers her in some way (“I remember. I remember”).
So it seems Tulpa Diane was communicating directly with Evil
Coop all along, not via Phillip Jeffries (unless she was working for both).
While one can readily see why he’d want an “in” at the FBI, what he’d want
Audrey for is less discernible. Unless disposable progeny were on his mind. Whatever
the reason, the parallels between but Tulpa Diane’s disclaimers of “I’m not me. I’m not me” before she’s
retired to the Red Room and the existential angst Audrey was giving voice to
two episodes ago (“Like I’m somewhere
else and I’m someone else”) are unavoidable.
Mike: Someone manufactured you.
Tulpa Diane: I know. Fuck you.
Evidently, the tulpa seeds are recyclable (“I need you to make another one”, Coop
asks Mike). I’m not sure what Tulpa Diane’s would be used for, following her
zany, Gilliam-by-way-of-South Park cartoonish
collapse. Mike seems happy to state the bleeding obvious, but presumably there
are others about given to tulpa-manufacture since he doesn’t instantly pin it
on Evil Coop.
Murkier in this sequence is establishing who provided the
wrong co-ordinates and who proffered the right. Two people gave the incorrect
ones, and one might reasonably assume Diane was one (meaning she already sent
them to Evil Coop prior to this episode). Meaning either she had been fed the
wrong info by Albert and Gordon (and text, a kill instruction, was issued as a
consequence) or she hadn’t sent ALL the coordinates (and so Evil Coop realises
her info was correct, but incomplete). Certainly, it would make more sense if
Philip “I’m a teapot” Jeffries and Ray were both being deceptive; Ray was
working for Jeffries, so you might reasonably assume they were on the same
page. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense if Tulpa Diane sent Coop there,
since this is evidently some kind of trap, and the only person who could
reliably set such a trap is Phillip Jeffries (why would both Jeffries’ and
Tulpa Diane have matching false coordinates?)
It isn’t too much of a stretch to assume, however else Season
Three concludes, that Tulpa Dougie will be restored as head of household and Mullins’
prime insurance salesman (and friend of the Mitchums?). Possibly a new and
improved Dougie at that, more resembling our Coop. If this conjures queasy
memories of the final of nu-Doctor Who
Season Two, that’s entirely understandable, but fortunately for us, this is not
that show.
Bradley Mitchum: What the fuck kind of neighbourhood is this?
Rodney Mitchum: People are under a lot of stress, Bradley.
Lynch loves his random incidents, particularly when it comes
to undercutting expectation… I’m assuming this is a random incident, mind, which is probably unwise. So the
much-anticipated hit on Dougie Coop by Hutch and Chantal never comes to pass.
Chiefly because Coop is in the hospital, but more immediately because of the
string of interruptions that cause them increasing bewilderment. First the FBI,
and then the procession led by the Mitchum brothers.
And then, entirely excessively, the Polish accountant
(Zaraski, if his car is anything to go by, played by Johnny Coyne), who takes
exception to the duo parking in his drive, attempting to forcibly manoeuvre
their van from the spot when Chantal, hopped up on junk food and E-numbers, becomes
abusive (“Go fuck yourself”). When
she then pulls out a gun and fires at him, he escalates the proceedings in a
manner neither could have anticipated, removing an Uzi from his car boot and
first winging her before putting a decisive end to their hit person antics in
the style of an action movie set piece.
Agent Wilson: It looks like nobody’s home.
Special Agent Randall
Headley: Oh, and how did you deduce
that, Sherlock?
A word about my new favourite FBI guy, Special Agent Randall
Headley. Seeing as, sadly, Albert Rosenfeld won’t be in any third season, would
it be too much to ask that the dyspeptic Randall becomes a new regular? And, of
course, faithful Agent Wilson, so he has someone to yell at.
Sonny Jim Jones: Dad sure is talking a lot.
Janey-E Jones: Yeah, he sure is.
Jerry Horne sort of (you can only see so much through the
wrong end of binoculyars) witnesses the death of his grandnephew, who decidedly
does not end up in an alternative dimension when he is zapped by a bolt of
electricity. It’s electricity that sends Richard to his maker and which brings
Coop back (“It was like, what?
Electricity?” – there was also a now-familiar humming sound before Coop
returns).
McLachlan slips back into the cadence of Coop with consummate
ease, and Lynch and Frost write him as if he’s never been away, that balance of
genuineness, assuredness and formality (“You’re
a fine man, Bushnell Mullins. I will not soon forget your kindness and decency”;
“I want to tell you how much I’ve enjoyed
spending time with both of you. You’ve made my heart so full”). It’s
curious that only now does Janey-E work out that Coop is not Dougie, though (“Whoever you are, thank you”). Mind you,
she is the sort of person who would
marry Dougie in the first place.
Bushnell Mullins:
What about the FBI?
Special Agent Dale Cooper: I AM the FBI.
Special Agent Dale Cooper: I AM the FBI.
Coop is also heading for the sheriff’s station, to which end
he enlists the Mitchum brothers, who are understandably a little uneasy about going
where they’re “not traditionally welcome”.
Coop’s response is an absolute classic (“Friends, that’s about to change. I am witness to the fact that you both have hearts of
gold”), readily verified by Candie (“They
do, they really do”), and Knepper and Belushi are marvellous playing hard
guys buoyed by admitting to their soft centres.
MC: Ladies and gentlemen, Audrey’s dance.
So, what will be the repercussions of Audrey’s state of
affairs? Will Jerry ever make it back to civilisation? Will there be a farewell
spate of shit-shovelling? Will Sarah Palmer show up at the police station? After
all, everyone else is going there, with Coop in pole position. It’s good to
have him back.
Agree? Disagree? Mildly or vehemently? Let me know in the comments below.