“Twin Peaks: The Return” Review: Part 9

After two weeks of waiting, we are finally back in Twin Peaks. Anticipation for this episode was at an all-time high following one of the best episodes in the history of television, with Lynch’s mesmerizing Part 8. Was the real Dale Cooper back? Who is Dougie Jones? What the hell does Jerry Horne keep doing? In typical David Lynch fashion, not one of those questions was answered, and I loved every second of it.

Part 9 opens up with Doppelgänger Cooper walking after being cut open and saved (?) by the Woodsman. He ends up at a trailer park, where Chantal (Jennifer Jason Leigh) heals his disgustingly eerie wounds somehow. Also there, Coop meets up with Hutch (Tim Roth), who works for Evil Cooper as a hitman. Evil Coop sends Hutch to kill the warden, as Evil Coop sends a private cryptic message to none other than Diane (Laura Dern) herself.

Part 9 felt like David Lynch was coming back into these storylines that are central to the show after the intoxicatingly poetic opus that is Part 8. One of the finer moments in the episode is the questioning of Principle Bill Hastings (Matthew Lillard) on the death of Ruth. Ruth and William were in search of this place called “The Zone,” which is essentially the Red Room/Black Lodge.

William breaks down, telling Agent Tammy Preston what went down on the night of Ruth’s murder. Lillard actually does solid work throughout this scene, playing it up to reach the campiness we all enjoyed from the previous seasons while never going fully over the edge. The scene is a standout, and an important one at that. It’s a story to be witnessed firsthand, an unsettling one that puts frightening thoughts into our heads. He explains everything but nothing at the same time, in typical Twin Peaks fashion.

Another nice touch in Part 9 was the inclusion of Bobby Briggs as central to the plot. We’ve only seen Bobby once so far in “The Return,” but now we get some more backstory between him and his father, as well as insight into the man Bobby is today. Who would’ve thought that the wannabe scam artist and murderer (FWWM) would turn into such a good citizen of Twin Peaks, let alone a police officer? Again, I won’t go into detail on what happened, but I found it to be such an intriguing and integral part of this season’s overall endgame — if there even is one, that is.

The biggest thing for me to happen in Part 9 was that text message Evil Cooper sent out to an unknown recipient. Later on, Diane receives the same exact text message on her phone. Is the real Cooper trying to get out? Or are Diane and Evil Cooper in cahoots with one another? Of course, we have no idea, but this is definitely a turning point in the overall story this season. It’s also worth noting that no record has been found of Dougie Jones existing prior to 1997. So many questions, so many unanswered, but everything was still terrific.

Twin Peaks airs on Showtime Sunday nights at 9pm EST.

@Nick_Casaletto