Twin Peaks: The Return is a show that I will never stop talking about. I can’t stop talking about it, it’s quite literally one of the densest pieces of media ever created, both for nostalgia, a continuation of Lynch and Frost’s – arguably – greatest creation and an exploration of new themes via the medium.

On its surface, it’s the extended adventures of the unique FBI unit lead by Gordon Cole (Lynch), as they investigate the crimes and mysteries that can’t be solved. Intertwined is the tales of the residents of Twin Peaks, as everything begins to boil over as the mysterious Mr C – Special Agent Dale Cooper’s doppelganger who took Dale’s place at the end of Season 2 – begins commencing a plan that leads everything back to the town of Twin Peaks.

We could talk about Dale Cooper and his two counterparts, Mr C and Dougie Jones, but I’d much rather talk about one of my favourite sequences that happens over the course of the 18-hour film. It involves Big Ed, a character set up in the original series as a sympathetic man who is cheating on his one-eyed wife, Nadine, with the owner of the local diner and high school sweetheart, Norma.

I call him ‘sympathetic’ because he never intended to wind up married to Nadine, it was more out of pity after she lost an eye in an accident. He’s a man trapped by his morals and he is a good man at his core, he just wants more out of life. He wants his love back. In The Return, we see Ed about three times throughout. Once having dinner with old friends, another while eating alone in his gas station and another during the scene we’ll talk about where Nadine ‘frees’ him from his relationship and he gets the girl after all these years.

However, if we pull back for a minute and discuss the themes of Twin Peaks: The Return, mainly that of dreams and it begins to feel a little uneasy. Here are two quotes from the show to take note of:

“We’re like the dreamer who dreams and then lives inside the dream. But who is the dreamer?” From Gordon Cole’s “Monica Bellucci” dream

“We live inside a dream.” Dale Cooper’s realisation during Part 17

The Monica Bellucci Dream

And then we have to look at the colour, something that’s vital to understanding what’s actually going on in the scene but is usually overlooked in favour of focusing on the action happening in the show. Just bear with me while we dissect a couple of the colour schemes for a moment.

Green is for lies. We see this as the trees surrounding Twin Peaks encase lies of the town, Diane’s chair before it’s revealed she’s a double (or tulpa) and vanishes, as well as Dougie Jones’ jacket before he’s forced back into the classic FBI suit.

Side note: It’s also probably why Freddie’s glove, as you begin to dig into the wider themes of The Return, is simply a McGuffin to appease the surface level audience and doesn’t really mean anything in the end. The same could be said for the Ring that Laura takes in a retcon view of the original series.

There’s red for truth. The Red Room gives cryptic clues but speaks the truth. Diane’s wig when she’s freed from her prison is red, the true Diane. The Log Lady sees the truth through her red glasses.

Finally, the last one we’ll discuss is Gold, which represents purity. The child’s soul after the car crash, Laura’s orb in the flashback with The Fireman and the inside of Norma’s Double R Diner is a comfortable, familiar golden brown, especially after the soft lighting given in the scene with Ed and Norma that we’re about to dive into.

Unfortunately, this is all that remains on YouTube to show the scene

In the scene, Ed enters the Double R Diner after being ‘freed’ from Nadine after over 30 years of marriage. The scene prior, Nadine admits she’s held Ed back and has been a “selfish bitch”, presumably to follow Doctor Jacoby (who has gone from being the town’s psychiatrist to a parody of the right-wing online personalities that infest our society today) after buying into whatever he was spouting on his online show.

Ed then waves to Norma but is soon overtaken by Norma’s current boyfriend and business partner, which sends Ed back into a spiral of depression. He requests a cyanide pill with his coffee.

However, in the corner of the diner, Norma is pulling out of the deal that’s in front of her. Potential millions gone, as her now ex-business and – more importantly to Ed – ex-romantic partner gets up and leaves in a huff. Ed is sat with his eyes closed as he feels the gentle touch of Norma on his shoulder, a smirk curls across his face and they kiss between a proposal of marriage.

It’s absolutely my favourite scene in all of The Return, as it not only contains two of my favourite characters finally reaching a finale with a beautiful backing track but the way its edited and encapsulates the themes the show weaves into every story it tells makes it one of the most heartbreaking scenes in all of Twin Peaks.

The whole sequence is Ed dreaming of a present he could have had and while you might point to The Final Dossier as evidence that Ed and Norma did marry, it’s an unreliable source due to Agent Preston finding herself having fuzzy memories about the events in the novel the longer she stays connected to it all.

We live inside a dream.

This doesn’t just affect the ending of Cooper’s current arc and his journey to Odessa to rescue the presumed Laura Palmer, but all of Twin Peaks. Ed is probably still sat, eating corn (Twin Peaks’ symbol for pain, anguish, what the spirits feed off) and alone in a loveless marriage. Maybe Nadine left him for Jacoby.

Everything that happens in this sequence is enforcing that Ed is dreaming, from Nadine’s sudden decision to ‘free’ Ed and Norma giving up her entire fortune for the man she loves. It’s set in the classic Twin Peaks setting of the Double R Diner and is exactly what we, the audience, wanted from the series. Loose ends tied up nicely in a bow and a warm feeling of nostalgia enveloping our hearts.

The sequence concludes with the green trees, eventually looking up to a cloudy sky. Ed’s head is literally in the clouds and the green forest that surrounds Twin Peaks is part of the ellipses signifying a falsehood. The music fades out and we never see Ed or Norma for the rest of the series.

Twin Peaks: The Return is brutally honest in a way, after rummaging through the layers it conveys every ounce of information to you. It respects the audience to either take it as is or glean something from it and begin to read a little more into the scenario that’s been set up. In this case, the use of dreams within a dream is utilised to explore the deeper themes of nostalgia and love – eventually tying all the way back to the core crook of the story with Laura Palmer.

Dougie Jones

As stated before, I love this scene. It’s beautiful on the surface and sinister as you get lost in the forests surrounding it. The Owls are not what they seem. A big part of criticism towards the audience from Lynch and Frost throughout the show is a need to see the old stuff again and again. Why do you need to see Agent Cooper in Twin Peaks? For nostalgia? Why not have him in a new environment that expands the story, explores new things and builds upon the world? It’s why we spend not a lot of time with Cooper himself, but with Dougie Jones, a catatonic-state Cooper who appears to remember who he is via significant things that the fans remember Cooper for. Cooper doesn’t reappear until he remembers Gordon Cole and that’s not until Part 16 of 18.

In the case of Ed and Norma, this is what is wanted, but it cannot be. Nostalgia cannot be your driving force in life. As much as Jacoby is a parody of a curse of our society today, he has a point where you need to “dig yourself out the shit”. Ed is trapped in a loop of wanting only one thing and the key person has moved on with her life, set herself up as a success. At any point, Ed could have divorced Nadine and moved on with his life properly, but didn’t, subjecting himself to the curse of nostalgia all the way until 2016. His conclusion is a farce, one that’s incredibly upsetting as you realise that via The Return’s non-linear storytelling methods, Ed could be dreaming at any moment, but most presumably, while eating the Garmonbozia.

But if we look at the other side, the bit where true love will always win through regardless of the time or circumstances surrounding it, The Return does this constantly. It’s just on full display here, for all to see and admire as Ed and Norma finally get together after all this time. David Lynch’s character, Gordon Cole, at the start of the series says to Denise Bryson – the trans-woman FBI director – that he told those “clown comics to fix their hearts or die.” This is meant to sound like a threat, because if you can’t love, then what are you? You might as well be dead if you can’t love those around you, especially now in the present day that we find ourselves in. Nadine loves Ed so much that she lets him go because he won’t do it himself. Norma loves Ed so much she throws away her opportunity.

Though in the end, Ed is out of love. He eats soup alone in the dark. It’s highlighted red. His shirt is highlighted red. It’s subdued but its there. Lingering. The truth hurts and there’s no cut to trees here.

Much like Cooper’s journey back into the past to save Laura before her murder, you can’t linger on the past. You have to move on or you’ll wind up alone and/or lost. Cooper’s fascination with fixing Laura Palmer by literally removing her from the circumstances doesn’t help fix what she went through. You can’t fix trauma like that, it’s impossible. You can only move forward in hopes that one day the person will be okay. As Ed dreams, he’s trapped in a world where he’s entirely alone. He might have friends and he might have a wife, but he’s alone and because he stuck on the nostalgia drug for too long, chasing the past, he’s lost his way. Big Ed Hurley eats soup alone. Special Agent Dale Cooper is lost in time.

My favourite scene in all of Twin Peaks is an exploration of the themes of dreams, nostalgia and love. It demonstrates everything I love about the show in a single 5-minute sequence. Take it at face value or dive deeper, it’s your choice. But you can’t stay in the past.