Edward Copeland's Tangents: Twin Peaks Tuesdays: Final Episode

Tuesday, October 02, 2007

Twin Peaks Tuesdays: Final Episode

By Edward Copeland
Now, the end is near and so we face the final curtain (and it's a red one). David Lynch himself returned to direct the final television hour of Twin Peaks and the last episode manages to have a lot happen and little happen at the same time. It almost seems as if I should just post pictures and do little with text.

Early in the episode, an angry Pete Martell bursts into the sheriff's station shouting, "Grand theft auto!" The Log Lady stole his truck, he insists, with 12 rainbow trout in the back, and headed toward the woods. Cooper assures him that the Log Lady did not steal his truck or his trout and in fact, she will be there momentarily. He tells Pete that Windom Earle is the truck thief, but Pete is unconvinced. As Cooper and Truman look at the cave painting replica again, this time trying to see a map, Truman recognizes one portion as Glastonbury Grove, which is surrounded by 12 sycamore trees. Coop notes that Glastonbury is the legendary burial place for King Arthur. Pete maintains that he thought King Arthur was buried in England. Hawk notes that Glastonbury Grove was where he found the pieces of Laura Palmer's diary and the bloody towels. When the Log Lady indeed shows up, Pete asks her again where his truck is.

She ignores him and tells Coop she brought him the oil he requested. She tells him that her late husband brought it back with him from the woods once and said it was an opening to a gateway. Coop takes the jar and smells it and then lets Harry take a whiff. It smells like the scorched engine oil that Jacoby mentioned before he was attacked in the park. Coop asks Hawk to bring in Ronette Pulaski and lets her smell it as well and the teenager goes into hysterics, recognizing the odor from the night Laura was killed. In the woods, Earle has Annie in Pete's stolen truck and takes great pride in showing her the rainbow trout. Annie asks him why he doesn't just kill her, but he insists that there is plenty of time for that though he does like the fear he's sensing. Annie tries praying audibly, but it's of no use as a trance-like spell falls over her and the red curtains appear in Glastonbury Grove and Earle leads her into the Black Lodge.

Back at Ed's house, he and Norma are dancing a bit to some tunes as Doc checks out Nadine's injuries as she sits on the couch next to Mike. Mike insists to Nadine that everything will be OK, but she doesn't recognize him and begins to panic when he gets too familiar. She then spots Norma and wants to know what she is doing there and cries that it's not fair before demanding to know the whereabouts of her drape runners. Ed grabs Nadine and asks her the big question: How old is she? Nadine thinks it's a stupid question, but finally answers 35 and calls Ed a dope. Mike admits that he probably let things go too far.

At the Haywards, Donna has packed to leave. She's had enough of the lies. Ben is there as well, something that doesn't please Doc when he arrives. Ben asks Hayward's forgiveness when his long-unseen wife Sylvia (Jan D'Arcy) enters and asks what Ben is doing to this family. Donna grabs Doc and insists that he's her daddy. Doc finally erupts in a rage and punches Ben, who slams hard into the fireplace before collapsing on the floor with an awful head wound as Doc shrieks in agony at what he has done.

At the Packard place, Andrew figures out that the key belongs to a safety deposit box but while he's in the process of taking it and replacing it with another one, Pete catches him. In Glastonbury Grove, Cooper and Truman arrive and Coop uses the oil to summon the curtains and enter the lodge. Inside, he finds a room not unlike that from his dream. He also finds the Man From Another Place and a singer (James V. Scott) who warbles a creepy song about the sycamore trees. Outside, Andy comes upon Truman, still waiting outside the area where Dale disappeared. He tells him that Cooper has been in there for 10 hours. Andy offers to get him some food and Harry says sure. Morning has risen by this point and Audrey shows up at the bank, full of old people, to practice a little civil

disobedience by chaining herself to the vault. Apparently, she's unaware of her father's condition. The old man who runs the bank is puzzled by her actions but he's even more befuddled when it looks as if he's seen a ghost when Andrew Packard walks in with Pete. The man insists that he went to his funeral. Andrew sees Audrey and hears the explanation, but says he sees no problem there as the old man escorts Andrew and Pete past Audrey into the vault to find the safety deposit box to which Eckhardt's key belongs. The old man finds the correct box and then stumbles backward so that Andrew can open it. To his surprise, the box contains a bomb with a note that says, "Got you Andrew. Love, Thomas" before an explosion blasts out the windows in the front of the bank and eyeglasses and cash can be seen falling into the bushes across the street.

At the Double R, Bobby and Shelly are celebrating, wondering where Leo is, unaware that he still holds the string keeping the spiders safely above his head in the cabin in the woods. Bobby declares his love for Shelly and asks her to marry him. Then, in a scene that apes a scene from the pilot, they tease the waitress Helga who arrives late for work about being delayed by her conjugal relations with her husband. The elder Briggs also are mooning at the diner when Jacoby comes in with Sarah Palmer. "You were right, there he is," Jacoby says before telling the major that Sarah has a message for him. In an odd voice, she says, "I'm in the Black Lodge with Agent Cooper."

Back in the lodge, the MFAP tells Cooper that he is in the waiting room but that several friends are there. Laura Palmer then appears, telling Coop that she'll see him again in 25 years but until then — and she strikes a pose. Laura disappears again and the MFAP asks Cooper if he'd like some coffee. Dale responds in the affirmative and who should appear bearing a cup but the decrepit old waiter from the Great Northern whom Albert called "Senor Droolcup." He makes some whooping noises and says, "Hallelujah" before giving Cooper the drink. After the waiter delivers the coffee in his ever slow way, seemingly made even slower by the effects of the lodge, he's soon replaced by

the Giant, who takes the seat next to the MFAP and tells Dale that he and the waiter are one and the same. He vanishes and then Cooper notes odd things happening to the coffee itself. First, it seems to be a solid. Then, it turns into something more oozy before turning back to coffee again. An impressed MFAP shouts, "Wow BOB Wow," a clever joke for anyone who didn't realize that the effects of voices in the lodge were accomplished by the actors speaking backward and then having their words played back forward. The MFAP tells Cooper that the next time he sees him, it won't be him and directs Cooper to leave the room.

Cooper steps out into the hall and through another set of curtains. He runs into the MFAP again who tells him he's gone the wrong way, so Cooper leaves and enters another area where a shadowy figure emerges from behind the curtains. It's Maddie, who warns the agent to watch out for her cousin. Coop heads into another room where the MFAP appears to be, only his eyes are different and he says, "Doppleganger." Dale heads to another room where he discovers that he's bleeding. He looks on the floor to see himself lying wounded with Annie also wounded in his arms, though she's dressed like Caroline. Annie stands and tells him that she saw the face of the man who killed her and it was her husband. A puzzled Coop asks, "The man who killed you?" Annie says he must be mistaken because she's alive.

"Annie?" Dale asks confused before she asks who Annie is before abruptly changing into Caroline. Dale recognizes his late love, but Caroline doesn't stay for long as then she transforms again into a screaming Laura Palmer. The worst transformation comes last as Laura then changes into Windom Earle. "Dale Cooper," his former partner says as Annie in her normal clothes suddenly appears next to them. Earle offers a deal: He'll let Annie live if Dale gives him his soul. Dale says OK and Windom plunges a knife into his chest. However, suddenly Windom is the one screaming and in terror as Dale suddenly sees that BOB has appeared and grabbed hold of Earle. The murderous spirit orders Windom to be quiet, something he has to do twice. He tells Cooper that he should go. He also says that Earle is mistaken.

Windom Earle can't ask for someone's soul, only BOB can, so BOB will take Windom Earle's. Earle screams again and BOB appears to pull flames from Windom's head, before Windom slumps lifeless though still on his knees. Coop takes BOB's advice and gets the hell out of there but we can see another shadow struggling with the curtains before joining BOB for a laugh. It's Cooper, though with the funny eyes and obviously his doppleganger. In the hall, Dale runs into yet another familiar face. It's Leland, though his eyes also are odd. He insists that he "did not kill anybody" before dancing a little around the agent, who then spots his double entering the hallway and figures it's time to skedaddle. Dale's doppleganger stops for a giggle with Leland before continuing his pursuit of the real Agent Cooper. The two Coopers struggle in the curtains before suddenly Dale and Annie reappear in the woods and Truman gets to them. Dale awakes in his hotel room at the Great Northern, where

Doc (apparently not concerned with possibly having killed Ben Horne) and Truman are watching over him. Cooper asks how Annie is and Harry says she's in the hospital, but she'll be fine. Dale suddenly announces that he needs to brush his teeth. He excuses himself to the bathroom where he gets out the toothpaste tube and proceeds to squeeze it hard, making a mess of the sink before he rams his head into the mirror. Truman and Doc hear the noise from outside. In the bathroom, BOB stares back at Cooper from the mirror as Dale laughs maniacally asking, "How's Annie?" repeatedly. So, we come to the end of Twin Peaks' season 2. Later, the feature film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me would answer some of the mysteries left over from the series such as explaining that the Man From Another Place is actually the One-Armed Man's severed arm. Heather Graham made a cameo as Annie to tell Laura that the good Dale is in the Black Lodge and to write it in her diary, making it seem clear that its his doppleganger who got out and is in the final scene. Does this mean BOB actually uses dopplegangers for his crimes and that when Leland says in this episode that he didn't kill anybody, he's right. I doubt we'll ever know the truth.