Recap of Twin Peaks
Season 3, Episode 3
The Return: Part 3
Written by Mark Frost and David Lynch.
Directed by David Lynch.
Airdate: May 28, 2017.
Cooper is falling horrifically, uncontrollably through space, a nightmarish ordeal that seems to go on forever until he begins approaching a strange growing pinkish cloud. He falls into the cloud and finds himself in a small, strange room with a blind woman who seems to be only able to communicate through breathing sounds. Suddenly, a repeated pounding comes from the door to the room. The woman leads Coop up a ladder, where it's revealed that the room is floating in a vast realm of outer space. The pounding is still coming from below, and the woman pulled a lever on a large bell-like object. This causes the pounding to stop, but the woman's body convulses as if shocked, and then she's flung off the room and falls into space until she can no longer be seen. Horrified, Cooper watches her fall and then sees a large phantasm of Major Briggs's head glide by. It utters the words "blue rose," and then disappears.
Cooper climbs back down the ladder and now sees a different woman in the room, one that resembles an older Ronette Pulaski. A strange device on the wall, crackling electricity, catches his eye. He leans in close and gets an electrical shock.
Meanwhile, Evil Cooper is driving west along a deserted stretch of highway. He appears to start feeling ill and the car swerves out of control as electricity crackles from the cigarette lighter.
Cooper is still trying to engage with the device on the wall. The pounding at the door starts again. The woman says, "When you get there, you will already be there," in a weird distorted voice, followed by "You'd better hurry, our mother's coming." Cooper gets a determined look and hurls himself at the device, his body turning to mist as he disappears through the slots in its center. Only his shoes are left behind.
Evil Coop loses control of the car and it flies off the road and overturns several times. As it rests, the electricity from the cigarette lighter increases and the red curtains of the Black Lodge appear around the car.
Meanwhile, in a small suburban house in the Las Vegas area, a naked black woman named Jade is looking after someone who looks almost exactly like Dale Cooper, except with bad hair and a few extra pounds. She addresses him as Dougie, and his casual gift of a roll of bills to her reveals her as a prostitute. Dougie mentions his arm feels funny, and after Jade goes to shower, Dougie clutches his chest falls to the floor, and throws up on the carpet. Then he's whisked away — and finds himself in the Black Lodge, face to face with Mike, who informs him that he was "manufactured for a purpose." Suddenly, Dougie's very body starts to shrink, and his head suddenly pops into nonexistence. Soon he's gone, with nothing left of him but the ring that was on his finger, and a small golden ball.
In the car, Evil Cooper is vomiting a truly vile combination of creamed corn and engine oil. But the red curtain around the card disappears and the electric charges dissipate.
In Twin Peaks, Hawk has Andy and Lucy help him sift through the evidence related to Cooper in hopes of decrypting Margaret's message. Hawk learns that Lucy ate a chocolate bunny that was entered as evidence years ago, but concludes that doesn't have anything to do with the investigation.
A couple of state troopers find Evil Coop's car. One of them gets violently ill when he gets near the car and the other one radios for an ambulance and gas masks.
In the house where Dougie was, black mist pours out of one of the electrical outlets, resolving itself into Dale Cooper. He lies on the floor immobile until Jade discovers him. Mistaking him for Dougie, she gets him up and out of the house, but Cooper barely seems able to communicate or function, only occasionally repeating the last few words of whatever's said to him. Much to Jade's vexation, Cooper doesn't have the keys to Dougie's car, so she gives him a ride to a nearby casino, giving him $5 and telling him to "call for help." Cooper wanders aimlessly into the casino and repeats the phrase to a couple of employees, but all he gets is the change for his $5. He witnesses a man playing the slot machines and begins to do the same, seeing a ghostly image of the Red Room above various machines. And every time he plays, he wins a "mega-jackpot".
In Philadelphia, FBI director Gordon Cole and agent Albert Rosenfeld are in a briefing discussing the murders of the couple in the room with a glass box when a call comes in that Cooper has been found.
This episode contains examples of:
- Ms. Fanservice: Jade spends her entire screentime either naked or wearing a tight black cocktail dress and is very shapely.
- Surreal Horror: Cooper's escape from the Black Lodge involves a terrifying trip through space and an encounter with an eerie eyeless woman, who seems intent on saving him from something even more frightening. There's also the moment he encounters Major Briggs' disembodied head.
