Twin Peaks Episode 15 Recap: David Lynch Is Making a Few 25 Year Old Dreams Come True
Lots of cameos and fan wish fulfillment as we get closer to the end of the season.
Twin Peaks: The Return clearly rewards the binge-watchers. At the three-quarters mark, weâre finally getting some season-long payoffs, both from the beginning of the season and for some questions raised as far back as season one. We get more cameos, both of new and old characters, and steps closer to the showâs conclusion. Yet, most of the rewards for viewers are still ever-so-slightâthough thatâs par for the course in Twin Peaks.
Case in point: We open this week for a change on Nadine carrying her gold shovel to the automotive shop where Ed works, to finally put things right with their years-long fraught relationship.
âIâve changed,â Nadine tells him firmly. âIâve been a selfish bitch and youâve been a saint.â Guess that podcast has really has helped her get some clarity. âYou love Norma and she loves you. I manipulated you Ed,â she continues. We get the speech from Nadine weâve been waiting for for 25 years. That being said, it mightâve felt more richly deserved if weâd actually seen these two together��� this is their first one-on-one scene all season. (Itâs unclear if they are even still together.)
Ed hightails it to the diner to tell Norma that heâs free. âIâm so sorry,â she says. Walter, her business partner, is there. Ed is about, oh, 25 years too late.
But Norma has some big changes of her own planned. She tells Walter that she wants him to buy her out, and she has no more interest in franchising the diner. This seems a perfect Twin Peaks plot point: these peopleâemotionally, physically, spirituallyâall still live in the world of 25 years ago, in one way or another. Walter tells her that sheâs making a huge mistake. And⌠twist! Norma heads back over to Ed and kisses him. He asks her to marry him. Shelley watches incredulously. Can everyoneâs 25-year-old dreams come true, then?
Then, wham: weâre back in electric, surging, black-and-white territory, the Twin Peaks that we wait for each week. What could be more David Lynch than a black-and-white shot of Kyle MacLachlan driving down a nondescript highway? Bob/Cooper pulls over at the convenience store-cum-gas station where we first saw the Woodsmen appear (see: episode eight). A Woodsman figure is waiting for him there. This, per the information he got in a prior episode, is the Dutchmanâs. They walk up a staircase on the side of a convenience store and slowly flicker away away as theyâre walking upâanother dimension.
In a wallpapered room, he asks another Woodsman about Phillip Jeffries. Another comes to take him down a hallâthe hallway is cross-faded with a forest, perhaps near Jack Rabbitâs Palaceâuntil they get to another room with a staircase. At the top, out the door, theyâre at a motel parking lot. A woman in a nightgown comes toward Bob/Cooper, and says she will unlock the door. She has the same garbled voice we know as being from the Black Lodge. Once inside the room, behind a wall is a strange machine emitting a kind of smoke. The machine says, âOh itâs you.â Jeffries.
Thereâs some flashbacks to Fire Walk with Meânot just to show more Bowie (R.I.P.) but because Bob/Cooper remembers their conversations, specifically pertaining to someone named Judy. Wait. What?! Has Cooper always been evil, or Bob? Who is that other guy in Vegas?
Cooper/Bob wants to know who (or what) Judy is. Jeffries emits a string of numbers that he writes down, saying heâs already met Judy. The phone rings. Cooper/Bob picks up, and is transported back to the telephone booth at the front of the convenient store. And waiting for him, pointing a gun is⌠Richard Horne. He says he recognized him as FBI back in Montana because of a picture his mother had. Not-so-big reveal, of course: his mom is Audrey.
Bob/Cooper obviously knocks Richard out, then tells him to get in the truck. He texts an unknown number âLas Vegas?â Your move, Diane. Once they drive away, the Dutchmansâ surges with electrical energy, billows with smoke, and then slowly starts to disappear into the forest. Weâre still not sure where exactly this is located, but somewhere between Montana and Vegas. Over in Vegas, Duncan Todd gets shot in the face byâŚChantal! âFrench fries and extra ketchup,â she tells Hutch after the hit. They chat in the truck later. âItâs a nation of killers,â Hutch says.
In Twin Peaks, in the woods, Steven and Gersten Hayward are flipping out. Heâs stoned, paranoid, and has a gun. Theyâre spotted byâŚCyril Pons! Youâll remember him as Twin Peaksâs intrepid reporter, played by none other than Mark Frost. (Lots of fun âguess-whoâsâ this week.) Steven tries to shoot Cyril, and he goes back to the Fat Trout to spread word about what he saw.
At the Roadhouse, Jimmy sees Renee hanging out with her friends⌠and her husband, who punches him in the face. As we learned earlier, something is going on between Renee and Jimmy. Meanwhile, Freddie (remember his weird glove story? Magical powers?) watches Jimmy get beat up by Reneeâs husband and his friend, then knocks both guys old cold with his gloved hand. Reneeâs husband starts foaming at the mouth. Whoa. Jimmy and Freddie get locked up along with the drunk, Chad, and Naido.
In Vegas, Janey-E serves Dougie/Cooper a slice of cake. He watches a scene of Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard. âThe old team together again,â she says, and Dougie pauses it. He looks at a red vase and then looks at the electric socket. We can hear surging sound. He crawls over, fork in hand, and sticks one end inside, electrocuting himself. Is the literal shock weâve been looking for.? Is Dougie dead? Is Cooper alive?
Then⌠Log Lady! She calls Hawk to say that she is dying (played by Catherine E. Coulson, who did pass away in 2015 and filmed her scenes prior). âWatch for the one I told you about under the moon on Blue Pine Mountain,â she instructs him. âMy log is turning gold,â she adds. A reference to Dr. Jacoby?
Audrey and her husband are still bickering about going to the Roadhouse (what is the timeline on this show? Havenât a handful of musical acts performed in the time theyâve supposedly been arguing?)
The Veils perform and more randos get in trouble. Two tough guys lift a shy-looking woman named Ruby (a Charlyne Yi cameo!) out of her seat at a booth. She crawls across the floor and starts screaming bloody murder. Until next weekâŚ
A Field Guide to Recognizing Your Favorite Twin Peaks Actors Now, 26 Years Later
Though Kyle MacLachlan has since starred in other cult series, even when he was Charlotteâs impotent husband on Sex and the City and a murderer on Desperate Housewives, heâll always be known as Special Agent Dale Cooper, a man never too far away from a slice of cherry pie or cup of strong, black joe. (No word yet on whether Diane will be returning, too.)
Death be damned, Laura Palmer is coming back with a bang by starring in all 18 episodes of the new seriesâthat is, unless Sheryl Lee, whose first post-Peaks role was Salome opposite Al Pacino, and who has since showed up in Winterâs Bone and Woody Allenâs CafĂŠ Society, is simply reprising her role as Lauraâs suspiciously identical cousin, Maddy.
Dana Ashbrook has kept up acting with a steady roster of smaller films, including 2012âs The Agression Scale with Ray Wise, aka Leland Palmer, and more than a few appearances on Dawsonâs Creek, presumably making him more than up to the job in reprising his role as the annoying ultimate bad boy Bobby Briggsâeven now that his hairâs gone gray.
Though sheâs now a long way from a schoolgirl, the ever flirtatious Audrey Horne may have a chance at getting together with Coop after all, especially since actress Sherilyn Fenn has been keeping up her acting chops on shows like Gilmore Girls and Shameless (not to mention appearing on the cover of Playboy in the â90s).
At 70, Peggy Lipton scarcely seems to have aged since she last played Norma Jennings, the owner of the Double R Diner, though she has since raised another actress, her daughter Rashida Jones.
Richard Beymerâs eyes seem only bluer than ever since the now 79-year-old actor last turned up as Benjamin Horne, Audreyâs father and the owner of the Great Northern Hotel (not to mention an appearance in West Side Story, which helped to earn him a Golden Globe for New Star of the Year that he shared with Warren Beatty). Not that viewers have been able to appreciate them: Twin Peaks is only Beymerâs fourth on-screen appearance so far in the 2000s.
From blue streaks to twin top knots, Kimmy Robertson seems to have as much appreciation for an out-there hairdo as Lucy Moran, her curly-haired secretary in the sheriffâs office. Robertson has since lent her high-pitched voice to shows like Batman and The Simpsons, plus appeared onscreen on an episode of Drake & Joshâall good practice for appearing on all 18 episodes this season.
Like Leland Palmer, Lauraâs potentially murderous father, actor Ray Wise has since gone gray, a new look heâs shown off in shows like Mad Men, Fresh Off the Boat, Gilmore Girls, 24, and How I Met Your Mother. Thatâs range.
Another face whoâll be showing up in the full series, Mädchen Amick has lately turned up on Riverdale, plus a host of cult shows like Mad Men, Gossip Girl, ER, Gilmore Girls, and Dawsonâs Creek. Fortunately for her character, the waitress Shelley Johnson, though, her abusive husband Leo wonât be back.
Since playing Deputy Hawk, one of the most reasoned voices in the sheriffâs office, Michael Horse has gone on to not only appear in shows like Malcolm in the Middle, but pick up a full-on artistic career as a jeweler and painter.
Though Michael Ontkean has maintained his curly head of locks since starring as Sheriff Harry S. Truman, the actor, who last showed up in The Descendants in 2011, has decided to leave Coop hanging and wonât be returning to Twin Peaks.
Lara Flynn Boyle wonât be returning to this season but sheâll always live on as Donna Hayward, Lauraâs best friend of sorts who was never short on spectacular sweaters.
Russ Tamblynâs daughter Amber has since gone on to become an actor and even director herself, but Tamblyn has kept up an acting career of his own since playing the ever eccentrically-outfitted psychiatrist Dr. Lawrence Jacoby, recently picking up roles in films like Django Unchained.
Like the actor who plays fellow bad boy Bobby Briggs, James Marshall, aka James Hurley, Big Edâs nephew who canât get enough of riding his bike, has also gone gray, but still showed up on-screen with a few films and an appearance on CSI.
Like her on-screen daughter, Laura, the grief-stricken Sarah Palmer will be returning for all 18 episodes, although actor Grace Zabriskie has turned up in shows like Charmed and Big Love.
Fittingly, like her beau Sheriff Harry S. Truman, sawmill owner Josie Packard wonât be returning to the seriesâlike fellow mill worker Piper Laurie, aka Catherine Martell, David Lynch apparently never asked her back. But actor Joan Chen has been looking young as ever lately in shows like Netflixâs Marco Polo.
Read Wâs recap of Part 14 of Twin Peaks.
Related: Laura Dern and Naomi Watts Open Up About David Lynch, And Tease Twin Peaks
Read all Wâs Twin Peaks coverage here.
Laura Dern, Naomi Watts, Patricia Arquette, and Hailey Gates Open Up About Working with Legendary Director David Lynch: