Bad story

The sound of the bottles had brought Sarah out of her reverie and back to the store. Now, the sound of the bottles occurs when Hawk asks if she is okay and she says that she feels fine, drawing his attention. She hadn't carried the bottles home with her from the store, but perhaps they were delivered. Or there could be another source for the sound of the glass. What engages is simply the sound of it and Hawk's suspicion that something is wrong, that nobody else should be in the house. He doesn't ask if she has friends over, his inquiry is one of alarm.

Sarah's anger is astonishing here, as if another face. That's disturbing for the reason that we have sympathy for Sarah, and then the quality of rage in her expression causes us to wonder what's up with her? Who is she?

What is as disturbing is what she says. "It's a goddamn bad story, isn't it, Hawk?" It's disturbing for the same reason all of the references to dreams and mirages can be disturbing. Despite everyone knowing they are watching fiction, an act of imagination, knowing things aren't real, one doesn't want to have spent hours invested in attachment to a show where eventually everything may be blithely explained away/dismisses as having been a dream. For one thing, it has been done before, and usually very badly. The Wizard of Oz is a an example of it being done well, for we are left with the feeling that Oz, despite the ending, was real in some fashion. But the "dream" ending has been done very badly in what were some popular shows.

We have accepted the artistry of Lynch/Frost that sometimes makes null and void the usual linear timeline, and not just in running events out of order but make them conflict and pile up. But when Sarah says this, that it's a "bad story", one might groan, "Oh, no, let's not break the fourth wall in this way and have characters become knowledgable of themselves as only a fiction." As in expressing this is a very "bad" (perhaps as in horrifying) story Lynch and Frost have created for them. Not that I've not seen this done well in other things, or hinted at, but my response here is, "Oh, damn. Let's not go there."

Hawk's response is one of being taken aback, and to tell her if she needs help to call him. So he doesn't engage with and step into the idea of this being only a story.

One then might instead look at what Sarah has said as not coming from the writer, not pointing out the "story", but coming from the character. This is Sarah's response, or whatever else is expressing itself through her, even if only a part of herself that she keeps hidden.

Lynch/Frost have chosen now to bring back the ceiling fan. And that doesn't bode well. The ceiling fan had been used by Leland to cover the sounds of his abuse of Laura, after drugging Sarah, so she wouldn't know what was going on.

But the ceiling fan is more complex than this, hypnotic, threatening Laura with possession not just by BOB but she hearing a voice through it saying, "Do you see what we can do?" Not "I", but "we". What "we" can do. Then seemingly BOB says, "I want to taste through you..." We hear Sarah call "Laura" which pulls her out of her trance. Sarah enters and asks where her blue sweater is. Laura points out she is wearing it and Sarah crumbles. "It's happening again," she says, distressed. She has lost touch with her actions, unconscious that she has put on the blue sweater, not remembering.

The blue sweater had been previously borrowed by Laura and found by Sarah wadded up on the floor of Laura's closet, she having entered Laura's room to look for it when Laura was taking her diary to Harold's for safekeeping.

The issue of the clothing may also be more complex than it seems. Later, Donna is at a club with Laura. Stoned, Donna progressively behaves with abandon, which is not her normal personality. She finds Laura's blouse on the floor and puts it on. Laura sees Donna and hears (in the script) Bob's voice say, "See what we can do to Donna?" Laura runs over to Donna to drag her out of the club, takes her blouse from her and tells her never to wear her stuff. Never. In the script, Laura doesn't hear, "Do you see what we can do?" under the fan, instead she hears a voice saying it's glad she will listen to it now. The fan and the clothes are united through the idea of possession, Laura afraid that Donna will be affected simply by putting on something of Laura's. Later in the series, this idea is played with a little when Donna inherits Laura's sunglasses and seems to assume some of her personality when she wears them.

Laura, however, borrows her mother's clothes and then her mother wears those clothes. A permeability is had that Laura won't permit with Donna. One then wonders if Sarah forgot she had put on the sweater because Laura forgets things, or she doesn't see she has put on the sweater in the way that Laura is also blind to certain things, such as the fact it is her father who comes to her bedroom at night.

Fire Walk with Me has thus set it up that there has been this permeability between Laura and her mother. If Laura is affected by the fan, then why not her mother? If Laura's belongings affect others, then why not her mother?

All of this is brought back up through the resurrection of the fan.

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MIRIAM IN THE HOSPITAL

RAISING CONCERNS OVER MIRIAM'S SAFETY IN THE HOSPITAL

(1) A hospital corridor. We hear an announcement concerning three-one-zero. (2) Then pan up over a figure wrapped in a blanket to see Miriam's blood-stained face, she either asleep or in a coma. We see the monitor with vital signs above her bed. 134 over 84. We hear 3 beeps.

Miriam

Miriam has survived. We already knew this from part eleven, and of course she would be in the hospital considering her injuries, so the reason for this scene, considering economy, is a little puzzling. We hear the three beeps and the viewer wonders what meaning these beeps have. They begin when we have an interruption in the EKG, signaled by a change of one of the repeat fluctuations to a single straight line. I don't know what this means. And unknowledgeable viewers, like myself, will wonder if she is undergoing a traumatic event.

We are reminded of Renault in his hospital bed, when he is killed by Leland. Has someone snuck in and attempted to kill Miriam? If someone dies in a Twin Peaks hospital scene, that seems the most likely cause, that they have been murdered.

What we do know is the plot began moving us in the direction of Miriam with Sarah's Bloody Mary fixings.

The viewer worries now about Miriam.

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LAS VEGAS?

SHOWING THE VIEWER DIANE KNOWS SOMETHING ABOUT LAS VEGAS

(1) In the red top she was wearing earlier, and her leopard coat, Diane eats an olive from her martini at the hotel bar. Her cell phone beeps and she checks it. The time of the message is 19:28 (7:28). It reads, "Las Vegas?" She types back in all caps, "THEY HAVEN'T ASKED YET."

Diane in bar

Las Vegas

What this shows the viewer is that Mr. C appears to be asking if Gordon knows anything about Las Vegas, and reveals also to the viewer that Diane does know about Las Vegas. How much she knows, we don't know.

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I LOVED THAT BIKE THAT MY FATHER GOT FOR ME

REARRANGING THE BEN AND BEVERLY TIMELINE / WHY PERHAPS BEN DOESN'T MENTION RICHARD'S ASSAULT OF SYLVIA / THE PROBLEM OF AUDREY

(1) Ben is at his desk at the Great Northern. We hear a door. (2) Beverly announces Sheriff Truman and (3) Ben tells her to have him come in. (4-5) He stands to shake hands, saying it's good to see him and asking how he is. He tells him to take a seat and they stare at each other for a moment.

Frank and Ben

(6-31 approx) BEN: What can I do for you?
FRANK: There's no easy way to say this, Ben. Your grandson, Richard, was the one who ran over and killed that little boy.
BEN: Oh, my god. Richard.
FRANK: And it looks like he tried to kill the only witness who saw him do it. Miriam Sullivan. Nursery school teacher. She's in intensive care. No insurance. Desperately needs an operation. I was hoping that you could...
BEN: Of course, of course. I'll take care of it. Richard. That boy has never been right.
FRANK: Sorry to have to bring you this news.
BEN: Harry, your brother, has had a number of run-ins with Richard. Nothing too bad, but each time was worse than the time before, and...Does Harry know about this?
FRANK: Yeah. We stay in touch.
BEN: And Richard is, where is he, is he in jail?
FRANK: He's on the run. If you hear from him...
BEN: Oh, I doubt that. We pretty much lost contact when I refused to give him more money. How's Harry?
FRANK: He's hanging in there. Of course we're hoping for the best.
BEN: Of course. And that girl? Is she in the hospital here?
FRANK: Yeah.
BEN: Intensive care?
FRANK: Yeah.
BEN: And the boy's parents.
FRANK: As you can imagine.
(32-56 approx) BEN: I was going to send this to Harry.
FRANK: What's that?
BEN: The key. Showed up in the mail the other day. We haven't used a key like this in over 20 years. Room 315. I'm pretty sure that this is the key to Agent Cooper's old room. I thought Harry would like to have it as a momento. You think he would?
FRANK: Yeah, yeah, Ben. You want me to take it for him.
BEN: Yeah. You think he would like it?
FRANK: Yeah. Interesting. We're just opening up an old case involving Agent Cooper. Strange, this key shows up after all these years.
BEN: Yeah, I thought so too.
FRANK: I really think he'd like it. It'd mean a lot to him. I'm sorry, Ben, to bring you this news. Good to see you again. Wish it was under better circumstances.
BEN: Yeah. I'll let you know if I hear from him.
FRANK: I'll let you know if we have more news.
BEN: Thanks, Frank. For Harry. (He hands over the key.)

(57-58) Frank exits and Beverly enters.

(59-81 approx) BEN: Richard, my grandson, killed that little boy.
BEVERLY: I am so sorry.
BEN: Richard never had a father. I remember, I remember riding...my father got me this old Schwinn...secondhand. He painted it green, got a new seat for it. Two-tone green, kind of a lime green and a deep forest green. Fat tires. Oh, it was so hard to ride. But I loved that bike. I loved that bike. I'd ride with my friends. Call the hospital. I want you to arrange to pay for all of Miriam...I don't even remember her last name but they'll know who she is...all of Miriam's medical expenses. Richard assaulted her. She needs an operation. Beverly, please take care of this right away.
BEVERLY: Of course. I'll do it right now.
BEN: I loved that bike. I loved that bike...that my father got for me.

First, to address the clothing worn in this scene. If we go back to part nine, the second time that Ben and Beverly were wandering her office, looking for the source of the ringing tone, she was dressed in this blouse, but without this jacket, and Ben appeared to be dressed in this red tie with the pattern on it. We had supposed this might be on Thursday, but it proved problematic with, in part ten, Ben appearing to speak with Sylvia about Richard on Thursday, and then calling Beverly and asking if she would like dinner with him. In that scene he wears a checked shirt.

When Ben turned down the romantic liaison with Beverly in part nine, it was just after Hastings had signed a sheet identifying Briggs with the current date of 9/29, but looked like a 9/20, and he had said, covered by his sniffling, 9/26, though this was not in the subtitles. It seemed reasonable the scene between Ben and Beverly was also in 9/29, the day after Richard Horne hit the boy, the day that he had assaulted Miriam. In part seven Ben had asked Beverly to check with security on the source of the ringing, and she had given him the key that had arrived in the mail. We assumed this was Wednesday, Jade seeming to have mailed the key on Tuesday.

Ben and Beverly part nine

Beverly part twelve

Ben part twelve

Is this then Friday? Did Ben's turning down Beverly happen earlier in the evening, perhaps not long before this? Had they gone for dinner the previous night and it had just been between friends but led her to assume that more was a possibility?

Did Miriam not crawl out of the woods until Friday?

Ben has said he hasn't heard from Richard. Does this mean that this is instead on Thursday, and Chad's intercept of the wrong Miriam's letter occurred on Friday? And that Richard went to Sylvia's on Friday? When Chad intercepts the letter, Lucy is wearing a sweater vest that she had been wearing in part nine when she purchased the red chair. We'd thought on Thursday. But then on Thursday at lunch, during the solving of the Briggs' puzzle, she was wearing another outfit.

If this happens before Richard attacks Sylvia then it would make sense why Ben doesn't tell Frank he has heard from him. That instead happened the following day. It would explain also why Sylvia had immediately threatened Richard with calling the sheriff when she saw him. She already knew about Miriam.

So why the jumbling of scenes? Why place Ben turning down Beverly in part nine, making it seem on a separate day from this scene? Why have the scenes with Richard attacking Sylvia and Sylvia calling Ben intervening?

Frank is the one who comes to give Ben the news. No mention of Audrey is made. We suspect Mr. C is the father, but it would seem no one else does or else Ben wouldn't be so ready to give Cooper's old key to Frank, for Harry, as a momento. If a rape was suspected, he would be horrified by the intrusion of Cooper in their lives again, and with Frank bringing up the old case involving Cooper, he would be eager to learn what they know about Cooper, if anything. No, instead Richard is simply given as not having had a father, not even Billy Zane, with whom Audrey had sex not long before she was knocked into a coma, and maybe something happened to him in South America and people believe he's the father. Ben could have, as a grandfather, stepped in as a father figure, but no acknowledgement is given of this, only that they have been aiding him financially and then quit doing so. But no mention of Audrey. No mention of a mother. It is bizarre.

Frank comes to give him the news and says nothing about Audrey or anyone getting in touch with her. When Ben says Richard never had a father, Frank doesn't ask about Audrey.

What do we know about Frank? He had a son who committed suicide, about whom he seemingly does not talk, and has so removed himself emotionally that his wife rails against him. It may be he is the one who comes to Ben for a reason, and that reason is some shared pain, so that he doesn't ask about Audrey, just as he would expect Ben not to say anything about his son to him. His son and Audrey are children in limbo, unacknowledged, because events concerning them are too painful.

What happened to Audrey? Did she commit suicide after raising Richard to adulthood? It seems that if she was so injured by the bombing that she was unable to mother Richard that Ben might then have stated he never had a mother or father.

Part eleven was about friends and family, bonds, loss of family, the restoration of family for the gambling woman, the restoration of a mother to her son. Again, we are about family here, for Ben is inspired to reminisce on the father-son bond, its importance. The gift his father had made of a bike, that symbolized his father's love for him, and he in turn loved that bike because of what it symbolized.

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WHAT KIND IS IT? 11:05

THE MISSING WOMAN / A NOD TO LIL AND MORE WORD PLAY / A WOMAN WHO MAKES YOU WISH YOU SPOKE A LITTLE FRENCH / THE FINE BORDEAUX, THE LANGUE D'OC AND TROUBADOURS

(1) Gordon's hotel room. He rests on the couch with a young woman curled up next to him, her shoes off, she seemingly hanging upon every word of his story. Two wine glasses rest before them on the coffee table and a bottle of wine.

They came up over the mountain

GORDON: The trap was set. They waited until after midnight, and then, 75 strong, they came up over the mountain, sirens wailing, guns drawn...

Gordon is likely telling an FBI war story when he is interrupted by a knock on the door. He pats the woman's hand, releases it, (2) goes to the door. It's Albert. He lets him in. (3) Albert asks Gordon if he can ask his friend to wait downstairs. (4) Gordon, smiling, asks her if she would excuse them for a moment, and that he will call for her in the bar. (5) She grins and replies, "Oui, mon cheri."

When Albert had been dining with Constance, we'd viewed a small French flag pass through the restaurant.

(6) Albert patiently waits as (7-8) she slips on her shrug, smiling at Gordon with every move she makes, (9--10) giggling as she lifts her bust, Gordon smiling. (11-12) She slips on her expensive Christian Louboutin shoes with the distinctive red soles and laughs. (13-14) She stretches a leg up for Gordon and he says, "Tres chic." (15-21) She pulls out a compact and checks her face, applies a fresh coat of make-up, Gordon mimicking her pursing her lips. (22-24) She raises her wine glass, sniffs it. She drinks more of her wine. "Tres bon," she says. (25) Gordon replies it's a good one.

Tres chic. Tres bon. We almost expect her to say, "Tres mond!"

You know, as in the Tremond story line. The grandmother and grandson who are also the Chalfonts. The boy who is the initiate magician. The people who gave Laura the picture to put on her wall.

(26-32) She stands and tugs her dress down over her thighs, Gordon appreciatively eyeing her rear and legs as she does so. He escorts her to the door where she makes a dramatic, tantalizing departure. Gordon says he'll call her at the bar.

Is she a date or an escort?

(33) GORDON: She's here visiting a friend of her mother whose daughter has gone missing. The mother owns a turnip farm. I told her to tell the mother that her daughter will turn up eventually.

(34-38) He waits for Albert to respond. He doesn't. He ignores the turnip pun.

GORDON: She didn't get it either. Being French, it doesn't translate. Do you realize, Albert, that there are more than 6000 languages spoken on earth, today? (Again, Albert doesn't respond.) What is it, Albert?
(39) ALBERT: Incoming to Diane. Las Vegas? Outgoing. They haven't asked yet.
(40-42) GORDON: What do we know, that we haven't asked her about? We'll figure it out. But for now, I'd really like to get back to this fine Bordeaux.
(43) ALBERT: What kind is it?
(44-51) GORDON: 11:05. (He waits forever for Albert to respond. He doesn't. He places his hand on his shoulder.) Albert, sometimes I really worry about you.

With Albert's discontent, we are taken back to the night he went to find Diane, he taxed with laboring through the storm while Gordon was romancing a woman with another bottle of Bordeaux.

Elements of this scene are to be compared with Gordon's infatuation with Shelly, which caused him to say she was the kind of girl who made you wish you spoke a little French, and also the scene in Fire Walk with Me in which "Lil" communicated information via signs and her clothing.

Of primary interest is that Gordon had said of Lil, "She's my mother's sister's girl", and that Chet Desmond had asked Sam Stanley what was missing in that conversation. The missing piece was the uncle. Not Cole's uncle, but the Sheriff's uncle was in federal prison. Absolutely none of Lil's signs, as clues, will make any sense to the uninitiated, and are so convoluted that one wonders how they would make sense to the initiated without memorization of what amounts to almost a completely different, complex language.

What's missing?

Audrey, for one, is missing. We are most acutely aware that Audrey is missing after the scene between Frank and Ben.

We don't feel that Gordon is communicating information to Albert in the manner that Lil had been. Instead, he has been interrupted, he makes a few jokes, he is told about Diane, he doesn't know what her phone call means so for now he'd like to get back to what was interrupted. As Denise had hinted, with her worries of Gordon taking along Tammy on the job, "I know your profile."

Audrey is missing. Gordon jokes that this woman is visiting a friend of her mother whose daughter has gone missing. She will "turnip" eventually.

Audrey is missing. Mr. C is missing. Diane is a mystery. We know Mr. C had to have raped her, and that she knows he is not the Cooper she knew, but she is exchanging messages with him, working behind the FBI's back. Why? Why, Diane? Why!?

Lynch/Frost are reminding the viewer there is information to be had here that will help sort out the mysteries, but it will be hard because, like the woman who speaks French, we may not get the puns, there are how many languages in the world, and translation isn't always easy.

In respect of this, I wonder at the use of the word "turnip", when "un navet" (navet is French for turnip) is an idiom for a "bad movie", and in this same part we have Sarah's startling question to Hawk, "It's a goddamn bad story, isn't it?"

Now to to go into the idea of the troubadour, which I will link back to Gordon's French woman, his talking about the difficulty of translation, of her not getting his turnip joke.

Troubadours sang of courtly love and chivalry, and were spoken of as going around leading women astray with lies. The origin of the word is:

The English word troubadour is an exact rendition from a French word first recorded in 1575 in an historical context to mean "langue d'oc poet at the court in the 12th and 13th century"...

The French word is borrowed itself from the Occitan word trobador. It is the oblique case of the nominative trobaire "composer", related to trobar "to compose, to discuss, to invent"...It may come from the hypothetical Late Latin tropare "to compose, to invent a poem" by regular phonetic change. This recreated form is deduced from the Latin root tropus, meaning a trope and the various meanings of the Old Occitan related words. In turn, the Latin word derives ultimately from Greek tropos, meaning "turn, manner"... Hans Spanke analysed the intertextual connexion between vernacular and medieval Latin (such as Goliardic) songs. This theory is supported by Reto Bezzola, Peter Dronke, and musicologist Jacques Chailley. According to them, trobar means "inventing a trope", the trope being a poem where the words are used with a meaning different from their common signification, i.e. metaphor and metonymy...

Source: Wikipedia

Langue d'Oc and Langue d"Oil were the two main French dialects in the medieval era. "Yes" was "Oc in Langue d'Oc and was "Oui" in Langue d'oil. The geographical separation between the two is given as a line from Bordeaux to Grenoble, Langue d'Oil spoken above, and Langue d'Oc, the Provencal language, below. Burgundian, Bourbonnais, Chamenpois etc. zones were d'Oil. Bordeaux was Langue d'Oc.

What Mark Frost would be interested in (down the order of the "Secret History of Twin Peaks"), is a discussion on Dante Gabriel Rosetti's Disquisitions on the Anti-papal Spirit which produced the Reformation in Isabel Cooper-Oakley's Traces of a Hidden Tradition in Masonry and Medieval Mysticism.

MYSTERIOUS songsters of the Middle Ages, messengers who were burdened—by right of the royal gift of song--with a knowledge that transcended that of their fellow-men—such were the Troubadours, who formed an integral portion of the mystic thread, and thus served in the weaving of the glorious traditions of eastern arcane lore into the young web of the western child-life.

Much has been already set down by many competent writers on this most complicated and interesting period of the Middle Ages; here and there some few frankly acknowledge that in the study of the writings and poems of the Troubadours, traces of hidden knowledge on their part become revealed, a knowledge which pertains to some more ancient tradition than that of the Catholic Church.

It is these traces that must be collected, in order to demonstrate that these "Messengers of Love," as they were often termed, were inheritors of a "Kingdom of Heaven "-- mystic heaven, indeed, of pure doctrine, noble life, and holy aspirations.

It is but slightly that we need touch on their general history, for the outer aspect of their work can be easily followed by students; our chief attention must be centred on the most important part of their mission, and the part but little known in the general world, namely, that of their work as spiritual teachers, their secret language, and above all their secret doctrine.

Rossetti * in his valuable book gives many proofs of the existence of a mystic language in the "Secret Schools," and of the "double" and even "triple language" used by these Troubadours in communicating with each other. These details must be investigated if we desire to arrive at any clear comprehension of the extent to which these Secret Schools were organized and developed during the Middle Ages...

It is all this idea of the double and triple language. Which, I would hazard, is being referred to in Gordon's scene with the "French" woman (is she?) who says, "Oui", but they are drinking a Bordeaux, and when Albert asks what kind is it, Gordon states instead the time, this after having made a pun (double meaning) on turnip, then discussing the problem of language and communication.

The trope (referring back to troubadour) comes from tropos, a turn. Trope, a turning.

Bordeaux, recall, is the Langue d'oc area. I don't know what Tammy, Albert and Gordon toast Tammy's reception into the Blue Rose task force with, but I wonder if it's a Bordeaux. While Diane isn't even offered the wine. Instead she is offered vodka (Sarah lives also on vodka). So Diane isn't part of the wine toast--and Gordon watches Tammy with some anticipation after she takes her sip, she smiling with pleasure.

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NEXT STOP, WENDYS

THE DRAMA OF THE MISSING PARENT

(1) Long shot, from a hill above a road, of a nice house, its front porch light on welcomingly. It's impossible to tell from the foliage whether this is supposed to be Twin Peaks or South Dakota. Pan down and we see a black van, staked out above. (2) Then inside the van we see Hutch putting a silencer on his rifle, (3) and Chantal lazily waiting in the driver's seat.

HUTCH: You sure?
CHANTAL: I'm sure. We don't have time for torture, babe. I'm hungry. Passed a Wendy's back there. Just shoot him.
HUTCH: OK, I'm there. I could shoot him in the legs. Kidnap him. Then you could torture him.
CHANTAL: Told you, I'm hungry.
HUTCH: Making sure.
CHANTAL (picks up a bag of Cheetohs (4) as we see a car arrive below): He's here.

(5-6) Hutch readies the rifle. (7) Through the crosshairs of Hutch's gun-sight we view the car. (8) Hutch. (9) The car swerving up the driveway to the house, in the crosshairs. (10) Chantal and Hutch. (11) A man gets out. If we remember him, a number of episodes having passed, we may realize it's Murphy, the prison warden. (12) We have a view of Hutch's screen left eye enlarged through the gun-sight, the gun pointing at the camera. (13) The warden in the cross hairs. (14) Hutch's eye. (15) The warden in the crosshairs. Hutch shoots him and he falls. (16-22) He reloads and shoots him again as he struggles to stand. A boy in a green shirt comes out the front door, and seeing the man on the ground, yells, "Daddy! Daddy!" (23-25) Hutch says, "Next stop, Wendy's," as the boy continues to cry out, "Daddy, daddy," and the van squeals away. Fade to black.

Murphy shot

This could be either Thursday or Friday. Let's say Thursday, assuming that Chantal and Hutch would have moved quickly in response to Mr. C's orders, and will now scoot off to Vegas.

After the scene of Cooper-Dougie playing ball with Sonny Jim, and Ben's speaking of how Richard never had a father, and the significance of the bike his father had given him, it would seem the main import of the scene is the parent-child relationship and the drama of the missing parent.

The original Twin Peaks and Fire Walk with Me focused on youth and young adults crossing the boundary into adulthood and leaving or preparing to leave the family. It focused on the alienation of youth. We have some of that in The Return, such as with Steven and Becky, but the center is now family relationships, the heart being Cooper-Dougie with his ready-made family. Because this is the heart, we are made then very aware of loss in other families, and the impact of the deprivation of family.

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THE NINTH LEVEL OF HELL WILL WELCOME YOU

JACOBY'S BROADCAST IS A REPEAT OF PART FIVE WITH SOME DIFFERENCES, SOME OF NADINE'S SHOTS A REPEAT / A CRESCENT WANING MOON / WHAT WAITS FOR ONE IN THE NINTH LEVEL OF HELL

(1) Dark clouds float against a pale crescent moon then cover it. (2) Cut to Jacoby's trailer. Night. The porch light is on. As we hear an alarm clock buzz, (3-4) cut to the interior of Jacoby's trailer, he striking his shovel as if it was a bell. He is dressed again as Dr. Amp and seated before his microphone and mixer.

(5) JACOBY: It's seven o'clock. Do you know where your freedom is? (6) (He winds up his record player so it plays Sousa's "Stars and Stripes Forever".) (7) Coming to you live, and electrified, from studio A, high stop the escarpments of White Tail Peak, the roof, ruff, ruff, of the American Hindu Kush, (8) this is Dr. Amp, doing the vamp for liberty, (9) climbing the ramp to justice, and lighting the lamp of freedom. (He cuts on the lamp of his Lady Liberty diorama, the sound of fireworks exploding. He cuts it off.) (10) So, what's on your mind tonight. I mean, you know I'm going to tell you what's on mine. (11) We're sinking down deep in the mud. Act now!

Jacoby

(12) We briefly see Nadine watching, (13) then cut back to Dr. Amp cutting on his shovel commercial.

(14) Dressed in a brown blouse with a floral print, Nadine watches.

THE COMMERCIAL: Friends. We all live in the mud. (Nadine watching. (15) Then return to the commercial, Jacoby standing deep in the mud. He shovels some of the mud. Then the scene transforms and he is standing in the same place but atop dry ground, and has cut on a lamp so that it glows golden on him.) This is your shiny gold shovel. Two coats guaranteed. Shovel your way out of the shit and into the truth.
(16) NADINE (cut to her): It's working for me, Dr. Amp.
(17) THE COMMERCIAL (cut back to Jacoby): Dig yourself out of the shit--$29.99. That's right. Only $29.99 plus shipping. Accept no substitute. Get yours now.

(18) Return briefly to Nadine (19) then to Jacoby/Dr. Amp.

JACOBY: And these fucks are at it again. ( (20-21) Return to Nadine watching. Then back to Jacoby.) These giant multinational corporations are filled with monstrous vermin, poisonous, vile murderers, and they eat, drink, and shit money. They buy our politicians for a song, then these fucking politicians sing as we gag and cough, sold down the river to die. Fuck you who betray the people you were elected to help, elected to work to help, to make life better for. Fuck you all in the ass, you fucking treasonous puppets! The ninth level of hell will welcome you!

This scene is very similar to the first time we saw Jacoby's show in part five.

Here is how it runs in part five, which I had assumed then to be Tuesday night, the Jacoby scene coming after Andy asking Hawk if he'd found any Indians in their investigation yet, and before Davis, at the Pentagon, telling Cindy to go to Buckhorn and follow up on Briggs' prints.

(1) Night and the outside of Dr. Jacoby's trailer. (2) Inside, Jacoby is a bit of a shock. He is dressed up in a hat and uniform jacket that at first glance look to have a neo-Nazi slant, especially due those lightning bolts on his bowtie. That's what grabs the eye. The double sig rune, looking like two lightning bolts side by side, was used by the SS, standing for their initials and also for victory. Jacoby?? This isn't the Jacoby we remember. Then we begin to see him more clearly. His hat is actually a pom-pom hat. The coat is red. He has overalls underneath. And the single lightning bolt (not double) on eiher side of his bowtie is a symbol for the electricity of Dr. Amp, his internet personality.

(2) He looks up at the clock which reads 7:00. (3) The alarm rings. He speaks into a microphone set-up on a table, broadcasting live.

JACOBY: It's seven o'clock. Do you know where your freedom is? (4) He winds up his record player so it plays Sousa's "Stars and Stripes Forever".

(5-9) JACOBY: Coming to you live, and electrified, from studio A, high stop the escarpments of White Tail Peak, the roof, ruff, ruff, of the American Hindu Kush, this is Dr. Amp, doing the vamp for liberty, climbing the ramp to justice, and lighting the lamp of freedom. (He cuts on the lamp of his rather amazing Lady Liberty diorama, the sound of fireworks exploding. He cuts it off.) So, what's on your mind tonight. I mean, you know I'm going to tell you what's on mine. We're sinking down deep in the mud.

In part five Jacoby continues railing against the global corporate conspiracy and doesn't cut to the commercial until the end, after striking his shovel-bell, and telling people, "You must hear, understand, and act."

In part twelve the prompting the viewers to "Act now!" comes earlier, toward the beginning, followed by the commercial and then a continuation of his rant.

Nadine wears the same clothing in part five as she does in part twelve.

Nadine in part five.

Nadine in part twelve.

In fact, it is part five repeated. But different.

Nadine in part five

Nadine in part twelve.

If one zooms in on Jacoby's script one sees the script in part twelve is the same as in part five.

Jacoby in part twelve

All this seems intentional as the other Jacoby broadcast, in part ten, shows Nadine in a different outfit, the clutter in her office isn't the same, and we are never shown Jacoby's script.

But in part twelve we skip back to part five yet Jacoby has the same script before him though he speaks different words. A continuity problem? Then why show the script instead of doing as in part ten and not showing the script at all? The intention seems to attract one to same...but different.

In part ten, a near half moon had been shown before the Bang Bang scene. Here in part twelve a crescent waning moon is shown immediately before Jacoby's show, a waning moon (dark on the right) meaning that the moon is shrinking toward a new moon.

The 9th level of Dante's hell was the Cocytus, the deepest level, where the fallen angel, Satan, resided. It was a place of ice and profound cold as it was far removed from the sun, from the light of enlightenment. Traitors such as Judas resided there, their eyes and mouths eternally frozen shut.

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AUDREY AND CHARLIE

THE PUZZLE OF AUDREY AND HER DISCONNECT FROM THE REST OF THE RETURN / BILLY ZANE / FOUR QUARTETS / A NEW MOON / THE RELATIONSHIP OF THE 1940s TO THE BOMB IN AUDREY'S LIFE

(1) Pan left across a wood-paneled room, Audrey Horne standing before a fireplace heaped with books and papers, bookshelves spilling over with books and papers and newspapers. At the far left of the pan is a man seated at a desk piled high with papers. pencils, date stamps, a rolodex, an hourglass, an old rotary phone. He wears a vest and shirt that would have been appropriate in the 1940s. Her style also refers back to the 40s, her clothes, hair and makeup also harkening back decades. In her eyebrows and lips we see a touch of Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard. (2-4) They face each other with hostility.

On the bookshelf beside Audrey are two books that we get a half-way decent look at. One is Happy Times, an old developmental reader, precursor to the Sally, Dick and Jane books. The other is T. S. Eliot's Four Quartets poems.

From "Four Quartets":

Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.
What might have been is an abstraction
Remaining a perpetual possibility
Only in a world of speculation.
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.
Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
Into the rose-garden. My words echo
Thus, in your mind.
But to what purpose
Disturbing the dust on a bowl of rose-leaves
I do not know.

Audrey

(5-10) AUDREY: Okay, I'm tired of waiting for the phone to ring. I'm going to the roadhouse. I knew he couldn't stand that place but we've checked everywhere else. Are you coming with me?
CHARLIE: Audrey, look at this paperwork I have, and I've got a deadline. Look stacks of it. How can I leave this and go out so late at night? I want to find Billy, same as you, but can't we start out in the light of day? It's a new moon tonight. It'll be dark out there. Stay here and get a good sleep and we'll both go looking tomorrow.
(11-18) AUDREY: What kind of shit are you? If you were missing, would you want people finishing their fucking homework before they went looking for you? You're nothing but a spineless, no-balls loser. Do you know that? Do you? Because that's what you really are.
CHARLIE: Audrey, I have a deadline. I have to do this. Why do you put me down for doing my allotted duty in life? Billy is out there, somewhere, but you're not going to find him tonight. I guarantee it.
(19-29) AUDREY: Oh, you know for certain. What fucking crystal ball are you looking into? Why don't you ask your crystal ball where the fuck Billy is, who's been missing for two days? Huh? Ask your ball.
CHARLIE: Come on, Audrey. You know I don't have a crystal ball. It's already late and I'm getting sleepy. I have so much more work to do before I get to sleep.
AUDREY: You poor fucking thing.
CHARLIE: I told you, don't talk that way to your husband. I've been good to you. You always say it, how I've been good to you?
AUDREY: Who cares? What? I got to thank you every hour, on the hour? Get on my knees and adore you?
CHARLIE: Audrey, I don't like the tone of your voice.
(30-38) AUDREY: Look, Charlie. Let's just call a spade a spade. You have no balls. That's why I'm in love with Billy. That's why I am fucking Billy.
CHARLIE: Audrey...
AUDREY: I saw Billy in my dream last night and he was bleeding from the nose and mouth, and dreams sometimes hearken a truth. Now, I got to go, Charlie. I asked for your company, your protection, but you're such a milquetoast, the only protection would be me protecting you. And Tina--I got to find Tina. She was the last person to see Billy and I can't fucking stand being in the same room with her. You were supposed to call her but you never did.
CHARLIE: Don't be sore at me, Audrey. You know I just want the best for you.
AUDREY: Yeah? Well, then sign the papers I gave you.
(39-49) CHARLIE: Uh, I don't know, Audrey. Those papers, there's something fishy about them. I'm not signing anything until I run them by my lawyer.
AUDREY: Oh, I see. Maybe I should run them by Paul. Maybe I should have Paul come give you a visit.
CHARLIE: Don't, Audrey. Don't be like this. I'm your lawfully-wedded husband. I have rights.
AUDREY: You gave up those rights.
CHARLIE: What? You mean, you'd go back on our contract? Renege on a contract?

(50-59=8) AUDREY: That's what I will do. That's what I'm doing.
CHARLIE: OK, Audrey. I'll go with you. I'm so sleepy, but I'll go. Where are we going?
AUDREY: We're going to the roadhouse. I told you. (Puts on her coat.)
CHARLIE: Oh, Audrey. I'll go then. I'll need my jacket. I see you've already got yours.
AUDREY: Uh, yeah, what do you think? I told you we were going out. Obviously, I'll need my jacket.
(59-68) CHARLIE: There's thousands of square miles of woods out there, Audrey. Do you think we're just gonna walk out the door or waltz into the Roadhouse, and presto, there he'll be?
AUDREY: Just get your jacket! Asshole!
CHARLIE: Wait a minute. Tina. Let me call her now, OK? I know, I'll tell her I'm alone, but let's see if she knows anything. If her husband's there, she won't be able to talk, but let's see. Okay?
AUDREY: Okay, call the bitch. See what she knows. Supposedly she was the last one to see Billy, but I think Chuck is certifiable so we can't count on shit from him.
(69-82) CHARLIE: Chuck told you Tina was the last person to see Billy?
AUDREY: Yeah.
CHARLIE: Did you know that Chuck stole Billy's truck last week?
AUDREY: What are you talking about?
CHARLIE: Billy came out of his house and saw Chuck driving off with his truck.
AUDREY: And?
CHARLIE: And Billy called the sheriff.
AUDREY: And?
CHARLIE: And they found the truck that same afternoon.
AUDREY: So what happened then?
CHARLIE: They called Billy, and I guess Billy got his truck back and dropped any charges.
AUDREY: Really. Okay. Call Tina.
(83-123) CHARLIE (dials the phone number): I'm so tired, Audrey. Hello? Yes, Tina, it's Charlie. How are you? Yeah? Yeah, I know. Sorry to call so late. I wanted to ask you something. Okay? Yeah, so Chuck told me you might have been the last person to see Billy. Is this true? What? Yeah, I know that. You're sure? But...okay. Yeah. Yes, Tina. Okay. How did you find--what? Really? Oh, my goodness. Thank you, Tina. Great. I'll talk to you soon. I'll try tomorrow. Yeah, again, sorry to call so late. Unbelievable, what you're telling me. I won't. I promise. Yeah, me, too. Bye. (He hangs up.)
AUDREY: You're not gonna tell me what she said? You're not gonna tell me what she said?! Charlie!!!

Red jacket

With Charlie's dilema of being so sleepy, but having so much work yet to do, I'm reminded of Robert Frost's "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening":

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

A bit of the poem was repeated when John F. Kennedy's casket arrived at the White House. And so it seems appropriate to put here since Cooper was interested in "what really happened" with JFK.

It's a shock. And a huge puzzle. The viewer has been waiting for Audrey, Audrey, Audrey, and no one has made mention of her except for Doc Hayward saying that when he saw Cooper leaving the intensive care unit he reasoned that he'd been visiting Audrey. The viewer had anticipated the storyline of Richard, or the storyline of Johnny, might reintroduce her. But she remained absent, her name not crossing any other lips but Doc Hayward's. Suddenly here she is and she makes no mention of Richard, of Johnny, of Sylvia, of Ben. There seems a complete disconnect between this scene and the storylines of The Return, but for Billy being another missing person, and Chuck having stolen Billy's truck. The viewer wonders--perhaps this Chuck is Richard and Billy is the farmer from whom he took the truck? But in this storyline, Billy gets the truck back, charges are dropped, and no mention is made of Richard having run over a child with a truck.

Chuck is a nickname for Charles, not Richard.

There is one missing "Billy" in The Return. If we go back to part seven, David Lynch's son, Riley, given as "Bing", bursts into the diner at the end and calls out, "Has anyone seen Billy?!" Subtitles give, "Has anyone seen Bing?!" Bing had been playing with the band Trouble in part five during the scene in which Richard choked the woman. Is the Billy for whom Bing was looking the same as Audrey's missing Billy? The scene in which Bing announced the missing Billy was one of the first in which some apparent misarrangement of time appeared. One can fit together the order of the shots in the scene so they make sense, but they are out of order sequentially. Plus, Norma is inserted as she was in part five when she first appeared when Becky came in to deliver bread and borrow money.

The manner in which the scene is introduced is to emphasize and impress upon us that not only are there vintage elements to the scene, the room seems to be transplanted from an earlier time. Though the way Audrey and Charlie speak to each other sounds contemporary, the scene could be anywhere from the late 1940s to maybe, just maybe, the early 1960s.

This hardly even seems like Audrey, except that when we were first introduced to Audrey in the series she was briefly portrayed as a spoiled hellion. The key incident was her putting a pencil into the side of a Styrofoam cup, a secretary begging her please not to remove the pencil, knowledgeable that it would be just the kind of thing Audrey would do, and then Audrey removing the pencil and reveling in the liquid spilling all over the desk, which is bizarre even for a 17-18 year old who expects no consequences for their actions. But then Agent Cooper arrived and Audrey immediately changed, eager to impress him. She wanted to assist the FBI, channel her smarts into doing something useful and heroic. Then John Justice Wheeler arrived, played by the actor Billy Zane, and her affections switched and he became her love interest.

Billy. When Billy's name is first mentioned, Charlie says, "I want to find Billy, same as you..." If Gordon was listening, he might mishear and say, "Billy Zane!"

Speaking of misinterpretation, let's look at "call a spade a spade", because Mr. C produced the Ace of Spades card and said of a symbol on it, "This is what I want." The phrase comes from Plutarch's Apophthegmata Laconica, and is "Ten skaphen skaphen legontas". Skaphe means a basin or trough, principally a thing carved out. Along the way, mistranslation was had and spade was used, which moves earth (like a shovel). What was carved out was replaced with the thing that does the carving. Because of this, it's interesting that on the Ace of Spades card there wasn't only the curious symbol in the center, but the digging, cutting strokes of a pin.

Partly because Audrey is doing the peculiar thing of calling upon Charlie to act as her protector at the roadhouse, in a seeming chivalrous sense (why would she need a protector at the roadhouse--except that people like Richard choke women there), I think we need to refer back to what I wrote in the scene of Gordon, the French woman, and the Bordeaux, on the troubadour, who sang of courtly love and chivalry, and were spoken of as going around leading women astray with lies.

This seems to be what Audrey is looking for and Charlie's not it. She's challenging him to be her protector and help her find her boyfriend. Is this--any kind of for a woman who is having an affair to be furious with her husband for not helping her find her missing lover? Would anyone blame Charlie for telling her to fuck off?

The whole scene goes against anything we expected of Audrey, while at the same time prompting us to look again at the question of time in The Return. On this matter of time, we need to look at T. S. Eliot's Four Quarters, that time present and past are present in time future that is contained in time past. Throughout The Return we have had a collision of past and present (and possibly future) so that archaeologically it's difficult sometimes to see exactly where we are, which is brought to a head in this scene. Supposedly we are in the 2010s, but one wouldn't know this from the setting because it is filled with the past--as are all our lives, the past being continually present, but here it is shown in a concrete manner. The picture on the wall, the pottery, the furnishings, nothing modern is here. Earlier, Ben had reflected on the bike his father had given him, how it still impacts him greatly, and we can feel that past here with Audrey, but with a turgid, suffocating, stifling heaviness, and it's not even Audrey's past, it's not the past from the 90s, the 80s, the 70s, it is deeper than that. It is the past of not only the generation prior, but the one before that, back to about the time of WWII and the detonation of the bomb. Much of this would be visible in homes even into the 70s, the 80s, but it would have been mixed with what was then contemporary, and what was contemporary for anything beyond the 40s seems to be missing.

Where the present is felt is in the dialogue, which gives us no clues to Audrey's past.

She is intensely abrasive. Combative. She demands Charlie's help in finding her lover, and is remarkably caustic when he doesn't hurry to meet her demands. She hates this husband of hers, telling him he has no balls, that's why she's fucking Billy--and yet she expects him to help find Billy and even make phone calls for her.

What in the world is with you, Audrey?

But, then, what in the world is going on with your world, Audrey? You are not in 2016.

If we go back to our first glimpses of Audrey in the initial Twin Peaks, is this a kind of Audrey we were seeing before Cooper appeared and set her on a different trajectory? Or is this personality of the Audrey that happens after her own bomb derails her life? Perhaps this is why Audrey's story here is set in the 1940s, the detonation of "the bomb" tying in with the bomb at the bank that killed Pete and would have traumatized a young woman who was just beginning to feel her own power in awakening sense-of-self? She was beginning to formulate an adult identity and BAM. This is a woman who is afraid, needing a protector.

One also wonders what this might be saying about the Horne family dynamic. I keep wondering, what about the mother of Ben and Jerry Horne? Why have we heard about the father but never about her?

The audience waited and waited for Audrey, and now that she is here they are even more clueless than before. Her appearance answers no questions and only invites new ones.

Audrey accuses Charlie of having no crystal ball, but he does have one sitting right on his desk. (He's not the only one however, versions of a crystal ball type paperweight have appeared on other desks as well in The Return.) Audrey resists Charlie's rationalizations that Billy will not be found right now.

In keeping with myth it's not likely be found, for it is the dark of the moon, he has been gone two days, and if there is rebirth it comes with three days.

Despite the hopelessness of looking for Billy, she insists upon it as a heroic obligation. And yet they do not leave Charlie's office. She stays in a state of suspension.

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CO-ORDINATES PLUS TWO

COORDINATES PRONOUNCED AS COORDINEIGHTS / THE PERPLEXITY OF A CHANGE OF CLOTHING IN THE SECOND BAR VISIT

(1) We return to the Mayfair as at the beginning. (2) The bar and lounge are empty. A man vacuums, so it would be very late. Diane, in her green top, sits down at the bar. She wears the green top she had on in part eleven, but in part eleven she was wearing red pants and here she wears either black pants or a black skirt. In earlier scenes in part twelve she had been wearing a black skirt and a red top. She lights a cigarette. The bartender sets a drink before her. She says, "I know you're closed. Thanks." She sips from her drink then picks up her phone. (3) We see a map of North and Central America. (4-7) We see Diane picturing the photo of Ruth's arm she had seen in part eleven, so it stands to reason this was perhaps later that night. (8-9) Diane with her phone again, and its map. (10) She types into her phone, saying as she does so, "Co...or...din...ates plus two." She pronounces ates as eights. (11-14) We see on her phone a map of Washington. She magnifies the screen until she sees Twin Peaks. We hear a soft ringing sound as from a crystal bowl. She has a look of apprehension. Fade out.

Diane looks up coordinates

The co-ordinates were 48 55.142, -117 56.3938. The number of figures in "coordinatesplus2" is the same as "4855142117563938" but if Diane is using a mnemonic method for remembering them I couldn't imagine what it would be. We are shown her visualizing the photo perfectly, so she might just have perfect recall. What is the "plus 2" about? Or "8s plus 2"?

The viewer might have some confusion over the clothes, but might not think too much about Diane showing up in the bar twice in part twelve. That she does show up in the bar twice adds to the sense of compression now in The Return. A compacting of events.

The traffic jam.

What is the main take away for the viewer is that they know Diane knows they are headed for Twin Peaks.

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A FREE MAN

LOSING HER MOM LIKE THAT / TRICK / THE SHAKING HAND

(1) A rumbling sound. Darkness. Trees. (2) Cut to The Bang Bang Bar exterior. (3-4) Then The Chromatics on stage, playing "Saturday".

(5-30 approx) Cut to two women at a booth drinking Heineken.

ABBIE: Where's Angela?
NATALIE: I haven't got a clue. She was supposed to show last night. She didn't show then either. She might be with Clark.
ABBIE: Clark?
NATALIE: Yeah. They've been hanging out lately.
ABBIE: Really?
NATALIE: Yeah. You look surprised.
ABBIE: Yeah, 'cause I saw Clark and Mary together here like two nights ago.
NATALIE: I hate her.
ABBIE: Well...
NATALIE: And Angela fucking really hates her too. What were they doing?
ABBIE: Like, practically making out. Slow dancing and getting real close. Over in the corner. Off in their own world. Lots of people saw them.
NATALIE: Angela's gonna go crazy when she gets wind of this. She's getting really serious about Clark. He's been on her for a couple of weeks now. She's even dreaming about the guy.
ABBIE: Shit. I guess Clark's spreading it around.
NATALIE: And she's off her meds now. I hope Clark doesn't fuck this up. She won't be able to take it, I don't think.
ABBIE: Well, yeah, she's kind of on the edge.
NATALIE: Who wouldn't be? Losing her mom like that?
ABBIE: Fuck.

(31-35) TRICK (Natalie's boyfriend, rushing in and sitting in the booth beside her): Hey! I almost got fucking killed coming over here. Some fucking ass-eater's heading toward me on the highway and runs me off the road, all I see is two headlights coming fucking right at me. I drove off the road and almost hit a tree. Some farmer had to pull me out. Man, I could kill the motherfucker who did that. (He holds up his right hand to show how it is shaking.) I need a beer. Obviously you want one too. You want another one?
ABBIE: Yeah, sure.
TRICK: All right, I'll be right back.
(36-41) ABBIE: Thanks, Trick. Trick's lucky to be alive, sounds like.
NATALIE: Sure does.
ABBIE: By the way, isn't Trick under house arrest?
NATALIE: No. I, I mean, yeah, but he got that behind him now. He's a free man again.
ABBIE: A free man.
NATALIE: Whoopee.

(42 and on out) The credits over the band.

The conversation between Abbie and Natalie has elements in it that remind of Audrey. Angela is even dreaming about Clark, just as Audrey dreams about Billy. "Losing her mom like that?" of course is intended to make us think of Audrey, who is off in some bizarre seemingly unrelated zone of existence but for the fact the roadhouse is part of her life.

Trick is a curious name to use as it might take us back to Cooper-Dougie's first morning in Dougie's house, and Gerard appearing to him, telling him he had been "tricked". Just as "Trick" has just been freed from house-arrest, so was Cooper just freed from the prison of the Black Lodge/Red Room.

On another level, Trick's history adds another statistic to Twin Peaks as a largely dying town with a strapped, dysfunctional population crippled by economic challenges and a lack of a sense of meaning or direction. And Natalie, at least, seems not very hopeful about Trick's transition into being "a free man again". As if what does the idea of freedom even mean in the town of Twin Peaks? Is there placing anything behind them? Won't he likely end up in trouble with the law again?

All this along with existential ideas of freedom being raised in Audrey and Charlie never leaving the house. Stuck.

Trick's shaking hand is natural, considering his experience, his feeling he has escaped death, but it does remind us perhaps of Gordon's "Cat on a hot tin roof" shaking hand after being nearly sucked up into the vortex.

We think back on the conversation, at the Bang Bang in part nine, concerning the "penguin" and the "zebra", how the zebra was out. Has that anything to do with this?

We might wonder if Mr. C has arrived in Twin Peaks, was that his car.

The idea of the possible car wreck takes us back to Mr. C's car wreck, and then how the FBI car swerved and nearly wrecked, reminding of Mr. C's wreck as Tammy had car sickness.

We are called upon to think about all the possible associations, but perhaps what the scene really leaves us with is the feeling of the upcoming events of Twin Peaks coming straight at us like the headlights but we can't see yet what's behind those lights.

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STAB AT A TIMELINE

A timeline as best as can be reasoned on information given thus far:

PART ONE:

1. Supernatural - B&W room
2. Jacoby's trailer, day - Wednesday
3. New York, Sam and Tracey, after 10 at night - Wednesday
4. The Great Northern Lodge, Ben and Jerry, day - Thursday
5. Twin Peaks Sheriff's Department, Lucy and the insurance agent, day - Thursday
6. Buella's, night - Thursday
7. New York, 2nd night (we know this is certain) - Thursday
8. Buckhorn, South Dakota, discovery of Ruth, day - Friday
9. Twin Peaks, Margaret calls Hawk at work, night - Friday
10. Buckhorn, the coroner's, day - Saturday
11. Buckhorn, Hastings taken into custody, day - Saturday
12. Twin Peaks, Hawk, Lucy and Andy in the conference room, day - Saturday. (Lucy wears the same clothes as in the scene with the insurance salesman, but this scene and that one are separated by at least one night in Twin Peaks. Hawk spoken with Margaret at night, at the office, but this scene is in daylight and so is another day.)
13. Buckhorn, Hastings interrogated. We have the initial Thursday to Saturday timeline from this. - Saturday
14. Buckhorn, Hastings home searched - Saturday
15. Supernatural - B&W room.

PART TWO

1. Buckhorn, Phyllis visits Bill in jail -- Saturday (Bill was picked up on Saturday, presumably)
2. Buckhorn, Mr. C kills Phyllis -- Saturday night
3. Las Vegas, Duncan and Roger in Las Vegas, a woman is given a job -- Saturday night
4. Buckhorn, Darya, Ray, Jack and Mr. C eat at the motel's diner -- Saturday night
5. Twin Peaks, Hawk visits Glastonbury Grove - Saturday night
6. Laura disappears from the Red Room -- Undetermined time but perhaps equivalent to Saturday night in real time
7. Buckhorn, Jack and Mr. C hide the Mercedes, Ray lands in prison -- Sunday
8. Buckhorn, Jack and Darya killed by Mr. C -- Sunday
9. Supernatural, Cooper looks out on Mr. C driving the car -- Monday (as for as Mr. C goes)
10. New York, Cooper drops into the New York box -- Fall back to NY Thursday
11. Twin Peaks, Sarah Palmer watches television -- Undetermined time, can't be stated with any confidence right now due to Cooper's slipping into Thursday and then being swept out into space again. Perhaps Thursday.
12. Twin Peaks, Shelly and James are seen at The Bang Bang -- Undetermined time, can't be stated with any confidence right now due to Cooper's slipping into Thursday and then being swept out into space again. Perhaps Thursday.

PART THREE

1. Cooper falls through space, spends time with Naida and American Girl, then takes Dougie's place. The American Girl's watch seems to read Saturday the first. Frost's The Secret History of Twin Peaks is based on a dossier of events relevant to Twin Peaks that is being researched by Tammy Preston in August of 2016, and which is finally determined to have been put together by Major Briggs. Saturday falls on a 1st on 2/1/2014, 3/1/2014, 11/1/2014, 8/1/2015 and 10/1/2016. If this is 2016 then this Saturday the 1st that was on the American Girl's watch would likely have to be October 1st of 2016--but in the otherworldly space who's to say what year it is? SA could instead refer to Saturn (and perhaps does as well). If the date is Saturday the first, we still have Mr. C driving down the highway on, according to prior events, what should/could be a Monday. Right now we would take it for granted that Dougie is replaced by Cooper during the same time frame, on Monday, though it may be Saturday, October the 1st in this room with the American Girl. - Monday, as well as Saturday October 1st
2. Buckhorn, Mr. C found on the highway - Monday
3. Twin Peaks Sheriff's Dept bunnies. Perhaps this is Monday. - Monday
4. Twin Peaks, Jacoby's shovels. Also perhaps Monday. - Monday
5. Las Vegas, Back to Vegas and the Silver Mustang Casino, this occurring on the same day that Cooper replaces Dougie. - Monday
6. Philadelphia, The FBI meeting at sunset. Phillie timeline appears to link right in with Buckhorn/SD - Monday
7. Twin Peaks, The band at the Roadhouse would be a night scene. Just based on all previous shots in this episode being during the day, I will go with this being Monday night. - Monday

PART FOUR

1. Las Vegas, The house with the red door. If it was Monday when Cooper returned as Cooper-Dougie, it is still Monday as he is still at the casino. He goes to the Jones household on Monday night. - Monday
2. Philadelphia, The meeting of Gordon with Denise over taking Tammy to South Dakota would be Monday night as Gordon had earlier said they would be in South Dakota the next morning. - Monday
3. Twin Peaks, Frank Truman's return to the Twin Peaks Sheriff's Department fits with possibly being Monday night as Maggie tells him about an incident, seemingly that day, of a boy overdosing in class, a school day. - Monday
4. Las Vegas, Tricked. Las Vegas morning at the Jones household. This would be the following morning. - Tuesday
5. Buckhorn. Access denied. A seeming wrench is thrown in. It looks like night at Buckhorn in Constance's office with the news that there is a security issue on the prints of the John Doe. But, as I've pointed out, there are many peculiarities about this scene. - Undecided as anomalous
6. South Dakota. Faces of Stone. The ride to the Yankton prison would be Tuesday morning. They are to be there at 9. - Tuesday
7. South Dakota. The meeting with Cooper's doppelganger. This is approximately at 9 on Tuesday morning. Another wrench is thrown into the timeline with the date, perhaps, of Cooper being picked up given as 9/22. 9/22 in 2016 is on a Thursday. 9/22 in 2015 is on a Tuesday. 9/22 in 2014 does fall on a Monday, so that would fit if we were moving 25 years forward from the Twin Peaks events of February 1989 (aired in 1991), but The Secret History of Twin Peaks has Briggs' dossier being research in 2016 and the comments made wile it is being researched don't indicate any knowledge on Cooper or Briggs past when the original series ended so it seems it would be researched before the events in the Return. Cooper's birthdate on his prison information is also wrong, off by nineteen years. - Tuesday (I'm sticking with Tuesday for now, based on the Thursday death of Ruth)
8. South Dakota. The blue night scene in which Gordon and Albert discuss Cooper and the Blue Rose cases. I think it's not night, that it is instead blue because of Blue Rose. - Tuesday.

PART FIVE

This is not chronological. All scenes appear to have happened on Tuesday, we having returned to Tuesday dawn at the beginning of this part. The idea of altering your reality was raised at the beginning of this part with the neon Las Vegas sign for the David Copperfield show. I am led to question what happened here that is a revision of Tuesday in Part Four. This may not just be filling in with information for Tuesday that wasn't covered in Part Four. We may have something that has occurred that altered reality.

1. Las Vegas - Lorraine and the hit men. Argent.
2. Device in unknown place, called by Lorraine.
3. Buckhorn. Coroner, Dave and Dan. The ring to Dougie from Janey-E. About 7:00 a.m. by clock.
4. South Dakota. Mr. C in prison, sees Bob within. Morning.
5. Twin Peaks. Mike rejects Steve's application.
6. Twin Peaks. Doris and Frank. Leak and car problem. (Car was checked two hours before which may or may not be too late for early morning.)
7. Las Vegas. Janey prepares Sonny Jim and Dougie for drive to school and work.
8. Las Vegas. The hit men go past Rancho Rosa house.
9. Las Vegas. Lucky 7. Dougie arrives at work at 8:55 a.m. Calls Tony a liar. Meeting with Bushnell.
10. Las Vegas. Mitchum brothers fire Burns and put Warrick in his place.
11. Las Vegas. Rancho Rosa. Car explosion.
12. Las Vegas. Jade mails key.
13. Twin Peaks. Shelly gives Becky money. Becky gives Steven money. Earlier he was looking for work.
14. Las Vegas. 5:30 p.m. Dougie leaves work.
15. Twin Peaks. Night. Andy and Hawk research files.
16. Twin Peaks. Jacoby's internet show at 7:00 p.m. Jerry in woods. See Nadine.
17. Alexandria, Virginia. Military gets ping on Briggs. Cindy will fly out immediately to South Dakota.
18. Twin Peaks. Richard at roadhouse chokes woman.
19. Philadelphia. Back in Phillie, Tammy researches the seemingly reversed print.
20. South Dakota. Mr. C takes control of prison with cow jumped over the moon.
21. Buenos Aries, Argentina. Seeming morning scene. But seems possibly the same morning as when device was shown at the beginning of this Part, though what happens with the device is different after the red dots flash. So another wrench..

PART SIX

1. Las Vegas. Carry over from Part Five. Cooper-Dougie still stands before the statue. He is taken home. Janey gets an envelope with photo of Dougie and Jade from a different day. She arranges to pay the loan sharks the next day. Cooper-Dougie goes through the files for Bushnell. Still Tuesday.
2. Philadelphia. Albert finds Diane. Possibly Tuesday night.
3. Twin Peaks. Meeting between Richard Horne and Red. Chronologically, would be Wednesday.
4. Twin Peaks. The New Fat Trout Trailer Park.
5. Twin Peaks. Miriam at the Double R.
6. Twin Peaks. Richard Horne hits the boy. 3-6 are all one event stream.
7. Las Vegas. Duncan gets red message, pulls file for Ike.
8. Las Vegas. Rancho Rosa. Cleaning up explosion scene likely from day before, Tuesday, so this would be Wednesday. Time glitch. the 1-1-9 woman is back to Monday.
9. Las Vegas. Ike the Spike gets the envelope with the hit on Lorraine and Dougie.
10. Las Vegas. Wednesday. Cooper-Dougie gives Bushnell the files that implicate Tony.
11. Las Vegas. Janey meets loan sharks at park as arranged day beforehand. Wednesday.
12. Las Vegas. Ike the Spike kills Lorraine.
13. Twin Peaks. Richard Horne cleans blood off the truck.
14. Twin Peaks. Hawk finds Laura's missing pages.
15. Twin Peaks. Doris and Frank argue again about the car. We learn their son committed suicide.
16. Bang Bang.

PART SEVEN

1. Twin Peaks. Jerry missing in the woods. We last saw him possibly Tuesday night watching Jacoby's show in Part Five.
2. Twin Peaks. Hawk gives Frank the missing pages. Still Wednesday it seems.
3. Twin Peaks. Andy goes to speak with man whose truck hit the child. Still Wednesday it seems, or at least the Richard Horne timeline.
4. Twin Peaks. Frank speaks with Doc Hayward.
5. Buckhorn. Cindy shows up and finds they have Briggs' body. Would be Wednesday.
6. Philadelphia. Gordon and Albert go to speak to Diane.
7. Gordon, Albert, Diane and Tammy fly to South Dakota.
8. South Dakota. Diane sees doppelcoop. Wednesday (still going by Part One).
9. Twin Peaks. Andy waits to speak to owner of truck who does not show. Possible wrench? Andy's watch reads it's the 10th. 5:05.
10. South Dakota. Doppelcoop arranges for his escape with the warden for that night, same night as seeing Diane.
11. Las Vegas. Cooper-Dougie interviewed by police over the explosion of his car. Would be Wednesday still for them.
12. Las Vegas. Ike the Spike attacks Cooper-Dougie. Evening to night.
13. Twin Peaks. Beverly and Ben look for source of noise that began sometime the prior week. She gives him the old key that came in the mail for Cooper's room.
14. Twin Peaks. Beverly goes home to her husband. Night.
15. Twin Peaks. The sweeping scene. Night.
16. South Dakota. Cooper released at 1:00 a.m. on Thursday.
17. Twin Peaks. Time glitch. 1:00 a.m. in South Dakota but still dinner hour in Twin Peaks at the Double R. Bing looks for Billy. Have we simply dropped back in time to earlier Wednesday night?

PART EIGHT

Part Eight begins with Thursday about 1:00 a.m. in South Dakota and then goes back to July 16, 1945 and the Trinity bomb. It then moves forward to August 5, 1956.

PART NINE

1. South Dakota. Doppelcoop meets Hutch and Chantal. Probably Thursday.
2. Diane, Albert and Gordon are flying back to Philie when they're rerouted to Buckhorn due Briggs. They find out Doppelcoop escaped. Would be Thursday.
3. Las Vegas. The Fusco brothers meet with Cooper-Dougie as arranged the day beforehand. Would be Thursday morning.
4. Las Vegas. Ike the Spike is picked up. Thursday.
5. Twin Peaks. The buying of the red chair rather than the beige one scene with Andy and Lucy.
6. Twin Peaks. Johnny Horne hits his head.
7. Twin Peaks. The meeting with Mrs. Briggs. She gives the message from the secret compartment of the chair.
8. Buckhorn. Diane receives the message from seemingly doppelcoop. Meeting with coroner over Briggs.
9. Twin Peaks. Jerry has problems with his foot.
10. Twin Peaks. After meeting with Mrs. Briggs, Bobby, Frank and Hawk open the cylinder which has the message for going to Jack Rabbit Palace 2:53 10/1, 10/2. They say they will go in two days, which fits with this being Thursday and Saturday being 10/1/2016. But, a wrench is thrown in. Lucy is wearing different clothes when they pass her than when she ordered the chair. Eating lunch, she says she's not there.
11. Buckhorn. Smoking scene with Diane then Tammy meets with Hastings. He speaks about the Thursday before, and dates a paper 9/29 but can look like 9/20.
12. Twin Peaks. Ben refuses to kiss Beverly.
13. Bang Bang. The woman with the itch.

PART TEN

In part nine we had the problem of Hastings voicing 9/26, though his writing of the date was 9/29. For now I am sticking with 9/29 as having been the Thursday date. But that is a big problem.

1. Twin Peaks. Richard assaults Miriam. Perhaps Thursday.
2. Twin Peaks. Carl sings. Becky and Steven fight. 3. Las Vegas. Candie hits Rodney. Thursday.
4. Las Vegas. Cooper-Dougie's physical. Thursday.
5. Las Vegas. News of Ike's arrest and the assault on Cooper- Dougie. Timeline problem. May show Wednesday now for Las Vegas.
6. Las Vegas. Janey and Dougie make love. Wednesday or Thursday.
7. Twin Peaks. Jacoby's 2nd internet broadcast.
8. Las Vegas. Thursday or Friday. The next day for them, Cooper-Dougie shown leaving for work.
9. Jerry in the woods. I've been here before!
10. Twin Peaks. Chad gets the mail. Is it Friday now, the day after Miriam mailed her letter? Or is it Thursday? Lucy wears what she was wearing in part nine in the early red or beige chair scene. Lucy speaks of the sense of time standing still. As Twin Peaks is such a small town, if Miriam mailed her letter early on Thursday, it could be that mail delivery might occur on the same day and that it is still Thursday.
11. Twin Peaks. Richard assaults his grandmother, Sylvia Horne. Let's assume it is Thursday. It seems after he assaults Miriam he would want to get out of town pronto.
12. Las Vegas. Thursday or there may be a drop back in time to Wednesday night? Duncan tells Anthony to put the Mitchums on Dougie's trail.
13. Buckhorn. Albert has dinner with Constance. Maybe Thursday if we go with 9/29 as when Tammy interviewed Hastings. Tammy was wearing the lacy blouse in part nine and appears also to be wearing the lace blouse in part ten.
14. Las Vegas. Sinclair meets with the Mitchum brothers. Wednesday or Thursday.
15. Buckhorn. Albert gives Gordon news about Diane's message from the doppel. Thursday.
16. Twin Peaks. Sylvia tells Ben about Richards. Broken timeline problem here if this is Thursday, for in part nine we had believed it was Thursday when Ben wouldn't kiss Beverly. He is dressed differently here. He has on his shirt with the finely checkered lines and a dark tie.
17. Twin Peaks. Margaret's message to Hawk that Laura is the one.
18. The Bang-Bang. Rebekah del Rio.

PART ELEVEN

In part nine we had the problem of Hastings voicing 9/26, though his writing of the date was 9/29. For now I am sticking with 9/29 as having been the Thursday date. But that is a big problem.

Also, in part ten, Las Vegas had seemingly pushed us back a day from Thursday to Wednesday, at least on the Vegas timeline, the weather forecast beginning with the upcoming Thursday. But because these timelines are all tied together, I am continuing with 9/29 as having been the Thursday when Hastings was interviewed by Tammy, and 9/22 as the death date of Ruth and Briggs.

1. Twin Peaks. Miriam crawls out of the woods. I'm going with probably Thursday, the day that she was assaulted, rather than her having taken over twenty-four hours to emerge.
2. Twin Peaks. Becky takes Shelly's car and shoots up Gersten's door. Again, I am sticking with Thursday, which may have been the day that Becky and Steven were observed fighting. They wear the same clothing as in part ten.
3. Buckhorn. The portal in the sky reveals the woodsman on the stairs, and Hastings is killed. Tammy interviewed Hastings on seemingly 9/29 (he says, however, 9/26). They are all wearing now different clothing than on 9/29 so I'm going with this being Friday, 9/30.
4. Twin Peaks. RR diner with Becky, Bobby and Shelly, the boy shoots the gun, the traffic jam. I'm going with Thursday as Becky is dressed in the same sweater and they are discussing what to do following the shooting.
5. Twin Peaks. Frank and Hawk discuss the living map. I'm going with this being Thursday night, they having looked at Briggs' map on Thursday. But we have a problem with Margaret calling and in part ten it seems she may have already talked with Hawk on Thursday. Traffic jam of occurrences.
6. Buckhorn. Gordon, Albert, Tammy, Dave and Diane discuss the day and the coordinates on Ruth's arm. I'm going with Friday evening. In part nine, they had seemingly met with Hastings on Thursday 9/29 (he said 9/26), then in part ten there were Thursday evening activities at the Mayfair, so, again, it seems highly unlikely they would have gone to see where Hastings found Briggs on the same day.
7. Las Vegas. Bushnell tells Cooper-Dougie he has a 5:30 meeting with the Mitchums. This should have been on Friday, but it may be Thursday as there was seemingly a drop back.
8. Las Vegas. Breakfast with the Mitchums at 2:23. Ditto above, seemingly Thursday, not Friday.
9. Las Vegas, 5:30, meeting with the Mitchums. Ditto above, should be Friday but is seemingly Thursday.
10. Las Vegas. Celebrating with the Mitchums. Ditto above. Should be Friday but is seemingly Thursday.

PART TWELVE

In part nine we had the problem of Hastings voicing 9/26, though his writing of the date was 9/29. For now I am sticking with 9/29 as having been the Thursday date. But that is a big problem.

Also, in part ten, Las Vegas had seemingly pushed us back a day from Thursday to Wednesday, at least on the Vegas timeline, the weather forecast beginning with the upcoming Thursday. But because these timelines are all tied together, I am continuing with 9/29 as having been the Thursday when Hastings was interviewed by Tammy, and 9/22 as the death date of Ruth and Briggs.

1. Buckhorn. Gordon and Albert induct Tammy onto the Blue Rose team and Diane is hired. Time is piling up with the traffic jam as metaphor. Though Friday evening (seemingly) in part eleven they'd had doughnuts at the Buckhorn station, I'm sticking with Friday evening.
2. Twin Peaks. Jerry runs out of the woods. Who knows when it is?
3. Twin Peaks. Sarah Palmer freaks out over the Albatross Turkey Jerky. We have no idea when this is. There's no relationship to other events. Maybe Friday.
4. Twin Peaks. The New Fat Trout Trailer Park. Carl encourages Kriscol not to give blood. We have no idea when this is as there's no relationship to other events. Maybe Friday.
5. Las Vegas. In part eleven it had been Thursday evening (seemingly, though it should have been Friday before being pushed back) when the friendship with the Mitchum brothers was celebrated. This is day. Is it Friday? We have no relationship to other events.
6. Twin Peaks. Hawk visits Sarah Palmer. This would be the same day that she freaks out at the grocery store, earlier in this part. Perhaps Friday.
7. Twin Peaks. Miriam in the hospital. Friday?
8. Buckhorn. Diane in the bar gets the Las Vegas message. She wears the same red top as in 1. Friday evening at 7:28?? That seems too early to fit with having doughnuts in part eleven and then the earlier meeting. Traffic jam = time/event pile-up.
9. Twin Peaks. Frank talks to Ben about Richard. When Ben turned down the romantic liaison with Beverly in part nine, it was just after Hastings had signed a sheet identifying Briggs with the current date of 9/29, but looked like a 9/20, and he had said, covered by his sniffling, 9/26, though this was not in the subtitles. It seemed reasonable the scene between Ben and Beverly was also in 9/29, the day after Richard Horne hit the boy, the day that he had assaulted Miriam. In part seven he had asked Beverly to check with security on the source of the ringing, and she had given him the key that had arrived in the mail. We assumed this was Wednesday, Jade seeming to have mailed the key on Tuesday. Is this then Friday? Did Ben's turning down Beverly happen earlier in the evening, perhaps not long before this? Had they gone for dinner the previous night and it had just been between friends but led her to assume that more was a possibility? Did Miriam not crawl out of the woods until Friday? Ben has said he hasn't heard from Richard. Does this mean that this is instead on Thursday, and Chad's intercept of the wrong Miriam's letter occurred on Friday? And that Richard went to Sylvia's on Friday? When Chad intercepts the letter, Lucy is wearing a sweater vest that she had been wearing in part nine when she purchased the red chair. We'd thought on Thursday. But then on Thursday at lunch, during the solving of the Briggs' puzzle, she was wearing another outfit. If this happens before Richard attacks Sylvia then it would make sense why Ben doesn't tell Frank he has heard from him. That instead happened the following day. It would explain also why Sylvia had immediately threatened Richard with calling the sheriff when she saw him. She already knew about Miriam.
10. Buckhorn. 11:05 p.m. Gordon entertains the French Woman. Friday?
11. South Dakota. Hutch shoots Murphy. I'm going with Thursday.
12. Twin Peaks. Jacoby's third broadcast, which is a repeat of part five with a few differences. Friday?
13. Twin Peaks? First scene of Charlie and Audrey. Who knows when this is.
14. Buckhorn. Diane checks the coordinates on her phone in the closed bar. Wears the green top from Thursday (?) but black pants, not red. Thursday?
15. Twin Peaks. Bang Bang. Natalie and Abbie and Trick.

Approx 20,200 words or 40 single-spaced pages. A 155 minute read at 130 wpm.

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