Is the new Twin Peaks a reverse speech version of Agent Cooper’s origin story? Stewart Gardiner searches for the right questions in part 5.
By Stewart Gardiner // The world has gone Lynchian. At least I’ve been seeing and hearing more evidence of that recently. A couple of days before the Twin Peaks premiere, I saw a man driving down a main road in East London on a John Deere tractor. I half expected to find myself transported to Iowa, but strangely enough I wasn’t. With Twin Peaks part 5 my mind was once again on Buenos Aires and that long lost FBI agent played by David Bowie. At work I saw some bespoke metal letters, a “J” and a “P”. Someone asked which order they went in. “P.J.,” was the reply. The customer’s name? Phillip Jeffries. I kid you not.
It’s not just me. The world is Lynchian.
Without Cooper Dougie Points
Cooper’s journey towards regaining his selfhood continues in part 5. Albeit slowly of course. 25 years in extradimensional space will do that to you. It’s still breaking my heart watching Cooper like this, although part 5 upped the humor. He must piece himself together again but lacks the awareness to do so. There is both comedy and pain in the situation.
Outside the office building he stares up at a statue of a cowboy pointing a gun. The gun brings back some memories. Cooper cannot consciously tap into them. Not yet, but they provoke Cooper to make a gun hand himself. There are the obvious parallels to his FBI role, but also worth noting is that Cooper was a frontiersman himself, intuitively traveling to places of the mind that others were incapable of.
“Off in dreamland again eh Dougie?” says his colleague Phil as he ushers him into the building. Janey-E has already remarked that Dougie is having one of his episodes.
Damn Good Joe
I mentioned last week that I thought the Cooper-as-Dougie scenario was playing out like a twisted, future past version of Cooper’s origin story. I’m not for a second claiming that we are seeing how Dale Cooper actually became Dale Cooper. I’m not living in Lynchland to that extent. However, there is a thematic resonance to the idea. In part 5 Cooper rediscovers his love of coffee and it seems to resuscitate elements of Cooper. It may have more to do with audience expectations. Although it’s probably a little bit of both.
Phil has just been to get everyone coffee, but he didn’t know “Dougie” would be back today so didn’t get him one. But Cooper really wants a coffee. Phil relents, giving him Frank’s. Frank apparently never drinks his anyway. “Damn good Joe, huh Dougie?” says Phil. “Damn good Joe,” parrots Cooper. Except there’s something in there of the old Cooper, barely detectable, but there just. It’s as if he’s not only learning how to be a fully functioning human being again. He’s learning to be Cooper.
Green Tea Latte
Frank is disappointed to learn that he doesn’t have a coffee. Phil convinces him to take another of the drinks: a green tea latte. Frank goes from manly disgust to acceptance, then the glee of a schoolgirl as he sips at his new drink. His little smiles are perfect examples of where Lynch is able to get his actors to go. It’s as funny as anything in the original run of the show.
Cooper sees a green flash on another colleague’s face and states simply that “He’s lying.” Intuition seems to be kicking in. The green light may work in a similar fashion to the Red Room glimpses above the slot machines. He has a guide. Could he be helping himself from a point of understanding in the future?
Cooper gets case files to take home. He must assess them. “Case files,” he says. One hopes that this will trigger something further in him.
The Not So Well Dressed Man
Speaking of Cooper origin stories, I reread Scott Frost’s The Autobiography of FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper this week. I read it for pleasure more than anything else and I was more than a little surprised to find something relating to new Twin Peaks. A teenage Dale Cooper discovers a body in his home town of Philadelphia. The dead man is lying face down and Cooper describes him thus:
“He is white, dark hair, about six feet tall, wearing a green jacket, tan pants, and brown shoes.”
That description is pretty spot-on for Cooper-as-Dougie! I’m not suggesting that future Cooper, still dressed as Dougie, returned to the past and died there. His younger self did not in turn see his dead older self and the trauma of it didn’t drive him to a career in the FBI investigating the inexpiable. Nope. I’m not saying that at all. It’s probably just a beautiful coincidence. Or – and this is quite possible too – Mark Frost is messing with us in subtle ways.
Lynchian Chorus
Jim Belushi plays a mob boss figure in the vein of Angelo Badalamenti’s character in Mulholland Drive and Mr Eddy in Lost Highway. What could be a stock character for another director becomes far more elusive and menacing with Lynch. As his enforcer badly beats the casino manager, three chorus girls lean against the wall. Bored at the violence, there without purpose. They go where the boss goes and their very presence is at once a contrast to and a comment on the banality of violence.
Looks like there’s violence on the cards (or in the slot machines) for Cooper. Part 5 only hints at what’s to come. Perhaps by the time it reaches him, he will be ready.
Through a Glass Darkly
Mr C stares into the mirror in his prison cell. After he killed Darya we saw him go to a mirror, but didn’t get a POV on the reflection. Here we do. The audience’s thoughts are on Bob and so are Mr C’s, who experiences remembrance of things past. Lynch flashes back to Cooper’s doppelganger and Bob in the Lodge and then to Cooper smashing his head into the mirror with Bob staring back at him. Back in the present, Mr C’s face morphs into a combination of him and Bob. As I mentioned when discussing the premiere, these two souls are not at war. Two have become one.
“You’re still with me. That’s good.”
Interesting that he had to check. Something really is wrong with Mr C, but perhaps this is a sign that he is pulling himself together again. His phone call at the end of part 5 further cements this idea.
Give Me Back My Phone
Gordon Cole previously indicated to the warden that he should give “Cooper” his one private call and that he’d want to hear all about it.
“Now that everyone’s here I will make my phone call. Now, who should I call? Should I call Mr Strawberry?” says Mr C.
“What the hell?” says the warden.
“No, I don’t think I’ll call Mr Strawberry. I don’t think he’s taking calls. I know, I know who to call.”
Mr C starts punching in a series of numbers on the phone and all hell breaks loose as alarms go off and no one knows what is going on. He speaks a single phrase into the phone:
“The cow jumped over the moon.”
The alarms stop. All returns to normal. “What did this guy just do?” Good question, Warden Murphy.
A Woman in Trouble
In part 3, a Drugged-out Mother kept repeating “1-1-9”. A cry for help rendered in reverse speech of the human realm, her backwards incantation of 911 is disturbing in its disconnection from reality. But at the same time is absolutely of reality, a counterpoint to what Cooper is going through. We return to her in part 5, but she has passed out. Her kid witnesses Dougie’s car exploding. Some punks set off the bomb and pay for it with their lives. The kid watches the flames dance from behind a window.
Other reversed numbers appear. The machine is the Purple Room in part 3 displayed 15 and then 3. Cooper’s room in the Great Northern Hotel was 315. Jade finds the key in her jeep during part 5 and posts it back to Twin Peaks.
Here’s the Headline
Forensics find a ring in the John’s Doe’s stomach. The inscription is from Janey-E to Dougie. The prints pulled off the body come up against a military block in the database. Major Briggs was the obvious candidate. Part 5 all but confirms the body is that of Briggs. Those are perhaps dangerous words to use in Lynchland though. We meet Colonel Davis and Lieutenant Cynthia Knox. They are discussing the fact that Briggs’s name has come up on the database again. The sixteenth time in 25 years. It seems that the previous hits came to nothing, but if this one is real they will have to alert the FBI.
Agent Tammy Preston studies Cooper’s file. She is trying to get a sense of who Cooper is. Cole, Albert and her know something is off, but don’t know what. It appears that she discovers something to do with the prints. Could it be that Mr C’s prints are not Cooper’s but rather those of Major Briggs? Just a thought.
She’s a Worrier
A woman credited as Lorraine sends a message on a Blackberry. We see the word “ARGENT” on the screen. Which taken by itself means silver. Cut to a light bulb somewhere else and a black box in a wooden bowl.
We return to the room with the black box at the end of the episode. A title tells us it is “Buenos Aires” (ARGENTina), which is where Phillip Jeffries at least was. Two red lights flash on the box – presumably the text message having reached it – and it metamorphoses into a tiny lump of silvery metal. Argent. Or even Argent Phillip Jeffries, if you will permit me. Dougie became a golden ball bearing after all. All this change. Part 5 continues the process whereby David Lynch and Mark Frost are transforming Twin Peaks into something thrillingly new and excitingly strange.