If the previous installment felt like a bit of a transitional hour, then this episode definitely fits that description.  While a lot happens, much of it feels like incremental progress on several fronts.  This is an episode that is likely going to frustrate a lot of people for that reason alone.

 

 

If there’s a hidden message to all of it, it’s in one of the final scenes, as Cooper’s addled scribbles on the case files are reviewed by Dougie’s boss.  Sure enough, there was a method to the madness, as the various connections implied by the scribbles have a particularly strong meaning to Bushnell Mullins, even as it is kept from the audience.  The fact that the camera lingered on Cooper’s seemingly endless scribbling made it fairly clear that it was adding up to something important, as well.  And there, perhaps, is the message: as arcane as it may seem, the pieces are coming together, even if it looks like gibberish in the meantime.

 

One plotline that continues is the notion that there is a hit out on Dougie, and the violence that is employed to continue wiping out Dougie is stark and gruesome.  And it begs more than a few questions, considering that some of the people after Dougie are pretty inept.  Take, for example, those extorting Dougie to pay back a bad loan with ridiculous interest, and how easily Dougie’s wife makes them back down.  Of course, the closer Cooper comes to regaining his senses, the more urgency will be placed on wiping him out.

 

 

After a few episodes of sifting through endless boxes, the answer to the Log Lady’s cryptic riddle seems to arrive when Hawk drops an old nickel with an “Indian head”, which eventually leads him to a collection of hand-written notes tucked inside of a bathroom stall door.  It ought to be interesting to discover what is said in those notes, to say the least, but it’s also a bit frustrating.  One might have foolishly hoped that the narrative would be handing the audience enough clues to try to anticipate or guess where the investigation might lead.

 

Even more arcane is the whole subplot with Richard Horne and Red.  Everything about the scene with Red is bizarre, but with a hint of the same semi-self-aware ridiculousness that Wally Brando employed a few episodes ago.  Red is a lot more menacing however, yet there is a sense that he’s perhaps been touched by something else.  It’s very hard to say, though the ever-increasing scale of the crime operations in Twin Peaks is an interesting contrast to the upgrades at the police department.

 

 

Richard Horne’s hit-and-run seems particularly meaningful, given the presence of Carl Rodd and what he sees.  It may not be obvious, but it certainly appears as though that incident takes place at the same intersection where Gerard, the One-Armed Man, confronted Leland Palmer in Fire Walk With Me.  And of course, he sees a telephone pole with the number “6” on it, very similar to the one in the film at the trailer park.  It all suggests a strong connection to the film and the mysteries within it, which is intriguing to say the least.

 

One very nice touch within the episode is the expected arrival of one of the more infamous characters in the Twin Peaks canon: Diane Evans.  Cooper would always address his audio logs to Diane, and now we finally see her on-screen.  It’s not quite the look I was expecting, but then, Lynch loves to mess with expectation.  This gives some hope that the Dark Cooper storyline will continue to progress soon, which would be a good thing, since the previous episode left things with him on quite the interesting note.