Twin Peaks Episode 7 Recap: The (Almost) Truth About Cooper
This week on part seven, we get one step closer to finding out how Cooper ended up in the wrong body, and why.
Here we are at part seven of the Twin Peaks revival. Let’s take a minute to acknowledge how crazy it is to have more than 10 more episodes to go—not even halfway through the crazy new world of the return. At least this week, we get some familiar favorite references to the original to be unpacked.
But first, the general bad news: Bob is on the loose yet again inside Cooper’s body. And the good news: Between the feckless cops of Twin Peaks, the FBI, and the Navy, we’re getting a bit closer to figuring out the murders in Buckhorn, South Dakota, introduced at the beginning of the season, and why Cooper got trapped in the wrong body while Bob stayed in his. As always, here’s a breakdown of what went down, by location.
Twin Peaks
We open on Jerry Horne in the woods. He gets a call from Ben. “Someone stole my car,” Jerry says. He’s super high and lost. Cool iPhone, Jerry. But the main event in Twin Peaks this episode is the letter Deputy Hawk’s found in the bathroom stall door at the station. Bingo, it’s from Laura Palmer. Clearly, this is the missing thing referenced by the Log Lady. He shows the letter to Sheriff Truman, which reads:
“This came to me in a dream last night night… My name is Annie. I’ve been with Dale and Laura (me??!!!). The good Dale is in the lodge and he can’t leave. ‘Write it in your diary.’ That’s what she said to me.”
Annie is Annie Blackburn, sister of Norma Jennings, from season two. Another page reads:
“It’s 1:30 AM. I’m crying so hard I can hardly breath [sic]. NOW I KNOW IT ISN’T BOB. I KNOW WHO IT IS.” They suspect Leland hid these pages when he came to the station to be questioned.
Laura, however, never met Dale Cooper. The two piece together that the Cooper who came out of the lodge that night (what was the end of season two) wasn’t the “good Cooper.” They want to bring Sheriff Harry Truman up to speed. Harry’s back—if only over the phone. (That’s the problem with revivals—not everyone onboard. Similarly disappointing: no surprise Audrey Horne, no Donna Hayward; both long shots, but still.)
A very scared man is asked about his car by Andy. Someone did something illegal while driving it, but not him. (We still don’t know who this guy is; he’s only ID-ed as “Farmer” in the credits.)
“You’ve gotta get out of here now.” He agrees to meet Andy later, but begs him to leave.
Frank Truman calls Will “Doc” Hayward on Skype (he’s the father of Donna) to ask about examining Dale Cooper after they went to the lodge, 25 years ago. (Side note: these fumbles with 2017 technology are pretty fun.) Doc remembers he took Cooper to the hospital, where he wandered into intensive care—he thought Cooper went to check on Audrey Horne, who was in a coma. Then Cooper disappeared. This was, of course, after Bob had possessed him, unbeknownst to these folks.
Later, Andy waits in the woods for the same man. But back at his place, his door is busted and clearly he got nabbed by whoever he was so afraid of.
At the hotel, Ben and Beverly (Ashley Judd) talk about some strange sound in the walls. An old key (sent by Jade in Las Vegas) has arrived in the mail—it’s to the room where Cooper was shot 25 years ago. Beverly goes home to her husband, who is extremely ill and needs caretaking, which is why she went back to work.
There’s yet another Bang Bang Bar interlude—but no band guest this time, just an after-hours cleanup. It’s a long scene (and basically a good time to Google all the Twin Peaks history this episode requires). The guy at the bar is Jean-Michel Renault, according to the credits. He gets a call about two underage hookers at the Road House. He doesn’t seem to care much.
Back at the Double R, Shelley and Norma are business as usual. A guy runs in asking about Billy (maybe the Farmer from before?) but that’s all we get from these folks. Eventually something will happen in their storyline—the show drops in the diner enough—but we’ll just have to wait.
Buckhorn, South Dakota
Lieutenant Knox comes to ask about some fingerprints. However, she seems perplexed that they are on a victim in his late 40s—and that he died recently. “It’s not just prints this time. It’s a body. It’s him,” she says to Colonel Davis back east. Who are they looking for? Major Garland Briggs, who you’ll remember was the father of Bobby Briggs, Laura Palmer’s boyfriend. Cue shadowy figure accompanied by the strange electrical surge sound, a signature of the Red Room. Also remember that Major Briggs appeared to Cooper when he passed out of the Red Room, saying “Blue Rose.”
Las Vegas
Anthony tries to talk to Dougie (the real Cooper) while Janey-E waits for him, clearly worried that Dougie figured out his insurance scheme. In this case, Cooper’s brain-fry works to his advantage—and he gives up nothing as he makes his weird doodles. (How is this mess going to be solved? Can Cooper not be himself until Bob dies?)
The police are here to see Dougie—about the car. Janey-E answers every question for him. He can only repeat back what she says.
The hired assassin Ike the Spike comes after Cooper, but he immediately knows what to do: he grabs him and pushes him down. For her part, Janey-E also really helps! The Man from the Other Place / Arm from the Red Room appears and says to squeeze his hand off (the gun). Whatever psychological damage Cooper suffered after 25 years in the Red Room, he’s been endowed with some supernatural abilities.
Philadelphia and New York
Back at the FBI offices, Albert comes back to Gordon after his meeting with Diane (Laura Dern), which didn’t go well, so they double-up this time. Diane lives in an awesome brownstone filled with beautiful midcentury furniture. She smokes constantly, has a sci-fi white blonde bob, and tells everyone fuck you a lot. She also makes damn good coffee. Diane is basically my dream woman. Hello, Halloween 2017.
Cooper is her former boss, and there’s definitely bad blood. But the FBI needs her to assess whether he’s really the guy in South Dakota, because of “something you know about, and that’s enough about that,” as Gordon says to her. She flies out with the team, and Agent Tammy Preston reveals her findings about Cooper’s mismatched fingerprints. Oh, and there’s a pretty funny picture of Cooper/Bob, in the only known photograph over the last 25 years, outside a house he bought near Rio de Janeiro.
Sioux City, South Dakota
The FBI team arrives, and Diane sets about interviewing Cooper. Tammy tries to encourage her. Diane says, “F— you, Tammy.” Meme that one up, kids.
In the interview, Diane can tell something is definitely up. Cooper won’t answer her questions—and he doesn’t know what he said to her the last time they met, which makes her get extremely emotional. Obviously something went down between these two in the past. “That is not the Dale Cooper that I knew,” she sobs to Gordon. He asks about the last night with Cooper, but Diane won’t talk about it.
Cooper/Bob later meets up with the warden in the office, but the security cameras are off. The warden pulls a gun. These guys know each other. “That dog had four legs,” Cooper/Bob tells him. “One you found in my truck the other three went out with the information you’re thinking about right now, to people you don’t want coming around if anything happens to me.”
Let’s back up: before Cooper/Bob got locked up, he had murdered Dayna, and Ray had information from Will Hastings’s secretary, presumably about the murders in Buckhorn. The warden has some connection, but we don’t know what.
Cooper/Bob says the name “Joe McClusky” and that makes the warden stop. Cooper/Bob demands a car for himself and Ray Munroe. Joe McClusky, as well as the late Mr. Strawberry, reveal something terrible that the warden wants secret. By the end of the episode, Ray and Cooper/Bob bust out. Don’t forget, a crazy, murder-abetting Jennifer Jason Leigh is still out there.
A Field Guide to Recognizing Your Favorite Twin Peaks Actors Now, 26 Years Later
Though Kyle MacLachlan has since starred in other cult series, even when he was Charlotte’s impotent husband on Sex and the City and a murderer on Desperate Housewives, he’ll always be known as Special Agent Dale Cooper, a man never too far away from a slice of cherry pie or cup of strong, black joe. (No word yet on whether Diane will be returning, too.)
Death be damned, Laura Palmer is coming back with a bang by starring in all 18 episodes of the new series—that is, unless Sheryl Lee, whose first post-Peaks role was Salome opposite Al Pacino, and who has since showed up in Winter’s Bone and Woody Allen’s Café Society, is simply reprising her role as Laura’s suspiciously identical cousin, Maddy.
Dana Ashbrook has kept up acting with a steady roster of smaller films, including 2012’s The Agression Scale with Ray Wise, aka Leland Palmer, and more than a few appearances on Dawson’s Creek, presumably making him more than up to the job in reprising his role as the annoying ultimate bad boy Bobby Briggs—even now that his hair’s gone gray.
Though she’s now a long way from a schoolgirl, the ever flirtatious Audrey Horne may have a chance at getting together with Coop after all, especially since actress Sherilyn Fenn has been keeping up her acting chops on shows like Gilmore Girls and Shameless (not to mention appearing on the cover of Playboy in the ’90s).
At 70, Peggy Lipton scarcely seems to have aged since she last played Norma Jennings, the owner of the Double R Diner, though she has since raised another actress, her daughter Rashida Jones.
Richard Beymer‘s eyes seem only bluer than ever since the now 79-year-old actor last turned up as Benjamin Horne, Audrey’s father and the owner of the Great Northern Hotel (not to mention an appearance in West Side Story, which helped to earn him a Golden Globe for New Star of the Year that he shared with Warren Beatty). Not that viewers have been able to appreciate them: Twin Peaks is only Beymer’s fourth on-screen appearance so far in the 2000s.
From blue streaks to twin top knots, Kimmy Robertson seems to have as much appreciation for an out-there hairdo as Lucy Moran, her curly-haired secretary in the sheriff’s office. Robertson has since lent her high-pitched voice to shows like Batman and The Simpsons, plus appeared onscreen on an episode of Drake & Josh—all good practice for appearing on all 18 episodes this season.
Like Leland Palmer, Laura’s potentially murderous father, actor Ray Wise has since gone gray, a new look he’s shown off in shows like Mad Men, Fresh Off the Boat, Gilmore Girls, 24, and How I Met Your Mother. That’s range.
Another face who’ll be showing up in the full series, Mädchen Amick has lately turned up on Riverdale, plus a host of cult shows like Mad Men, Gossip Girl, ER, Gilmore Girls, and Dawson’s Creek. Fortunately for her character, the waitress Shelley Johnson, though, her abusive husband Leo won’t be back.
Since playing Deputy Hawk, one of the most reasoned voices in the sheriff’s office, Michael Horse has gone on to not only appear in shows like Malcolm in the Middle, but pick up a full-on artistic career as a jeweler and painter.
Though Michael Ontkean has maintained his curly head of locks since starring as Sheriff Harry S. Truman, the actor, who last showed up in The Descendants in 2011, has decided to leave Coop hanging and won’t be returning to Twin Peaks.
Lara Flynn Boyle won’t be returning to this season but she’ll always live on as Donna Hayward, Laura’s best friend of sorts who was never short on spectacular sweaters.
Russ Tamblyn‘s daughter Amber has since gone on to become an actor and even director herself, but Tamblyn has kept up an acting career of his own since playing the ever eccentrically-outfitted psychiatrist Dr. Lawrence Jacoby, recently picking up roles in films like Django Unchained.
Like the actor who plays fellow bad boy Bobby Briggs, James Marshall, aka James Hurley, Big Ed’s nephew who can’t get enough of riding his bike, has also gone gray, but still showed up on-screen with a few films and an appearance on CSI.
Like her on-screen daughter, Laura, the grief-stricken Sarah Palmer will be returning for all 18 episodes, although actor Grace Zabriskie has turned up in shows like Charmed and Big Love.
Fittingly, like her beau Sheriff Harry S. Truman, sawmill owner Josie Packard won’t be returning to the series—like fellow mill worker Piper Laurie, aka Catherine Martell, David Lynch apparently never asked her back. But actor Joan Chen has been looking young as ever lately in shows like Netflix’s Marco Polo.
Read W‘s recap of Part Six of Twin Peaks.
Related: Laura Dern and Naomi Watts Open Up About David Lynch, And Tease Twin Peaks
Read all W‘s Twin Peaks coverage here.
Laura Dern, Naomi Watts, Patricia Arquette, and Hailey Gates Open Up About Working with Legendary Director David Lynch:
