Twin Peaks Part 9: Major meetings

Subscribe to A Twin Peaks Podcast: A Podcast About Twin Peaks – on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts – to unwrap the mysteries in EW's after-show every Monday during the Showtime revival.

Picking up two weeks after an hour of cosmic origin-resurrection psychedelia, Part 9 of Twin Peaks was practically as bold in its attempt to bring together the million various strands of this story. Investigators united, old favorites discovered hidden secrets, and it turns out that wild-theory blogging can solve the questions of the universe. I'm filling in for my learned Twin Peaks colleague Jeff Jensen this week on the EW recap, so expect a full deep dive tomorrow — along with the latest episode of our weekly kaffeeklatsch A Twin Peaks Podcast: A Podcast About Twin Peaks. UPDATE: Read the full Twin Peaks recap here.

Here are the main talking points from an hour that officially wrapped up the first half of this revival season.

"Around the Dinner Table, the Conversation Is Lively"

That was the text message the nefarious Cooper doppelganger sent to Diane. A code? A tantalizing hint? Evil Cooper met up with the Hutchens couple, a couple of Tarantinoid assassins played appropriately by Jennifer Jason Leigh and Tim Roth, both from The Hateful Eight. Mr. Cooper is apparently in clean-up mode: He sent them to take down the warden at Yankton, and promised them a double-header mission in Las Vegas.

Witless Protection

The Officers Fusco are investigating Dougie, and they're a bit confused. Pre-1997, there's no record of Douglas Jones: no passport, no birth certificate. (Perhaps 1997 is the year the Cooper doppelganger created Dougie; a Lynch fan might note that 1997 is the year of Lost Highway, one of the director's most profound investigations of alternate lives and doppelganger storytelling.) They got Dougie's fingerprints and his DNA; imagine what horrors they'll find in their database.

But the Jones investigation did lead the Fusco frères to someone they've been looking for for a long time. "Ike the Spike finally f—ed himself," said one Fusco or another. The cops caught Ike at the hotel, but the Cooper doppelganger had already phoned Duncan Todd demanding follow-through on what we can assume was the Mission to End Dougie's Life. Meanwhile, Dougie/Dale stared at an American flag, dreaming of some distant performance of "America the Beautiful." <iframe src="https://art19.com/shows/e744e1c0-95b7-4c13-a6b0-30d09dab7a32/embed?playlist_type=latest" scrolling="no" width="100%" height="460" frameborder="0" class="" allowfullscreen="" resize="0" replace_attributes="1" name=""></iframe>

Major Briggs, Part One

Do you occasionally find yourself thinking that Major Garland Briggs is the greatest character in television history? I do, usually around sunset. This episode was a feast for Briggs fans (Major-ites? Garlandheads? Briggs-thusiasts?) and even featured an appearance by his wife Betty (played once again by Charlotte Stewart).

Seems that before the good Major disappeared 25 years ago, he told his wife that she would someday receive visitors: their son, Hawk, and some Sheriff Truman or other. That long-awaited meeting happened, and she delivered her husband's message. It was inside a metallic cylinder, but Bobby knew how to open it. Within the cylinder was a sheet of paper full of symbols and numbers and coded words, the kind of thing guaranteed to make Jeff Jensen's head explode.

The Major told the men to go "252 yards east of Jack Rabbit's Palace," first putting some soil from that area in their pocket. He gave them two dates, Oct. 1 and Oct. 2, and a time, 2:53. "That's two days from now," says Sheriff Frank, "And the day after." We saw that familiar symbol, a variation of which appeared in the Owl Cave and on the green ring: two upside-down triangles, twin peaks. Above them: a red circle, and the insectile "Experiment" illustration last seen on Cooper's poker card? Theories, go!

There was another message inside the cylinder. A series of numbers, looking quite a bit like the deep-space communication that Major Briggs once logged. Within the message: "COOPER COOPER." Two Coopers?

Major Briggs, Part 2

Meanwhile, in Buckhorn, Gordon Cole and his FBI all-stars met up with Lieutenant Knox and the Buckhorn PD. They saw Briggs' body, and they received new insight into the strange affair of William Hastings. Seems Hastings and the dead librarian Ruth Davenport were investigating the existence of an alternate dimension — and writing about it on their blog, which my colleague Devan Coggan has discovered IS A REAL THING WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE GO THERE NOW.

Poor William described a tale of woe. It seems he and Ruth went to this strange Zone, and met the Major. He asked them for coordinates, and they provided them. But something went wrong. Some others arrived. William described seeing the Major's head disappear. (We saw that head, of course, floating through space way back in Part 3.)

William swore up and down that he didn't kill Ruth. He loved her. They were going to go to the Bahamas! It was so wonderful, and sad, and pitiful. Good for you, Matthew Lillard!

This Week In Horne News

Ben and Beverly continued their curiously respectful dance of seduction. No sighting yet of Audrey, nor supposed progeny Richard. Jerry's still in the forest, and his foot clearly stated, "I am your foot." But we did see a couple other members of the Horne family, in a sequence that was surreal even for this show. Poor mentally disabled Johnny Horne went running through his house, apparently let out by someone. He ran right into a wall, despite his mother's protestations, and knocked down a photograph of a waterfall — possibly the waterfall that flows right outside his father's hotel? He looked dead or almost there: a tragically unexpected ending, for the boy who was once long ago tutored by a local girl named Laura Palmer.

At the Roadhouse

Sky Ferreira popped up as a character named "Ella," apparently a local young woman with problems holding down a job. She had a rash under her left armpit — the same arm that MIKE is missing, if that matters. She talked to her friend about a zebra and a penguin, which I assume is code for "policemen."

Chad Update

Chad was eating lunch in the conference room. NO LUNCH IN THE CONFERENCE ROOM, CHAD!!!!

Click here for my full, hopefully more helpful recap of Part 9 of Twin Peaks. And don't forget to listen to the new episode of A Twin Peaks Podcast: A Podcast About Twin Peaks, which will arrive tomorrow afternoon, just as soon as we finish searching for the Zone.