This Week’s Syllabus
Watch Twin Peaks: The Return “Part Three”
Read the next chapter in your textbook: A Skeleton Key To Twin Peaks, 2nd Edition. by
.Consider and, if it feels right, discuss.
Part Three
Part Three of Twin Peaks The Return is a crucial episode. Here, we learn a lot about the mechanics of the Lodge system in Cooper’s dream. He finds himself in a strange place that looks like it's in the middle of an ocean with a big tower. Inside a room, he meets a woman with an unusual face who cannot communicate properly. She tries to warn him to stay away from a socket-like apparatus. The main door is pounded on, presumably by the same creature that killed Sam and Tracy Barbaretto in the glass box room, and the woman takes Cooper to the roof, which appears to be in outer space.
In this surreal environment, we see naked elements of this strange dream. The woman monitors dials that seem to regulate the energy in this place. She touches the equipment, something happens, and she is ejected into outer space. She will reappear in a later episode, revealing her significance to the narrative. For now, she interacts with the apparatus, leading Cooper back down the hatch where he meets another woman credited as the American Girl, who resembles Ronette Pulaski from the original Twin Peaks, played by the same actress.
The American Girl (as she’s credited) warns Cooper that when he arrives, he will already be there. Approaching the socket-like apparatus, Cooper is struck dumb, losing his agency and awareness, and gets sucked into the socket. Meanwhile, his double, Mr. C, is driving dangerously down a desert road and flips his car. At the moment of truth, Mr. C should be reconstituted into the Red Room, giving up the pain and suffering he's collected. The tulpa of Douglas Jones serves two functions (two birds, one stone); not only does his presence in the Red Room allow Mr. C to subvert the Lodge reclamation process, his absence from the dream creates a trap for Cooper to fall into when he moves through the socket.
This process, which should allow individuals to exercise their darker impulses within the dream without harming others, is subverted. In this alternate layer of Cooper’s dream, a tulpa named Dougie Jones, a stand-in for Cooper has been manufactured to corrupt this reclamation process. Dougie Jones, living a mundane life in a Las Vegas tract home, is reclaimed into the Red Room instead of Mr. C. Dougie's confusion in the Red Room is immediate, but he is eventually reconstituted back into the energy of the Red Room, allowing Mr. C to operate outside the natural order.
Cooper, now in Dougie's place, is thrust into the dream with no agency or awareness, armed only with the suit on his back and a room key to the Great Northern Lodge. This key, seemingly supernatural, helps him survive his first trial of being shot in Jade’s Jeep, when she drives him away from the tract home neighborhood. Cooper ends up in a casino, beginning the game of "Call For Help," testing if strangers will assist him despite general apathy.
This episode highlights a deep moral lesson about kindness to strangers and letting the good inside us manifest in our behavior. Beyond the quirks, laughs, and horrors, it's a narrative about overcoming negativity and apathy. Part Three is executed beautifully, filled with strangeness and sublimity. As you watch, appreciate the visual storytelling and the underlying narrative purpose.
I hope you enjoy Part Three. We'll move into Part Four in the next class. Remember, these four hours of television were released together and meant to be watched as a cohesive unit. I hope this exploration has clarified things and given you room to appreciate the Cinematic language of what is on screen, separate from the compelling narrative.
If you have questions, reactions, or thoughts, leave a comment or post them to this Substack essay.
[Podcast] Week 10: 'Twin Peaks Movie Club on Substack