TV Rewind: Twin Peaks
Episode 19
By Eric Hughes
November 14, 2011
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Per Irene, who’s helping Cooper navigate through a couple of the listings, Dead Dog Farm is a thing of old legend. The best people in the world and the worst people in the world are drawn to it, but only those with pure hearts can feel its pain. The rest struggle and, I presume, are turned away.
She didn’t say it outright, but Irene’s description of Dead Dog sounded a lot like the White Lodge, a crazy place Hawk mentioned the other week and, which, people like Griggs’ wife know about but are keeping mum about. The same is true of Colonel Riley, in town investigating Griggs’ disappearance, who said anything to do with the White Lodge is classified.
But here, and rather quickly, we have what appears to be a tangible White Lodge in Dead Dog Farm, a space we only know about because Cooper’s real estate trek led him there. (Well, a flipped coin which happened to land on a photo of the farm).
Before we step inside and learn Dead Dog may have implications to another ongoing investigation in town, Cooper has a spot meet and greet with Riley, who intends on picking Cooper’s brain about what he remembers the night Griggs disappeared. Cooper was the only guy with Griggs the night he went away, so Cooper would be the natural person to ask.
Riley, actually, only really wanted to know one thing: Had Cooper seen any wildlife in the woods? In particular, owls? Cooper’s face lights up the moment he remembers: Yes, he’d heard an owl right before the disappearance.
Again with the owls! As we saw the night Griggs went *swoosh*, it seems Bob travels from vessel to vessel through the owls. Somehow. That the government knows about this is interesting.
With the owls out of the way, Riley also lets slip that the strange messages Griggs received about Cooper around the time he encountered the giant weren’t from deep space, as Griggs led us to believe, but in Twin Peaks’ back woods. This fits in with something Sheriff Truman said around the time we were introduced to the Bookhouse Boys: that Twin Peaks’ woods are filled with secrets and the rest of it.
Perhaps the development will provide ample opportunity for a return of (and purpose for) the Bookhouse Boys. The club has been strangely silent since we first learned of ‘em. They helped with the Renault case an episode after we learned what they even were, and then that was it. And that was awhile ago - either at the end of season one or the beginning of season two.
I honestly don’t know why I care about the Bookhouse Boys so much. It’s a strange little club that Truman takes seriously. I guess the name intrigues me.
So back to the farm… Cooper approaches the door with Irene and notices fresh tire tracks in the mud. He’s so good he knows one patch belongs to a Jeep, the other a four-wheeler and the last a sedan of some kind. The dude is nuts. He asks Irene whether anyone has been around to see the place lately, and she says not in the last year, at least. Hmm.
They step inside - the door’s ajar, apparently - and Cooper supposes a meeting was held there no more than a few hours ago. On a chair along the side of a table in the kitchen, Cooper finds cocaine. He looks up at Irene gleefully and says they’ll have to notify the sheriff.
I think this turned into a moment for Cooper because he might realize what I think I realized: That Dead Dog shares a connection white the White Lodge. Or, maybe, it is the White Lodge. And now that the sheriff’s office is involved, he’ll be allowed to poke around a little without stirring up trouble with our cross-dressing friend, Denise.
Speaking of, David Duchovny makes another appearance as Denise. She comes in only at the end, though, to mostly talk shop with Cooper at the Great Northern. He does come into contact with Audrey, however, and proceeds to ask Cooper about her. It catches Cooper off guard - he’d supposed that because Dennis dresses as a woman he’d be into men - but lo, it’s just the opposite. I don’t really know where any of this is going with Denise but I’m loving every second of it.
In addition to Duchovny, Molly Shannon makes a brief appearance as the case manager for a young boy named Nick, Dick’s nephew. Airing in 1991, “Episode 19” was broadcast four years before Shannon began regular appearances on Saturday Night Live.
Anyway, Nick’s an orphan - both of his parents were killed - so Dick becomes his custodian. Back home, they share a strange moment with each other when Dick is working on one of his automobile’s tires and demands that Nick vacate the car upon proving that he couldn’t sit inside without honking the horn. Nick does as he’s told, and not too much later the car slips off the jack and nearly kills Dick. They embrace.
From that episode, Nick supposes his nephew’s the devil and may have killed his parents, too.
I don’t know why they’d introduce such a bizarre story without actually going through with it, so I’ll go ahead and assume that, yeah, Nick is the devil. But why? And why does Dick suppose such a thing after one freak encounter? I’d hope we as people would collect a little more evidence on each other before accusing one another of being Lucifer.
“Episode 19” finishes with the, yep, return of Griggs. While his wife and son, Bobby, are reminiscing about him in the living room, he just appears in the room and asks how long he’s been gone. When his wife tells him two days, he says that’s strange because it seems shorter than that. She then asks him if everything’s alright, and he replies no, not exactly.
Their embrace was interesting. It actually looked a lot in the way that Bob embraces his victims before making the kill. Mrs. Griggs’ face is firmly suffocated by Griggs’ body. It’s just an odd way to say hello to someone.