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So “Episode 18” is the marker for when David Duchovny shows up unannounced as a cross dresser.

Perhaps the biggest surprise I’ve yet come across, the move - which would be considered stunt casting by today’s standards - caught me completely off guard. (I can’t be alone in this). Duchovny wouldn’t break out on television via The X-Files for another few years.

His character - formerly Dennis Bryson; now Denise Bryson, who dresses as a woman - is in town investigating Cooper’s a) alleged rescue of Audrey Horne from One Eyed Jacks and b) theft of cocaine from a stakeout.

As transparent as can be, Bryson later tells Cooper that he once had to wear women’s clothes for a sting operation, but found out soon enough that the wardrobe relaxed him. His work partner considered his daily dress a real commitment to the cause and thought nothing of it. Eventually, Dennis became Denise and started doing it for reals.

Dennis/Denise is yet another example of, shall we say, pairings in Twin Peaks. Dennis and Denise, Laura’s personal and private lives, Laura and Maddy’s shared likeness, the show itself and that show-within-a-show soap, Invitation to Love. Dualities are as common as there are awkward James and Donna stare offs. Despite this, its meaning - beyond the fun of picking them out - eludes me still.

“Episode 18” also dealt with the strange disappearance of one Major Briggs. When we last saw him an episode ago, he was pleading for the help of the venerable Cooper, who’d left the camp in the woods for a piss. Sure enough, upon his return, he discovered the Major missing, before being blinded by an extraordinary light in the distance.

A discussion with the Major’s wife revealed little to nothing. Well, she confirmed whatever it was that might have nabbed him - if it was anything… be careful! - is strictly confidential, and may or may not have something to do with his line of work. So, Mrs. Briggs was really no help at all, forcing Cooper to step outside the box on this one.

I’ve been onto this alien thing since the beginning, and am delighted to see the show finally go in that direction so intentionally. At first I thought Cooper an alien, which I’ve since repealed. He’s been so normalized this season, so to speak, that the obvious signs from a season ago are no longer poking out.

But when Briggs shared with Cooper that he’d gotten some strange transmissions from space some time ago - right around the time Cooper was confronted by the Giant - I re-positioned myself in my chair. Briggs disappearing in a flash of light, then, readdresses all of that. We don’t know much, but science fictiony stuff has trained me to think we’re dealing with something otherworldly.

Mrs. Briggs wasn’t helpful, but what else to is to be expected from the wife of a covert agency man. The fact that she even knew what Cooper was talking about - a disappearance in the night, in the woods, flash of light - says she knows something about what’s going on. Perhaps Cooper can mine her for details, if only he can, should he go that route, figure out how best to crack.

I was reminded this episode by some passerby - I forget who - that Cooper and his team really did break the Laura Palmer case. It’s all been solved, so long as you sit squarely in the camp of Bob inhabiting human vessels and that whole bit.

I’d forgotten in the scheme of things that to an average Twin Peaksian, the Laura Palmer thing would at least feel as if it were finished. Leland, her father, was imprisoned, then later confessed to the killings while under Bill’s trance. And then he died in his own cell.

That a townie commoner would confuse this as “solved” - based on the way media covers things, why wouldn’t they? - it certainly makes some sense.

But to us, the television watchers, figuring that the reveal of Laura Palmer’s murderer is really only the tip of the iceberg, we’ve only just begun. Laura Palmer might not be in the foreground as she once was in the foreground, it’s worth it to consider that that whole thing hasn’t been put to bed yet.