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For quite a while - and this continues, mind you - I grappled with what Twin Peaks was really trying to be. Is it all Bob all the time? Is it a character drama? Is it something bigger than we could even realize?

Through the middle of season two, the show was still firmly planted in a mythological mixture of parts Bob and Laura Palmer. Like, despite characters going off to do their thing from time to time, what resulted would usually end up back at Bob. We couldn’t learn more about our characters without learning more about Bob, his motives, his accomplices and the rest of it.

And yet, as season two further distanced itself from Bob - well, ever since Leland kicked the bucket - a curious thing has happened that I’m just now becoming privy to: The show is a soap opera.

Twin Peaks might not look like your everyday bucket of suds, but it’s certainly operating on that level ever since Briggs’ abduction and Windham’s intensified interest in our friend Cooper. I’ve talked about this once before, I think, but Bob’s storyline is at rest - for now - and new ones have emerged.

Our leading tale is Windham, Cooper and their history. They’re engaged in a battle of minds. Namely, Windham is punishing Cooper with deadly games for failing to protect his wife’s life while Cooper was on the clock. Even more, before she died, Cooper had fallen for Carolyn. And even more, it’s Windham who Cooper assumes killed Carolyn. A big bloody triangle, essentially.

Heroes, if you recall, revealed itself in volumes. Twin Peaks might be doing a similar thing - the Windham/Cooper game is Twin Peaks’ latest puzzle - but it lacks such a novel storytelling device. Our starts and stops, then, are hazier and toe larger gray areas.

With this in mind, I’ve noticed that characters have gone off and, again, done their thing, only this time they aren’t benefiting - however indirectly - the central storyline. In fact, many of them have been handed their own meaty story, and whether or not it gets back to Windham and Cooper really isn’t the point anymore. It’s more about characters dealing with differences and change, and where that happens to take them. Kinda like life.

Ed and Norma have renewed their feelings for each other, Shelly and Bobby are on the outs after failing to control Leo, James fled Twin Peaks and got entangled with a woman named Evelyn, Donna is driven wild by James’ antics, Andy and Lucy are still too afraid to admit they like each other, and so on. It’s so gosh darn soapy!

I still don’t quite understand how Invitation to Love, a soap opera featured prominently in the first season, fits in to all this, but if anything Twin Peaks has become a lot more like it. What was foreshadowed in season one has been realized in season two.

In “Episode 22,” Leo Johnson has become Windham Earl’s latest plaything. Quite literally, actually. Windham’s got him strapped to a chair and force feeds him orange goop. Doing anything out of line or slightly askew earns Leo some corporal punishment of some kind. Not sure how Leo will come into play with Windham’s plans just yet, but an episode or two more of this should give us something.

As we have come to find out, Windham and Cooper are playing an actual game of chess. Each time Windham removes a piece of Cooper’s from the board, a Twin Peaksian dies. Perhaps Leo will be Windham’s next target, but that all seems too easy. This isn’t to say I wouldn’t mind that kind of thing. Leo is one of my least liked heels.

Fortunately for Cooper, Pete happens to be an expert chess player, and under his tutelage - perhaps as early as “Episode 23” - Cooper will learn some of the strategies it will take to defeat an opponent like Windham. A man, in fact, that Cooper has said he has never beaten.

You see, Cooper and Windham have really only begun their game. Either Cooper sacks Windham uber early, or - I’m dreading - the storyline set in motion here isn’t fully realized. I’d like to think Twin Peaks gets cut off at some other point, but with seven episodes remaining, Windham/Cooper might very well be the last big storyline.