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“And where there’s a key, there’s a lock.”

That would be Catherine, who, wearing that same smug grin we’ve come to expect from her, gently rolled a mysterious key around in her palms. The key had come from Thomas Eckhart, or better put, it had been lodged inside Thomas’ square-ish tube of silver right up until Pete began maniacally shooting at it with his gun and, with success, breaking apart its outer shell.

For weeks now, we’ve seen Catherine and her buddies try to pry open Eckhart’s gift. Like a Matryoshka doll, the present - once a solid, wood box - has gotten increasingly smaller as Catherine and Pete have pulled away its outer layers. They whittled it down to that silver box, finally, and inside that was a key.

So: “And where there’s a key, there’s a lock.”

I’m without a good guess as to what the key happens to open - and where its lock even is - but their little discovery seemed to fittingly align with a second lock-and-key mystery coming to a head on another side of town.

Over yonder, Cooper and his men are starting to unravel - or, at least, think they’re starting to unravel - why Windham happens to be in Twin Peaks, and how he might go about getting what he wants.

What he wants, of course, is access to the Black Lodge, and its door is believed by many to be somewhere - beneath? - the deep woods of Twin Peaks. Hence why dudes like Briggs keep getting abducted there, and why we really did see Bob appear out of thin air at the end of episodes “26” or “27.”

Windham’s got himself a door, then, and is in need of a key, but his situation -- compared to Catherine’s - is far more figurative. The door to the Black Lodge needn’t be a door at all, and its key needn’t be the same kind of key you’re thinking of right now.

Enter Miss Twin Peaks, a beauty pageant our Twin Peaksians have been gossiping about for weeks and weeks. We’d known Windham was planning to do something with its winner, and up until now we’d assumed it would have to do with something gruesome, murder perhaps.

But Cooper no longer vainly thinks that Windham is in town to avenge his wife’s wrongful death. Cooper now knows that Windham’s here for the Lodge. He wants in, and to possess its evil secrets.

With that in mind, the crowned victor of Miss Twin Peaks no longer appears like yet another victim of Windham’s deadly game. Instead, it seems like Miss Twin Peaks might in fact be Windham’s key.

Our “lucky” girl? Poor Shelly, who wins the competition outright and then gets kidnapped by Windham amongst half darkness, half strobe. Cooper sees the whole thing but can’t do a thing. He’s been momentarily stunned by some strange taser-like contraption Windham pulls out of his pants.

So how did we get there? Well, much of it had to do with Briggs, who Cooper finally figures was a target of Windham’s because of his ties to Project Blue Book. Perhaps Briggs could help Windham locate the Lodge, for instance. And that’s when Cooper recalls for Harry that he saw flashes of Bob the night Josie was murdered - as if Bob feasts on fear. That fear, you know, breaks Bob out of the Lodge and into our world.

Long ago, Harry had said to Cooper that evil comes from the woods of Twin Peaks. And so, the idea was hatched that the Black Lodge is located there. Doors need keys, Miss Twin Peaks was coming up and wham-o. The power in the crown might be tapped to get through the lodge’s door.

The thing seems fuzzy, but that shouldn’t seem unusual. You know, perhaps Shelly’s got a sort of power that she never knew she had. Remember her run-in with Gordon? How he can hear her perfectly, and every other living thing in the world he can’t? That little story felt random at the time - still does, in fact, since it hasn’t been brought up again - and yet maybe it was a subtle indicator that Shelly isn’t really who she seems.

Well, I’m pretty sure we know the true Shelly. But maybe she hasn’t realized her potential.

There was a smattering of other happenings going on in “Episode 28,” but none of it seems to matter much since “Episode 29” happens to be Twin Peaks’ series finale. Had David Lynch had it his way, of course, “Episode 29” wouldn’t be where our story reaches its end. But alas I’ll be back a week from now to write about that episode and the series outright.