Hawk is playing with fire in Twin Peaks episode 11

After a slower episode last week, things are picking up again in Twin Peaks. Bill Hastings leads the FBI to an important location, someone we thought was dead makes a surprise appearance, and the parents of the troubled Becky Burnett are finally revealed. We also learn more about the history of the evil that lurks in the town, and are given a few tantalising clues as to what exactly Hawk will find when he arrives at the enigmatic Jack Rabbit’s Palace.

Down but not out

Last week the villainous Richard Horne left Miriam Sullivan (Sarah Jean Long) for dead in her trailer. But in the opening moments of episode 11 we see that she survived, which is bad news for Horne. She witnessed him running over the kid with his truck in episode 6, and she’ll almost certainly be telling Sheriff Truman about it. Hopefully her unexpected survival also leads to the hateful Deputy Chad Broxford being exposed for working with Horne to cover up his crime. A group of kids playing baseball see Sullivan crawling out of the woods, covered in blood and looking decidedly worse for wear. Hopefully she survives long enough to tell someone about what she saw.

Becky wants revenge

Becky Burnett (Amanda Seyfried), who we first met in episode 5, is in a rage after learning that husband Steven (Caleb Landry Jones) is cheating on her. She grabs a gun, calls her mother Shelly (Mädchen Amick), and steals her car. Shelly leaps onto the hood of the speeding vehicle and pleads for Becky to stop, but is thrown off. Becky visits the apartment of the woman Steven has been sleeping with, who turns out to be Gersten Hayward (Alicia Witt), sister of Donna. You may remember her providing piano backing for Leland Palmer’s terrifying rendition of ‘Get Happy’ in the original series. Steven and Gersten are gone, but Becky unloads a few shots into her door anyway.

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Bobby and Shelly reunited

In the Double R it’s confirmed that Becky is in fact the daughter of Shelly and Bobby Briggs (Dana Ashbrook). Bobby continues to have the most fascinating arc in the new series, and seeing him stepping into the role of a concerned father, echoing his own dad Major Briggs, is a touching moment. He says he’ll loan Becky the money to fix the door she shot up, but says she’ll have to pay it back. But then, just as we think things have worked out for Shelly and Bobby - troubled daughter aside - we see Red (Balthazar Getty) approaching the diner. Shelly runs out to meet him, a smile beaming on her face, and they kiss. Seems her and Bobby’s relationship didn’t last, although Bobby’s expression as he watches the couple together suggests he still has feelings for Shelly. We know that Red is a dangerous drug dealer, and allied with Richard Horne, so hopefully Bobby doesn’t get on the wrong side of either of them. My heart couldn’t take it.

Late for dinner

Suddenly, a gunshot rings through Double R. Bobby, switching into cop mode, tells everyone to get down and pulls his gun. Outside he finds a mother berating a father for leaving a loaded gun in the back of their van next to their children. As backup arrives Bobby approaches a woman in the car behind the van who’s madly honking her horn, and gets chewed out for making her late for dinner. In the seat next to the woman Bobby sees a pale, convulsing child with some kind of sickly green liquid leaking from her mouth. It’s a chaotic, terrifying scene, the likes of which David Lynch could only orchestrate.

The portal

In Buckhorn, South Dakota, Bill Hastings (Matthew Lillard) leads the FBI to the place where he apparently entered ‘The Zone’ and saw Major Briggs. There isn’t much there other than an old, dilapidated house, but Gordon Cole (David Lynch) and Albert Rosenfield (Miguel Ferrer) have their guns at the ready. The pair catch a glimpse of a woodsman—those charcoal-skinned Black Lodge spirits we keep catching glimpses of whenever something supernatural is afoot. Then Cole stops in his tracks, hypnotised by an immense, swirling vortex in the sky. But just as he’s about to be pulled into wherever it leads, where we see three more woodsmen, Albert pulls him away. Is this one of the eight entrances to the Black Lodge hinted at in The Secret History of Twin Peaks? If so, Albert likely just saved Cole’s skin. The agents also find the headless body of Ruth Davenport, Hastings’ secret lover and fellow Zone enthusiast.

Goodbye, Bill

Diane (Laura Dern) spots another woodsman phasing in and out of existence. The ghostly figure approaches the car Hastings is being held in, watched over by Buckhorn detective Dave Macklay (Brent Briscoe). Then, in a flash, Hastings is dead, with the top half of his head brutally torn off - the same gruesome death suffered by Sam Colby and Tracey Barberato in New York at the hands of the ‘experiment’ in the glass box. It seems Bill walked to close to the fire and suffered the same fate as his partner Ruth. Which is a shame, because Matthew Lillard’s performance was one of the highlights of the new series. Cole’s deadpan delivery of “He’s dead.” as he observes the freshly beheaded Hastings is the funniest moment of the episode. Later, over coffee and donuts, Cole and co. discuss what just happened, and Diane seems to take a special interest in a photo Albert took of coordinates written on Davenport’s arm - the ones she gave to Major Briggs. She seems to be trying to memorise them, which Albert notices, and the evidence that she’s in cahoots with Evil Cooper, whether she wants to be or not, is building up, sadly.

Fire in the mountains

Hawk (Michael Horse) and Sheriff Frank Truman (Robert Forster) look at an old Native American map of the area where Twin Peaks now stands. He points to the location Major Briggs’ message is leading them to, Jack Rabbit’s Palace, which is apparently on Blue Pine Mountain, one of the two peaks looming over the town. Hawk describes the map as a ‘living thing’ that’s always up to date, and points out several icons to Truman. There’s black corn, which symbolises death, and a fire he likens to electricity, which can be good or evil depending on who wields it. We know abstractly that Lodge spirits are connected to electricity somehow, but this makes it explicit. Also on the map is the black owl-like symbol we saw on Evil Cooper’s playing card. Truman asks what it represents, but Hawk refuses to tell him, saying he doesn’t want to know. The Log Lady (Catherine E. Coulson) calls Hawk and warns him that “there’s fire where you’re going”, which suggests the mysterious Jack Rabbit’s Palace might be the heart of all evil in Twin Peaks. Could that peculiar symbol represent the eerie ‘mother’ creature we saw giving birth to Bob in episode 8?

Damn fine pie

And, finally, Dale ‘Dougie’ Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) finds himself face to face with Rodney (Robert Knepper) and Bradley Mitchum (Jim Belushi) in the desert outside Las Vegas. They’re ready to kill him for ripping off their casino and exposing an insurance scam, but Bradley tells his brother that if the box Cooper is holding contains a cherry pie, they can’t kill him. Something to do with a dream he had. And, of course, there’s a pie in the box. It seems the benevolent forces protecting Cooper have the ability to influence people through their dreams. The Mitchum brothers find a cheque from Dougie’s company in Coop’s pocket awarding them the insurance money they thought they’d missed out on, and they take him out for a meal to celebrate. They serve up the cherry pie and Cooper takes a bite, which seems to awaken something in him. A glimmer of his old, familiar self. But then he’s back to being Dougie again. Oh, Lynch. This is torture.