So after last weeks crazy and absolutely insane double episode it looks like David Lynch has stepped back to a more linear structure here but that being said, there is still a fair amount of confusing shit going down with once again, more questions than answers. This episode was a continuation of multiple different plot-lines as well as the introduction of a few more seemingly important ones, and with so many stories being followed we spend this whole episode jumping around to many locations. David Lynch continues to expand this world further beyond the town of Twin Peaks as here we also visit Las Vegas once again, Buckhorn, South Dakota, The Pentagon, and also Buenos Aires, Argentina (interestingly enough, the very location Phillip Jeffries (David Bowie) disappeared from in 1987).

Firstly lets start back in Twin Peaks where we take a trip back down memory lane to the Double R Diner where sure enough the infamous Shelly Johnson (Mädchen Amick) and Norma Jennings (Peggy Lipton) are still working behind the counter serving up that famous coffee and pie. A short scene but any that feature familiar faces are good ones. But what we do learn from this sequence is that Amanda Seyfried is actually playing Shelly’s daughter Becky who seems to be out of money and doing drugs in the car with her not-so-good boyfriend. But with her character we do get an awesome shot that is so David Lynchian it’s awesome. It’s the long unbroken top down shot of Becky in the car staring up in the sky as she trips out from the drugs, Lynch executes this perfectly and it sucks you into the scene. We also get a scene with Frank Truman on the phone with Harry and then in a minor argument with his wife about purchasing a larger bucket, buying a nice carpet, fixing up a car…… all that important Twin Peaks stuff. Hawk and Andy are still rummaging through Agent Cooper’s evidence box with no luck at finding anything about Indians just yet.

And how can you talk about this episode without mentioning the fact that amongst all these questions we finally get one of the first definitive answers of this show… exactly what Dr Jacoby was doing with the gold shovels. So when we once again meet up with Jacoby it is pretty clear he has gone just a tad bit insane (maybe it’s the glasses) as he has essentially taken up the mantle of Twin Peaks’ own Alex Jones, reporting about a number of government conspiracy theories under the pseudonym Dr Amp. Watching his conspiracy theory videos are (probably also crazy) Jerry Horne and Nadine Hurley (Wendy Robie) who we get our first short glimpse of. But you’re probably still wondering; What was with those gold shovels? Well, it was all for an advertisement on his show where for the low price of $29.99 you can by your very own ‘Gold Shit-Digging Shovel’. Was this sequence random? Yes. Was it hilarious? Absolutely. And all I know now is I need to find out where to get myself a gold shit-digging shovel.

And again we revisit the life of simpleton Agent Cooper who is comically stumbling through the life of Dougie Jones in hilarious fashion. In todays episode Dougie goes to work and man this entire sequence is great. He’s making hand pistols with his new best friend ‘statue’, using his newfound superpowers to tell when someone is lying, and bending over in agony when needing to go to the toilet almost like when you lock a Sim in a room when they need to go toilet. But this sequence also gives some hints that somewhere in there the real Agent Cooper is starting to come through as he has rediscovered his everlasting love for some ‘damn good coffee’ and reacts to hearing the word ‘agent’. If anything this scene introduced us to the ever so stunning Elena Satine as one of Dougie’s co-workers and if that’s all we see of her character it’d be a shame.

We also spend a good amount of time with Evil Cooper in this episode as we get two great scenes that provide us with plenty of juicy content. The first scene has Evil Cooper staring into the mirror and we see his face slightly distort and merge with that of BOB who we now know is definitely still merged within his body. But rather than being the one in control it seems as though Evil Cooper has over time been able to overpower BOB and remain the one in control with BOB maybe having some influence behind the scenes. In a later scene the time finally comes where Evil Cooper decides to take his one phone call and this leads to chaos being unleashed within the police department resulting in no-one hearing what was said on the call…… But we heard it. In the vein of a cryptic nursery rhyme Cooper utters ‘the cow jumped over the moon’. What does it mean? I guess we’ll just have to wait to find out. But it appears that he had called a black call-receiving box located in Buenos Aires, Argentina and following the call it shrunk into a little piece of debris. So now we have a new story introduced, what is with this black box? Who is the woman trying to call through to the box? And what does she have to do with Evil Cooper?………. So many more damn questions.

One of the more weirder recurring events this season is the constant mentioning of Major Garland Briggs, it’s odd as both the actor who portrayed Briggs; Don S. Davis, passed away in 2008 and the character himself supposedly died towards the end of Twin Peaks’ original run. In a scene at The Pentagon of all places it turns out that there have been 16 appearances of Briggs’ fingerprints in the last 25 years, this time in Buckhorn South Dakota. I don’t believe we will see anyone take up the role of Briggs in this season but i feel like Lynch has big plans for the character going forward. In another weird turn of events we find out that inside the decapitated body (whose cause of death seems to be ‘loss of head’) found at the beginning of this season is the real Dougie Jones’ ring. This raises even more questions as to who this body belongs to and why he swallowed Dougie’s ring…… With all of the talk about Garland Briggs this season, could he have something to do with it?

And one final note, this episode also sees the introduction of Jim Belushi and Robert Knepper as the owners of the casino raided by Cooper in the previous episode and i think it’s safe to say they’re not happy. I doubt we’ll see them in much capacity going forward but all of these high profile cameos are incredibly fun, even if they only last for a minute or two. So after a very good 5th entry in this 18 part season we must again play the waiting game until next week where i’m sure we will get even more questions.

8/10