Episode 12 has the show once again opting for a more linear approach to telling the various stories here and doesn’t really make any progress from where we left off last episode. The only storyline that has any real development here is surrounding Diane and her mysterious alternate agenda no-one seems to know about. The rest of the episode features the underwhelming return of a much loved character and a number of engaging but seemingly unconnected scenes.

Firstly lets get all of the stuff involving Gordon, Albert, Tammy, and Diane out of the way because this was the storyline hogging up the majority of the runtime. In the opening scene, Gordon and Co. are just casually enjoying some wine in a room interestingly surrounded by red curtains when they start discussing some of the more nostalgic elements of Twin Peaks. Alfred begins giving Tammy a rundown of Project Blue Book, a task force dedicated to the investigation of UFO’s which was shut down in 1970 by the US Government. He goes on to explain that following the closing of this case a new case was opened with the name ‘Blue Rose’, a title very familiar for fans of Twin Peaks. This case was led by David Bowie’s Phillip Jeffries character and consisted of Chester Desmond, Dale Cooper, and Albert himself. Interestingly, Albert is the only one of the group to not have gone missing……… does that mean we could see Albert disappear too? I don’t think so but i wouldn’t count it out. Anyway this was all to reveal that he is now letting Tammy into the Blue Rose task force……. major developments people.

And the way this scene ended was an awesome callback to the original run of the show where Diane points her fingers while giving the quote “Let’s Rock!”. This is obviously a quote most notably used by ‘The Arm’ (Before he was an electrified brain tree) and the fact that the music ramped up at this point means David Lynch clearly didn’t want anyone to miss it….. Hey, she says ‘let’s rock’ in a room surrounded by red curtains just as The Arm once did…….. some significance there or just a callback????

Later on in the episode Diane receives another mysterious text presumably from Evil Cooper to which she replies to immediately, something tells me she may not know the identity of who she is talking to but it is definitely something very shifty. Then we get another very perfect scene between Gordon and Albert that runs for over 5 minutes, 30 seconds of which was actually spent on the important topic of conversation Albert arrived for. So the scene opens up with Gordon Cole in the arms of a stunning French lady who sure does love her red. Upon being told to leave the room for a moment she takes her sweet time getting shoes on, throwing on makeup, and adjusting her clothing, the whole time with a large seductive smile on her face. This establishes that the theme for this scene is silence, and there is lots of it. The actual topic of conversation was what Diane’s text messages mean, and the conversation leads to no new information……. of course.

But what this scene did give us was Gordon Cole cracking a serious joke about turnips. “She’s here visiting a friend of her mother whose daughter has gone missing. The mother owns a turnip farm. I told her to tell the mother that her daughter will turn up eventually.” What a cracker! Goddamn it Gordon you never fail to surprise me. We also get this amazing Gordon quote; “There are more than 6000 languages spoken on Earth today”. This quote is followed by multiple seconds of stunned silence, this was amazing by David Lynch, drawing a parallel between the pointlessness of the statement and the pointlessness of including such a long silence. But then when Gordon mishears the word ‘kind’ for ‘time’ and goes off on a tangent the silence was even longer and just incredible. Seriously, the interactions between this duo are just as amazing as they have ever been.

This storyline ends right at the end of the episode where Diane punches in the coordinates found on Ruth Davenport’s body and well what do you know, they lead straight to Twin Peaks. This damn town can’t catch a break. Maybe this is what the text messages were mentioning, Las Vegas could have been a guess referring to the location of the coordinates….. or i could be way off, probably the latter.

Next up we have Sarah Palmer who has most definitely seen better days. Judging by the way she attacks the Smirnoff vodka bottles in the supermarket I’d say she has a slight drinking problem. But on top of that she looks to have a few screws loose as a simple scene dedicated to a discussion about the sudden appearance of turkey jerky turns into Sarah rambling on about a bunch of largely unintelligible gibberish, talking to herself in the third person, and then leaving the store. Maybe the death of her daughter and husband all those years ago really did a number on her. Later in the episode Sarah is visited at her home by Hawk and she definitely seems to be hiding something as when a noise is heard in the house she assures Hawk it is just something in the kitchen….. Now i want more of Sarah Palmer, somehow i don’t think much is going to be resolved in the remaining 6 episodes.

I will now go through a few of the isolated moments of this episode most of which were great but being isolated means that some of them will be taking time away from solving the mysteries. Anyway as i mentioned last episode all i want is one scene, one short scene depicting whatever nonsense scenario Jerry Horne finds himself in. First he was having a standoff with his shoe, then he was desperately trying to find reception, and now, in this very short scene Jerry is running out of the woods very comically and falling over in a field……. That’s it, no context whatsoever, just pure amusement, just the way i like it. We get another of these short and sweet scenes this week and this one is involving Dougie and Sony Jim. Let me ask you, since this new season started have you ever wanted to know what it looks like when Dougie and Sonny Jim play catch together? Well now you have your answer as Sonny Jim launches a ball towards Dale which then bounces off his shoulder and onto the ground…….. Definitely didn’t predict that being the outcome.

In another scene Frank visits Ben Horne to give him the news of Richard being a total criminal dickhead, killing a kid and trying to murder Miriam. In return we get news that Richard never had a father, so whoever it was Audrey got with clearly didn’t want to stick around and resulted an abomination of a kid. Then Ben gives Frank Agent Coopers old room key to pass on to his brother Harry who is not in this season and unfortunately struggling with an illness off screen. We also get a conclusion to Tim Roth and Jennifer Jason-Leigh’s hunt for the Warden as they waste no time plugging a bullet through his head so they can rush over to Wendy’s……. classy. And once again Dr Amp is back a 7 o’clock with another live broadcast about conspiracies and the appearance of the gold shit digging shovel in a slightly different ad. All of these ads are killing me that i don’t have a gold shit digging shovel myself, but i’m wondering whether these ads that seem very pointless and for humour purposes only could actually mean something in the long run. I highly doubt it but with David Lynch at the helm anything is possible.

And finally the one major character we have been waiting 12 episodes to see is finally here aaannnnnddddd it’s a very underwhelming first scene for the wonderful Audrey Horne. What has she been up to since the bank explosion and the coma she was in as a result of that explosion? Well, we don’t really know much other than she married Charlie, now wants a divorce, has a lover named Billy who is missing, and wants to call Tina to find out where Billy is. The scene was very isolated and i feel like other than Billy none of the other players in this scene will have an impact in the rest of the season…. great. I am sure we will see more positive scenes featuring Audrey in the coming episodes but it is just unfortunate that out introduction to her had to be about marriage issues and a bunch of characters we have never even heard of.

So in the end this was still overall an enjoyable episode, the reveal of Audrey at the end was disappointing but at least we have her in our lives once again. The short 30 second nonsensical scenes are great and i hope they stick around for the remaining episodes just to break up the seriousness of everything going on. Dr Amp keeps getting more and more screen time which is exciting even though he is just doing more of the same. Cooper’s old room key looks like it might come in handy for something related to Frank and Hawk’s investigation. And the mystery behind Diane’s secrets is getting deeper and deeper and i need to see exactly what she is up to. Despite being on the lower end of the season so far i sense some big things to come.

7.6/10