Welcome back once again to my weekly article covering the mystery surrounding the death of Ruth Davenport in Buckhorn, Arlington and Buenos Aires.
Before I start, may I just say, WOW BOB WOW! What a thrill ride Part 7 was. Every week I say to myself, ‘this is the best episode so far,’ and each week, it just keeps getting better and better. There were no nasty surprises this week, but there were some absolutely kick-ass moments! And some very bittersweet moments too — seeing Doc Hayward (Warren Frost, father of Mark Frost) was wonderful, though it made me very sad knowing he was no longer with us, especially as it was Father’s Day. Mark Frost had tweeted earlier that day that he missed him, so when I saw him on screen, I am not ashamed to say I shed a tear. On the flip side, I was stoked that his final act brought such interesting news to us, via Skype of all things! (yep, at 91 years of age, he was whizzing about on Skype, diagnosing patients – in stark contrast to poor Lucy, who probably can’t even comprehend it).
Doc confirmed that Coop had shown more than a little strange behaviour after his trip to Glastonberry Grove, i.e. The Red Room/Lodge (still not 100% sure we have seen the Black or White Lodge really). And that he had visited Calhoun Memorial Hospital in Twin Peaks after the incident, possibly either to visit Annie Blackburn (she DID exist! The Secret History of Twin Peaks is still a confusion for now when it comes to Annie, I still think she could have been manufactured like Dougie) or possibly the comatose Audrey Horne who had been caught up in the bank explosion. What that minute bit of information did was set the minds of thousands upon thousands of Twin Peaks fans racing. Did Doppelcooper visit Audrey? And if so, what horrors did he inflict on the teenage beauty? And did those horrors result in Richard Horne? He certainly acts like him – but doesn’t quite seem pure evil despite the terrible things he’s done. Maybe there’s a little hope for him yet.
Does Audrey even know what possibly happened to her? The last thing she knew was that she had lost her virginity to John Justice Wheeler on a plane before he flew off to Brazil—so if she is Richard’s mother, does she think Wheeler is the father? It’s all too horrible to comprehend, but this is Twin Peaks, and there is no shying away from the evil that men do here.
I feel I cannot not mention the diary. For Twin Peaks fans waiting for 25/27 years for the return, knowing all this time that Annie told Laura to write in her diary that, ‘The Good Dale is in the lodge and cannot leave’. Actually seeing those pages found by Hawk, that Laura DID write it in her diary, well my heart was truly pounding, I found myself whisper-shouting (it was 2 am for me), ‘Yes! Yes! You are finally on the right track!’ Genuine glee that finally the truth will come out for sure, and there isn’t a better person on earth than Hawk to be the one to find it.
But let me get on to my part of the story. We did have some Buckhorn and Arlington scenes this week; hooray! First, we see Cynthia (Cindy) Knox meeting with Det. Dave Mackley at Buckhorn Police Dept. and she tells him she needs to verify the prints that have been sent to her to investigate further. She’s assuming that they have turned up at a crime scene, so she is shocked to learn that they have been lifted directly from a corpse. “There’s a body all right!” exclaims Macklay.
We move to the mortuary where Constance Talbot and Det. Mackley show Cindy the body. “Where’s the rest of him?” she asks when the headless corpse is rolled out of the drawer. Constance explains that they don’t know where the head is and that this man was in his 40’s when he died, which was only 5 or 6 days ago. Cindy nips out into the corridor to call Colonel Davis to tell him this shocking and confusing news.
Does Davis wonder how this could be? Briggs would be in his 70’s if he were alive up to a week ago. He tells Cindy that he will be ‘making the call’ to the FBI.
Then something happens. Behind Cindy, a black figure starts walking down the corridor towards her, her face is turned away from him, so she doesn’t see him, she’s speaking on the phone, but as the figure gets closer, a loud electrical shock type noise makes her turn. She looks towards him, but I don’t think she sees him. She certainly didn’t have the look of horror you’d imagine she’d have if a man blackened from head to toe were walking right up to you. There was a slight look of discomfort, but I think she was spooked more about the noise than anything she had seen.
Charcoal man strikes again! Or does he? At first viewing, I thought this was the same chap that we had seen in the cells at Buckhorn Police Station back in Parts 1&2, but it is not. Blackened in the same way, but this figure was bulkier, the clothes underneath the black were different, the hair looked matted/dreadlocked possibly, beard long and there appeared to be a tinge of red to his hat — the hat was raised higher on his head than the first charcoal man we saw who had more of a cap or beret style thing going on.
Way back when I first wrote about the original Charcoal Man, I thought that he could be one of the Woodsmen that we have seen before, above the Convenience Store, and that he might have been the spirit of Samson Lanterman, beloved husband of Margaret Lanterman, a.k.a. The Log Lady. Now I am not so sure — I am not unsure either!
I think they could be the Woodsmen, and I guess Charcoal Man No.2 could be the evolution of the Woodsman played by Jurgen Prochnow in Fire Walk With Me. The clothes are very similar, especially the hat. But what has happened to him? If the woodsmen died in a fire, then it may be that the spirits start to look like the way they met their fate?
Can spirits die? Would a good spirit that refuses or cannot feast upon the Garmonbozia (pain and sorrow) of others just fade away to nothing? Is this what the Owl Cave ring was created for? A way for MIKE, after he saw the face of God, to consume Garmonbozia and survive without having to carry out dastardly deeds?
This could all start to be making some kind of sense. I never quite understood why Dale would tell Laura not to take the ring, but if the Little Man From Another Place/The Arm reaped all the Garmonbozia reward from the pain and suffering inflicted on Laura (which was a hell of a lot) when she donned the ring at the end of her life, then perhaps this is what caused the Evolution of The Arm and in turn the Evolution of the Arms Doppelganger which is what kicked Dale out into Non-Existence!? Food for thought, at least.
Who are the Woodsmen in all this? If one of them is not Samson Lanterman, who were they? Did they ever exist on earth even? There was a logging fire in Twin Peaks, ‘The Night of the Burning River’, on Feb 24th 1902. Eight people perished. Could these be the spirits of the loggers or volunteer firemen lost in that fire? A fire that was said by the locals to be caused by an ancient Native American curse? Is it just a coincidence that Feb 24th was also the date that Laura Palmer died?
Why are they in the convenience store, what is their purpose? Everyone has a part to play; we just don’t know what yet.
The Tremond’s led Laura to her dream by giving her the picture to the doorway, and ultimately this led to her taking the ring. Does this mean they are evil spirits? They also led Donna to the Secret Diary and Harold Smith to his death in the process. Mrs Tremond did not want to eat the creamed corn, which suggests she does not partake in the pain and suffering of others. Is this why she is old? Is she gone now? Then there’s Grandson, the first ‘Magician’ to cross our path in the world of Twin Peaks. Red seems to fit the criteria now, but are they one and the same? The Grandson liked to slurp up that Garmonbozia; he had an empty bowl at his feet in the Convenience Store. Did this help him to grow up into a nasty piece of work?
The Woodsmen and The Electrician do not seem to have eaten any creamed corn. Does this make them good? Or do they just not need Garmonbozia to survive like BOB and The Arm do?
Why have the Charcoal Men only been seen in the prison at Buckhorn so far? Are they confined to that place only? Did they die at that site, a standard haunting? Or are they there because of Briggs? They arrive with the sound of electricity, so they are definitely Lodge folk, but I’m not sure yet if they are good or bad. Whatever they are, they genuinely scare me—something about that glazed stare that rattles me.
Will we see more Charcoal Men as the series goes on? If the answer to that is no, then maybe we are on to something with the Woodsmen.
Briggs, did you really only die 5 or 6 days ago? And if so, why aren’t you in your 70’s?
Let’s go back to Series 2 when he was ‘abducted’ or at least chosen by the mysterious cloaked figure and disappeared for three days. Upon his return, he was somewhat dishevelled of body and mind and was wearing those early 1900’s era aviator clothing. Where had he travelled to or, more importantly, when?
Upon discovering that the Coop that came out of the Red Room was not what he seemed, Briggs triggered the M.A.Y.D.A.Y. protocols. We don’t know what they are, but I would envisage that at least part of this would be to secure the safety of your loved ones. In Briggs’ case, it may have been a very tough decision to fake his own death and leave his family for good. At this point in time, I believe that Bobby really thinks this is what happened. But then there’s Betty. I have a feeling there is more to Betty than we have ever really considered before. I have little or no evidence at this point, but I am hoping that the Betty that Dopplecooper is looking for, Bill Hasting’s Secretary Betty, IS Betty Briggs and that she has known all about the work her husband was doing all these years, in fact, she could be heavily part of it. Or was she so devastated and perhaps unconvinced of her husband’s death that she went looking for him and found Hastings and Ruth Davenport, who may know more about the Lodges and how to reconnect her with her soul mate?
It has been noted that there are a few little tell-tale signs that the Dossier, which is the Secret History of Twin Peaks, was not written by just one Archivist. We know that the official Archivist was Briggs. He admits it himself in the pages therein, but was there someone else? Was that someone else Betty? This perhaps is somewhat farfetched, but I’ll leave it out there for now. Whatever the case, Doppelcooper is very interested in finding Betty for those mystery co-ordinates, a place to find who-knows-what? The entrance to a portal to the White Lodge, maybe?
Back to Garland. If he didn’t die 25 years ago, how is his body that of a man in his late 40’s? Had he been able to travel through time before the ‘abduction’ that we witnessed on screen? Or was that his first time? From the description he gave of his time whilst missing, it sounds like he made it to the White Lodge, which makes him a pretty incredible human being: one of Perfect Courage. In accomplishing this, was he given the power to return again and again? Did the folk of the White Lodge accept him as one of their own? He may well have died in the fire, but perhaps his soul was sent straight to the White Lodge, where his spirit remained, and he was able to travel from place to place and time to time, leaving his fingerprints to be found.
Let’s think about this logically (I know, to do that seems a bit silly). Briggs’ fingerprints have been found at crime scenes at least 16 times in the last 25 years. Why crime scenes? Has he been hunting Doppelcooper, and are these the places where Doppelcooper has carried out atrocities? ‘Someone’ needs to revisit these crimes; their job is simple — ‘break the code, solve the crime’ as our trusty Agent Cooper would say. Sixteen possible locations, could they also be the sites of portals to the Lodge?
Why now? It’s a strange coincidence that Briggs’ body would be found now, just as Cooper left the Lodge. Either Briggs himself chose to die at this point, knowing that he had left enough clues for the real Cooper or more so the unreal Cooper to be revealed. Or Doppelcooper knew that Briggs was on his case. Perhaps it had been a 25 year long game of cat and mouse that sadly, Doppelcooper seems to have won.
Did Doppelcooper trick him, maybe using Ruth Davenport as a lure? Did she play the part of human perfectly too, like Phyllis Hastings? Is the only way to kill these ‘manufactured’ folk (if that’s what they are) to shoot them through the eye? (or bring them back to the Lodge and turn them back into the little sphere of gold from whence they came?).
Did Briggs offer up his body at this time so that what is happening is noticed by those that really need to – the FBI Agents Cole, Rosenfield and Preston?
We know that wherever Briggs is now, he’s alright. Since his death, he has visited Cooper in ‘space’ to remind him of the Blue Rose. Soon enough, Cole et al. will be taking on the Buckhorn case and should be visiting Bill Hastings, and luckily for him, these FBI Agents aren’t likely to laugh when he tells him he dreamed it. That thought is buried somewhere in Coop’s psyche for sure.
The spanner in the works was assumed to be the ring found in Briggs’ stomach, presumably put there by Doppelcooper, in the hope that Dougie would be found and incarcerated forever, but now I am not so sure. Did Briggs swallow that ring on purpose? As it should undoubtedly lead the FBI to Janey-E and Dougie Jones, yes, but that’s a good thing at this point — they need to find the real Coop and quick!
Talking of Coop, it didn’t take Ike the Spike long to find Dougiecoop at his workplace, but he messed with the wrong man! As his trusty spike was out of action after murdering Lorraine and her colleagues, he had to use a gun to try to kill him.
Obviously, this was not his weapon of choice, and our valiant Agent Cooper shone through in Dougie as he saved Janey-E (though she did a pretty good job herself, to be fair!), and Ike ran off into the distance after Dougie squeezed his hand off the gun. Nicely done, Coop! Great to see you coming back to us slowly, and hopefully, your bravery will get you noticed on TV by the good folk that need to find you, not the recently freed Doppelcooper.
Next week, I feel we will touch more on Bill Hastings part to play in all this, and hopefully, Cole will be coming to Buckhorn. Catch you then!
All images courtesy of Showtime/CBS unless stated otherwise.
