Twin Peaks: Season 3, Part 7 "There's a Body All Right" Review

"Who's Laura Palmer?"

-Beverly Paige

Part 7 picks up with Jerry Horne (David Patrick Kelly) extremely stoned in the woods.  He calls his brother, Ben (Richard Beymer), and tells him his car was stolen and he doesn't know where he is.

Hawk (Michael Horse) shows Sheriff Frank Truman (Robert Forster) the pages he found in the bathroom door.  They are pages from the diary of Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee).  They describe a dream Laura had about Annie Blackburn (Heather Graham), who told Laura that the good Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) was trapped in the Lodge.  Hawk suspects the pages were hidden by Leland Palmer (Ray Wise) and that someone else left the Black Lodge in place of the good Cooper.  Frank tries to bring his brother, Harry (Michael Ontkean), in on the case, but decides not to when he learns how sick Harry is.  Instead, Frank calls Dr. Hayward (Warren Frost) who explains that Cooper was acting very strange and that he may have visited Audrey Horne (Sherilyn Fenn) at the hospital while she was in a coma before he left town.

Andy (Harry Goaz) finds the owner of the truck that Richard Horne (Eamon Farren) was driving when he ran over a kid.  The farmer frantically asks Andy to leave for now and meet up with him in a couple of hours.  Andy agrees, but the farmer never arrives for their meeting.

Lt. Cynthia Knox (Adele René) arrives in Buckhorn, South Dakota to investigate the prints of Major Briggs (Don S. Davis), but is shocked to learn that the prints were pulled from an actual body.  The body of Major Briggs still appears to be in its late-40's, but he has only been dead a few days.  Knox informs her superior.

Albert Rosenfield (Miguel Ferrer) reports back to Gordon Cole (David Lynch) that he failed to convince Diane Evans (Laura Dern) to help them.  Gordon and Albert go back to Diane and convince her to go with them to South Dakota to talk to Mr C (Kyle MacLachlan).  She reluctantly agrees.  Agent Tammy Preston (Chrysta Bell) discovers that Cooper's fingerprints are somehow backwards and informs the others.  Diane meets with Mr. C and talks to him about the last time they saw each other at Diane's house.  Diane realizes that Mr. C is not Dale Cooper and tells Gordon.  

Mr. C manages to get a meeting with Warden Murphy (James Morrison) and blackmails the Warden with enigmatic threats into releasing Mr. C and Ray Monroe (George Griffith) from prison.

Anthony Sinclair (Tom Sizemore) tires to squeeze information out of Cooper, but Cooper doesn't say anything to him.  Janey-E (Naomi Watts) arrives to pick up Cooper, but before they can leave, three detectives arrive to question them about their car that was blown up.  Later, as they leave the building, Cooper and Janey-E are ambushed by Ike the Spike (Christophe Zajac-Denek), but Cooper and Janey-E manage to disarm and fight off Ike as the evolution of the Arm encourages Cooper.  Ike flees.

Ben Horne and Beverly Paige (Ashley Judd) search around the Great Northern Hotel for a mysterious noise.  Beverly gives Ben an old room key that arrived in the mail.  Ben realizes it's the key to Cooper's old room.  Although there is a bit of flirting between Ben and Beverly, nothing happens and Beverly goes home to her sick husband.

At the Roadhouse, Jean-Michel Renault (Walter Olkewicz) gets a call from a customer, who complains that the two prostitutes he sent over were both only 15.

What Works:

This episode has an absolutely perfect opening, with Jerry Horne shouting over the phone to Ben that he thinks he is high.  It doesn't play into the rest of the episode at all, but it's absolutely hilarious.

This is the first episode that really and truly feels like a follow-up to the mysteries of Twin Peaks.  If this wasn't a David Lynch production, this might be where The Return would pick up.  We finally get some real discussion about what happened with Mr. C after he exited the Black Lodge and we have the police looking back into Laura and Leland Palmer.  Plus we bring back Dr. Hayward for a scene!  It's nice to revisit some of this and it helps make the show feel more grounded and connected to the original run.

This is Diane's first real episode.  She has dialogue this time and I never get tired of listening to Laura Dern swear at people.  She's fantastic in every scene and her confrontation with Mr. C is a highlight of the episode.

Ike the Spike returns to kill Cooper and he's one of my favorite minor characters on the show.  This is such a wild scene.  Cooper snapping back into the action caught me completely off guard and it's an exciting development for the character.  I had completely forgotten that the Arm shows up as well, which makes the scene even more insane.  It's one of my favorite scenes of the entire season.  

Finally, Mr. C continues to be terrifying even if we have no idea what he's talking about.  Everything with the Warden, Mr. Strawberry, and the dog legs didn't make any sort of real sense.  We got the gist of what he was talking about, but nothing is ever explained, and yet it's still very intimidating.  Kyle Maclachlan continues to absolutely nail this character.

What Sucks:

This had to be brought up eventually and this feels like the proper episode to do it.  It's a damn shame that Michael Ontkean decided not reprise his role as Sheriff Truman.  Harry is one of my favorite characters in the original run of the show and it hurts to not have him back.  Robert Forster is great, but his scenes would have meant more with Harry in his place.  I try not to let it bum me out too much when I rewatch this show, but in this episode and Part 17 at the very least, it's noticeable and hurts those episodes.

Crystal Coffee: 

The Crystal Coffee Award goes to the most competent character of the episode.  For Part 7, this Award goes to Mr. C for managing to get himself and Ray out of prison.  This is his 6th time winning this Award.

Verdict:

This episode really felt like returning home after being away for a long time.  It was awesome to see more of these characters and to revisit the original mystery of the series.  It would have been nice to have Harry back, but I still liked what we got.  Plus Laura Dern, Kyle MacLachlan, and David Patrick Kelly all give great performances and I love Ike the Spike's ambush.  This episode has absolutely got it going on.

 9/10: Great