Feel the heat!

Two days in a row, I think we're getting close to the end of this thing!

Twin Peaks: The Return - Part Fourteen
We start off with a fun chat between Lucy and Gordon, Lucy is wearing another excellent knitted jumper.

Albert gives Tammy some history on Blue Rose including Gordon and Phillip Jefferys' previous partnership. Ridiculously comical, noisy window cleaning. Interesting turn of events as we learn Janey E is Diane's half sister.
More chit chat from Gordon including FWWM flashbacks.

Low ranking police/schlub Chad is arrested back in Twin Peaks but gets to keep his sandwich. Andy, Bobby, Truman, and Hawk head into the woods, Everyone but Bobby looks too old for this shit but it's good to see an old fashioned Twin Peaks police team doing a mission into the woods scene. Just a random, low key naked woman in the woods with no eyes or eye sockets, as you do.
Andy appears to get sucked into a vortex and is now hanging out with the Giant. AKA The Fireman, looking old! Some crazy montage which including Gotta Light guy, Laura, Lucy, Dale.

Poor woman with no eyes having to listen to idiot Chad while she is locked up for her protection.
God grief, so James is now a security guard at the Great Northern. Fuuuuuck... And cor blimey, he's working with a right geezer from London, East End, innit! So Geezer's had an encounter with The Fireman...

Sarah Palmer in a bar, getting hassled by the sort of person that hassles people in bars. Some shonky visual effects as Sarah just randomly pulls her face off and then kills the guy by I guess biting out his throat? Just another Twin Peaks day.
Over to the Roadhouse, two girls chatting, discussing Billy (I've forgotten who this is), today's music guest is Lissie who I'm not familiar with, she has some suitably appropriate tremolo guitar action at least. I don't think this is necessarily my cup of tea and I'll leave it at that.
Roll credits.

Again, not a bad episode, some good David Lynch into the sun shit with his scene, and Andy's scene.

Jumping back in for another episode as we get closer to the return of Dale Cooper...

Twin Peaks - The Return: Part Twelve
We kick off with Gordon, Albert and Tammy sharing a wine and we finally get a definitive explanation of Blue Rose and some nice backstory tying in Chet Desmond, Dale Cooper and Phillip Jefferies from FWWM onwards. Welcome to Blue Rose, Tammy! Diane is so prickly, but she's onboard!

Back in Twin Peaks, Stoner Jerry stumbles through life/a field and Sarah Palmer goes shopping, Sarah does not like new Jerky suppliers. Unsuccessful shopping trip.

Nice scene with Carl taking pity on a resident at the trailer park. He's mellowing out!

Over in Vegas, Dougie shows his prowess with the baseball. Quick scene.

Back in Twin Peaks however, Hawk pays a visit to Sarah, seeing that old Palmer residence brings back all the feels. Nice scene between Sarah and Hawk, Sarah is so prickly!
Who is messaging Diane about Las Vegas?

Finally we get some Police action on Richard Horne's hit and run and attempted murder of that woman in the trailer. Don't worry, Ben will cover the costs. Ben and Truman talking about Harry, my understanding is that Ontkean didn't want to reprise the role which is such a shame.
Ben gives Truman Dale's old room key as a momento. Will this come into play somehow?
Ben has been pretty enjoyable so far this season.

In FBI land, Gordon and Albert discuss Diane and Las Vegas.

I can't remember who this assassin couple is apart from that Evil Dale put them to work a few episodes back. This is the prison warden, yeah? He's dead, not wrapped in plastic.

Oh no, Lawrence Jacoby going on about freedom and shit, I was already hating his story before COVID hit. Leaving that out of it though, yeah, not into it. Pity they couldn't have found more for Nadine in this season, rubbish. If anything I'd rather know what happened to Jacoby's medical career and his bolthole in Hawaii.
Rubbish.

Is the the first we've seen of Audrey this season. So the egghead is Audrey's husband? I had higher hopes for her. Hah, oh dear. Poor egghead is getting cuckholded, why does she expect egghead to solve this problem>_<
I still don't get how she survived the bank explosion. Apart from finding out what became of Audrey, it's kind of hard to care about what's going on here? Audrey does some good ballbreaking and egghead is a long-suffering cuckhold (is their marriage a business arrangement?) But unless the events of Billy and this truck play into things, who gives a fuck?

We jump to Diane in a bar who manages to decipher the coordinates on the arm of the corpse from the last episode and discovers that they lead right back to good ol' Twin Peaks.

We have The Chromatics as this week's musical guest at the Double R as some women discuss the whereabouts of 'Angela'. I don't recognize these people, it's been a while.
Roll credits.

Again, a slower episode with not too much to hang your hat on here. The Diane stuff could get interesting.

Twin Peaks - The Return: Part Ten
We start things off with Richard Horne being a cunt, as usual. He's not a very sympathetic character.
Nice scene with Harry Dead Stanton playing guitar and singing. Trouble at the trailer park never ends.
This next scene: woman in a pink dress swatting at stuff with a red handkerchief while a guy in a suit sits and writs stuff, no idea what's going on here>_<

Dougie goes to the Dr. Janey likes what she sees.
The men in suits from the previous scene also like what they see in a news report.
Janey is about to get her fuck on-_-
Dougie's arms flapping around while he's getting fucked is gold.

Oh no, Jacoby's back. Bleurgh. I love that Nadine has a drape store. It's a shame her story is her watching Jacoby... And again I don't know where I love or hate Jerry's scenes.

I always enjoy Lucy's scenes though. Again more excellent knitwear, and a killer plate of donuts. Oh, is this shithead cop intercepting Richard's letter in plain view of the postie AND Lucy?

Oh shit, was that Johnny Horne all tied up! Sylvia looks great too, is this the first time we've seen her this season? Again, Richard is such a shithead! That talking stuffed toy would do my head in. Seriously, I'd smash that thing.

Back in Vegas, Ike's arrest seems to be of interest and a plan is hatched to get rid of suit dudes and Dougie in one fell swoop. This dude trying to stitch up Dougie to the Mitchums>_<

Next we get a scene of Gordon seeing a cheesy Laura flashback as he lets Albert into his room.

Fun scene at the Great Northern, Ben and Sylvia arguing over Richard's shenanigans. It appears they are at least separated now?

Margaret contacting Hawk with a message. She definitely looks like she was at death's door during filming.
Next we jump over to the Roadhouse for this week's musical guest Rebekah Del Rio doing a very nice performance complete with chevron dress as we roll to the credits.

Overall, not a bad episode. I don't know if I enjoyed this as much as some of the previous ones. There were some nice touches though including Stanton's musical number, Richard's heel wok was pretty good. Ben Horne, always a pleasure. Lucy, always a pleasure.

Tomorrow we jump into Part Eleven.

Good grief, it's been a while!
But here we are, at what from memory was for me at least, the biggest mindfuck of the series.

Twin Peaks The Return: Part Eight
Annoyingly right off the bat the episode I was able to download has annoying subtitles, but that seems to be the case with all the episodes I've tracked down of this season. I need the DVD for this.
After such a big break between episodes, I'm slightly lost here but we start with Evil Dale after his prison break. Evil Dale and Ray on the road in a tracked car. It appears we are heading to a "farm"... Ray appears to want to extort money from Evil Dale. I'd settle for being out of prison and be done with it.
Evil Dale has been shot and now things start to fly into the sun. People tearing at Evil Dale, taking him back to the Lodge?
Ray contacting Phillip Jefferies, the whole Phillip Jefferies thing is confusing.

And then randomly we jump to Nine Inch Nails playing at The Roadhouse. Not sure about this choice of musical guest overall but they kind of work for the tone of this episode.

And now we pan to the slow-mo atomic bomb blast over New Mexico. This is Lynch at his batshit finest, and I think that's all we need to say here. This is a phenomenal scene.
Followed by the craziness of the Convenience Store scene, lots of Woodsmen, and crazy sound glitches. The hilarious thing is someone is still attempting to subtitle this.

And now we have someone listening to a record, and is that the Giant randomly appearing to tie things back into the Twin Peaks of old? To be fair, this scene is a little marred by some ropey visual effects, namely the golden orb with Laura Palmer's face in it.

And now we get to the infamous 'gotta light' sequence!
The Woodsman still needs a light, I don't think this woman has a light. Hopefully our hapless disc jockey has one for him. He keeps killing people before they can answer him!
At this rate, he's never going to get a light.

And some insect/body horror for god measure as that weird frog thing crawls into that girl's mouth...
And we close on a shot of said girl with the credits rolling.

Fuuuuuuk, what an episode!
This has to be up there with the the absolute highest quality episodes. That being said, trying to write and describe everything that goes on here wouldn't do it justice. Similarly I think overthinking it and trying to make sense of it wouldn't do it any good either.
I think this episode is best enjoyed by going along for the ride and letting it take you where it takes you.
Phenomenal episode.

This was a long break between episodes, mostly due to getting my hands on this episode along with being otherwise busy.
I already have Part 9 sorted with Parts 10 and Eleven not too far behind either so I'm back on it for the glorious final stretch of episodes, it's been a journey!

A bit more space between episodes at the moment due to tracking down the episodes as I get the hankering to watch one. We're a third of the way through I think?

The Return: Part Six
We jump back in with Dougie still hanging out at the statue in front of his work. Dougie is delivered home by police and we get more humourous shenanigans from non-cognitive Dougie. At the time I remember this starting to wear thin watching these episodes week by week, waiting to see if we would get anything more from Dale than this. This time around I'm enjoying the Dougie ride.
Janey is not impressed by the photo of Dougie and Jade as Dougie's debtors try to extort more money...

Are those the lights at Sparkwood and 21? Either way, we jump to MIKE in the Lodge, trying to wake Cooper up, we have a few episodes to go yet. Dougie becomes an insurance admin whiz.

Cut to Albert heading into a bar, less than impressed by the rain. And FINALLY after all these years, we meet Diane. Played by Laura Dern, I am very much OK with this, always a pleasure to see her return to Lynch's world.

Who are these dudes? Still not sure who this dude is, but I know who Carl is, nice to see Stanton make an appearance.
Double R.
Again with this shithead. Google tells me this is Richard Horne, Audrey's son? Hit and run's a kid, doesn't stop. Dick. Carl for some reason is the only one to offer any comfort.

What is the significance of the page in the safe with a black dot on it?

Dougie's burned out car has finally been discovered.

Some small angry dude receives pics of Dougie and some woman I don't recognize or recall, I guess this is a hit contract?

Back at the insurance office, more Dougie shenanigans.

Janey does a great job of bullying these schlubs into accepting $25K, and not a cent more. Nice work.
Heh, we get the lady in the photo that was contracted to be killed. A very messy hit. They somehow make such a gruesome hit comical. He even managed to bust his killin' spike...

Argh, stupid Richard Horne again. Fuck this clown. Random cut to Hawk in a toilet, discovering a coin, does it have an Indian on it? The door hinge in the toilet stall certainly does. Randomly, the door itself has some pages concealed inside it. Oh no, Frank's wife is back.
We get one of the cops getting a solid dressing down from the cute comms operator and then over to the Roadhouse for our musical guest of the week Sharon Van Etten who I know by name but I don't know her music. Nice enough but not really my thing.

Another sweet episode. I guess with that woman dead, Dougie is next on the hitlist! I really didn't like Richard...

The Return: Part Four
Jumping into Part Four, Laura's face appears as the opening sequence rolls. It's interesting to think about how the show was initially inseparable from Laura but if it did nothing else, the later half of season two set the tone of the show moving away from being tied to her to the point where seeing Laura gives me "oh yeah, her" moments.
Even the scenes set in modern day Twin Peaks, the town has moved on, life goes on.
And now we're more about following this journey of Dale Cooper back from the purgatory of the Black Lodge.
We jump back in with Dougie/Dale still in the casino, causing havoc. Annoyingly this download also has Dutch subtitles embedded. That's what I get for not finding a Blu Ray copy...
The casino stuff was pretty sweet though.

Well shit, FBI stuff, Denise making an appearance, I forgot Duchovny showed up again!

Hah, Twin Peaks police station, how do they still have that old thermostat in 2015 I think this was filmed>_< Lucy is still gold. Andy and Lucy hate cellular phones... First appearance of Bobby Briggs, now a police officer. Curious change of path, Bobby looks great! Andy's pep talk to Lucy over cellphones is great, love these two so much in this season so far. Again, another great knitted cardigan for Lucy.
Funny delineation between the original and new eras of police, the new era very dismissive of Margarat. How is Bobby still crying about Laura after all these years, considering he was all about Shelly back then>_< Andy and Lucy's son looks like such a dick. It is what it is. Oh my god, he's suuuuuuuch a dick! Frank Truman seems about as impressed as me.

Dougie unable to get dressed, either because he is curious about MIKE or he's afraid of that hideous suit... MIKE informs us either Dale or Evil Dale must die, the last time we saw Dale stare into a bathroom mirror, we saw BOB staring back. Dougie's wife likes what she sees. That suit>_< Good looking breakfast through! Dougie's reaction to coffee is hilarious.

Over to Buckhorn police station, a day removed, I'm trying to remember what is going on here. Gordon, Albert, and Tammy arrive, this is too meet with Evil Dale, yeah? Gordon and Albert great as usual. Gordon interviewing Evil Dale, fun scene. Evil Dale super wooden, Gordon guarded and cautious. Albert appears unconvinced by these shenanigans.
We appear to have ourselves a stone cold Blue Rose case requiring the opinion of a certain someone that Albert knows where they drink.

Cut to the Double R and an appearance from today's musical guests Au Revoir Simone. I like this band, one of the musical guests I was a fan of prior to the show. They're great here, a rare appearance from them these days. And with that, the credits roll.

Another strong episode, not as batshit crazy as earlier episodes, a bit heavier on story.

Aww shit, Showtime kicked this off as a double episode, giving us two hours in one hit to hook us back in.
It feels like Lynch had some shit to get off his chest in particular. It also feels like the network shackles are off.

Part One
These are all written by Frost and Lynch and directed by Lynch. A great quality assurance right from the get go. We start off with Laura and Dale in in the Red Room of the Black Lodge and follow up with some establishing shots to remind us of how this all started, and then that iconic music. Duwayne Dunham is back to edit, mice to see familiar old names in the credits. New visuals for the opening though.
Tight off the bat with the first scenes, Dale and The Giant both looking suitably older in these first glimpses of old characters in the new era. 'Remember 430, Richard and Linda.'

Twenty five has past since the events of the second season, Dr Jacoby now lives in a shitty trailer in some woods and I guess is no longer a practicing psychiatrist. He was already ethically questionable in the original run. His Hawaiian aesthetic appears to be gone.

We are now in New York with some intense watching going on. This has the feel of more recent Lynch stuff. Hah, Michael Bisping as the guard, he's so grumpy>_<

The Great Northern, Ben survived his head injury from his last appearance in season two, looking a lot older but still good. Jerry looks hilarious as an aging hippie/weed grower (I'm guessing he's no longer registered as a lawyer). Good to see Ben is smoking cigars again.

Lucy is still working at the Sheriffs station, last name: Brennan! There are now two Sheriff Trumans (I don't recall Ontkean appearing in The Return). Lucy looks great!

Dale's doppelganger appears, on the face of it, he looks like a grimy thug compared to Dale, but that does seem in keeping with the appearance of BOB. Aside from being up to no good, I'm not entirely sure what Evil Dale is up to here.

Back in New York, Bisping appears to have made the fatal error of going on smoko (He's on smoko, leave him alone) just in time for that minx Tracey to arrive with more coffee. There's no way this is going to end well, watch the box! Not entirely sure what/who the figure in the box is but it's a great touch of Lynch.

Not sure what to make of the stuff going on with the apartment in Buckhorn, I also don't recall how this plays out or ties into the wider series. We're at the apartment with the strange smell. We have the Buckhorn Police on hand so don't worry. This woman is so minimally helpful>_< The building guy Hank is such a mess! There is a body, dead, not wrapped in plastic. Well two bodies? Female head, male body, this is what is known as a 'pickle'!

Wow, back in Twin Peaks, we get appearances from The Log Lady Margaret who is looking significantly older (I believe the actress herself was very unwell at this point), Hawk who looks great, and what appears to be the original office phone from the original run. I imagine they didn't keep any of those props though so probably not the original, but still cool Lucy still as good as ever at transferring Margaret's call. Poor Catherine Coulson, she looks so unwell here, I'm guessing this was her last role before she died? Margaret delivers a message on how to find Dale, a name I'm guessing they'd long given up on.

Buckhorn police station, confirmation the corpse and head are two different bodies, we have a suspect.

Back in Twin Peaks, Hawk, Andy and Lucy in the conference room, our first appearance of Andy, still the same hair, bless him!

Back in Buckhorn, Hastings getting a grilling over the double murder. Oh dear, a curious lump of flesh in the boot of Hasting's car. Between that and the visit from his wife, it's not looking good for Hastings. Hastings wife fucking is lawyer, well this is awkward.
Our first appearance of The Fireman this season. I think this was one of the things that really confused me the first time round. I hadn't seen Missing Pieces which I guess is the first actual appearance of The Fireman, and we know that The Log Lady's husband was a fireman, possibly no connection to this character.

Part Two
Or at least I think this is where Part Two starts, Evil Dale appears at Hasting's house and kills his wife with his lawyer's gun?
Pan to Vegas, and its THAT GUY! I can't remember the actor's name, but I remember him from Mulholland Drive, he seems like a good, slimy heel here.

Evil Dale and his bunch of hapless, shithead lackeys. Evil Dale WANTS that information.

Hawk in the woods around Twin Peaks, weird to think of Twin Peaks in the modern era or cellphones, Margaret offers Hawk coffee and pie. Hawk arrives at Glastonbury Grove!
Pan to the Red Room, we know this place well. Dale is older, MIKE is older, Laura is older, she looks great. Dale can go out now, he must be relieved... Laura still has a good scream. Hah, what would Twin Peaks be without a white horse.
The evolution of the Arm, this is some great Twin Peaks weirdness. So the Doppelganger needs to come back before Dale can leave.

Meanwhile, Evil Dale appears to be having difficulty finding good staff and we bid farewell to Darya. We learn that there is a hit out on Evil Dale. Phillip Jeffries and Major Briggs are still in the mix! Pretty sure the actor that played Garland was dead by the time this was filmed. Did Bowei die around this time as well?
Deadwood and Yankton showing up, reminding me of Deadwood, another great show, good times!

In the Black Lodge, Dale is told to 'Go now', how many times has Dale walked back and forth between these two rooms over the years, let alone these last few episodes! Leland! Leland looks great! More freaky Black Lodge shit, Dale getting his steps in. Pealing back the curtains and looking out onto Evil Dale, loving these batshit Lynch effects! New
And Dale is now in the glass box in New York? Beats being in the Lodge? Bisping's still on smoko...
I don't even care what's going on with that glass box and Dale at this point, all I know is it's total bananas and I love it.

And is this the Palmer house! Sarah Palmer watching creature features, she looks great, still smoking up a storm.
And the Double R, our first music appearance with the Chromatics. This is probably one of my fave non-Julee Cruise musical appearances. Oh no, James is back, to be fair, he looks good.
Shelly, Shelly dare I say it, looks better than in the original run? And we roll credits on the Chromatics.

Fuck yeah, this was great. Batshit, wild ride to reintroduce us to the show and give us an idea of what to expect going forward. Slices of the old Twin Peaks but very much in keeping with Lynch's work post Peaks.
Looking forward to jumping into Part Three, but also looking forward to being back to single episodes, this was a long one.

Holy shit, for better or for worse, here we are at the last possible bad episode of the first run. Let's see what we get...

Episode Twenty Eight
Written by Barry Pullman, directed by Tim Hunter. This is the last episode without our creators at the helm. Leo and Major Briggs still held captive in Windom's cabin. Leo needs to up his escape game. I spoke too soon, Briggs has been released, I love that Leo is STILL wearing his dressing gown.

Norma has prepared pies and Audrey returns to the Great Northern, again, Ben trying to be 'good', just isn't satisfying. Ben and Audrey being partners now after her experiences at One Eyed Jacks is a hard sell. Ben discusses the involvement of Twin Peaks Savings and Loan in the Ghostwood development and Audrey entering Miss Twin Peaks. It pains me to see Ben being used this way.

Harry and Dale study the petroglyph and discuss strategy in front of the bonzai, still unaware that Windom is listening. Windom remains an unconvincing cartoon goof to the end. Leo is in quite the predicament, I can't remember if he manages to get out of this or not.

More Miss Twin Peaks rubbish. And an overly saccharine scene with Dale and Annie.
It would appear that Nadine is not impressed by Ed and Norma's impending nuptials, again, this is cheesy shit.
Hawk discovers the reemerged, drugged up Major Briggs, how does Dale know instantly what drug Briggs is on...

I'm torn on the Puzzle Box thing, it's annoying, but these three actors are great together. Andrew has made a terrible mess of the counter, but we now have the key...

Shitty scene between Donna and her parents around the stupid Elaine/Ben storyline. The silver lining is that this is hopefully one of Donna's last scenes.

Dale and Harry finally crack the petroglyph and discover the bugged bonsai. Finally we get to Miss Twin Peaks itself. Funnily enough, the least offensive part of the MTP story line since big stuff goes down here. Starting with Bobby noticing Master of Disguise Windom Earle dressed as the Log Lady. Night Night Bobby... As usual, Lana sucks. Thanks for the boring speech, Audrey. Annoying Donna/Ben scene, next.
Irrespective of the outcome of Miss Twin Peaks, Lucy makes the right decision, does this mean the end of Dick Tremaine? One can only hope...

And now we get to it, the big smoke and bang as Annie is announced as the winner. Cue the strobes for that Lynch feel. This is the best scene the show has had since the first half of the season as Windom wrecks havoc and abducts Annie.
The show ends with Andy telling Dale that the petroglyph is actually a map.

And that's the last of the non-Lynch/Frost shows. To be fair, it was a mixed bag. The best stuff revolved around trying to solve the petroglyph and the conclusion of the Miss Twin Peaks contest.
I'm sure somewhere out there there's a documentary outlining where things stood in terms of Lynch and Frost deciding how and when they were going to come back. The one thing this episode did a great job of was setting the stage for the last episode of the season. But what a shame, too little, late.

I'm watching this as a long time fan well aware of the trainwreck this season turned into. If I'd watched this in the US as it came it, with it's drop off in quality and it's changes in time slot, I'm not sure if I'd have stuck it out. Having said that, watching this in my teens, I was still only able to digest it 3 episodes at a time based on what I could rent from my local video library.
Roll on tomorrow and episode 29!

We're ramping up to the end the season now, some threads are starting to come together. LEts see what we get today.

Episode Twenty Six
Written by Mark Frost and Harley Peyton, directed by Jonathan Sanger. By now Peyton is a seasoned hand but it's nice to have Frost returning in a creative capacity to try and make some sort of sense of this. I imagine that by now, the writing was very much on the wall that the show was on borrowed time, whether Frost's return was something of a salvage mission? Lynch of course has been very vocal about how he found the show unwatchable by this point.

I should note that I've been watching the Log Lady intros for these episodes, a good monologue about pies and the Double R today...

We kick off the episode with Dale, Harry, Andy, Hawk returning to Owl Cave to discover that Windom has been here already. I love that Dale, Andy and Hawk are all wearing helmets but Harry's like nah fuck this, I"m wearing my cowboy hat...

Windom Lectures Leo on the good-natured White Lodge. Leo doesn't need to hear this shit. The Black Lodge? That's more like it! Oh yay, Windom has a stereotyped slack-jawed metal dude in attendance, and David Lynch appears in the credits again.

I hope Pete's chess game is better than his shitty poem about Josie. And now our attentions shift to the puzzle box... Catherine and Pete are great together as usual.

Bobby and Shelley at the Double R. I didn't even realize they were still a thing. Bobby hatches a plan for Shelley to enter the Miss Twin Peaks contest. And speaking of people I'd forgot, yuck, the Mayor and Lana, Lana wants to WEEE-IIINNNN the Mis Twin Peaks Contest! Bleurgh!
As a palate cleanser, Dale appears to request a large order of donuts and coffee for the team, and to invite Annie on a 'nature study'... As an aside, Shelley quotes the poem from Windom while Dale is at the counter.

Good scene with Dale and Major Briggs as Dale 'puts the pieces together' and some hilariously hammmy early 90s visual effects. Leo's arrest report confirms that he wrote the poem sent to Audrey, Donna, and Shelly, THE PLOT THICKENS!

Is Dick Tremaine trying to sweat Ben? Oh deer...
Metal dude drinks up as he is built into a chess piece and is that really the best crossbow they could afford? It looks like a toy. Pathetic death scene compared to what the show delivered at it's best. Terrible.

Ben resents Pete's implications! I'm rusty on this part of Twin Peaks, but if memory serves, Miss Twin Peaks might be the last of the worst story lines of the show? Everyone appears to be entering...

I like Dale and Annie, but this scene was meh. Onto the wine tasting.

Double R scene with a lot of delicious-looking pie and an awkward scene between Gordon and Shelley. Bobby Briggs is not impressed which makes two of us. Three if you include Lucy who is clearly not impressed by Dick's hosting of the wine-tasting event.

Argh, Billy Zane complaining that "love is hell", hasn't he only known Audrey for a few days? Harden the fuck up, baby. At least it was a short scene.
Awkward dinner scene at the Hayward's. So frosty. Also, Donna sucks as usual, such a bitch...
More cheesy visual effects and the show ends with the discovery of Windom's next chess move.

This was a very patchy episode, I'd say more bad than good parts. I had higher expectations when I saw that Frost was back as a writer but this episode did not deliver. We have four episodes left for this season.

It's been a while! I was maybe halfway through this episode around two weeks ago when my TV died mid-episode. All that time and one new television later, I'm back.
Now where were we?

Episode Twenty Four
Written by, directed by Barry Pullman, directed by James Foley, nothing remarkable about this creative combo, but lets see what we get.
James Marshall is still in the credits, laziness or do I need to be concerned? Oh no, straight away we jump to Harry in mourning, and Ian Buchanan in the credits, I thought we were done with him as well?
Doe-eyed Annie Blackburn arrives, bless her socks. First time we're seen Major Briggs for a bit, The Log Lady is interested in his new scars.

Somehow Dale is now in charge of the police station? Some irregularities around Josie's corpse.
Back at Windom's cabin, him and Leo are the odd couple as Windom prepares another masterful disguise. The Queen's Gambit continues. Windom should not be making Leo the target of his frustrations.

Oh no, Dick Tremaine returns, Audrey is in full-blown pine weasel mode. Audrey and Wheeler are painful.
Dale informs Harry of some colourful details of Josie's past. Harry is non-impressed. Ontkean's angry/distressed is unconvincing.

Catherine receives a visit from Eckhart's assistant Jones. I almost forgot he was dead, he was such a non-character for his brief on screen tenure. Jones presents Catherine with the puzzle box from Thomas. The soap shenanigans continue, between this and Windom's shitty disguise as he visits Donna...

Dale and Pete ponder over the chess game. Lucy puts Andy in check, Major Briggs and Margaret pay Dale a visit to discuss disappearances and markings.

Oh no, Billy Zane singing to Audrey at their picnic, fuck this shit...

At the Hayward's Donna discusses her mysterious visitor with Doc Hayward who reveals that the med school friend he claimed to be is long dead. We of course know this was none other than Master of Disguise, Windom Earle, delivering the next move in his chess match with Dale.

Nadine and Ed broker a breakup through Dr Jacoby, and Ben Horne makes a mysterious visit to Donna's mum, Donna's suspicions are aroused.
Oh no, the Miss Twin Peaks storyline begins. Even though this is a major plot, it can be a bit meh. Shelly and Norma are great as usual, but Windom manages to clunk up the scene with one of his disguises. Dale meets Annie for the first time, instantly smitten.

Hawk informs Dale of a "problem at the Book House", Harry in breakdown mode, Dale is great here, Ontkean's 'angry/unhinged is his weak point across his run in Twin Peaks (for me atleast) but Dale and Harry are always gold. Hard not to have something of a soft spot for this even if Harry's portrayal is a bit hammy here. Dale's empathy on point as always.

Ben's laughable 'Stop Ghostwood' campaign, will SOMEONE think about the endangered Pine Weasel! The fashion show>_< Andy and Lucy are so good as the clumsiest runway models ever.
Great scene between Catharine and Ben (as usual!) Ben with his milk and cookies, so good! These two are straight gold.
But then we get to the pine weasel bit and it all goes off the rails, complete with the schlock comedy music and more Billy Zane. The only good bit about this part of the scene is a particularly good scream into the microphone from some random extra. Audrey and Billy Zane kiss...

Back at the Book House, a random schlub gets a blackjacking and Packard's assistant shows up to crawl into bed with Harry and the episode ends, what the...

Overall, we have to call a spade a spade: despite some moments of gold shining through here and there, this is a bad episode.