Twin Peaks – The Return: Wake up, don’t die

Credit: Showtime

Small Town Snapshots

Carl Rodd (Harry Dean Stanton) is getting ready to take a trip into town with one of the other residents of his trailer park. For those of you that remember Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, Carl is the manager of the Fat Trout and he doesn’t like being awakened before 9 a.m.

At the Double R, Miriam Sullivan (Sarah Jean Long) a local school teacher is shooting the breeze about the famous cherry pie with Shelly (Mädchen Amick) and another waitress.

Richard Horne is still fuming and coked up after his meeting with Red. He is driving like a maniac. In the relative quiet of a nearby park, Carl sits on a bench with a cup of coffee. Smoking and contemplating the trees, he observes a mother playing tag with her child.

Pulling to a stop behind a line of traffic at a crosswalk, Richard Horne is restless and decides to pull around everyone. At the time he does this, the mother from the park and her son are getting ready to cross the street. The little boy goes running through the intersection only to be hit at a high speed by Horne.

As the mother is wailing cradling her critically injured son, a crowd gathers. People are in shock and some are crying. Carl approaches the mother. At the moment, her son passes into the next life, a golden flame shoots from his body and goes heavenward. While tragic, it is a very spiritual moment. We know that is his soul leaving his body. Lynch makes that very apparent.

Once Carl reaches the grieving woman, he touches her shoulder. The two share a long look. Carl looks very beatific like an angel. Once this scene has ended we go back to the trailer park and Lot Number 6 and those mysterious power lines another callback to Fire Walk with Me.