Is The Great Hiatus of Sherlock Holmes the Key to Understanding Twin Peaks: The Return?

The Great Hiatus!
Those three words conjure wonderful and powerful images in the minds of all Sherlockians. Holmes and Watson’s flight from England and the battle with Professor Moriarty atop Reichenbach Falls. Spending time in Lhasa with the Head Lama. Danger while passing through Persia and Mecca and Khartoum. A stop in Montpellier with those puzzling coal-tar derivatives, before finally returning home by way of an Empty House in Baker Street. 

-- David Marcum, from  Holmes Away From Home: Adventures from the Great Hiatus

Yes, the Great Hiatus is the time in Holmes's life when it was believed that the Great Detective was deceased having perished by going over the Reichenbach Falls in his final battle with Professor Moriarty.  But Holmes was not dead, just as Agent Dale Cooper in Twin Peaks was not trapped forever in the Black Lodge in his final conflict with Wyndham Earl, his own arch-nemesis.  

What clues could this time in Holmes' life have for determining the fate of his more modern incarnation, Agent Cooper? The answer has to do with identities, journeys, and family. Be forewarned that this article contains tons of Twin Peaks spoilers!!

DERRICK's TWO CENTS: We are only up through the fourth episode of Twin Peaks: The Return and we have already seen the good Cooper escape from the Black Lodge, yet not with all of his faculties intact.  To make his escape, Cooper had to go through a tumultuous journey chased by the evil doppelganger of The Arm, a strange talking brain atop a floating nervous system which almost caught Cooper before the floors of the Black Lodge caved in, taking the detective to a glass box in NYC (more on that in a moment), a purple floating room, and then landing him in a fractured room with a blind/dumb woman located inside a spaceship. 

Holmes was also pursued in his escape from the Reichenbach Falls by Moriarty's right hand man Colonel Sebastian Moran. Holmes barely escaped from the sharpshooter's rifle.  But escape Holmes did with the assistance of his brother Mycroft. I believe Agent Cooper also escaped with the aid of one who is like family to him.

In Mark Frost's The Secret History of Twin Peaks it is implied that the beings from another world really are from another world. This seems confirmed by episode 3 of Twin Peaks: The Return when we see Cooper and a blind/dumb woman on the top of a vessel in outer space.

Cooper is aided by the blind/dumb woman who unfortunately meets her demise in helping the agent, She had pointed to a safe-like device on her room's wall which had the number 15 displayed on it. The woman climbs to the roof of her location which is revealed to be some kind of spaceship. She flips a switch which unfortunately causes a power surge that sends her over the edge of the ship and out into space. She is replaced by another woman (or a different version of the same woman) who helps Cooper escape through the device on the wall which now bears the number 3 on the display. 

The 3 is the key to releasing Cooper. He is able to leave the lodge and return to our world. This seems to be some kid of a trap for the doppelgangers. It causes one of Cooper's two doppelgangers to be sent back to the black lodge and seriously injures the other.  This trap seems to be carefully planned much as the trap for Colonel Moran was well planned out by Holmes and his brother.   

But who planned Cooper's escape?  Who was his helper, his Mycroft Holmes? One might assume it is Agent Cole, his boss, but Cole admits to Albert that he really does not know what is going on. That leaves us with one other character from the original series who always loved Cooper, who never gave up on him. This character was wealthy and could easily afford a secret building in New York with a glass box attached to its outer wall. And this person is none other than Audrey Horne.

It is my belief that Audrey continued pursuing Cooper. Somehow, perhaps, she learned of the evil Cooper and used her money, power, and influence to learn all she could of the Black Lodge and the FBI's Blue Rose cases.  

If I am correct then Audrey gave Cooper a means of escape through the glass box. After Cooper goes through the box, he is pursued by the evil spirit (perhaps a version of The Arm) which kills the couple watching the box. The creature probably thought they were helping Cooper to escape.  The creature, like a Sebastian Moran, took its shots at Cooper but could never catch up to him.

Could Audrey Horne be the millionaire who owns the glass box in NYC? Could she be aiding Cooper to escape?

Was Audrey also the person who hired the killers to take out the other two versions of Cooper?  Perhaps, though, most likely there is another more sinister group who wanted them dead and the good Cooper released from the lodge. Mike does talk to the disoriented Cooper and tells Coop that he was tricked. Perhaps it really is Agent Jeffries (or Jeffries' doppelganger) who spoke with Cooper's doppelganger and said he would return the man to the Black Lodge. Perhaps some other malevolent individual we have not yet met will be involved. Moriarty had many sinister agents out to get Holmes. Perhaps there are many sinister agents out to get Cooper. 

How Will Audrey figure in to the rest of the series? Is she the woman Cole alludes to when he speaks to Albert about knowing where "she" is? Will Audrey explain how she has aided Cooper? Will we have more versions of Cooper? Will Cooper adopt a secret identity once he comes to his senses as Holmes did when he took on the role of the Norwegian Explorer named Sigerson?  Am I completely off with my Audrey theory? The answers will come soon, dear readers. So sit back, have a hot cup of coffee and an extra large slice of Cherry Pie as we continue to observe, analyze, and deduce.

BRIAN'S TWO CENTS:  I had a very different take on these last two episodes, which is to be expected with a series like Twin Peaks.  Lynch himself has said that he hates to explain his films, because he believes that everyone's individual interpretations are equally valid, if only to them.

First of all, I didn't think that there was anything overly Sherlockian about episodes three and four.  The only exception seemed to be the intro of Cole and Albert, presenting disparate pieces of evidence regarding some vague investigation to their team --- you almost expected Inspector Lestrade to dismiss the clues spread out on the table and walk away, leaving Holmes to explain their true significance to Watson (and ourselves).  Aside from that, this was a wild ride into the continuing adventures of Special Agent Dale Cooper, with the rest of the cast taking a backseat to his increasingly complicated story line.

So, let's review:  at the end of the original series, Laura Palmer tells Coop that she'll see him again in 25 years, "meanwhile" --- and then she strikes a pose with her arms positioned somewhat like a statue.  I think this meant that Cooper would be trapped, or frozen, like a statue, in the Black Lodge for that period of time, as if there was a specific time frame that the Evil Cooper could live in the mundane world.   Evil Coop MUST return to the Black Lodge.  In order to prevent this from happening, Evil Coop creates yet another doppelgänger, Vegas Coop, to be sucked back into the Black Lodge when the time comes, so that way the Evil Coop can remain free.  Evil Coop is being assisted by the Evil Arm, who attacks Good Coop while trying to leave the Black Lodge, and knocks him on a dimensional detour through the Eraserhead universe (I'll come back to that in a minute).  When Good Coop and Vegas Coop do switch places, Vegas Coop disintegrates, having served his purpose of returning to the Black Lodge in Evil Coop's place.  Good Coop, however, is NOT the Special Agent Dale Cooper we all know and love.  He is dazed and childlike, a far cry from the Sherlockian FBI agent.

Why is this?  I have two theories.  First, Coop has been trapped in the Black Lodge for so long that he is now a stranger to his own world.  His actions are those of the People From Another Place when they exist in our reality.  Characters like the aging bellboy from Season Two don't quite belong here.  They're out of sync with our world and pretending --- poorly --- that they're "normal"; at best frustrating us and at worst terrifying us ("I said no creamed corn!").  After having "gone native" in the Black Lodge, Cooper now has to relearn how to live in the mundane world.

My second theory is that Good Coop and Evil Coop are two halves of the same soul, but neither are complete.  All of the Coopers are Horcruxes (a la Harry Potter), a single soul divided into different aspects which must merge in order for the true Cooper to become complete.

Before I get too far ahead, I want to say that I really like the idea of Audrey Horne as the possible secret power behind the return of Dale Cooper; one step ahead of the FBI with their Blue Rose cases. I see no reason why this wouldn't be the case --- and maybe she's funding Dr. Jacoby's mysterious project out in the woods?

I have to give credit to my wife Traci for having my favorite theory about episodes three and four --- it's all David Lynch's homage to himself.  The starscape where Coop finds himself standing on a spaceship is the same one from Eraserhead, right down to having a giant floating head go by; although this time the head belongs to Major Briggs.  The starscape also could refer to the overhead night sky that dominates Lynch's The Straight Story, which Alvin so desperately wants to see again with his brother.  The woman in the red dress seems to be a Dorothy Valens character, referencing Blue Velvet.  She warns Coop to be quiet as he's in real danger, just like Kyle's character hiding in the closet from the Well-Dressed Man.  There is even a mystery box (Dune!) and the Vegas gangsters are straight out of Wild At Heart.  Bobby's reaction to seeing the prom photo of Laura Palmer would be a nod to Fire Walk With Me, more so than the whole return of Twin Peaks.  And of course, Cooper becoming a different person would be taken from the switcheroos of the main characters in Lost Highway and Mulholland Drive.  I don't know if I believe all of this, but it's fun to connect the dots in what appears more and more to be a shared universe of films.

For more on The Great Hiatus, be sure to read Holmes Away from Home: Adventures from the Great Hiatus Volume 1 and Volume 2 available from Belanger Books.

Belanger Books is a small press owned by artist Brian Belanger and author Derrick Belanger specializing in new Sherlock Holmes books, Children's books, Steampunk, and genre specific anthologies.  Some of our books have been #1 bestsellers in their categories on Amazon.