Twin Peaks season 3, episode 11 review: Evil stalks the land, but it's time for pie

*WARNING: SPOILERS FOR TWIN PEAKS SEASON 3, EPISODE 11*

I’ve mentioned it a couple of times already in reviews, but it’s hard for my mind not to keep returning to two major contrasts within Twin Peaks: the idea of hidden evil, and the idea of exposed evil. In its original series, Twin Peaks was the utopia of small town Americana posing as a mask for the darkness underneath.

Abuse took place behind closed doors; sinister impulses were suppressed within the individual – that is, until they burst forth into brief flashes of violence. It was all about the veneer of perfection, at least.

Twin Peaks in 2017, however, seems to have violence knit into its soul. In this week’s episode, a bloodied woman crawling out of the bushes interrupts a group of children at play. It’s Miriam (Sarah Jean Long), who we previously thought dead at the hands of Richard Horne (Eamon Farren). It’s a scene instantly reminiscent of Ronette’s miraculous return in the original series, but the horror of it all feels so much more palpable here.

A scene swiftly followed by a crazed Becky (Amanda Seyfried), who grabs a gun upon finding out her husband (Caleb Landry Jones) is cheating on her, steals her mother (Mädchen Amick’s Shelly Johnson)’s car, and shoots wildly into his lover’s apartment door.

Screaming at the top of her lungs in the apartment corridor, possessed by unquenchable rage, the camera suddenly breaks from Becky and follows something rushing down the stairs in fury. Where once these kinds of outbursts took place behind closed doors, now they take place in the open: it’s almost as if a smog of violence has spread itself across Twin Peaks, like an infection in its streets.

Is this a symptom of the disappearance of Major Briggs and the events of the Black Lodge 25 years ago? Cole, Tammy, Albert, Mackley, Diane, and Hastings (Matthew Lillard) all pay a visit to the location Hastings claims to have witnessed Briggs; here, evidently, evil stalks in broad daylight.

After Cole is nearly sucked into a portal in the sky, in which he sees a vision of the Woodsmen introduced back in episode 8, one of them manages to crawl into the back of the police car and brutally murder Hastings.

It’s interesting that almost everyone witnesses these Woodsmen – Cole, Albert, Diane, and Hastings – or, at least, all those who had a connection either to Briggs or to Dale Cooper, meaning we return once more to the idea that evil is no longer a hidden force in this world, taunting its victims either through visions or dreams.

They also come across the body of Ruth Davenport, with coordinates scrawled across her arm. Diane’s reactions are interesting here: she carefully mouths the coordinates as she commits them to memory, and she seems surprisingly unmoved by seeing the Woodsmen. What don’t we know about her?

Things seem changed about this world, that’s for sure. She’s never the sweet, quaint Diane we always imagined Dale to be conversing with on his dictaphone. But that doesn’t mean that others aren't still quietly clinging to the past they (and we) remember.

We finally delved into the nature of Shelly and Bobby Briggs (Dana Ashbrook)’s relationship, learning that they did indeed, marry and raise Becky. Though Shelly may still bear the last name Briggs, the pair has since separated, with her now dating local drug dealer Red (Balthazar Getty).

Whatever happened between them, they’re still determined to be good parents, and prevent Becky from making the same mistakes. As they sit together in the Double R, there’s this complete sincerity of intention in their moments together that seem almost rare for this new series.

They may not be a couple anymore, but there’s still a love of kinds there, quietly preserved in the static that surrounds them, in the alien-esque landscape Twin Peaks has become.

A preservation that still lives deep inside of Dale Cooper, too, in his new guise as Dougie Jones. Each week, we’ve seen small parts of his old self light up: at the sight of red high heels, or in the taste of coffee. This week brought the smell of cherry pie and those fabled words: “damn good”. Come to the light, Cooper.

Twin Peaks airs 2am on Mondays on Sky Atlantic and NOW TV with the Entertainment Pass, in a simulcast with the US. The episode will then be shown again at 9pm on the following day. You can catch up now on season one and two via Sky Box Sets and NOW TV.