"Part 2", also known as "The Stars Turn and a Time Presents Itself", is the second episode of the third season of the American surrealist mystery horror drama television series Twin Peaks. It was written by series creators Mark Frost and David Lynch, directed by Lynch, and stars Kyle MacLachlan.
"Part 2" was first broadcast on Showtime, along with "Part 1", on May 21, 2017, and was seen by an audience of 506,000 viewers in the United States. In addition, the two episodes were shown as a feature at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival, where they received a standing ovation. The episode received critical acclaim.
Plot
Background The small town of Twin Peaks, Washington, has been shocked by the murder of schoolgirl Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee) and the attempted murder of her friend Ronette Pulaski (Phoebe Augustine). FBI special agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) has been sent to the town to investigate and has discovered that the killer was Laura's father, Leland Palmer (Ray Wise), who acted while possessed by a demonic entity, Killer BOB (Frank Silva). At the end of the original series, BOB trapped Cooper in the Black Lodge, an extra-dimensional place, and let out Cooper's doppelgänger to use him for physical access to the world. 25 years later, Cooper's doppelgänger roams freely through the world, with Cooper still inside the Lodge.David Lynch (writer and director), Mark Frost (writer) (May 21, 2017). "Part 1". Twin Peaks Meanwhile, in New York City, Sam Colby (Benjamin Rosenfield) has been hired to observe a glass cube; when he brings Tracey Barberato (Madeline Zima) into the room and the two start having sex, a creature, the Experiment Model (Erica Aynon), appears in the glass box, breaks out of it, and slaughters them. In Buckhorn, South Dakota, school principal William Hastings (Matthew Lillard) is accused of murdering Ruth Davenport (Mary Stofle), the school librarian, much to the chagrin of his wife, Phyllis (Cornelia Guest).
Events In Buckhorn, Hastings sits inside his cell, seemingly anxious. Detective Dave Macklay (Brent Briscoe) accompanies Hastings's wife Phyllis in the cell, warning them that the visit will be short; Hastings thanks him. Phyllis tells Hastings that according to their attorney, George Bautzer (Neil Dickson), he will not be released on bail; Hastings insists that he did not kill Davenport, but says he dreamt about being there. Phyllis insists that he was there, and reveals that she knew about his affair with Davenport; Hastings responds that he knew she was having an affair with George and possibly someone else. She taunts him with the prospect of a life in prison; Macklay comes to dismiss Phyllis, leaving Hastings in despair. At the station's entrance, Phyllis meets George, informs him that Bill is aware of their affair, and instructs him not to walk her out and to meet her later at her place; George then discusses with Macklay how Hastings and Phyllis feel. Two cells away from Hastings, a dark figure (Stewart Strauss) sits on the bed and disappears, leaving only its head to float upward. Phyllis returns home; in the living room, she finds Cooper's doppelgänger, whom she recognizes and greets as a pleasant surprise. The doppelgänger says that she followed human nature perfectly and then shoots her in the head with George's gun, which he then drops.
In Las Vegas, Nevada, Duncan Todd (Patrick Fischler) calls Roger (Joe Adler) in his office; after handing him money, he instructs him to tell "her"David Lynch (writer and director), Mark Frost (writer) (May 21, 2017). "Part 2". Twin Peaks that she has the job. Roger asks Todd why he lets "him" do "these things," to which Todd replies that Roger had better not get involved with people like "him".
In a restaurant, Cooper's doppelgänger eats creamed corn with Darya (Nicole LaLiberte), Ray (George Griffith) and Jack (Steve Baker). Ray sarcastically remarks that Jack barely touched his "three dinners"; he then discusses the plan for the coming days with the doppelgänger, who says he will need to be on his own for a while. Ray assures the doppelgänger that he will get the information he needs from Betty, Hastings's secretary; the doppelgänger replies that he doesn't need the information, but wants it.
In the Ghostwood forest, Hawk (Michael Horse) searches through the woods with a flashlight. He receives a call from Margaret Lanterman (Catherine Coulson), who asks him where he is walking. When Hawk replies that something is supposed to happen there, Margaret says, "the stars turn and the time presents itself," and tells Hawk to be careful, inviting him for coffee and pie at her house. Hawk thanks her and promises to tell her what happens, then ends the call; he arrives at Glastonbury Grove, where red curtains faintly appear and disappear.
Cooper sits in the Red Room. MIKE (Al Strobel) asks him "is it future or is it past", then tells him someone is there and disappears. An older Laura enters and sits in one of the chairs. She salutes Cooper, informs him that he can go now and asks him if he recognizes her. In an almost verbatim reenactment of his dream, Cooper asks Laura if she is Laura Palmer, and she replies, "I feel like I know her, but sometimes my arms bend back." When Cooper asks who she is, she confirms that she is Laura, and when he replies that Laura is dead she says "I am dead, yet I live." She removes her face, revealing a pulsating white light, and closes it back. Cooper asks when he can go; in another repetition of Cooper's dream, Laura walks over to him, kisses him and whispers in his ear. Laura pulls back; an unseen force moves the curtains and she screams before being pulled away in front of Cooper. The curtains billow and take off, revealing a pale horse standing on the seemingly endless chevron floor and darkness. MIKE reappears and asks Cooper again "is it future or is it past;" he then leads Cooper to another room, where he presents him to "the evolution of the arm", a flashing giant neuron structure resembling a barren tree, with a soft-mouthed brain on top as a head. Repeating the lines he once told Cooper, the arm says, "I am the arm and I sound like this", followed by a looping sound. He asks Cooper whether he remembers his doppelgänger, and says that the doppelgänger must come in for Cooper to go out.
Jack closes a garage door with one of Cooper's doppelgänger's cars inside, and hands the doppelgänger the keys to another car. Before leaving, the doppelgänger calls Jack to him, grabs his face and strokes it.
The doppelgänger goes to a motel, where Darya quickly hangs up the phone and tells him she was talking to Jack to ensure that the job is done "on the secretary's car"; she tells him that she's happy to see him. The doppelgänger tells her Ray never showed up for their meeting, and that he might borrow her gun for a job. He lies next to her and hugs her, then tells her that he killed Jack after discovering that he wired the car. Darya tries to escape, but the doppelgänger smashes her head against the headboard of the bed and plays a recording of her phone conversation with Ray, in which the two discuss his imprisonment in a South Dakota federal prison for interstate transportation of firearms and their task to assassinate Mr. C, which was assigned to them by a man named Jeffries and is now entrusted entirely to her. Darya tries to escape once again, and the doppelgänger smashes her head against the headboard thrice. He asks her to reveal the name of the man who paid for his assassination, which Darya does not know, but who, she discloses, paid $500,000 to split between her and Ray. She says she wasn't going to do it, but the doppelgänger brushes this off. He then says that the following day he is supposed to be pulled back into the Black Lodge but that he has a plan for that. He asks her if she received any information from Ray, saying that a set of coordinates and numbers may save her life; Darya did not receive any information, but knows that Hastings's secretary revealed something to Ray. The doppelgänger pulls an ace of spades card from his jacket, with the symbol covered by a scribbling of a black sphere with two thin protrusions like antennae, and tells Darya that is what he wants. She asks him whether he's going to kill her, and he responds affirmatively; she tries to escape again, after which the doppelgänger punches her in the face, then shoots her after covering her face with a pillow. The doppelgänger washes his hands and calls the man he believes to be Jeffries. The voice on the other end of the phone says he missed him in New York and that the doppelgänger is still in Buckhorn. He then asks whether Mr. C met Major Briggs, much to the doppelgänger's astonishment. The voice then says that he just called to say goodbye, and that the doppelgänger is "going back in" the following day so that he will be with BOB again, then disconnects. The doppelgänger, now uncertain if the man on the other end of the line truly was Jeffries, opens a laptop and logs into an FBI database to download files related to Yankton Federal Prison, where Ray claims to be.
The doppelgänger leaves the room and enters into the next one, where Chantal Hutchens (Jennifer Jason Leigh) is staying. He orders her to clean up his room; gathering that he killed Darya, Chantal says it is a good thing, since she was getting jealous of her. The doppelgänger tells her that he needs her and her husband to be in a specific location in the following days; he then calls her to him, opens her bathrobe and touches her groin area, saying she is "nice and wet".
In the Black Lodge the arm says, "253. Time and time again." It repeats BOB's name three times, then orders Cooper to go twice. Cooper follows MIKE into a hallway; when he is in, MIKE disappears. Cooper proceeds to another entrance but finds it blocked; he walks back into the room he came from, which is now empty, and crosses to the other side. He finds himself in another hallway, which leads him to a room where Leland Palmer sits; he tells Cooper to "find Laura." Cooper is attracted by a shining light into another room, which seemingly distorts itself on two overlapping levels, one moving towards the curtains on the opposite side and one moving from them; he then has a vision of a Venus of Arles statue. MIKE senses that something is wrong, and the arm states that it's his doppelgänger. From the room, Cooper walks into another hallway, where he sees the statue; he opens the entrance next to it, and from it he sees his doppelgänger driving on a road in South Dakota. The statue morphs into a doppelgänger of the arm, identical to it except for the yellow color of its brain; the stripes forming the chevron pattern of the floor begin to move upward and downward under Cooper's feet and, as the doppelgänger screams "non-exist-ent," they open up horizontally, causing Cooper to fall into a black liquid. Cooper is transported on the exterior Glass Box in New York City and sucked inside; he floats through a tube and inside the box. Sam Colby checks the bathroom for the guard, but it's empty, so he decides to let Tracey Barberato in. As they are about to enter, the box trembles and repeatedly creates inside itself a series of matryoshka-like copies of its insides, back and forth, until Cooper disappears. He proceeds to fall through space.
Inside the Palmer House, Sarah Palmer (Grace Zabriskie) watches gruesome footage of a pack of lions killing an African buffalo.