Bob Cooper

I had read an article on the Episode II of Twin Peaks: The Return regarding how David Lynch’s “treatment of women” was behind the times and simply, in no certain terms, out of touch with the era we now live. Women shouldn’t be brutalized, misogynistically devalued, and harshly run through humiliation, degradation, and eventually murder. The character of particular note for this was Darya, a delectable darling attached to “Bob Cooper” (my name for Bob, as he possesses the body of Special Agent Dale Cooper). I have wondered all week to myself about what all Bob Cooper has done for 25 years. Poor Dale’s body has been abducted by such a monstrous creep, wearing this scowl that is fixed on his mug as the hair has been allowed to grow to his shoulder, and the body count left in his wake, I can only imagine a trail across the US. The leather jacket and shady associates he congregates, Bob has really taken the hostage body and abused it to the point that perhaps Dale’s better off in the Black Lodge at this point chatting with “the arm” and its “Is the future or the past?” colleague. Darya had been plotting with Ray (another criminal probably checkered with a past quite unpleasant) to kill Bob Cooper, but it all backfires. Ray gets arrested (supposedly) and another associate who had wired Bob Cooper’s car is “taken care of” (Bob does this peculiar face squeeze with his hand that isn’t necessarily as much intimidating as it is awkward. But that is what I expect from Lynch, and, at this point, wouldn’t want it any other way. You want normal plotting…just avoid Lynch and Twin Peaks altogether. Darya realizes too late that there is no escape. A perfectly placed recording device behind a pillow caught Darya and Ray’s talk about Bob Cooper’s demise. So Bob Cooper addresses this by clinching her tight, punching her in the face, and telling her in no certain terms she’ll be dying quite soon. He wants to know who put the hit on him, for which she points to Ray for the answer on that one. She offers nothing of value to him (except her sweet sex and that body does seem worth salvaging, but alas…) and so he finishes her off in less than humbling fashion. She begs for her life, of course, but it just does no good. And that is what some have a problem with. Women, in the past, have been treated less than kind in Lynch’s movie/television history. I think of Isabella Rossellini’s Dorothy Vallens in Blue Velvet (1986) off the top. Darya, because she’s “bad news” (I will always wonder what exactly drew her into Bob Cooper’s nefarious orbit), brought her fate on herself…that line of thinking irks those who consider women serving as victims in film/television passé and wrong-headed. Within this world, the world of Twin Peaks, many (not just the Daryas that come along) suffer and die.