Twin Peaks: the Return part 4

Brings back some Memories
David Lynch & Mark Frost 
Snoqualmie WA 2017

There has been much comment on the scene in part 4 of the Return where Wally Brando pays his respects to Sheriff Frank Truman.  There has even been minor controversy regarding it, mostly on whether or not it was very or not at all amusing.  Some have noted that the name of the character played by Michael Cera combines the last name of the famous actor Marlon Brando with the first name of the great queer love of his life, Wally Cox.  (Their ashes are scattered together in Death Valley.)  However, I have yet to see anyone take note of the fact that the actor playing Sheriff Truman, Robert Forster, first appeared in films (and in a starring role) opposite Mr Brando, in John Huston’s adaptation of Carson McCullers’ novella Reflections in a Golden Eye, as the unrequited object of his desire.  Whether an intentional reference or not, on the part of Lynch or Frost, for me, this greatly affects the meanings this scene may bear, especially given the scene just prior, which gives this section of Lynch’s long long film its title, where Deputy Bobby Briggs weeps over seeing again after many years the photo of his long lost high school girlfriend and partner in crime, Laura Palmer.