Here’s Cooper’s evil doppelganger Mr. C in Twin Peaks: The Return explained. The first season of Twin Peaks proved to be landmark television, with the David Lynch created show bearing his unique cinematic style. Twin Peaks revolved around FBI agent Dale Cooper coming to the Twin Peaks to investigate the murder of Laura Palmer. The series introduced viewers to any number of quirky characters and it was simply unlike anything else that had been on TV before.
Sadly, the show quickly fell from grace with Twin Peaks season 2, with impatient viewers and network executives demanding Laura’s killer be revealed. Lynch had never intended to solve that mystery, and interest in the show quickly declined when the killer was revealed. Season 2 felt aimless from that moment on and the show was cancelled on a cliffhanger ending. Lynch soon returned for 1992 prequel Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, which explored the final week of Laura’s life. The film was a good deal darker than the series, which alienated fans who also wanted closure on its cliffhanger.
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me received a critical drubbing at the time and flopped. David Lynch and co-creator Mark Frost eventually came back to the series for Showtime revival Twin Peaks: The Return, which takes place 25 years later. The season 2 cliffhanger revealed the “Cooper” who came out of the Black Lodge was a doppelganger, with evil spirit BOB hitching a ride in his body. In The Return, this Cooper doppelganger is known as Mr. C and sports long black hair and dark eyes.
![Twin Peaks: The Return – Cooper’s Evil Doppelganger Mr. C Explained](https://static1.srcdn.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/twin-peaks-cooper-mr-c.jpg)
Twin Peaks: The Return quickly shows Mr. C to be a brutal killer who has been involved in many criminal schemes. He left Twin Peaks 25 years before while still masquerading as Cooper, and the series reveals he later showed up to Diane’s house, where he assaulted her before creating a copy called a tulpa. Mr. C’s ultimate goal is to escape pulled back into the Black Lodge, which was due to happen after he’d been in the real-world for 25 years. He creates another tulpa called Dougie Jones who would be taken back instead of him and is later destroyed in his place. Cooper himself finally escapes from the Black Lodge around this time, who emerges in a trance state and is mistaken for Dougie.
Twin Peaks: The Return also finds Mr. C on a quest to find the entity known as “Judy,” who was first mentioned by David Bowie’s Agent Jeffries in Fire Walk With Me. Although the show takes a long time to get to it, Mr. C finally arrives in Twin Peaks around the same time as Cooper, which leads to a showdown. Mr. C made for a great main antagonist in Twin Peaks: The Return, with Kyle MacLachlan getting to play a character who is literally the mirror opposite of Cooper; the actor got to play triple duty too since he technically played Dougie for the majority of Cooper’s catatonic state.