Robert "Bob" Barker is the owner of the Sawmill Diner, founded by his grandfather after the town's sawmill burned down in 1958, in the small town of Dual Spires and a descendant of one of the town's three founding families. Shawn and Gus go to his diner to eat and have some cinnamon pie, which is absolutely delicious. Bob introduces them to his wife Michelle, and the town's sheriff Andrew Jackson.
When everyone is at the town's cinnamon festival, Bob's niece's friend Jack Smith crashes his bike into the stage and frantically tells everyone that he found their niece, Paula, drowned in the lake. When they get there, they cry over their niece's body, which causes Gus to cry, as he's a sympathetic cryer. Shawn and Gus get a text telling them everything isn't as it seems, with a number, which causes them to believe she was murdered, and they take the case.
Lassiter and Juliet find out independently that Paula had already been declared dead in Santa Barbara seven years ago, and Lassiter's memory of a pot of sunflower seeds next to Paula's bike alerts Shawn that Bob has something to do with this. On talking to him, the gang find out that Michelle's unstable sister Lucy took Paula away from Dual Spires after Bob and Michelle all but raised her, and after receiving letters from Paula detailing abuse they decided to fake her death at age 11. Lassiter becomes quite angry hearing this and vows to issue a warrant for Robert's arrest once he is back in Santa Barbara.
After further investigation, and the murder of librarian Maudette Hornsby, the library is set on fire with Shawn and Gus in it, but Father Peter Westley saves the two and Bob picks them up in his car and takes them to a lodge to protect them. There Shawn realizes that Paula wasn't Bob's niece, but his daughter from an affair with Lucy. He never told Michelle about the affair, but he did reveal this fact to Paula to convince her to return to Dual Spires. She wanted to leave Dual Spires and Bob supported her in those plans, but the leaders of the other two founding families, Andrew Jackson and Donna Gooden, were less supportive, as she had convinced Andrew's son Randy to leave Dual Spires together with her and he was the last of the direct descendants of the founding families left, so he and doctor Donna Gooden killed Paula. The murderous pair now plan on killing Westley, Shawn, Gus and Bob, but Lassiter and Juliet save them at the last second.
After all this, Juliet, Shawn, Father Westley and Gus grab some pie, while Lassiter grabs some coffee, but as weird things such as odd dancing, including by Bob, and a teen barking at a dog begin to happen, Shawn and Juliet decide to leave.
Trivia[]
- Robert Barker is portrayed by Dana Ashbrook, who played Bobby Briggs (also first name Robert) on Twin Peaks.
- There's a painting of Bob's great grandfather in the lodge, and he very much resembles Bobby's father on Twin Peaks.
- At the end of the episode Bob dances with a picture of Paula, just like Leland did with a picture of Laura on Twin Peaks.
- There is a moose head on the table in Bob's living room, which is a reference to the stag head found lying on the table in the police station during the first episode of Twin Peaks.
- The song Bob dances to at the end is Kool Kat Walk by Julee Cruise, the singer of the Twin Peaks theme Falling.
- Given the lack of television watching which occurs in Dual Spires, the cultural implications of 'Bob Barker' would presumably be lost on Robert.