Jake

Twin Peaks Rewatch 51: The Return, Part 16

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So, I know we all think Naido is Diane reversed, but Twitter just drew my attention to the fact that Candie is an anagram of "C Diane". This also means that Diane can be formed from Mandie and Sandie's names too...

 

 

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5 hours ago, pabosher said:

Just in relation to the podcast’s suggestion that DougieCoop and Diane are surprising in relation to one another as both tulpas: I think the thing that was forgotten is that, pre-coop, dougie had a normal, quiet, boring life. Wife and kid and a job. He wasn’t always a Mr Magoo - just a quiet dude with odd tendencies. 

 

Yeah, the Dougie we've mostly dealt with is actually the Cooper that was trapped in the Lodge, just in some half-awake state due to I assume his bungled return to the real world. Tulpa Dougie was just some weird shitty guy who got into terrible gambling debts and had the nerve to cheat on the amazing Janie-E.

 

I mentioned this in the slack chat, but I'm kinda puzzled by the whole coordinates thing. Were they a trap set by Jeffries? If Bad Coop knew it was a trap, why was he so set on finding them? And what would he have done if he hadn't run into Richard Horne outside the convenience store? I'm not super hung up on this or anything...just really curious what Bad Coop is actually up to...

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I just want to say for the record that TP Rewatch is my favorite podcast. I really enjoy the personality and the insights and the articulate thoughts you guys bring to these discussions. It has been difficult to find another place with TP conversation that is this enjoyable. Thanks to Chris and Jake.

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48 minutes ago, Invisible Strings said:

I just want to say for the record that TP Rewatch is my favorite podcast. I really enjoy the personality and the insights and the articulate thoughts you guys bring to these discussions. It has been difficult to find another place with TP conversation that is this enjoyable. Thanks to Chris and Jake.

Cheers :)

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6 hours ago, Ash_NR said:

...(BadCoop) is guided by his needs, not wants, which again doesn't feel like BOB...

 

This is the exact opposite of what has been presented to us in this season. Mr. C has said repeatedly that he doesn't need anything. He wants things.

 

There is strong evidence to suggest that Cooper wanted Audrey in the original run of the series (he alludes to that as he is letting her down easy) but that his "goodness" stops him from acting on those wants. I imagine a similar scenario happened with Diane, now that we've heard her story about how they had kissed once before. If Mr. C is the dark side of Cooper then why wouldn't he act on those wants?

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1 hour ago, Professor Video Games said:

 

Yeah, the Dougie we've mostly dealt with is actually the Cooper that was trapped in the Lodge, just in some half-awake state due to I assume his bungled return to the real world. Tulpa Dougie was just some weird shitty guy who got into terrible gambling debts and had the nerve to cheat on the amazing Janie-E.

 

I mentioned this in the slack chat, but I'm kinda puzzled by the whole coordinates thing. Were they a trap set by Jeffries? If Bad Coop knew it was a trap, why was he so set on finding them? And what would he have done if he hadn't run into Richard Horne outside the convenience store? I'm not super hung up on this or anything...just really curious what Bad Coop is actually up to...

 

My logic at the moment is that BadCoop had something he wanted at a certain set of co-ordinates. He knew a lot of people would act against him, so he tried to confirm the co-ordinates by asking for multiple sources to provide them.

 

Having gotten 3 sets, he did indeed discover that one of them did not match and suspected that there was a trap waiting, but at which point? Since he happened upon Richard, he decided to test out the more likely co-ordinates on him, just in case. But I expect that he would have had other means to test it if he had not already found Richard.

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29 minutes ago, brownbathrobe said:

This is the exact opposite of what has been presented to us in this season. Mr. C has said repeatedly that he doesn't need anything. He wants things.

 I wonder about this.  What someone says and what they do are two very different things, and with bad Coop those two things don't always line up. It's true that we have seen Coop say that he doesn't need anything, but at the same time what we are shown is that he very very much needs things from Jeffries, from his assassins, from Dougie's body.  If you judge him from the perspective of his on screen actions not words, at least right now in this dangerous time of transition, he needs more than wants. (Or needs and wants.) 

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3 hours ago, axis1500 said:

So, I know we all think Naido is Diane reversed, but Twitter just drew my attention to the fact that Candie is an anagram of "C Diane". This also means that Diane can be formed from Mandie and Sandie's names too...

 

 

 

Also interesting to note that they too are on their way to the sheriff's station  

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It just dawned on me that perhaps Audrey in the mirror could very well be coming to from "shock therapy" (sounds of electricity are heard in the scene) - further  parallelling Coop's journey (same mode of return)

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So there are at least 3 current Diane theories I have read now:

 

1) Naido is Diane

2) Candie is Diane

3) Lucy is Diane.

 

I think 3 is highly unlikely. I'm ambivalent on 1 & 2 since they are based on anagram/wordplay and very little else in the way of clues.

 

Lucy is in the sheriff's station, but she is a character we have known since the original, and though she and Andy have their own level of oddities, I don't think there's any reason to think she would suddenly become or be revealed to be another person.

 

Candie is on the way to the sheriff's station, so she presumably will be in there. Not sure what else would argue in favor of it, other than her being a little weird and spacey, like Lucy.

 

Naido is indeed also in the sheriff's station, and she is important and must be protected, as Andy told us, so that is a point in favor. I'm not sure her appearance in the purple world early in the series jives with the idea she's Diane, but I think this is more likely than the other options above.

 

And of course, there is always Door number 4) Someone else is Diane or Diane is in the sheriff's station in some other form - spiritually, metaphysically or in a Josie-is-the-doorknob sort of way.

 

 

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13 minutes ago, Mentalgongfu said:

So there are at least 3 current Diane theories I have read now:

 

1) Naido is Diane

2) Candie is Diane

3) Lucy is Diane.

 

I think 3 is highly unlikely. I'm ambivalent on 1 & 2 since they are based on anagram/wordplay and very little else in the way of clues.

 

Lucy is in the sheriff's station, but she is a character we have known since the original, and though she and Andy have their own level of oddities, I don't think there's any reason to think she would suddenly become or be revealed to be another person.

 

Candie is on the way to the sheriff's station, so she presumably will be in there. Not sure what else would argue in favor of it, other than her being a little weird and spacey, like Lucy.

 

Naido is indeed also in the sheriff's station, and she is important and must be protected, as Andy told us, so that is a point in favor. I'm not sure her appearance in the purple world early in the series jives with the idea she's Diane, but I think this is more likely than the other options above.

 

And of course, there is always Door number 4) Someone else is Diane or Diane is in the sheriff's station in some other form - spiritually, metaphysically or in a Josie-is-the-doorknob sort of way.

 

 

 

What if mouth-bleeding man is Billy, but Diane is inhabiting Billy ala Coop inhabiting Dougie????

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This was such a great episode!  Unfortunately I wasn't able to watch it Sunday night and woke up Monday morning to an A.V. club article with the headline "Dale Cooper is back, 100 percent."  WTF!!!!!!!!!!  Luckily there were plenty of other great things within the episode for me to enjoy even with that HUGE spoiler.  I do feel like I was robbed of potentially emotionally powerful moment though :-(  

 

 

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If only there was an Emmy for Outstanding Achievement in Delayed Gratification.

 

David Lynch would win hands down, but they'd make him wait 25 years + 15 hours to receive the award.

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If Candie was Diane, surely Awakened Coop would have recognized her on the plane... Unless her appearance has changed.

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If I'm getting it right, there are a few people suggesting BadCoop raped Audrey while she was in a coma in order to impregnate her so that there could be a decoy of him to put up on the rock? If so, I don't think I agree with that theory. First of all, that's not very pragmatic, if you understand how babies are made. Second of all, this guy has made at least one tulpa of a guy that looks exactly like himself but with different hair color (unless Good Coop made Dougie??) and also at least one other tulpa of Diane, why not just do that instead? We also don't know how the electrocuting rock works. Will it zap anyone that goes up there, or only Coop-DNA-having people or anyone that ISN'T Coop or what? Isn't it plausible he could've thrown any one from his arm wrestling army up there? Or does he literally have to sacrifice his son for some reason? I'm sure we'll get all the answers on Sunday!  (Just kidding)

 

I kind of get that BadCoop's motivation this season is essentially to avoid re-entry to the Red Room / Black Lodge essentially forever and in order to do that he needs to kill Good Coop. It seems like he's also trying to fry a bigger fish, something to do with Garland Briggs and Naido and other stuff we don't really understand yet. Something I don't really get is what's up with The Lost Years when he was making himself a drug-runner(?) billionaire in South America. Was that all in service of this elaborate plan, or was it a mirror reflection of some kind of ambition that Good Coop desired? Or is it the inverse of Good Coop's desire to settle down and lead a simple life? Hypothetically, if Bad Coop were to somehow succeed and close himself off from The Zone forever, what then?  Or does he actually want to storm the White Lodge and Run Things in The Zone? He is seemingly immortal or can't be killed by traditional means, like a werewolf or vampire, but he also seems to have needed assistance from the Woodsmen and is definitely not the most powerful lodge-related entity in this universe. 

 

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31 minutes ago, The Great Went said:

If I'm getting it right, there are a few people suggesting BadCoop raped Audrey while she was in a coma in order to impregnate her so that there could be a decoy of him to put up on the rock? If so, I don't think I agree with that theory. First of all, that's not very pragmatic, if you understand how babies are made. Second of all, this guy has made at least one tulpa of a guy that looks exactly like himself but with different hair color (unless Good Coop made Dougie??) and also at least one other tulpa of Diane, why not just do that instead? We also don't know how the electrocuting rock works. Will it zap anyone that goes up there, or only Coop-DNA-having people or anyone that ISN'T Coop or what? Isn't it plausible he could've thrown any one from his arm wrestling army up there? Or does he literally have to sacrifice his son for some reason? I'm sure we'll get all the answers on Sunday!  (Just kidding)

 

I kind of get that BadCoop's motivation this season is essentially to avoid re-entry to the Red Room / Black Lodge essentially forever and in order to do that he needs to kill Good Coop. It seems like he's also trying to fry a bigger fish, something to do with Garland Briggs and Naido and other stuff we don't really understand yet. Something I don't really get is what's up with The Lost Years when he was making himself a drug-runner(?) billionaire in South America. Was that all in service of this elaborate plan, or was it a mirror reflection of some kind of ambition that Good Coop desired? Or is it the inverse of Good Coop's desire to settle down and lead a simple life? Hypothetically, if Bad Coop were to somehow succeed and close himself off from The Zone forever, what then?  Or does he actually want to storm the White Lodge and Run Things in The Zone? He is seemingly immortal or can't be killed by traditional means, like a werewolf or vampire, but he also seems to have needed assistance from the Woodsmen and is definitely not the most powerful lodge-related entity in this universe. 

 

 

Good thoughts Great Went. I don't think Richard being the child of Audrey and BadCoop was part of any master plan. It's not even specifically clear that Audrey was physically raped in or out of a coma, although I'm well aware of the argument that BadCoop having sex with her under misleading circumstances could be considered a form of sexual abuse. And a rape does seem the most obvious explanation. That whole line of discussion is extremely sensitive, for obvious reasons. I don't personally agree with the assessment that BadCoop being a sexual predator is somehow a cop-out in The Return given Bob's nature in the original two seasons, but I understand why people are uncomfortable what the portrayal of what he did to Diane and Audrey

 

I do wonder what BadCoop would have done if Richard hadn't shown up when he did outside the convenience store, and whether he would have found someone else to test the rock location or some other way. I was surprised we didn't get any scenes of his conversation with Richard in the truck on the way there. His last words to Richard in Part 15 were "Get in the truck; we'll talk on the way." Maybe we'll get some kind of flashback in the final parts, but I kind of doubt it.

 

I think BadCoop's motivation is definitely avoiding re-entry to the Red Room, as you say, but he might also desire to storm the White Lodge. He has already effectively avoiding going back to the Red Room, but to ensure he stays out Cooper has to die. Bad Coop has been letting his minions work on that part of the plan while he has been doing other things, so I think it's fair to believe he has some other goal - otherwise, he could have just gone to Vegas to take care of GoodCoop himself. In part I or II, The Giant/Fireman tells Coop "They are in our house now. All cannot be said aloud now," so I think someone or something is infiltrating the White Lodge to storm the castle, as it were, but not sure if that means Bob/BadCoop or some other entity, like The Experiment/Mother and/or whatever is in Sarah Palmer.

 

By the by, I'm still not convinced Bob was removed from BadCoop during that scene in Part 8. I re-watched it the other day, and it seems to me more like the Woodsmen were doing Black Lodge first-aid on him rather than removing Bob. Obviously, I could be wrong, but that's a major assumption most people are making that I just don't think is clear at this point.

 

 

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51 minutes ago, Mentalgongfu said:

 

 

By the by, I'm still not convinced Bob was removed from BadCoop during that scene in Part 8. I re-watched it the other day, and it seems to me more like the Woodsmen were doing Black Lodge first-aid on him rather than removing Bob. Obviously, I could be wrong, but that's a major assumption most people are making that I just don't think is clear at this point.

I think the intention of the scene is definitely to show BOB being removed from Bad Coop. Because that's exactly what it shows--BOB being removed from Bad Coop. We don't see him being put back in. We see him lifted out of Coop, then there's electro-lightening-fog-machine effects. Then Cooper disappears for a few seconds. 

 

Now, true, we didn't see the Woodsmen run off with the BOB-blob. (Boblob?) But the show isn't generally THAT obtuse. We see BOB being lifted out. That's it. 

 

On that note, I wonder if BOB and Mr. C have somewhat different goals. When BOB/Mr. C are together in Ep II, he says that the strange symbol on the playing card is what he's after. And he built the glass box, presumably to trap that same entity. But after Episode 8, we see Cooper going on this grand journey all to find...Judy? And ask about Judy? And what the deal with Judy was? 

 

It's all very strange.

Edited by SkullKid
Formatting

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Listened to the podcast. GJ as usual. However, you guys seemed to get a little fuzzy with the whole Tulpa thing, and specifically Dougie.

 

We only ever witnessed the Tulpa Dougie in episode 3 when he was talking to Jade before being drawn into the Red Room, and then self-destructing in front of Mike. Good Cooper was never Dougie, he was just simply not fully there, which conveniently fit with certain sporadic aspects of Tulpa Dougie, which is why Janey-E, Bushnell etc presumed and accepted he was Dougie, just having an extended moment, a consequence of a car crash he was involved in at some point in his life (based on what was said). However, albeit we only saw him briefly it's clear that Tulpa Dougie despite being a bad seed created and drawn from Evil Cooper (prostitutes and formidable debt) was capable of driving (his car was the one that got blown up by the hitmen) as well as being able to hold down a job at the Insurance company. Any and all commentary by Sonny-Jim seems to relate to the Dougie he's known latterly.  

 

A Tulpa drawn from Good Cooper is likely going to be a perfectly functional replicant which encapsulates much of Cooper's resoluteness.  Neither Janey-E or Sonny Jim are going to be getting shortchanged. 

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1 hour ago, SkullKid said:

I think the intention of the scene is definitely to show BOB being removed from Bad Coop. Because that's exactly what it shows--BOB being removed from Bad Coop. We don't see him being put back in. We see him lifted out of Coop, then there's electro-lightening-fog-machine effects. Then Cooper disappears for a few seconds. 

 

Now, true, we didn't see the Woodsmen run off with the BOB-blob. (Boblob?) But the show isn't generally THAT obtuse. We see BOB being lifted out. That's it. 

 

On that note, I wonder if BOB and Mr. C have somewhat different goals. When BOB/Mr. C are together in Ep II, he says that the strange symbol on the playing card is what he's after. And he built the glass box, presumably to trap that same entity. But after Episode 8, we see Cooper going on this grand journey all to find...Judy? And ask about Judy? And what the deal with Judy was? 

 

It's all very strange.

Agree to disagree. Maybe you have a better stream or a better screen than I, but all I see is the blob sticking halfway out of BadCoop's chest at one point, and never actually separated from his body. And BadCoop never does anything to indicate Bob is no longer with him, after specifically noting he was still with him in the  prison. Nor do we have any knowledge from the show as to why Bob would be removed, why BadCoop getting shot would cause it to happen, or where he would go after. The closest thing we have is a ceiling fan image at the Palmers and something inside her, which is not like any Bob moment elsewhere in the current or two prior sessons. To claim the show "isn't that obtuse" when describing one of the strangest scenes of The Return strikes me as reaching a bit. Like I said, you may well be right in your conclusion, but I don't think it's clear in any way. 

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55 minutes ago, Kadayi said:

Listened to the podcast. GJ as usual. However, you guys seemed to get a little fuzzy with the whole Tulpa thing, and specifically Dougie.

 

We only ever witnessed the Tulpa Dougie in episode 3 when he was talking to Jade before being drawn into the Red Room, and then self-destructing in front of Mike. Good Cooper was never Dougie, he was just simply not fully there, which conveniently fit with certain sporadic aspects of Tulpa Dougie, which is why Janey-E, Bushnell etc presumed and accepted he was Dougie, just having an extended moment, a consequence of a car crash he was involved in at some point in his life (based on what was said). However, albeit we only saw him briefly it's clear that Tulpa Dougie despite being a bad seed created and drawn from Evil Cooper (prostitutes and formidable debt) was capable of driving (his car was the one that got blown up by the hitmen) as well as being able to hold down a job at the Insurance company. Any and all commentary by Sonny-Jim seems to relate to the Dougie he's known latterly.  

 

A Tulpa drawn from Good Cooper is likely going to be a perfectly functional replicant which encapsulates much of Cooper's resoluteness.  Neither Janey-E or Sonny Jim are going to be getting shortchanged. 

It's my hope/assumption that since the "new" Dougie is going to be built from the seed (glass bead) of old Dougie but the hair of good Coop, they'll end up with their old Dougie back, with whatever memories and feelings he has (from the seed) but without the parts bad Coop was injecting (because the hair source is switched).

 

Sorry if we play fast and loose with who Dougie is and who Cooper is. When it counts we try to be clear that it was actually two bodies changing locations, and not "Cooper taking over Dougie's body." Cooper took over Dougie's LIFE but their bodies are their own.*

 

* Dougie's of course, while his own, was created by Bad Coop. 

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I think the reason that Coop got out of his hospital bed, raring to go (aside from that being a call-back to Coop getting up from his hospital bed after being shot in season 2) is because he's got a schedule and a plan to fulfill. It seems as though all that time in the lodge(s) wasn't spent sitting in a black chair waiting but rather taking meetings with Mike and the Giant and any other entitity available to give Cooper the lowdown to help him understand what was necessary to make things right at the soonest available opportunity. It just so happened that the next opportunity was 25 years later. Twin Peaks, The Return pretty much opens with Cooper in conference with The Giant, who, in his eliptical way, was pretty much explaining to Cooper what needed to be done. Mike seemed to be there every step of the way offering all the assistance that he could. It all may have made little sense to the viewer but it made perfect resonant sense to Coop and his subsequent actions once he was (finally) awake described someone fully briefed and ready to go.

 

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@Persistence of 3 I pretty much agree with all of that. Something I want to add to it is that I felt like Mike and Cooper had a rapport, like "you're finally awake" read as both "we can finally enact this plan" and "oh good, my friend is ok" and I really liked that.

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I have a million thoughts about this AMAZING episode, but I wanted to mention something in re a thread that ran through another podcast (sorry, guys, I'm faithful to you in my way, but I have been with others). I think it was the podcast Diane that talked about the way the bad guys go out this season. If you're a shitty person who has a shitty soul you go out like a chump, with a shitty, sudden, stupid death. The contrast of Richard Horne being bug-zapped in distant focus, with no poignancy, no music or closeups, was contrasted so beautifully with Chantal and Hutch's Bonnie and Clyde style death--slow, close up, right after an intimate conversation that cements their bond. They had soul, even if they had no hearts, and their awful, protracted deaths pay honor to that, even with a tiny bow, considering how awful they were.

Something I've wondered for some time. Could Chantal and Hutch have been brother and sister? Maybe I've watched too much Game of Thrones, but did we ever have confirmation that they were a couple? Because they weren't intimate onscreen, and their shared last name might have been a family thing. Hutch encouraging Chantal to make out with Mr. C could have been an expression of desire to see his sister happy, as with getting her extra ketchup and a dessert.  Or I could have missed it.

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40 minutes ago, Cleinhun said:

@Persistence of 3 I pretty much agree with all of that. Something I want to add to it is that I felt like Mike and Cooper had a rapport, like "you're finally awake" read as both "we can finally enact this plan" and "oh good, my friend is ok" and I really liked that.

 

Those were great moments. He treats Mike like a cohort. When Cooper plucks his hair and asks about the seed, it pretty much demonstrates how very much aware of what's going on and how things work.

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And another thing. I have long thought that Philip Jeffries is the monkey in the room above the convenience store at "one of their meetings." He is the only one unaccounted for when the movie cuts back to the meeting and we see a pale (thin white duke) creature with up-brushed hair. The shots go directly from Bowie to the monkey. Jeffries with his up-brushed hair, pale in his white suit, and the white monkey intoning "Judy." That was his disguise. I can't find an image, sorry.

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