Jake

Twin Peaks Rewatch 52/53: The Return, Parts 17 and 18

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My brain is a jumble right now, so this post is going to be too.

 

That was EXACTLY what I wanted. My greatest fear going into the finale was that they were going to tie everything up with a neat little bow. 

The reason that Twin Peaks and FWWM endured for so many years--for me at least--was that the series lore seemed to make some kind of sense in a way that I could never grasp. This finale keeps the mystery going. There are so many questions.

 

*What happened to Audrey?

*What the hell was Gotta Light even about?

*Is it future or is it past?

 

Fuck, I loved this so much. I can't remember the last time I've been so completely satisfied after watching a series/movie etc.

 

Just some fun food for thought: Jeffries shows Cooper the number 8 which resembles a mobius strip, a theory that people love to force on everyone of Lynch's movies. Thought that was pretty funny.

 

The episode itself was incredible.Cooper definitely didn't seem like Cooper after he came out of the lodge. His face during the sex scene was really unsettling. And I love how quietly terrifying that whole last episode was. Diane seeing herself by the hotel lobby and then it was somehow scarier when in the next frame she wasn't there any longer. Then Cooper (Richard?) comes out of a different hotel and gets in a different car. And the whole night drive back to Twin Peaks was so scary. I'm going to be thinking about this for a long, long time. Fucking brilliant. 

 

Also, everyone should put everything on Youtube. Maybe David Lynch will make you a hero someday. Freddie was fantastic.

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Episode 17 seems to be the ending of the original canon of Twin Peaks, exiting the goofy soap opera world of former Twin Peaks for good, as represented by the awesome and over the top boxing match between Freddie and BOB. (as observed in this thread)

 

Episode 18 is entering a darker, weirder world of Twin Peaks, an even more surreal and horrific Lost Highway dream world. This might be the actual doppleganger to the good world of Twin Peaks. Where original Twin Peaks world had a consistent and goofy soap opera reality and a dichotomous good and evil; RichardCoop Twin Peaks world has eerie and quiet world of bland cowboys and home owners.

 

So if it's about Cooper chasing down Judy/Jowdy/Mother, as Frenden says, Mother created a new dream to obfuscate and hide. (as observed in this thread)

 

It's interesting the parallels between the ending of 18 as Carrie awakening from her nightmare, 17 of Cooper awaking from his Twin Peaks dream, and 16 as Audrey waking up from her Charlie and Roadhouse nightmare.

 

These are all distinct realities/dreams but with different flavors of the same person in each one. Ultimately it's human pawns trying to chase down the Jowdy/Mother lodge spirit. But to what end? What happens when they get to that? Maybe that's the point, there is no ending to the dream, or at least no awareness of what the outside of the dream would even look like to the dreamers.

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1 minute ago, UnpopularTrousers said:

 

Never has an empty sexual boast so encapsulated two confounding hours of television. 

 

Well said.

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I also think the lyrics of the Roadhouse credits songs all have pretty direct significance to the events of that episode, for the episodes that have such lyrics.

 

For example, episode 17 has Julee Cruise singing, "love, don't go away, come back and stay, always forever ... the world spins" this is a reflection that the old world love of Twin Peaks is gone forever, and the world spins into its new encarnation of even weirder Richard/Linda/Judy dream world.

 

 

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I made the mistake of touching the circuit board of a disposable camera in high school. The charge of the capacitor bucked my body and I was left with an empty tingling sensation.

 

That's how I feel after watching episode 18: like I have been electrocuted.

 

Dale Cooper feels like Roland from the Dark Tower. He's just completed his first cycle and there's signs he's making progress. Dale knew after seeing Diane that something was wrong, there was still something out there pulling the strings, which made what would be a severely happy moment feel worthless.

 

The final moments of season three is going to give me nightmares. I am deeply unsettled.

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My theory posted earlier definitely has cycle/Roland vibes, Plastic. I feel pretty good about it -- I'm happy with that being my interpretation and personal ending at least.

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For the first time in this series I have absolutely no desire to see or hear any fan theories, speculations, or explanation attempts. Right now I feel as though none will be good enough and most everything could make me think less of it, haha. I have to avoid the internet for a while I suppose. At least until my dumb ol' brain can parse some of this on its own. 

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Those last few moments were amazing. And the final closing credits. And Cooper's face being superimposed over all that stuff in 17. And the incredibly slow pan back and forth in the forest right before the credits in 17.

 

I have to confess that a fairly significant part of me wants more answers and a brighter tone for the ending. I didn't expect to get that (Lynch was co-helming, after all), and being dispassionate about it I know it's almost certainly better the way it is, but the part of me that wants something easier is definitely there, and won't keep quiet.

 

We actually got a lot more answers than I expected in the episodes running up to this, to be fair. And I guess those answers won't stick with me a fraction as long as this ending will. But man.

 

Richard Cooper definitely has an element of BadCoop to him.

 

Oh, and what's up with the corpse in Carrie's house? Feels like a dream. But I don't know.

 

I stayed up to watch it starting at 2 am local time (I took tomorrow off work), so I'm now incredibly tired. Not that I'd fare much better fully rested.

 

Jesus, what a show. What an ending.

 

Time to sleep.

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I wanted him to save Laura, so badly. Even if that would upend everything great about Twin Peaks and FWWM, I desperately wanted Cooper to rescue her and fix everything. I was so heartbroken by the end, along with Cooper and Laura. What a horrifying episode of television. We had the good Cooper back, only for him to revert to someone new. I like the interpretation of new Coop being a combination of his good and evil sides, that seems right. Time travel, dreams, the Black Lodge, none of really matters. The past is the past and there's nothing you can do about it.

 

I want to believe there's still hope though.

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I don't think Lynch and Frost are done with Twin Peaks. This felt like it's the ending in case it had to be, but it very deliberately left the door open. Sounds like right now it's time for Showtime to gauge fan reaction and ratings and make a decision. 

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I literally said, "Starring Kyle MacLachlan" as a joke at the end, like "Wouldn't it be funny if the credits rolled right now?"

And then they did.

 

I also like to think that an extension to the final scene is Cooper's phone ringing and it's the angry Vegas FBI guy to yell at him about finding people. This is what we do at the FBI!!!!

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Two overriding first impressions:

 

1. If there's anything I'm sure of, it's that the decision for Bad Coop to have raped both Audrey and Diane wasn't as flippant as it seemed in Episode 16—the trauma of sexual abuse continues to be central to the show. If this season is as much in the mold of Lynch's last three films as it seems to be, Audrey & Diane as a pair are central to the exchange between different levels of reality/narrative in the same way as Fred + Pete in Lost Highway, Betty/Diane + the dead girl in the apartment in Mulholland Drive, or Nikki/Sue + the Lost Girl in Inland Empire. The most Mulholland Drive-esque reading (which I'm not persuaded of, but is worth pursuing as far as it goes) is that all or part of Season 3 has been a product of Audrey's imagination—with Audrey projecting aspects of herself onto Diane and perhaps also Laura/"Keri Page." At the very least, Audrey's consciousness must have been involved with much of what's happened in the Black Lodge, and I don't think any interpretation of Season 3 can be satisfying without fully grappling with this. 

 

2. Kyle MacLachlan's last 45 minutes are a real rabbit-duck of a performance. The closest thing I can think to compare it to is the splicing of Ian McKellan and Christopher Lee's voices as Gandalf the White in The Two Towers. It's uncanny. At first I was convinced this was the doppelganger all over again. Going over the same scenes a second time, though, I can just as easily rationalize all the same mannerisms as coming from Cooper following the Gaint Fireman ???????'s hints while being distrustful of his surroundings. 

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It definitely felt like 17 and 18 are two different endings to two different shows, both of which fit into the various versions of Twin Peaks. It has always felt like Twin Peaks exists in a couple different modes; 18 skews more towards Fire Walk With Me, while 17 feels like it's an extension of the ending of Season 2. Throughout the whole season, The Return has felt like it's sometimes elegantly, sometimes inelegantly, blending together these divergent ideas of Twin Peaks, and so it only fits that it has to end twice. At least, that's how I see it. 

 

What an experience, though. The whole thing. I still don't even know what to feel. I'm so glad that I was able to watch this show with all of you. Twin Peaks on Sunday has been the highlight of my week for the last few months, and the first thing I do after each ep is come onto this forum to see what everyone has to say. And then, midweek, I'd get to listen to the podcast. This has, without a doubt, been the best experience I've had with a TV show. So thanks everyone for sharing this. Excited to do it all again during the Twin Peaks The Return Re-Watch Podcast comin' in 2020. 

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So weird that we got a totally unnecessary wrap-up for Janey-E + Dougie given everything else about that finale. I guess they were from a different world where things just work that way?

 

I'm 100000% on board with the ambiguity and nuance of the main thread's conclusion, but I gotta say it was painful not seeing any more of Audrey. Why show her trapped as she is? There was neither a ray of hope nor a decisive defeat nor a careful sprinkling of ambiguity. At least she got to dance...

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For anyone who hasn't watched the early parts of the season recently, I'll share something from a recent rewatch of episode 3:

 

It seems that the events of Episode 18 were Cooper's original "mission." Before he leaves the Lodge in episode 3, Mike tells him to remember the numbers 430 (the number of miles he'll drive before...whatever happens) and Richard and Linda 2 birds with 1 stone. Cooper says he understands. Leland similarly tasks him with "Find Laura." As he's walking down the familiar Black Lodge hallway, something prevents him from entering the part in the curtain. Seemingly, it's the fact that Bad Coop has found a way to not have to come back into the Lodge. After Bad Coop has been returned to the Lodge, this section of curtain in episode 18 is shaking uncontrollably and Cooper is reaching toward it while he's about halfway down the hall.

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I expected this to be a controversial topic on the forum but no one has really talked about it yet, so I will ask:

Are we to assume that the sexual encounter we saw between Diane and Cooper was the rape which she spoke about in episode 16? Because that's how I saw it, but can also understand why someone might disagree. 

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Just now, UnpopularTrousers said:

I expected this to be a controversial topic on the forum but no one has really talked about it yet, so I will ask:

Are we to assume that the sexual encounter we saw between Diane and Cooper was the rape which she spoke about in episode 16? Because that's how I saw it, but can also understand why someone might disagree. 

No, because Diane was raped in her house, and the sexual encounter we saw took place in a mysterious motel and then a different mysterious motel. 

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4 minutes ago, anoldtoilet said:

No, because Diane was raped in her house, and the sexual encounter we saw took place in a mysterious motel and then a different mysterious motel. 

Well sure, but it was after they had kissed once before and certainly seemed coercive and not like something Diane wanted to do. So much of the world was off and altered at that point that I don't think a change in location rules it out.

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2 hours ago, GregsVice said:

Jerry walked, like, 500 miles. Haha.

 

To the dinky town in Wyoming where I grew up, even!

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The crazy thing is this is a totally kickass setup for a season 4, even though it's probably intended as the end of the series.

 

Cooper and Laura Palmer as partners in a new alternate history Twin Peaks, trying to track down Sarah Palmer/The Mother?  I would watch that at least eight times!

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The sex scene was, like many other things in that final episode, an echo of something familiar, while still being entirely different. 

 

The more I think about episode 18, the more it feels like such a baffling nightmare. Oddly, the thing that sits the most with me was the corpse in Laura's(?) house. Cooper sees it and barely reacts, and there's no direct mention of it. Why did she feel okay letting an FBI agent see it? Why was there an automatic weapon there? Is this just an extreme way of letting us know she's in as much trouble as she ever was? Also, was that dude eating creamed corn before he died? 


 

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40 minutes ago, UnpopularTrousers said:

Well sure, but it was after they had kissed once before and certainly seemed coercive and not like something Diane wanted to do. So much of the world was off and altered at that point that I don't think a change in location rules it out.

 

if anything I'd say it's an emotional connection more than a literal 1:1. Knowing that BadCoop sexually abused Diane at one point makes the very uncomfy sex scene between those two (in what can only be described in a possibly alternate dimension?) signal to me some sort of change in at least one of their characters. My gut is kind of leaning towards the theory that the Coop we see in the 2nd half of Pt. 18 is a combination of the good and bad sides of the man. Someone's who is heroic when needed and has a just mission to fulfill, but is also manipulative and uses his power to get there.

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I would be really disappointed if this wasn't the end of the show, personally. I can't quite set my feelings out 100% coherently right now, but that ending in particular feels so emotionally correct in terms of what The Return has been. Kyle Maclachlan's performance as the... LostCoop, I guess, was out-fucking-standing. The way Cooper eyes leered with Diane, the way he kept his gun pointed during the Judy's scene, and the looks he gave when he wasn't in complete control of a given situation are the kind of subtle changes in a performance that made Pt. 18 for me, regardless of how I think it fits into everything. Now, I just need to spend some time working it out. 

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