Jake

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

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2 hours ago, Digger said:

Now I have tried to make it meaningful.  I have decided Dougie was Cooper's chance at happiness, and that by creating the tulpa he has given up a part of himself and allowed that part domestic bliss and no Blue Rose wackiness or giant evil entity insanity.  That Coop gets a happy ending.  I have very little in the show to back this up.  I don't know if new Dougie has much awareness of the world.  He said only one word, "Home."  Is he able to do and say more.  Dougie one was not a great husband, was that because he was made of the vices evil Coop was made of.  Don't know.  No explanation.  INformation deliberately withheld.  Disrespectful.  You'll never know, and I've not given you enough information to understand.

 

Man, I literally don't see how you reach the concluding disappointment of this quote from the start of this quote. It's a really interesting interpretation that makes sense, that i have not seen, and that I have not thought of. It reads as fun and valuable exploratory curiosity but you spin it into begrudging empty digging. wtf!

 

edit: wait, are you mocking others who came up with this theory or is this your theory?

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1 hour ago, The Great Went said:

 I don't know if it's my computer or what but it looked a whole lot not like teenage Laura Palmer and I just figured they CGI'd "youth filter" on Sheryl Lee's face. IMO when teenage Laura Palmer talks to Cooper it was the weakest part of the episode to me, and one of the more over-the-top-but-not-clearing-the-hurdle visual effects. I was bummed that Cooper tried to save Laura, it seemed very naive for a guy who had been through what he'd been through -- and yeah, I guess now I don't understand if he actually Back To The Future'd all of Twin Peaks or not. 

Yeah, she was wearing some pretty baggy clothes which probably did a descent job of covering up the weight. And they digitally de-aged her face I'm guessing. De-aging has come a long way since X-men 3 LOL. The fact that it's a dark scene probably goes a long way in making it pretty seamless as well. and things like keeping her out of focus (and the fact the scene was shot mostly in black and white). It all cut together pretty seamlessly I thought. I wasn't exactly looking for seams or anything though.

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2 minutes ago, Nordelnob said:

It all cut together pretty seamlessly I thought. I wasn't exactly looking for seams or anything though.

 

Yeah, if I can accept cheesy floating balls of blackened flesh and caged Mr. C's heads and Major Briggs heads in the red room and the theatre, I'm kind of ok with accepting the idea of whatever any CGI sketch is trying to get across

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I assumed that Coop went to save Laura because the show mentioned at some point that she's the key to all of this and if the Fireman mentions Richard and Linda to Coop, then he knew that was going to happen and is part of the plan? 

 

But i I have no idea and I'm just guessing.

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6 hours ago, Digger said:

I have decided Dougie was Cooper's chance at happiness, and that by creating the tulpa he has given up a part of himself and allowed that part domestic bliss and no Blue Rose wackiness or giant evil entity insanity.  That Coop gets a happy ending.  I have very little in the show to back this up.  I don't know if new Dougie has much awareness of the world.  He said only one word, "Home."  Is he able to do and say more.  Dougie one was not a great husband, was that because he was made of the vices evil Coop was made of.  Don't know.  No explanation.  INformation deliberately withheld.  Disrespectful.  You'll never know, and I've not given you enough information to understand.

 

Based on Jake's take on Dougie, I always partially felt that DougieCoop was a reward for Special Agent Dale Cooper. A chance to experience what having a family would be like. DougieCoop being such a MrMagoo, living a charmed life surrounded by gangsters with heart of gold only seemed to emphasize this. It was a respite for Cooper, before he has the move on.

 

That take doesn't really make that much sense, but I am fond of it.

 

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13 minutes ago, MechaTofuPirate said:

I assumed that Coop went to save Laura because the show mentioned at some point that she's the key to all of this

"Laura is the key to all this, if we get Laura working. 'Cause she's a funnier character than we've ever had..."

-David Lynch

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8 hours ago, UnpopularTrousers said:

 

So I don't think it's that Lynch didn't care, I think its that he cared about different things than you. 

 

 

Incorrect, though I understand what you're getting at. I didn't bring a set of expectations to this season. I've been a fan of Lynch's films for a long time, I assumed the return would be elliptical and challenging. Given the way the first iteration of TP ended, it always seemed very clear that Lynch is more interested in complex human feelings and vagaries of self than story/lore. That's just his style.

 

I would agree that Lynch cared about different things than I did if The Return consisted entirely of those final two hours. The problem is that we had to wait through 16 hours of events that we now know to be largely pointless...and that intentionally set up expectations Lynch ultimately laughed off (Freddie/Bob) or simply discarded (Audrey). To give a more obvious example: there were many scenes of Dougie/Coop seeing things he almost recognized, having moments of alertness and "almost" waking up. I think it's fair that many people thought Cooper was going to wake up and be himself again...those were the pieces Lynch put in place. Now, it's more clear: the entire Dougie/Cooper story line served no purpose. The build up fizzled out...Cooper never truly woke up...we got a few token minutes of Cooper one liners and then he was Richard, an Evil Cooper-esque figure.

 

The point is: I didn't want things and feel disappointed that they never happened...I wanted the things that were there to mean something. I didn't want to waste 16 hours of my life feeling and thinking all so that I could get a finale that spit in my face and then...once again...just stranded Cooper in a state of failure. Those 16 hours of build up are more of the problem for me than the finale.

 

The one story line that ultimately proved meaningful happened right at the beginning. Two idiots staring at a box and getting attacked...that meant something. That was Lynch indicating his views about the audience and the art. I don't think the return was simply trolling or making fun of the audience. I think it was a complex, difficult creation that was specifically about the artist and the audience. For whatever reason, and I blame myself, I didn't get the message. The finale made his antagonism for the viewer far more explicit. I regret having watched this season. And unlike some folks, I don't think there is any chance Lynch intends a follow up. That was it. He decided that his last run with TP would be this bullshit finale. It's just bitterly disappointing.

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I haven't gotten ANY work done today. I'm still reeling.

 

My thoughts have coalesced a bit more and I'm starting to get a clearer sense of what I think happened - thematics aside - on a purely character/plot level:

 

Bad Coop goes to the second set of coordinates which takes him into the white lodge/theatre room. He intends to warp to Judy/Sarah Palmer (evidenced by the image of the Palmer house on the screen) but the Fireman swipes left on that shit and sends him to the Twin Peaks sheriff's office instead. Bad Coop is confused - "What is this?" - but sees it as an opportunity to visitmurder some old friends. The Fireman sent him there knowing that Freddie Hulkhand and Coop Actual are converging on the scene, and they have the powerglove to kill Bob, and the ring to finally send Bad Coop back to the lodge.

 

The Bob-orb (Bob-bomb?) fight happens - and SUCCESS! At this point, we're in happy ending land. Bob is banished, Bad Coop is out of the picture, and Diane is unlocked from her Naido prison. Coop Actual relishes a final moment with his collected friends. In his heart, and with knowledge gained from 25 years of whatever the hell happened to him in the red room, Coop seizes the opportunity to destroy the malevolent evil Judy. To do this he needs (the One) Laura Palmer, and he needs her alive.

 

Coop Actual uses his hotel room key to open a door to Motel De Woodsmen, which also happens to be the source of the ringing sound at the Great Northern. There he meets multiple Grammy-Award-winning kettle Phillip Jeffries, who sends him to the past at Coop's request, specifically the night of her murder.

 

Back in 1989 now. After incorrectly deducing that James is not cool, Laura Palmer storms off into the forest to meet her untimely demise. This time though, she is intercepted by Cooper, who tells her he's taking her home. Given that Coop's on a mission to eliminate Judy, this to me says that even back then, Sarah Palmer had "Judy" within her. Perhaps it was latent back then, awakening fully only after a great trauma (like the murder of your daughter and the revelation that it was your husband, perhaps) This lends validity to the theory that Sarah Palmer is in fact the young girl who swallows the bug in Ep 8.

 

I digress. Coop leads Laura by hand through the night. As they approach the warp zone Laura is suddenly whisked away, leaving Coop alone. I believe this is the work of Judy, for she cannot kill Laura on her own - Sarah Palmer repeatedly smashes a glass bottle into the photograph of Laura, and there's not a scratch on it - but she can send her away, to another place and time, where she might forget herself completely, and Coop might not follow.

 

But Coop is nothing if not persistent. Heeding advice from the Fireman and other lodge entities (as well as Leland Palmer himself) he continues the hunt for Laura, driving with Diane to a specific location flanked by huge electrical towers. Coop warns Diane, "Once we cross it could all be different," and after sharing a final kiss as the Cooper and Diane we know, they breach the veil.

 

-

 

I'm hazy on the events from here, but I have my theories. I might amend this post after I've thought on it more. Thanks for reading!

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5 hours ago, marblize said:

 

Man, I literally don't see how you reach the concluding disappointment of this quote from the start of this quote. It's a really interesting interpretation that makes sense, that i have not seen, and that I have not thought of. It reads as fun and valuable exploratory curiosity but you spin it into begrudging empty digging. wtf!

 

edit: wait, are you mocking others who came up with this theory or is this your theory?

It's my theory, but Lynch and Frost have not given me enough info to give it any legs.

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On the specific issue of the newly introduced "Judy" mythology: I can't help but view this as an explicit criticism of the idea of imposing concrete lore on things that should be mysterious, ethereal and unknowable. It's a blatant retcon seemingly tossed in at the last moment. So, sometime during late season 2 (presumably?), Cooper, Briggs and Gordon Cole met up and hatched this plan to go after Judy? Okay then. :rolleyes:

 

Thing is, I don't if Lynch and Frost intended it to be perceived this way. I know that people have found that the "Judy" phrase may mean something like "explanation", and that certainly seems like something Lynch would regard as negative.

 

I guess it's specifically the last-minute placement of this revelation in the story and it's blatant retcon nature that seems so mocking to me. Perhaps if this information was revealed earlier in the season and worked into the story more it would seem quite different, even if the specific information revealed was the same.

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To me, the introduction of Judy as this larger evil feels like a solution to the regrettable unavailability of Frank Silva. Especially if there is going to be a season 4 (which I'm frankly inclined to think there will be).

 

As to what actually happens in these last two episodes, I agree with Captain Fram (as well as the many others who've proposed similar theories here and elsewhere) that Laura is whisked away by Judy (symbolically shown by Sarah smashing the picture) and hidden away into another reality where she can't be "the one".

 

When I first watched the finale two days ago, I was cautiously satisfied. However, my appreciation and love for it has grown more and more since then and right now, I can't imagine it ending any other way. I certainly was never expecting any overt resolution, since Lynch had spent 25 years stating his disapproval of the central mystery having been resolved in the first place.

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People who say they've wasted 18 hours because they were pointless - did you really get no enjoyment from any of it? I just don't get that. The finale could have been 2 hours of a turd emoji on screen and the preceding episodes would still be 16 incredibly stimulating and though-provoking hours. I've spent the whole time eyes wide, leaning towards the TV.

 

The Return has been almost all very good stuff, pregnant with meaning and commentary. Most of it probably won't even hit me until I've watched and rewatched it again, but there's space in the season for all sorts of interpretations and readings, many of which we've read here. The idea that Lynch is giving his audience the finger - it's just so petty. It screams of the need to have one's time and ideas validated in a very particular way, without being challenged or asked to question anything. Delayed gratification seems only to be tolerated if that eventual gratification conforms to extremely rigid conventional parameters. Would 18 hours of thumbs up and pie-noshing have pleased these people? Those moments were all there - there was so much fan service in the Return! I'm glad that they've also managed to include the genuine 'wtf'ness of TP and not the mid-late S2 brand of it.

 

I am so excited to see this all again on a bluray. Some very dark scenes again in the finale - I need to rewatch it soon. I'm also gagging for the Final Dossier audiobook, although I think it will mainly concentrate on Twin Peaks characters between 1990 and 2015.

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I think I like FilmCriticHulk's interpretation of Judy best, when he says: 

"There’s an image from the finale that’s burned into my brain. It’s when Teapot Phillip Jeffries takes the Owl Cave Ring sign and turns it into the infinity symbol as the small ball curls through it. I already mentioned how it reflects the changing scope of the narrative, but it also reflects the cycle of getting trapped in abuse. We travel along the infinity symbol, treated to the unending layers and layers of obfuscation, never realizing we are carving the same path again and again. To me, this is “Judy,” our negative force. It traps us in the belief that all this will go on and on, ad infinitum, forever and ever. It is to look at all of the despair and abuse in the world and see hell unending. There is no entity more dark"

 

From his Episode 17/18 recap - http://www.vulture.com/2017/09/twin-peaks-the-return-finale-recap.html

 

If you care about all the different numbers being thrown around in the show, fatecolossal has a really interesting twitter thread in which they break down what Cooper might mean when he says "What year is this?" at the end. 

 

 

Between these two theories, I think what Cooper might have intended by bringing Laura home was for her to face the trauma that she experienced all those years ago. To come to terms with it and bring an end to her suffering. He did, after all, think he was taking her to Sarah Palmer, who seems to have a strong connection to the malevolent force of "Judy". But Cooper is baffled when they don't meet Sarah and instead find someone else. "What year is this?" The numbers don't add up. There is a glimmer of hope when it seems that Carrie Page has awoken the memories of Laura but that is all we get to see. And perhaps that is all we are meant to see. There is always an element of uncertainty when Twin Peaks reaches a conclusion, and maybe that is simply the state Twin Peaks exists in. FilmCriticHulk's analysis is worth reading in full but I'll quote it again once more: 

"This is the forever state of Twin Peaks. Whether it’s waiting a week or 25 years, the cycles of plots and cliffhangers and expectations meet at the nexus of ad infinitum, the same way forever, over and over again. It’s frustrating because we may never get “out” of it through resolution or definitive ending. But like life itself, there is only that which may come to be, and that which is cut down before its time. We are the trapped magicians, longing to see between two worlds, to see through time and what the future of a show may bring. We are the ones who risk being burned by the fire itself."

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Freddy!  Not James! 

I love it.

 

My favorite thing at the moment is Freddy.

 

James could have been The Hero in a conventional narrative. All the pieces are in place across the corpus of the show.  It would have been an excellent arc.  Everything Freddy did could have been written for James (they were literally standing next to each other for all of Freddy's scenes). 

 

But Frost and Lynch were having none, none of that.  All of the heroes, all possible tidy arcs, are subverted.  And in these final two eps, we were instead given much needed additional emotional resonance.

 

Very happy.

 

Also, maybe Freddy is James' Tulpa.  Or what James dreams of being.

 

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7 hours ago, The Great Went said:

 

Yeah, it seemed kinda like Episode 17 was Mark Frost's finale and 18 was Lynch's. 

I don't know about that. Frost said in an interview that it took Lynch and him a full year to write the first two hours of the show. Those first two hours are FULL of clues that don't pay off until part 18. So I think the actual interlocking mystery parts of this season are totally Frost. I do think it's safe to say that he didn't anticipate 10 cumulative minutes of just driving, though. 

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34 minutes ago, SkullKid said:

 I do think it's safe to say that he didn't anticipate 10 cumulative minutes of just driving, though. 

 

So one might say that Coop was the driving force behind the finale. 

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10 hours ago, Nordelnob said:

 But the entire tone of the that last episode was deliberately empty and maybe there's a better adjective... down, depressing. Coop is now no longer the happy vibrant person he was. Diane is having rape trauma and leaves him.

When you put it like that, it seems ridiculous to suggest it could have happened any other way. Whether Dale Cooper literally spent 25 years out of time and existence, or just came out of the black lodge and became a murderous criminal and rapist, what else could he be as he approaches his 60s other than empty, damaged and alone, and on a quixotic quest to right a wrong (laura's murder) which is irreversible and from which, like many trauma victims, he can never move on. It's the most psychologically true outcome.

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The thing that's really stuck in my head is the image of Diane seeing herself at the motel after Cooper walked inside. Since this purgatorial place seems to take place outside of time, maybe multiple versions of oneself can exist. Maybe a Bad Cooper walked out of that motel and got in the car with that Diane, whereas a Good Cooper (though one still not entirely in control of his mental faculties) walked out and got in a different car with that *other* Diane. The sex scene we see features Bad Coop, whereas somewhere off screen, another Coop and Diane share a similar romantic moment. Basically, the Coop we see wake up in the morning and yell for Diane is not the same Coop that we saw in the sex scene. 

 

It's as if the same thing keeps happening in this same place over and over, in slightly different ways. 

 

But probably not. I feel like there's a simple answer to all this buried underneath Lynch's artistic flourishes. 

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tfw when you were carefully visiting one page at a time and/or not going past stuff you'd stopped at before and suddenly all threads are marked as "read" and you don't know why and know you've lost track of what you've read and where you were.

 

:(

 

Anyway, been great keeping tabs on this forum. It was busy yet just contained enough for me to follow everything so I ended up spending a lot more time here than dugpa and reddit, which could get overwhelming. And can't wait to hear Chris and Jake on this two-parter. As I said on Twitter, I can't think of anything more in their wheelhouse than deep-diving into the wild juxtaposition between super-lore-y comic-book showdown and existential avant-garde road trip (and everything else in between).

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On 9/4/2017 at 8:54 AM, Emily said:

I don't normally go in on this kind of specific interpretation of the lore but is it possible that the Cooper we see at the end (Richard) is the "complete" Cooper? If you take the differences between Dale Cooper and Mr. C to be the literal embodiment of good vs evil, perhaps the Cooper that arrived at the beginning of the original show was already acting as one half of a whole person. Part of what draws us to that character in the original show is his eccentric warmth and overwhelming capacity for kindness. As I was trying to sleep after the finale last night I was thinking of all the times Phillip Jeffries encounters Coop and the doubts he has about whether he's speaking to the real Cooper, as far as back as FWWM when Cooper hasn't yet arrived in Twin Peaks.

 

I'm probably way off but it's something that my mind was mulling over as I was trying to take in everything that finale gave us. 

 

This is a good point, because when Cooper awoke in the hospital and was very apparently the full character we knew from s1/s2 I thought, "Well there goes the (more interesting to me) idea that good and evil Cooper are both parts of a singular whole." But maybe in a way the Cooper we're seeing in Pt. 18 is the "real" Coop to the extent "real" has meaning in a show that blurs so many boundaries? Only real counter to this idea is that in s2 they were already trying to show Coop as a flawed individual leading up to his downfall in the finale.

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1 hour ago, SkullKid said:

The thing that's really stuck in my head is the image of Diane seeing herself at the motel after Cooper walked inside. Since this purgatorial place seems to take place outside of time, maybe multiple versions of oneself can exist. Maybe a Bad Cooper walked out of that motel and got in the car with that Diane, whereas a Good Cooper (though one still not entirely in control of his mental faculties) walked out and got in a different car with that *other* Diane. The sex scene we see features Bad Coop, whereas somewhere off screen, another Coop and Diane share a similar romantic moment. Basically, the Coop we see wake up in the morning and yell for Diane is not the same Coop that we saw in the sex scene. 

 

It's as if the same thing keeps happening in this same place over and over, in slightly different ways. 

 

But probably not. I feel like there's a simple answer to all this buried underneath Lynch's artistic flourishes. 

I wouldn't dismiss it so fast. I've gotten the same or a very similar feeling. This entire season seems to have been about multiple or alternate realities/dimensions/planes of existence. And there seem to be little hints. Particularly whenever two shots dissolve and overlap and separate from each other (this happens quite often when there is some otherworldly force nearby or important cosmic events, etc.., for instance when Cooper asked Freddy if he was Freddy). When the minute hand on the clock in the Sheriff's station went both backwards and forwards and they did that dissolve where both shots are on top of each other. It seems to imply that the two realities that are supposed to by one are diverging. The literal world where things runs forwards, and the dream world where at least in the lodge, things seem to run backwards. And there have been a couple that I've noticed with Cooper.

 

12 minutes ago, LostInTheMovies said:

This is a good point, because when Cooper awoke in the hospital and was very apparently the full character we knew from s1/s2 I thought, "Well there goes the (more interesting to me) idea that good and evil Cooper are both parts of a singular whole." But maybe in a way the Cooper we're seeing in Pt. 18 is the "real" Coop to the extent "real" has meaning in a show that blurs so many boundaries? Only real counter to this idea is that in s2 they were already trying to show Coop as a flawed individual leading up to his downfall in the finale.

I doesn't quite wash literally. But thematically it kind of makes sense.

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The driving scenes remind me of the 1972 Solaris, where highway photography was used as the imagery for when the characters make their journey from earth to the Solaris planet.

 

 

 

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On 9/4/2017 at 9:06 AM, Hansel Bosch said:

 

If that's true, then Kyle MacLachlan played no less that six versions of Cooper this season!

 

1. Passive Cooper trapped in the red room

2. Mr. C

3. The "real" Dougie Jones

4. Cooper trapped in Dougie's body

5. The returned Dale Cooper

6. The Cooper/Mr. C amalgam you mentioned

 

If nothing else, MacLachlan has done a fantastic job this season differentiating between these characters.

 

(Personally, I hate the idea that the good Cooper, the boy scout Cooper from the first two seasons , was not the real one, and is replaced with the somewhat morose and confused Cooper we saw in Episode Eighteen. But the finale certainly implies that's what happened, at least in whatever alternate reality has ended up in.)

 

 

EDIT: Maybe there are actually seven versions of Cooper! The second tulpa greeted by Janey-E, created by "good" Cooper from his hair, may be different from the tulpa created from Dark Cooper.

 

 

 

 

Don't forget the second version of Dougie (who seems pretty different from the first) who returns to Janey-E and Sonny Jim at the beginning of pt18!

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9 minutes ago, plasticflesh said:

 

The driving scenes remind me of the 1972 Solaris, where highway photography was used as the imagery for when the characters make their journey from earth to the Solaris planet.

 

 

 

 

Interesting, Stalker has been coming up a lot on Twitter.

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