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

[utilityfrog]

5 minutes ago, huskerfan5b said:

That was Dougie in the red room when saying "Where am I?" and then sleeping Dougie Coop at the door to house saying "Home". Not the same person. 

 

Huh? In what way are they not the same person? Everything from Dougie2's creation to his arrival at the Jones house all but states that he's the same person. The music that plays over Dougie2's "birth" continues unbroken as he arrives at the house, and the swooping camera move into the Jones' front door implies a lodge-related method of arrival. He responds to Janey-E's and Sonny-Jim's hugs immediately, which is something Coop-as-Dougie was incapable of.

[utilityfrog]

@MabaseSlums Yep, I agree with what you're saying here. This ending is I think the most bleakly, horrifyingly depressing thing Lynch has ever created. I think any kind of continuation would undermine it, though I don't really expect there will be one. Coop's misguided actions have doomed both himself and Laura to an eternity of uncertain dream horror, terrible revelations always on the edge of their minds, sometimes spilling over into consciousness and shattering their world, only for their journey to begin again.

[SkullKid]

I think, more and more, that Cooper and Diane are different in the alt-world NOT because they're amalgams of their past selves, but because, like DougieCoop earlier in the season, they're not entirely "awake." 

 

It's really the DougieCoop thing all over again. 

 

Consider: DougieCoop displayed some of Coop's qualities and desires, but had to be triggered by a strong memory to to be woken up completely and understand his purpose. Similarly, AltCoop displays some of Coop's qualities, but it noticeably more muted and straightforward. DougieCoop begins to fully awaken when he hears the name Gordon Cole. AltCoop AND AltLaura begin to fully awaken when they realize they don't know what year it is--when they realize the artifice of this world. 

[pabosher]

Hey you all. Remember how happy and GoodCoop-like Dougie was when getting home? Hugging his wife and kid and saying “Home”? And how muted Coop was in his quest to save Laura? How, perhaps, Diane-tulpa-like? What if Coop did the first selfish thing in his life and created a Tulpa to continue his life in the FBI, and he went to live the life he never had with Janey-E and Sonny Jim?

 

JUST SAYIN

[Captain Fram]

14 minutes ago, pabosher said:

Hey you all. Remember how happy and GoodCoop-like Dougie was when getting home? Hugging his wife and kid and saying “Home”? And how muted Coop was in his quest to save Laura? How, perhaps, Diane-tulpa-like? What if Coop did the first selfish thing in his life and created a Tulpa to continue his life in the FBI, and he went to live the life he never had with Janey-E and Sonny Jim?

 

JUST SAYIN

 

Huh. I don't think this is what happened, but it's a hell of a thought.

[axis1500]

I'm starting to think the ending may have been good. The Palmers' lives have been corrupted by the evil forces that lie in electricity. (Insert ominous ceiling fan shot here.) At the end the power in the Palmer household went dead. The electricity will control them no more. That fan will never spin again.

[Joewintergreen]

I didn't hear Sarah saying "Laura" at the end the first time. I just went back to re-listen, and then to Sarah smashing the photo in 17, and reckon those two things - Laura hearing her name and screaming, and Sarah smashing the photo - are probably happening at the same time. The music is real loud when Sarah's whacking away at the photo, but she is vocalising.

[pabosher]

22 minutes ago, Captain Fram said:

 

Huh. I don't think this is what happened, but it's a hell of a thought.

 

Nor do I, really, but my girlfriend noted straight away when ‘Coop’ left the room into Glastonbury grove that he seemed different. What if it was a different Coop? What if his promise to Janey-E and Sonny Jim was honest, when he said he’d come home to them?

[unimural]

17 hours ago, Don't Go There said:

These things aren’t ambiguities. These are examples of bad storytelling. These aren’t mysteries meant for us to solve, because mysteries require clues. These are abandoned plotlines. The main story- of Cooper and Diane and Laura- that is, I think, a mystery. I like it, because it works as a conclusion to Peaks as a whole, and it works as a possible hook for another season, and it has just enough to it for us to grab on to and speculate and theorize forever.

 

Early in the season three I had to ask myself: "Why am I watching this? Would I watch this if this was made by anyone else except Lynch." Probably not. But I do think what Lynch does wouldn't work if it was just good storytelling. It's some weird form of worldbuilding by osmosis. A shadow image based on what we don't see. I doesn't always quite work. But I think if season three had been cut down to the central storyline, of Cooper getting lost in Dougie on his way to try and find Laura, it wouldn't have worked the same.

 

I know this sounds very Stockholm syndrome, and perhaps it's just that. Sunk costs. I'm also not suggesting it's an intricately built thing where everything is just so for a specific purpose, effect. I think it's a mess, partly made on impulse. But, I think, ultimately, I'm glad that Lynch, for once, got to do exactly what he wanted to do and I got to see it. If the price of admission is some dissatisfaction and abandoned stories, so be it.

 

EDIT: Also, thank you for a thorough dissection on your reaction. It helped me my to gel mine. Even if mine is a bit of a cop-out :-)

Edited September 6, 2017 by unimural

[pabosher]

7 minutes ago, unimural said:

 

Early in the season three I had to ask myself: "Why am I watching this? Would I watch this if this was made by anyone else except Lynch." Probably not. But I do think what Lynch does wouldn't work if it was just good storytelling. It's some weird form of worldbuilding by osmosis. A shadow image based on what we don't see. I doesn't always quite work. But I think if season three had been cut down to the central storyline, of Cooper getting lost in Dougie on his way to try and find Laura, it wouldn't have worked the same.

 

I know this sounds very Stockholm syndrome, and perhaps it's just that. Sunk costs. I'm also not suggesting it's an intricately built thing where everything is just so for a specific purpose, effect. I think it's a mess, partly made on impulse. But, I think, ultimately, I'm glad that Lynch, for once, got to do exactly what he wanted to do and I got to see it. If the price of admission is some dissatisfaction and abandoned stories, so be it.

 

EDIT: Also, thank you for a thorough dissection on your reaction. It helped me my to gel mine. Even if mine is a bit of a cop-out :-)

 

I think this is exactly right, and linked into why some of the effects in the show are “bad” and why some are seamless - he’s trying to evoke feelings and emotions, even if it doesn’t always make literal sense. 

 

I personally found the Freddie/BOB fight incredible tense and thrilling, despite the schlocky effects, for example. I knew it was ridiculous and yet I was completely under its spell. 

[prangman]

@Don't Go There you raise some really good points. I'm not so bothered about the incomplete character arcs- I think whether or not you see them as incomplete is subjective to an extent- but some of the plot dead ends do bother me. In particular:

-the 119 drug addict and her son

-the box in Buenos Aires (which   I wasn't in alone in thinking could have 'been' Phillip Jeffries, or at the very least a means of transmission between the 'real' world and wherever Jeffries is/was

-Hawk finding the entrance to the red room in the first episode(s). Why were we shown this- I was mega excited as I really thought Hawk was going to go into the Lodge and save the day.

 

Looking at these now, I can accept that '119' is standard Lynch enigma, and Hawk's scenes could have been poorly edited (although, as a massive Hawk fan, there was also an element of wish fulfillment in the possibility of Hawk saving Coop). But the box in Buenos Aires? And its link to the Hip Hop woman gruesomely murdered by Ike, who types 'Argent' into her phone?

 

[Don't Go There]

7 minutes ago, pabosher said:

 

I think this is exactly right, and linked into why some of the effects in the show are “bad” and why some are seamless - he’s trying to evoke feelings and emotions, even if it doesn’t always make literal sense. 

 

I personally found the Freddie/BOB fight incredible tense and thrilling, despite the schlocky effects, for example. I knew it was ridiculous and yet I was completely under its spell. 

I loved the Saga of Freddie and His Magic Gardening Glove of Awesomeness.

 

6 minutes ago, prangman said:

@Don't Go There you raise some really good points. I'm not so bothered about the incomplete character arcs- I think whether or not you see them as incomplete is subjective to an extent- but some of the plot dead ends do bother me. In particular:

-the 119 drug addict and her son

-the box in Buenos Aires (which   I wasn't in alone in thinking could have 'been' Phillip Jeffries, or at the very least a means of transmission between the 'real' world and wherever Jeffries is/was

-Hawk finding the entrance to the red room in the first episode(s). Why were we shown this- I was mega excited as I really thought Hawk was going to go into the Lodge and save the day.

 

Looking at these now, I can accept that '119' is standard Lynch enigma, and Hawk's scenes could have been poorly edited (although, as a massive Hawk fan, there was also an element of wish fulfillment in the possibility of Hawk saving Coop). But the box in Buenos Aires? And its link to the Hip Hop woman gruesomely murdered by Ike, who types 'Argent' into her phone?

 

Thinking further, I think that, perhaps, Lynch and Frost would consider the Audrey storyline finished. And, if I assume that, then it's probably safe to assume she was in a coma. At this point, I think I can accept that, though, if that is the case, I'm not crazy about the execution of it.

 

I love everything about the special effects in this show. Years ago, when Roger Ebert did a commentary track for "Dark City", he mentioned that special effects shouldn't always look realistic, and I think that applies to this show. The very unrealistic quality to much of the effects work in "The Return" is part of what makes them disturbing.

[Cleinhun]

The more I think about it the more side stories I remember that never went anywhere. Like the scene with Bobby and the honking woman and the barfing zombie child, what was that about? We don't know because it was never mentioned again. But I do know that I enjoyed that scene immensely at the time. There's also things like the Ed and Norma story that did have a resolution, but still didn't impact the central plot at all, so is that better? If you cut out all the unresolved side stories you'd lose a lot of my favorite scenes, so I think I'm ok with the show being what it is.

 

I feel like if I watched it again knowing how it end up it might feel more like a collection of vignettes about the people adjacent to a central plot, rather than a story about that central plot. I mean, it's "starring Kyle Mclaughlin" but there are large stretches of the show where he doesn't even appear.

[Captain Fram]

@Don't Go There The Judy/Mother/Experiment face hidden under the Sarah Palmer mask is one of the most unsettling images of this whole season. A lot of its impact is because of the "harshness" of the effect; it feels so bizarre and just plain WRONG.

 

[SkullKid]

To those talking about plot threads that don't matter, I would argue that's true about the entirety of Twin Peaks. When I first watched the show a few years ago I had the same thought that I had watching S3, which was, "So all those side stories were just pointless? Totally tossed aside for this insane, triply ending?" But when I rewatched the show I realized they weren't pointless--they were incredibly entertaining in their own right. Shelly and Leo, Ed and Norma, the Packhard Mill crap, the Audrey storyline--none of it went anywhere, but it added a lot of character to the show, a lot of mood, and they were entertaining vignettes despite having no resolution. In this season it's the same, really. The Detectives Fusco, the Bobby/Shelly stuff, the Becky/Whatshisname stuff, the Carl Rod stuff...none of it mattered in a plot sense, but it added a lot or character to the season. The only thing I feel truly was mishandled was the Richard Horne stuff. Him hitting a kid with his car, abusing his grandmother, abusing those women in the bar, almost killing that school teacher...we endured all that only for him to get zapped away on a lightening rock. Instead of being some profound meditation on the natures of evil or abuse, it felt like a cheap way to generate an emotional response. We shouldn't need to see a character kill a child and call his grandmother a c-word in order to understand that they're evil. 

[ThatThomas]

This has been a few weeks coming, but at this point I would love an internet wide moratorium on any TP theory involving someone being a tulpa...

 

 

Just me thinking out loud

[Cleinhun]

That sounds like something a tulpa would say...

[Guts]

There are lots of ways you can interpret the last hour of the show, I haven't seen anyone (and maybe they have because i haven't read every single post) defend the possibility that Dale Cooper was just the dream of an FBI agent named Richard who, on waking from a long and strange dream starts experiencing a fugue state where he still thinks he is the character from his dream. He had a traumatic night with his lover/possible work associate that helped to initiate his break. His dream of Laura in based on a case he is working on involving a woman in danger by a creepy guy named bob. He goes to her work gets her address, at her house she has already killed the man named bob, dead guys looks a lot like Frank Silva. He convinces her to go to a town he remembers from a different case he worked on then somehow his waking dream drags her into it. 

 

I don't really subscribe to this as a conclusion in general, but its still worth exploring.

 

-- last minute thought what if cooper is now an inhabiting spirit that takes over an FBI agent named Richard.

 

[utilityfrog]

1 hour ago, Guts said:

There are lots of ways you can interpret the last hour of the show, I haven't seen anyone (and maybe they have because i haven't read every single post) defend the possibility that Dale Cooper was just the dream of an FBI agent named Richard who, on waking from a long and strange dream starts experiencing a fugue state where he still thinks he is the character from his dream. He had a traumatic night with his lover/possible work associate that helped to initiate his break. His dream of Laura in based on a case he is working on involving a woman in danger by a creepy guy named bob. He goes to her work gets her address, at her house she has already killed the man named bob, dead guys looks a lot like Frank Silva. He convinces her to go to a town he remembers from a different case he worked on then somehow his waking dream drags her into it. 

 

I don't really subscribe to this as a conclusion in general, but its still worth exploring.

 

 

I actually thought the dead guy looked a bit like Leo. And Carrie's situation seemed generally similar to Shelly's circa season 1.

[Persistence of 3]

4 hours ago, axis1500 said:

I'm starting to think the ending may have been good. The Palmers' lives have been corrupted by the evil forces that lie in electricity. (Insert ominous ceiling fan shot here.) At the end the power in the Palmer household went dead. The electricity will control them no more. That fan will never spin again.

 

Well it certainly could explain why the Lynch/Frost logo at the very end appeared without the electricity sound.

[prangman]

@SkullKid you are right but the big difference is in the season 2 finale Lynch, after an absence of 14 episodes (I think) chooses to brutally and effectively finish off most of the loose threads- with the bank explosion, Bobby and Shelly's romance blossoming, Nadine's harsh awakening, Andy and Lucy's consumption of their relationship, etc etc, as well as the whole Windom Earle saga, all in 45 minutes, while also setting up a third season based around Major Briggs as the protagonist. The Black Lodge Scenes are so mesmerising and unforgettable that we forget how many other ways this episode is totally definitive.

 

In that sense it's very different indeed from TR!

[The Great Went]

1 hour ago, utilityfrog said:

 

I actually thought the dead guy looked a bit like Leo. And Carrie's situation seemed generally similar to Shelly's circa season 1.

 

Yeah, she tells Coop/Richard in the car "I tried to keep a clean house... I was too young..." Very similar to Shelly's relationship with Leo. Leo would say things like "A man needs a clean house" (I think he said this to Bobby in Episode 2) and is showing her how to scrub the floor in FWWM. 

 

Did anyone else notice the weird thing sticking out of the dead guy's stomach? Evil Bob Orb? 

[lethalenforcer]

 

2 hours ago, Guts said:

There are lots of ways you can interpret the last hour of the show, I haven't seen anyone (and maybe they have because i haven't read every single post) defend the possibility that Dale Cooper was just the dream of an FBI agent named Richard who, on waking from a long and strange dream starts experiencing a fugue state where he still thinks he is the character from his dream.

 

It certainly crossed my mind, but I just don't want to accept an answer that turns the entire show into a dream.

 

These episodes are gnawing at me more than I thought they would...

 

"The stars turn and a time presents itself" almost sounds like what happens with Cooper in the final episode.

[SkullKid]

I had a thought about the significance of the Cooper face overlay. My theory is that the face we see is Cooper in the Giant's house in the opening moments of S3. The clock stops, everything goes black, and for awhile we just see Cooper's face, almost in black and white. In this moment, when all goes black--THIS is when the Giant scene happens. Note that all of the clues the Giant gives have to do with everything that follows:

 

-"Listen to the sounds." the clicking sounds that he hears in the forest with Laura, right before she's whisked away.

Note that the sounds are the sounds of the bug from E8 who inhabits the girl. I think it's safe to say that this bug is Judy. This would make sense because of what the Giant says next: 

 

-"It is in our house now." The Giant plays Cooper that sound and THEN says "it's in our house now." The first clue informs the second--he's telling Cooper that the creature that's synonymous with that sound is in the white lodge. Cooper then says, "It is?" He's surprised. He knows what this means. The Giant responds,

 

-"Not all can be said aloud now." My interpretation of this is, 'I have to be cryptic because Judy is here and might hear us.' Which is why he played a sound of Judy instead of just telling Cooper aloud. 

 

-He then says, "Remember 430." The amount of miles to the entry point of the alt-world. 

 

-"Richard and Linda." These are the names that Cooper Diane adopt in the alt-world. 

 

-"Two birds with one stone." I think Cooper is trying to have AltLaura meet up with Sarah Palmer to save Laura (who was supposed to be some kind of savior), and stop the mother/Judy, who's inhabiting Sarah. It could also refer to the fact that him saying "What year is this?" makes both Cooper AND Laura aware of the artifice of their surroundings.

 

-"You are far away." Cooper is in a different world, far away from reality. 

 

 

[MabaseSlums]

While I'm not saying that I'm explicitly disappointed at the lack of screen time to Audrey's situation, I am left wondering about a few things. If she's trapped in some state, when did this blank-white, possibly ethereal, place let her have a baby that roams the "real" world? Where did Richard get his name from? Was BadCoop there long enough to name the child in this now-Cooper-centric way? The Horne family seems intimately familiar with his actions, too, which just points out even more to me (to me to me) that we have no idea where Audrey is. The family seems comfortable in their knowledge of it, though.