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

[pyide]

23 hours ago, Persistence of 3 said:

An observation about Cooper. In the original series as well as FWWM when we see him in his black suit he's always wearing his FBI lapel pin. This isn't always so in the Return. In fact, the only time he wears his lapel pin are during the Lodge scenes prior to his exit through the #3 socket. So it wasn't just his shoes that didn't pass through to the other side. As an imperative of the narrative this makes good sense since Jade, then the casino operators and everyone else down the line would have noticed and reacted accordingly. Hookers and gambling operations would certainly take exception to a federal agent. So it goes to pass, through the remainder of the story Cooper no longer wears his lapel pin. Yet, watch part one again. When we see Cooper recieving the Giant/Fireman's clues, Cooper isn't wearing the pin. I think this pretty much establishes how much the story is being told out of sequence. The Cooper getting these clues is the Cooper from the 'end' of the story.

 

A pin appears again on Cooper's lapel right before he enters the door at The Great Northern in Part 17. And stays with him from then on through his meeting with Jeffries, back into the past with Laura, after that in the red room, still there after the curtain call in Glastonbury Grove, and even into his crossing over to wherever that is, all the way to the final scene of the series. So his meeting with the Fireman where it's not visible probably took place at some point in time before that and after his trip through the electrical outlet in Part 3.

 

It's worth pointing out his pin is back immediately after the scene in the Sheriff's station where BOB is defeated and Diane comes back. Cooper's face is overlaid on the screen and says we live inside a dream, Cooper says he hopes he sees everyone again, and then everything goes dark as Cooper calls out worriedly for Gordon and Gordon yells out COOP!  Then it cuts right to Cooper, Diane, and Gordon, all seemingly fine and together walking through the darkness and then approaching the door right after that. And from there on his pin is back, or a different one? I'm not sure what that all means, although I suppose you could at least take the pin's reappearance as evidence that the scene with the Fireman happens sometime before this and after he comes through the socket. Some have proposed that it's happening in the moments when Cooper's face is superimposed, which I could buy considering time seems to stop or break in that moment.

[lethalenforcer]

20 hours ago, Dingobloo said:

The theories related to Gordon Cole and Albert talking mostly in code throughout the season like the one detailed at the start of Fire Walk with Me, including all the mis-heard words and the excruciatingly long scene with the lady in red (and Monica Bellucci) have me super excited about watching over scenes again.

 

Do you have any readily-available links to further reading on these theories? Sounds like something I'd be interested in digging through a bit.

 

Off to Reddit I go (only to never be heard from again)!

[Frohike]

I don't know if this has been suggested yet, so I apologize for any redundancy, but I'm curious to see people's opinions on this. 

 

I think that Laura's initial disappearance and scream in ep 17 is actually caused by her final awakening & scream in ep 18. We're dealing with two overlapping repercussions of Cooper's actions. 

 

Coop's hubris initially leads him to alter past events (erasing Laura's murder), only to be foiled by his future, more integrated (& sadder) self in the Richard/Lindaverse, where he tries to further rectify what he did and... successfully awakens & loops Laura back into the torment she was fated to undergo prior to season 1 episode 1.

 

Cooper fixes his fix, effectively resetting everything.

 

It's kind of a depressing figure 8 of a read, but it seems to mesh with the vibe of that static shot at the end that, at least to me, connotes something eternal and almost archetypal in Lynch's/Frost's mythology, the concept of the infinite, hermetically looped secret. 

 

[kuddles]

I'm now getting excited to rewatch all Twin Peaks content in a row. I wonder if Showtime will be picky with rights, or if something can be arranged for all Twin Peaks material to be part of one box set. If so, I wonder what they would call it since the current box set calls itself "The Complete Mystery".

[Persistence of 3]

13 minutes ago, kuddles said:

I'm now getting excited to rewatch all Twin Peaks content in a row. I wonder if Showtime will be picky with rights, or if something can be arranged for all Twin Peaks material to be part of one box set. If so, I wonder what they would call it since the current box set calls itself "The Complete Mystery".

 

 

I'm in the midst of a rewatch of 3 right now. Day one I did six episodes, days two and three were 3 episodes in a sitting. I'm finding that it's pretty tight the second time around. One has a greater sense of what takes place in a story day (2-3 episodes seem to cover a story day compared to the original series which was strictly one story day per episode). Knowing what's going to happen and which characters are recurring and which are incidental can't help but effect the way one takes in the story. The overall effect is leaner and not as rambling than my initial impressions. I'd say a second veiwing is essential to appreciate what's going on. Already halfway through and really my only nagging question at this point is who exactly is claiming to be Phillip Jefferies when Bad Coop makes the call from the skanky hotel room? Was that ever explained? I don't think it was so in that case my suspicions lean heavily towards Albert.

[Dingobloo]

6 hours ago, lethalenforcer said:

 

Do you have any readily-available links to further reading on these theories? Sounds like something I'd be interested in digging through a bit.

 

Off to Reddit I go (only to never be heard from again)!

 

This is the one I got onto https://www.reddit.com/r/twinpeaks/comments/6raen6/s3e12_reposting_this_glorious_post_with_a_clean/

 

Some of the translation is a stretch, but the seed of the idea is there. Throughout the season Gordon Cole is paranoid about being listened in to through electronics and so uses code to communicate with Albert (and if some people are to be believed, with someone from the white lodge via dreams) and that he is attempting to help execute the plan cooper and briggs had to deal with "judy" and kill "two birds with one stone." 

 

In my perfect version of this season all of the related but seemingly disconnected scenes all have some rosetta stone aspect, that once revealed make more sense in hindsight. Things like what is bad-coops motivation if he doesn't know about Judy and the way the names line up in the audrey/roadhouse/RR diner scenes. 

 

But maybe that's just wishful thinking that If I can reframe the season to not mostly be about defeating bad cooper it lessens the insane and rushed written way it resolves. 

[BonusWavePilot]

@Dingobloo I'll have to check this out... 

Badcoop might still have been pursuing Judy without having known she was referred to that way until late in the piece...

[Guts]

I think all these theories are great, the magic of a David Lynch project to to leave a dark space in the center for us, the viewer to engage our imaginations. We get so much more out of the process of engaging with a mystery than we would with a definite statement by the show. 

[kuddles]

1 hour ago, Guts said:

I think all these theories are great, the magic of a David Lynch project to to leave a dark space in the center for us, the viewer to engage our imaginations. We get so much more out of the process of engaging with a mystery than we would with a definite statement by the show. 

 

Lynch has said himself as much in interviews. I remember him comparing it to how you really want a magician to tell you how he did a trick you were fooled by, because it's not enough to have a theory, you desire someone to validate it. But if the magician tells you exactly how he did it, you usually end up disappointed because it seems so obvious now and you feel foolish for not figuring it out.

[lethalenforcer]

Apologies if posted already, but here are some random tidbits from Sabrina Sutherland's AMA and David Lynch's Q&A from this week...

• Lynch (and Sutherland) have never read Frost's Secret History book, and have zero idea what's going to be contained within The Final Dossier.
• Frost and Lynch wrote the entire season together, and then Frost departed to write Secret History as Lynch filmed the season and had full creative control. Frost was shown any script changes by Lynch (who also made on-the-spot improvisational changes during filming) but Frost never vetoed or changed anything. No details on exactly how much is was on-the-spot Lynch.
• Lynch didn't dismiss the idea of a new TP season (or movie) but stressed that it'd take a very long time to come together (reiterated that The Return took 4+ years to write and produce).
• Simultaneously viewing episodes of the show "...definitely not the way to watch these parts."
• Sutherland was coy when someone asked who voiced The Arm in The Return. People on Reddit speculate it's Lynch's voice (most popular theory) while some immediately guessed Audrey or Charlie (due to the Arm referencing the story of the little girl who lives down the lane).
• Lynch said he wouldn't answer what happened to Audrey, saying that the viewer needs to decide that on their own. “What matters is what you believe happened. Many things in life just happen and we have to come to our own conclusions. You can, for example, read a book that raises a series of questions, and you want to talk to the author, but he died a hundred years ago. That’s why everything is up to you.”
• FWIW,
  Q: "Would you say that your understanding of what we saw is greater than that of most viewers?"
  A: "Yes."
• Bowie gave them permission to use his old scenes
• Annie was never a part of The Return's story and Heather Graham was never approached for a role
• Both Ontkean and Michael J. Anderson were approached to reprise their roles but declined

 

Some of Sutherland's responses detail what filming a scene was like with Lynch and dives into a few more process questions, pretty interesting.

 

 

[purps]

So I guess it isn't called "The Return" anymore?

[pyide]

Box art is pretty snazzy. It's good that Lynch isn't ruling out more in the future, would love to see where it goes from here.

[The Great Went]

When I rewatched the first two seasons I actually skipped the pilot at the beginning and watched it after the end of Season 2. Pretty cool, considering the replication of the dialogue from the Bobby and Shelly Double R scene. Then I watched Fire Walk With Me, and I noticed that the dialogue in the scene with Laura and James (and repeated in Part 17 of The Return), is basically taken word-for-word from James' recounting to Donna of his last night with Laura. I think it's really interesting, and fitting with the figure-8 structure Jeffries hints at, that this dialogue appears in the pilot as a recollection by James, then in Fire Walk With Me as an active scene, then is revisited and sort of remixed by Coop at the end of The Return. Would be interesting to watch the last two eps then fire up the pilot again, or watch FWWM, then the pilot, as a kind of constant loop, forever. I'm not gonna do that, though, I have a family that needs me. 

[The Great Went]

Also, what's with Asian people in Twin Peaks actually being white women in disguise? Twice in one show, whereas the average is Never Ever. 

[Arianna]

On 9/9/2017 at 10:40 AM, Jake said:

 

 

 

Thanks!

 

I just read this theory that DOES attempt to connect every single thing together. It doesn't ring emotionally true to me, to what I got out of the season, but it was still an interesting read: http://www.waggish.org/2017/twin-peaks-finale/

 

(as I said at the end of the part 18 episode, it is rad and refreshing to have a television show on that can generate this much different thought, interpretation, writing. I love it.)

The one thing I took from this is that, on doing the S1&2 rewatch I'm doing right now, I take as being at least pretty solid headcanon that Red is the magic-trick Tremont kid and is spreading these tainted drugs to create more garmonbozia.

 

An aside from my S1&2 rewatch - I had forgotten that Sarah Palmer was physically (though not mentally, due to drugs/being unconscious) present on the floor for the murder of Maddy Ferguson, right after seeing the white horse. I sort of feel like this is as good a candidate as any for the moment when the frogbug 'awakens' in her - being present for such a distilled moment of suffering and fear.

[SkullKid]

One thing I'm not sure about (well, one of 90 things I'm unsure about) 

 

I think the clear implication of the show is that Evil Coop is after Judy (though he apparently knows this source of evil by a different name. Maybe as...mother?) and that Judy is currently residing in Sarah Palmer. What's not clear to me is whether or not Sarah is indeed the frog moth host from episode 8. Unless I'm sorely mistaken, right after the box monster/experiment/mother kills Sam and Tracy, we immediately cut to the Palmer house, where Sarah is zonked out watching violent nature videos. When you first watch it, it seems on par with the all-over-the-place vibe of the Return. But in hindsight it seems like a very specific choice to demonstrate cause and effect. So what is this thing's relation to the frog moth? Did it just "activate" Sarah's inner-demon? Did the long-dormant frog moth allow access to its host? Or are these two entities completely separate? 

[Arianna]

Ok, apologies if this isn't the appropriate place to keep blathering about my S2 rewatch, but oh boy I am really starting to think Anne Blackburn isn't real. I don't think it was intended that way when S2 was made,  I'm sure at the time she was just crap writing in an increasingly out of control show, but the way TSHOTP and Season 3 went it just feels like she can't be, right? Here's how I figure the ret-con of Norma's background and Annie goes without it just being a crude ret-con:

 

Annie was always just a black lodge plant to trap Cooper. Somehow, they tampered with reality to either change Norma's family story (after the Dossier was written) or to just straight-up manufacture Annie as a tulpa. She existed purely to pull Cooper into the Lodge and trap him there. My only problem with this theory is that it is a little inconsistent with Annie then having the agency to tell Laura about DoppelCoop, which is why I lean toward the altered-family-history angle - at least that way Annie is a person who would have real feelings and agency. Or maybe altered-reality-Annie died in that suicide attempt that left the scar on her wrist and the version we see in Twin Peaks is a Doppelganger/Tulpa and the one who warns Laura is the real Annie? And I mean, honestly, she comes out of absolutely nowhere, no one ever talked about her before, and suddenly she's there? This is some (predating, admittedly) Dawn Summers shit. Honestly, Norma's out-of-nowhere-in-S2 family makes more sense as a weird Lodge plant. It would help explain what a cruel trainwreck her mother is - a mean restaurant critic can sure create some garmonbozia :eyeroll:.

 

What I find very convenient is that a few months ago on Reddit, someone pointed out that Annie's last name is Blackburn. Black Corn. Black Fire. Black Burn. I'm sure this is just a convenient coincidence - I really don't think she was intended to be anything special when she was first created - but since it exists I am sure this is why Norma's maiden name was made Lindstrom in TSHOTP - to highlight the potential significance of the name Blackburn.

 

If this is how the ret-con is working, it actually makes DoppelCoop laughing hysterically while asking 'How's Annie?' at the end of S2 work even better for me. Of course he's laughing - he knows what she is/was. I just hope we get some closure in the Final Dossier.

[SkullKid]

10 minutes ago, Arianna said:

Ok, apologies if this isn't the appropriate place to keep blathering about my S2 rewatch, but oh boy I am really starting to think Anne Blackburn isn't real. I don't think it was intended that way when S2 was made,  I'm sure at the time she was just crap writing in an increasingly out of control show, but the way TSHOTP and Season 3 went it just feels like she can't be, right? Here's how I figure the ret-con of Norma's background and Annie goes without it just being a crude ret-con:

 

Annie was always just a black lodge plant to trap Cooper. Somehow, they tampered with reality to either change Norma's family story (after the Dossier was written) or to just straight-up manufacture Annie as a tulpa. She existed purely to pull Cooper into the Lodge and trap him there. My only problem with this theory is that it is a little inconsistent with Annie then having the agency to tell Laura about DoppelCoop, which is why I lean toward the altered-family-history angle - at least that way Annie is a person who would have real feelings and agency. Or maybe altered-reality-Annie died in that suicide attempt that left the scar on her wrist and the version we see in Twin Peaks is a Doppelganger/Tulpa and the one who warns Laura is the real Annie? And I mean, honestly, she comes out of absolutely nowhere, no one ever talked about her before, and suddenly she's there? This is some (predating, admittedly) Dawn Summers shit. Honestly, Norma's out-of-nowhere-in-S2 family makes more sense as a weird Lodge plant. It would help explain what a cruel trainwreck her mother is - a mean restaurant critic can sure create some garmonbozia :eyeroll:.

 

What I find very convenient is that a few months ago on Reddit, someone pointed out that Annie's last name is Blackburn. Black Corn. Black Fire. Black Burn. I'm sure this is just a convenient coincidence - I really don't think she was intended to be anything special when she was first created - but since it exists I am sure this is why Norma's maiden name was made Lindstrom in TSHOTP - to highlight the potential significance of the name Blackburn.

 

If this is how the ret-con is working, it actually makes DoppelCoop laughing hysterically while asking 'How's Annie?' at the end of S2 work even better for me. Of course he's laughing - he knows what she is/was. I just hope we get some closure in the Final Dossier.

I've always had a soft spot for Annie. I found her endearing. BUT! I dig this theory. Her having agency isn't necessarily a plot hole, either. Diane's tulpa was able to fight her "programming" for awhile and tell Albert, Cole and Preston the truth about her past. So I could see a scenario where Annie is able to fight her programming enough to help Laura. 

 

I don't feel a need to retcon Annie, as I always enjoyed her role, but the fact that she was only mentioned *once* this season--Hawk reading from Laura's diary--and Cooper's complete disinterest when he wakes up would point to her being, as you say, a trap. 

[Arianna]

11 minutes ago, SkullKid said:

I've always had a soft spot for Annie. I found her endearing. BUT! I dig this theory. Her having agency isn't necessarily a plot hole, either. Diane's tulpa was able to fight her "programming" for awhile and tell Albert, Cole and Preston the truth about her past. So I could see a scenario where Annie is able to fight her programming enough to help Laura. 

 

I don't feel a need to retcon Annie, as I always enjoyed her role, but the fact that she was only mentioned *once* this season--Hawk reading from Laura's diary--and Cooper's complete disinterest when he wakes up would point to her being, as you say, a trap. 

I didn't mean to imply Annie was crap-ly written - just that everything around her introduction was handled poorly! I like her as a character and wish we didn't need to ret-con her but TSHOTP completely erases Annie out of existence. It says Norma is an only child, her maiden name is Lindstrom, and that her mother (named Ilsa, apparently) died years before the events of season 1 - no Annie, no MT Wentz, plus Heather Graham said she would have loved to have been in S3 but was never asked. We've got to find some way to square that circle!

[kuddles]

Someone on Reddit found this old article that was posted before the pilot of the original Twin Peaks even aired, and the quote David Lynch gives at the end is very telling about how his mindset was even at that point.

 

When it is pointed out to Lynch that television shows almost always catch the bad guy at the end of each episode, that the audience likes its criminals behind bars before they go to bed, that it gives them a sense of "closure," his soft-spoken patter erupts in disgust.

 

"Closure. I keep hearing that word. It's the theater of the absurd. Everybody knows that on television they'll see the end of the story in the last 15 minutes of the thing. It's like a drug. To me, that's the beauty of 'Twin Peaks.' We throw in some curve balls. As soon as a show has a sense of closure, it gives you an excuse to forget you've seen the damn thing."

[Arianna]

2 hours ago, kuddles said:

Someone on Reddit found this old article that was posted before the pilot of the original Twin Peaks even aired, and the quote David Lynch gives at the end is very telling about how his mindset was even at that point.

 

When it is pointed out to Lynch that television shows almost always catch the bad guy at the end of each episode, that the audience likes its criminals behind bars before they go to bed, that it gives them a sense of "closure," his soft-spoken patter erupts in disgust.

 

"Closure. I keep hearing that word. It's the theater of the absurd. Everybody knows that on television they'll see the end of the story in the last 15 minutes of the thing. It's like a drug. To me, that's the beauty of 'Twin Peaks.' We throw in some curve balls. As soon as a show has a sense of closure, it gives you an excuse to forget you've seen the damn thing."

Haha, fair enough. Maybe we won't get any closure on Annie, but then again, Mark Frost loves to wrap things up neatly (and was trolling about Annie on twitter the other day). It's a fun tension.

 

Edit because I don't want to spam post up this thread: Has anyone made the obvious 'Jeffries is the fish in the percolator' joke yet? Sorry guys, I'm writing a paper and procrastinating by thinking about Twin Peaks. (Realtalk though, I love how coffee has been supernaturally important to this series and yet, universally, people are calling Jeffries either a kettle or a teapot)

[kuddles]

2 hours ago, Arianna said:

Haha, fair enough. Maybe we won't get any closure on Annie, but then again, Mark Frost loves to wrap things up neatly (and was trolling about Annie on twitter the other day). It's a fun tension.

Didn't mean for my post to step on your theories. While I don't feel like I need to strain myself to make everything "fit" to enjoy it, I certainly love everyone making their own interpretations and connections.

 

It was more just an unrelated interesting note about how even back in 1990, Lynch makes it clear that he hates explaining things. Which just makes it funny that people still don't seem to grasp that with everything he has made so far.  I mean, half the discussion online revolving around Lynch saying that a Season 4 is not impossible still has people saying things like "I can wait 4 more years to find out what happened to Audrey" or "Maybe then we'll see if Cooper succeeded." Like, even after taking everything Lynch has done through his entire career, so many people STILL go "Well, maybe this is the time around he'll tie up all the loose threads." Talk about setting yourself up for disappointment.

 

2 hours ago, Arianna said:

Edit because I don't want to spam post up this thread: Has anyone made the obvious 'Jeffries is the fish in the percolator' joke yet? Sorry guys, I'm writing a paper and procrastinating by thinking about Twin Peaks.

 

https://imgur.com/a/b5fHx

[Arianna]

28 minutes ago, kuddles said:

https://imgur.com/a/b5fHx

Aw man, that is way better than me going through S1E2 to get a screen grab of the fish-percolator. Pro-click.

[Frohike]

Another moment of reversed footage ("backwards" blinking) seems to happen in episode 18 at 41:30, during Laura/Carrie and Dale/Richard's night drive. There's a 15 second shot from outside of the vehicle that shows Laura looking back at the car that's following them & it seems to be playing in reverse. This is the only instance I can find of this effect occurring in the Richard/Lindaverse.

[dartmonkey]

http://variety.com/2017/tv/news/david-lynch-harry-dean-stanton-dead-91-1202560727/

 

Another sadness. It's going to be a poignant rewatch.