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

[lethalenforcer]

5 minutes ago, The Great Went said:

I was watching the show on my iMac with headphones on

 

I completely endorse this - if anyone rewatches The Return eventually, do it with headphones. I know Lynch has recommended this and with good reason.

[Mentalgongfu]

I certainly didn't expect everything to wrap up in a neat little bow, but I wasn't quite prepared for what I got. When I saw the sheriff's department scene wrapping up still early on in part 17, I knew the story had to takes us somewhere else. And that it surely did. It will take me some time to digest and figure out what the hell I just saw, let alone whether or not I liked it.

 

My only other comment right now is childish, but I feel compelled to say it, as if I have been taken over by some evil spirit that has inhabited my body. To everyone who said I was crazy when I claimed Bob was still inside Mr. C, I must borrow a phrase from my buddy Ricky over at the Sunnyvale Trailer Park:

I'm not the kind of person to say atodaso, but you know what, atodaso. I fucking atodaso.

[The Great Went]

Everytime Mike said "Electricity" I thought of this song:

 

 

[plasticflesh]

Oh, to make a Dark Souls analogy.

 

BOB is like Manus, father of the Abyss. The darkness of humanity that rots kingdoms. In Dark Souls 1 DLC, Manus is potentially destroyed. In Dark Souls 2, the shards of Manus are distributed through out the kingdoms, rotting them everywhere.

 

Perhaps that's what Freddy's magic garden glove does. Not destroy BOB, but distribute his essence into the ether to be mixed into everyone's spirits.

 

Also in the Judy's scene, the three men at the bar are wearing white hats. There is a single black hat hanging on a hook off to the right that is almost always in frame. Cooper was performing very black hat in that scene. Well, everyone was.  

 

 

 

[Mentalgongfu]

Cooper looked very much like Mr. C during the sex scene with Diane. I think this was intentional, as I have seen I'm not the only one in the audience who made the connection. No idea what it means yet, but kind of goes along with the black hat idea.

What was with the other Diane (or Linda?) at the hotel?

 

It was great to see Freddy kick some ass with the green glove and meet his destiny; but everything in the sheriff's office after Mr. C got shot seemed like a kind of paint-by-numbers, "let's get this over quickly" kind of thing just so we could have whatever else we had after Dale entering the room at the Great Northern.

 

The whole of part 18 felt like the first time I watched Lost Highway, when I had no idea what was going on. I imagine further watches will feel a lot like my last viewing of Lost Highway, when I still had no idea what was going on, but saw a lot more connections.

 

I do wish we had gotten 5-10 minutes to confirm what happened with Becky, to add something to Audrey's story and to re-visit Red the drug dealer and Shelly.

We did at least get the reference to the story of the little girl who lived down the lane, which seemingly ties in somehow to Audrey and the rest of the story and is perhaps a key of sorts. I haven't checked if the dialogue is an exact match, but the evolution of the arm asking about this definitely mirrors one of the Audrey scenes. 

 

Eh - enough. Time to sleep on it and see what dreams may come.

 

[MabaseSlums]

 

I saw this tweet and it gave me a good laugh, so I'm posting it here for everyone's sake

[UnpopularTrousers]

2 hours ago, plasticflesh said:

Perhaps that's what Freddy's magic garden glove does. Not destroy BOB, but distribute his essence into the ether to be mixed into everyone's spirits.

This is in line with my reaction. The over-the-top battle between a gloved superhero and a giant evil orb was such an on-the-nose showdown between good and evil that I think it felt more like the destruction of the stark and binary distinctions between good and evil rather than the destruction of evil itself.

 

3 hours ago, plasticflesh said:

The eerie sex scene between Diane and Dale, played to the lyrics of My Prayer by The Platters, resonates with the episode 1 sex scene in front of the glass box that invokes the Mother. Both sex acts were invocations, or sacrifice rituals. 

And with episode 8 where that song was played on the radio before the DJ's head got crushed to bits. And with the overhead shot of Becky's face in the car when she gets high with her abusive husband and I Love How You Love Me plays. And with Diane's story about Cooper in episode 16. And it takes place in a motel that brought to mind where Leland went in FWWM. Oh, and the way the song faded in and out was odd and not unlike the Otis Redding song when Norma and Ed got together. Gosh, this is all a lot to deal with here.

 

I also noticed that this took place in room 7 shortly after the importance of the number 8 shown.

[SkullKid]

5 hours ago, richardco said:

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.

This is a great interpretation. If I'm not mistaken, during that segment in Episode 1/2, Cooper opens a curtain to find a long stretch of highway. It's the same one Bad Coop is driving down in Episode 3, but it's also the one Coop and Diane drive down in Episode 18. 

[SkullKid]

A potentially important thing I noticed: in Episode 2, the one armed man says "Is it future or is it past?" to Coop in the red room. Then he says "Someone's here," and disappears. That's when Laura walks in and sits down. In Episode 18, they use the exact same start of the scene--is it future or is it past?--but then the one armed man disappears. He doesn't introduce Laura, and the camera zooms in toward the empty chair where she sat in Episode 2. 

 

Not sure what to make of that. 

 

What's stranger is that instead of Laura walking in, we see what appears to be another mirror of E2 of Cooper being lead by the one armed man to The Arm. After introducing itself, in E2, the arm says "Nonexistence." In E18, he says "Have you heard the story of the little girl who lived down the lane?" Both appear to be related, as in Alt-World, the characters seem to be in a state of nonexistence. Audrey, in that alt-world, says "What story is that, Charley? The story of the little girl who lived down the lane?" 

 

Heck if I know what it all means, but the connections are neat. 

[Hansel Bosch]

I was one of the few people who watched the first two seasons of Twin Peaks when they originally aired up to the very end, long after a lot of other people abandoned the show. I remember immediately after the credits rolled on the season two finale feeling drained, empty, slightly depressed, and not sure if I wanted to watch anything Twin Peaks related ever again.

 

Who would have thought that 25-plus years later I would feel almost exactly the same way after the end of Episode Eighteen.

 

I came to appreciate that season two finale for what it was, and today would not want a single thing changed from it. Maybe one day I will feel that way about the end of season three. Certainly, all summer I have been praising The Return for not being a safe, easy nostalgia piece, so maybe I'm a bit of a hypocrite for wanting something a little different from what we got. I never expected it to wrap everything up in a nice bow, but the three-way hit of having an ending that was a cliffhanger, utterly confusing, and deeply depressing, all at the same time, has completely drained me. Maybe I will feel better after a few days of discussion and theories.

[Hansel Bosch]

5 hours ago, The Great Went said:

Dudes I watched 17 hours of this show before remembering it was a David Lynch joint. Whoops.

 

It was also a Mark Frost joint, which often seems to be forgotten. But I think for Episode 18 Frost was told he was not really needed...

 

5 hours ago, lethalenforcer said:

Really wish The Final Dossier was coming out sooner. Curious about how the hell that's going to take shape considering what we just saw.

 

I really doubt that will answer many questions, or any at all. Like The Secret History, I think The Final Dossier will deal with characters and events peripheral to the main story line. Could be wrong, but I doubt it.

[Emily]

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. 

[axis1500]

So, just saw this theory on Twitter.

 

Carrie Page = missing Page from Laura's Diary?

 

 

[Hansel Bosch]

21 minutes ago, Emily said:

I don't normally go in on this kind of specific interpretation of the lore but it is 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. 

 

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.

 

 

 

Edited September 4, 2017 by Hansel Bosch
stuff added

[Gamebeast23456]

10 minutes ago, Emily said:

I don't normally go in on this kind of specific interpretation of the lore but it is 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. 

 

I don't think you're far off at all. The Cooper who emerged from the cocoon of Dougie Jones seemed to be the purest incarnation of the goodness inside Cooper. I wasn't sure that guy was going to stick around when we first got him because he seemed a little too chipper, a little too unburdened by his life and history and time. The Richard incarnation of Cooper seems like the combination of all his experiences and proclivities into one human. That version seems very world-weary and much more willing to solve problems with his fists than the old Cooper. 

 

I feel really worn down by the fate of Dale Cooper's soul. Assuming this is it, beyond the upcoming Mark Frost book which I now have to read I guess, this impression of Dale as being eternally unable to find happiness or fulfillment, even as he does everything the world needs of him, is so depressing. It also reignites my old opinions of the spirits that inhabit realms like the Black Lodge, Red Room, room above the convenience store, etc. Their machinations really take on the old feeling of amorality and disinterest in human outcomes they had in the original series. 

[TheArm]

So here's my attempt at a coherent thought about the finale.

One reason I think all those plotlines dropped is because it highlights what Dale did. He cut apart the fabric of the story, and tried to rewrite it from the beginning. Like Charlie threatening to end Audrey’s story… Dale broke the narrative. Everything that was supposed to be just stopped.

The story was mutilated. A botched surgery. Dale ripped it apart from within, trying to heal its wounds. He killed his patient. Dale’s staggering horror as he asks what year it is… he’s hunched over a little, in shock. He really thought he could fix everything. He thought he knew what he was doing. And he’s just lost, lost in a place that might not even be earth, for all he knows.

What a sickening, gut-wrenching, heartbreaking ending. The Double R closed, just black windows. Everyone gone. It’ll haunt my dreams.

[Alastair]

The shift from Cooper to Richard was the hardest and most distressing thing to process of all of this. A dream where the world is not what we know can be hard enough; a dream where we are not ourselves cuts (beautifully,  by design) down to a deeper marrow-level dread.

 

Strangely, those last few seconds brought a glimmer of hope to me. A hollow, give-it-a-few-years-to-process, End-of-Evangellion-style hope, but hope nonetheless. Laura is in there; Cooper is in there. Sheryl Lee's scream gives form to something awful and slow-building, but something that can at last be grasped and understood. I would almost go as far as finding it touching that as of that scream, they're in this nightmare together, sharing whatever strange melancholy highway adventure follows. But I'm not sure I'm capable right now of seeing this as history overwritten or undone, which is too big and dreadful to comprehend. Just a fracturing; a sideways step. One reality/Cooper/Laura of many. I Want To Believe. I Need To.

 

If you need help giving a shape to the shapeless - as we all surely do right now, I mean, you're shaking too right now, right? - this Vox write-up by Todd VanDerWerff goes into some absolutely beautiful introspective territory. If you're trying to find fulfilment from a feeling of emptiness, this is a wonderful start. <3

[Owlsy]

10 hours ago, Emily said:

You know, I think I'm okay with that being the last of Twin Peaks. If they decide to make more, I'm here for it, but as far as Lynch's work goes I think that was an incredible ending. Maybe not the one I wanted but certainly one that I'll never forget. 

I absolutely concur.  To me, that was as profound an ending for this journey as any Lynch could have manufactured.  To end with a clearly stated question (What year is this?) keeps you searching the content and context for the possible answer.  That is the foundation of Twin Peaks.  Loved this season, and those final 2 episodes were spectacular!!!  

And remember, there were 2 Chalfonts.  "What was the name of the people who rented this trailor?  Chalfont.  As a matter of fact Chalfont was the name of the people that rented this space before.  Two Chalfonts."  Is it future or is it past?  The past dictates the future.  Indeed it does Mr. Lynch.


 

[Alastair]

Anyone else getting an Infinite Jest vibe from the way Cooper's real mission - Find Laura - only really begins as our time with the show ends? Or, for that matter, from the dread of seeing the ending draw nearer, expected resolutions unresolved, new threads forming... and realising that the artist has just about said all he needs and intends to say?

 

It's 12:37am and I'm wide awake trying to process this show - trying to reconcile its strange, melancholic emotional aftermath with the word as I see it - just as that book had me doing years before. And once again, life feels messier and sadder in the very best of ways.

 

...I wish David Foster Wallace had  been around to enjoy new Twin Peaks.

[Blackfyre]

I'm coming in late but there are many loose threads which I hope are filled out a bit in the Final Dossier, outside of the ending.

 

Was it ever clarified what happened with the seed in Argentina? The device which turned into it looked old so I've kinda assumed it was set up

by Jeffries but who knows why but when Dougie hadn't been killed and it received the '2' text turned to a seed then.... nothing?

 

also didn't the experiment in the premiere have a seed?

[axis1500]

I'll just leave this here.

[Blackfyre]

(Also yeah what happened to the final diary page)

[Don't Go There]

I feel it is important to preface this with the statement that I really liked “The Return”, and I liked what we saw in Parts 17 and 18. It’s important, because I’m going to sound like I hated it. So, to be clear: I am an OG Peaks fan, I watched it when it first ran on ABC. I loved Fire Walk With Me from the very first time I saw it. And I have enjoyed The Return immensely.

 

That being said, nothing is perfect, and there are some problems I have with this series, and its conclusion. I’ve also been a Lynch fan from way back- I know that, in the battle between coherence of plot and surrealism, Lynch is going to pick surrealism every time. But there are some things that need to be addressed. Not “rules” really. But… well, here, let me just tell you:

 

1. Hawk was in the woods in episode 1. “Once again your log and I are on the same page.” Hawk gets to Glastonbury Grove, sees the red curtains… then nothing. We never find out where he got his information, we never find out what happened, or what was supposed to happen. It is never referred to again. Also, it seems to take place out of sequence, as the next scene with Hawk has him still mulling over the log’s initial message.

 

2. What happened to Becky? This we may already know, as Stephen is definitely hinting that he killed her. This would be a natural conclusion to where that story was headed. But we never see Bobby or Shelly react to this. Once Stephen pulls the trigger on himself-- and we see an ominous exterior shot of their trailer-- we never hear of it again.

 

3. Are we supposed to believe this “Jow-Day” entity is the Thing In the Glass Box? Because there is absolutely no reason to believe that. We are never told a thing about the thing in the box, about the thing in Part 8 that was spewing eggs, about the playing card with the silhouette, about the same design appearing on Hawk’s map. Are all these things even the same thing? Why is evil Coop seeking it out? What was his plan upon entering what I guess is the White Lodge?

 

4. “Jow-Day” is an ass-pull. I’m sorry, but it is. All “Judy” ever was, was a reference to a character in Fire Walk With Me that never ended up in the movie, but Lynch thought it sounded good enough to keep. The “Oh, hey, here’s a bunch of plot we shoe-horned in and decided to bring up 17 hours in” method of storytelling is something this show has done the whole season. Maybe we can call it the “Bill Hastings’s Web Site” method.

 

5. Where the hell is Audrey? And why should we care? The first question would seem to be answered at the end of Part 16- in some kind of hospital. Of course, we can only infer that from the tiny amount we see of it. She could be in the bathroom of Horne’s Department Store, for all we know. The second question- who cares?- is never answered. I mean, we care, because we like Audrey. But Audrey takes, what, four episodes to get out of that house, get to the Roadhouse, do her dance, and wake up (maybe) in a hospital (maybe), shouting at Charlie who is actually a mirror (maybe) and, as far as we know, she has no significance to the story beyond that. Well, then why show us anything about her at all?

 

6. We do remember Sarah Palmer taking her goddamn face off and eating a trucker’s throat, right? That all happened in your version of that episode, too? Oh good. Because it’s never referenced again. Maybe she’s possessed by Judy. Except that the ideas that, a) Judy is the Thing In the Glass Box,  the Thing In the Glass Box is the BOB-spewing entity in the Trinity atomic bomb whatsis, c) The Thing In the Glass Box is the symbol on the card/Hawk’s map… none of that is actually in the show. At all.

 

7. Look, we need to talk about Annie. I’m sorry, but we do. I don’t much like her either, but she’s important. She’s the whole reason Dale was lured into the Black Lodge. She’s the subject of the last line of the original show. And… I guess she doesn’t exist? Because Norma’s mom has now been dead since before the first season? Even though she was in the show? And she doesn’t have a sister? Remember when we noticed this discrepancy in the book, and Mark Frost said that it would all be explained? He lied. Look, I’m sorry, but he flat-out lied.

 

8. Why is “Red” in this show? At all?

 

9. Who the hell is Billy? Someone’s looking for him in the RR, Audrey is having a fling with him, and two girls in the Roadhouse talk about him. And, surprising no one, we are never told anything else. Why even talk about him at all? There’s this theory that many of the Roadhouse scenes are in Audrey’s head, but he is referenced in a non-Roadhouse scene, and it just brings us back to the Audrey story line going nowhere.

 

10. And the frogbug was what? And whose mouth did it crawl into? And why is the Woodsman putting everyone to sleep? What did any of that have to do with anything at all?

 

11. What is Hawk supposed to watch for, under the moon, on Blue Pine Mountain? Because- and I know this will shock you- this is never, ever mentioned again. So why mention it at all?

 

12. Why did the Fireman shit a golden globe of Laura Palmer out of his head? How did that impact the story, again? I’m sure I missed that somewhere in the 10 hours of Dougie Jones acting like a zombie. Surely this was addressed? That sequence looks like it was expensive. I would imagine it would be of no small import. Surely there would have been at least one reference to it again, somewhere in the 10 more hours they had left. I’m sure I missed it.

 

These aren’t red herrings. These are huge gaps in storytelling. I wonder if the answers to these questions were in the original script. It wouldn’t be the first time Lynch has decided, “Screw the script.”

 

Finally, while I liked the conclusion, did I miss any foreshadowing at all that would hint at what the hell that was all about? I am admittedly dense, and I may have missed all kinds of things.

 

Again, to reiterate: I really, really enjoyed the hell out of this 18 hour movie. But that list of eleven, up there… I think those are big weaknesses that need to be addressed.

 

ETA: So who hired Ray to kill Doppelcoop? Who called Doppelcoop in the hotel if it wasn't Jeffries? I mean, come on.

[Digger]

I'd forgotten about the cell phone seed.  I guess Mr. C. was doing actual magic with his technology, maybe he made those devices himself like he made Dougie and Janey-E which would explain their bizarre functionality.

 

Episode 17 was a lot very quickly.  I remained convinced the pacing for this season was way off.  Much time was spent accomplishing little, never giving us enough time with the characters to know or connect to them.  The reveals happened in flashes and spurts and rarely when they were earned.  instead it is in exposition at the wrong time- Cole explains who Judy is and what Cooper's mission was, finally and only partly, to the only other two people in his Blue Rose splinter group in the penultimate episode when he has had that information and more since season one.  Episode 18 then arrived to remind me of the things I disliked about this season.  Long sequences of people staring expressionlessly into the distance.  Vast stretches of nothing happening in the service of creating mood?  no indication of what is happening, what people know, or what they think about it.  It seemed like a good deal of time-wasting.  I am compelled by the idea of Carrie/Laura, but I feel sure if there were a season four it would be consumed by the new Dougie Jones, boring Becky, magic drug dealer, and an exploration of Odessa, and when answers are finally given it will be in one episode at the end when a character tells us things he's known since the first episode, and it will be resolved in a sequence much shorter than the nonsense scenes.  

 

Were there great moments this season, yes, and when they happened it was easy to forget the filler in between.  Then the filler came back a stayed for too long.  

[Ash_NR]

Wow-eee. Part 18 was just crushing.

 

I have a lot to say, I think. But most of it I feel has been covered by others. I written and erased a lot of stuff. I think I'll call it a night and read more of what everyone else has to say.

 

But I will say, although it mightn't be the last episode, Chris and Jake, I have really enjoyed the thoughtful interpretations you both have brought over this entire run. It has pushed me to consider creative works in far greater scrutiny than I ever have before. Thank you both.