Twin Peaks

[Hobo]

Comment from discussion [S3E15] Post-Episode Discussion - Part 15.

[Josh]

I love this piece from The AV Club all about sound being the key to understanding The Return.

[Skummy]

An interesting one;

 

 

[Josh]

Huh.

[tristy]

So, we got:

• the return of Dale Cooper
• Diane was a doppelganger and her actual self was raped by DoppleCoop
• the "death" of Richard Horne
• confirmation that Richard Horne was DoppelCoop's son (unless he was using a figure of speech but I doubt it)
• Audrey doing her dance, while her theme plays
• And finally, confirmation that Audrey is.... somewhere else.

Quite the fuckin' episode.

I really hope Cooper returns to Janey-E and Sonny Jim. I've grown quite fond of those three as a family.

[Skummy]

What the fuck.

I don't even know if that was a good episode, but damn was it crammed full of stuff.

I got goosebumps at "ladies and gentlemen, Audrey's Dance" - just when I thought that Audrey and Charlie showing up to the Roadhouse meant we could abandon all the theories, when that happened, it just complicated things even more. And then, of course, that ending. She's somewhere else - and the red curtain on the Roadhouse stage, and the credits scene featuring a backwards version of Audrey's Dance implies she's in the Black Lodge.

If, as certainly seems to be the case now, Richard Horne is the son of Audrey and Bad Coop, that still leaves a lot of questions unanswered. The fairly grisly assumption most people have been making is that Audrey was raped by evil Cooper shortly after the end of season 2, while Audrey was in a coma - Cooper telling Richard "I'm 25 years your senior" somewhat backs that up. But we're also assuming that Audrey is still in a coma? Yet Richard recognised Bad Coop because Audrey had a photo of him? None of that quite adds up to me.

I don't think Cooper will return to Janey-E and Sonny Jim - he gave MIKE a hair sample when he asked him if he still had the seed, and asked if he could make another one; MIKE is going to create a new Dougie Jones so that Janey-E and Sonny Jim get their Dougie back. Though it would be a nice twist if the new doppelganger actually ends up living the life of Agent Cooper, and the "real" Dale Cooper retires into a quiet life as Dougie Jones.

There definitely seems to be a psychic link between doppelgangers, or something of the sort - the Diane doppelganger seemed to have a mental block on what happened to her, was able to instantly remember a long line of coordinates, and then right before she died she knew that the coordinates were for a sherriff's station. When Dale Cooper awoke from his coma, he also knew that he had to go to Twin Peaks sherriff's station; presumably because he's aware evil Coop is headed there.

Similarly, Diane's "I'm not me" was very similar to Audrey's crisis of self in previous episodes. Could the Audrey we're seeing actually be a doppelganger created by evil Cooper, perhaps even with the express purpose of bringing Richard Horne into the world to play his part in the scheme, while the real Audrey is trapped in the Black Lodge, still in her coma, or wherever she is? Diane said that "everything went wrong" after Cooper kissed her - could that have been the catalyst for him, presumably, creating the doppelganger, and could the same have happened to Audrey? 

Random thought - could Janey-E actually be the real Diane, rather than her estranged half-sister? Just a thought. Obviously they're not identical like most doppelgangers, but who knows? I don't think so, but the thought occurred to me.

 

There's still something about the Dreamer in a Dream, and I think Audrey is somehow shaping the reality of Twin Peaks - the fight breaking out at the Roadhouse showed that it's not as simple as Audrey imagining herself there, or dreaming while she's in a coma; like how the conversations between the seemingly random characters in the Roadhouse booth seem to correlate to Audrey's story, I think somehow wherever Audrey is, and whatever she's doing, it's actually affecting reality in Twin Peaks itself. But for how long has that been the case?

[Hobo]

All I know is that I got super excited to see Dale Cooper back and properly cried when he said goodbye to Janey-E and Sonny Jim. I'm still a little shook up from this episode.

• Richard seems to have been all part of Mr. C's plan all along. I quite liked the stone cold way that was handled juxtaposed with some amazing comedy with Jerry Horne (BAD BINOCULARS!) - just how far did Jerry run from the woods!?
• I was terrified that Diane was going to kill either Albert or Gordon. The fact she was a doppelgänger is interesting. Although I am wondering now if Diane Evans actually existed or if she was always an affectation of Coopers and was manifested by BOB afterwards?
• Chantal and Hutch's death was hilarious. I loved everything them in the last few episodes.
• The Mitchums are the absolute best. This has to be Jim Belushi's finest hour.
• DALE COOPER IS THE BEST. It was just so beautiful how he snapped back into being, knew exactly what was going on and just was instantly the same old Dale Cooper. Kyle MacLachlan is dynamite.
• That whole Roadhouse scene. My God. Audrey is somewhere. We got a second or two of Audrey in somewhere clear, white, her hair tied back and looking in a mirror. Until the credits played her theme backwards I thought maybe in some kind of mental facility or hospital. But then the credits....
• I can't remember who else gave Mr. C coordinates? I guess Diane has given him the correct ones but I am also guessing that Major Briggs and Jefferies must have given him the ones that would kill him.

I loved this episode. So much.

Also, Diane's last words were saying "Fuck you" to MIKE. That was amazing.

 

[Skummy]

Reading up on the theories surrounding numerology in the series - the first couple of episodes featured a lot of talk about remembering numbers, and every now and then we get a prolonged glimpse of a number or two, but it doesn't seem to have been explained yet.

However.

People have sussed that Cooper, while still travelling within the Lodge(s), saw a plug socket labelled "15" and "3", and that "315" was Cooper's hotel room number - but not only that, it was episode 3 when Dale Cooper exited the Lodge and replaced Dougie Jones, and episode 15 that he returned to a plug socket.

So that's rather interesting. 

Next week is the finale, right? Still so much to wrap up...surely we see Laura Palmer in some capacity again?

[Hobo]

"Laura is the one." So she must turn up in the last two hours. She has to have a role in getting Mr. C back to the lodge.

We still don't know who Linda is! Or Billy. Or Judy.

Is it gonna all converge on the Sherrif's department? There's still something in the Great Northern. And the mountains have been mentioned over and over. 

The last two hours I imagine will be 100% in Twin Peaks.

An interesting note is that its 25 years ago today that Fire Walk With Me came out.

[Josh]

It might be the sickly state that I'm in. But I bawled so much at that episode.

Cooper is back. And he is everything good I need to see in the world.

And Diane. She had me terrified. Then I felt so bad for her, doppelganger or no. Then that song. That was goodbye forever. But she got one last fuck you. And she's at peace. Whoever she was.

And Audrey. Audrey, I need you to be okay.

I am an absolute wreck. I want to hug David Lynch.

[Hobo]

On Saturday, August 26, 2017 at 19:52, Skummy said:

An interesting one;

 

 

I listened a few times but I can't really hear "sonny jim"

There's a suggestion on the Reddit that it's "ask your dark self about me" which makes more sense after this week

[Skummy]

Yeah, that sounds more plausible.

I'm starting to think more and more that the Audrey we've seen - now we can confirm she's real, or as "real" as anyone in Twin Peaks - is a Tulpa created by Evil Cooper, and that the actual Audrey Horne we saw at the end is stuck in some hinterland accessed by Evil Cooper to stop there from being two Audreys in the world. Perhaps the same place he took the real Diane. But then who - or what - is Charlie? I still think that, somehow, Audrey is "dreaming" what we're seeing - not in the Dallas "it was all a dream" sense, but in the Mulholland Drive, "the dreams of one character may be strong enough to shape the world they inhabit" sense (if you buy into that interpretation of Mulholland Drive) - I've always thought that Mulholland Drive exists in the same universe as Twin Peaks, or at least follows the same internal logic, and between seeing a potential glimpse of the Red Room in Mulholland Drive, and Club Silencio in (presumably) Twin Peaks' White Lodge back in Episode 8, Lynch does seem to have made a conscious connection. If you believe Sherilyn Fenn's assertion that Mulholland Drive was originally intended to be a spin-off for Audrey Horne (something I don't actually believe, as I've never heard it from any other source, and it doesn't add up to any other story I've heard of the genesis of that film), then it does sound a little convincing.

Do we think Richard Horne is actually dead, or might he pop up the finale, having been transported to some other realm? We got no shot of him materialising in the Red Room, so it doesn't look like he's been transported there, he just got fried to bits. I think he probably is dead and, dramatic as the circumstances were, it seems a bit of an anti-climax to a character built up all season - but maybe that was the point; a subversion of expectations, and all Richard Horne deserved. Though even if, as he most likely is, the character is dead, then his story can be far from over - Bad Coop has almost definitely confirmed that he was Richard's father just as we saw a glimpse of the truth about Audrey, while the whole scene was witnessed by Richard's great-uncle Jerry. Through the wrong end of the binoculars, was Jerry able to recognise that it was Richard he was watching?

 

Other things...is there significance in Cooper's text to Diane not sending? When he attempted to send the text in the dead of night, it was "undelivered", and Diane didn't receive it until the afternoon. A meaningless bit of detail to make the narrative flow a little better, a sign of the electronic interference of Black Lodge spirits, or some guiding hand ensuring that the information reached the Diane Tulpa at the right time that she could go and tell her story to the Blue Rose team?

[Hobo]

Charlie is a big question. He's somehow linked to whatever that white place Audrey is in. Is he something she created to link her back to wherever her true self is? The version we're seeing is just a tulpa.

How many characters other than of James and Freddie have we seen both in the Roadhouse and elsewhere? It seems to be limited to characters we haven't seen before. With some exceptions. That must be of significance .

I 100% think there's greater effort to stop Mr. C. There's the ones Hastings and his Secretary for from Briggs. There's also the ones that Jefferies gave him. And Diane had coordinates. I can see a situation where Major Briggs and Phillip Jefferies were trying to stop Mr C and made sure he got the wrong numbers.

Then you have MIKE, The Fireman and Laura Palmer. It feels like there's a whole team working to stop him. The Arm, who was not a wholly a force for good,  been neutralized more or less. 

I don't know if Diane ever was real. Maybe BOB created Diane in the same way Dougie was created and then just slotted into the world like she'd always been there.

It seems like Mr C's plans aren't quite working out. Jefferies gave him little. Chantal and Hutch are dead. Unbeknownst to him Dale Cooper is back. Mr C has the coordinates but did he also need Diane to kill Cole, Albert and Tammy? If so. That didn't work.

[Skummy]

If Diane was never real, then it raises questions as to why Gordon Cole and Albert are fully aware of her - though we know that something about the Black Lodge's influence can have an effect on people's memories, so maybe people have been convinced that there always was a Diane even when there wasn't? That doesn't sit quite right with me, though - I think what's more likely is that the real Diane is either dead or trapped somewhere, a la Audrey, while Mr C's Tulpa Diane was out in the world.

There are still questions about the "real" Dougie Jones in that respect - Dougie was a Tulpa created by Mr C, seemingly as a trap so that he would be pulled back into the Black Lodge in lieu of Mr C when the real Dale Cooper was released back to the world. If Janey-E is Diane's sister, was this information Mr C garnered from Diane when he visited her, or was it pulled from earlier memories of Dale Cooper? How much of Dale Cooper's past life is Mr C aware of, does he share his memories and experiences?

 

People who have appeared in the Roadhouse (excluding Roadhouse staff and bands), I've italicised those who I don't think have appeared outside of the Roadhouse

Episode 2: Shelly, James, Freddie, Red, Renee
Episode 5: Richard Horne, Chad, Elizabeth, Charlotte
Episode 9: Ella and Chloe
Episode 12: Abbie and Natalie, talking about Angela, Clark & Mary, and Trick, talking about being nearly hit by a car
Episode 13: James and Renee
Episode 14: Sophie and Megan, discussing Billy and Tina
Episode 15: Ruby
 

We have to assume that the Billy and Tina being talked about are the same Billy and Tina mentioned by Audrey and Charlie, and that Audrey had a fixation on the Roadhouse, and on finding Billy. There's still the odd line about Charlie "ending Audrey's story".

There's also the ending of Episode 7, where the end credits were at the Diner, not the Roadhouse, and someone ran in asking for Billy - as far as I can tell, the first mention of Billy. I seem to remember there being something out of sync and odd about that sequence, too, perhaps a suggestion that things weren't quite as they seemed.

 

I think the Roadhouse scenes might be clues to the timeframe, or to what sequence events have occurred in - Audrey spent three episodes debating going to the Roadhouse, while other stories moved on by days or weeks.

It may also have something to do with one specific booth at the Roadhouse - Sophie and Megan, Ella ad Chloe, and so on, all seem to occupy the same seats. There's always that one booth taken up by characters who seem to have no relation on the rest of the show, but which we have to watch. The only character that was introduced there that became a wider part of the narrative was Richard Horne - which could suggest the link to Audrey - who was actually sat elsewhere and forced himself into that booth to force himself on a girl, if I remember correctly.

Then there's Ruby last week, possibly the most disconcerting scene in there since Richard Horne's first appearance. What was going on with her? Just another doped out teenager at the Roadhouse? Or is it a coincidence that we saw her crawling across the floor only moments after we'd seen Dougie do the same, after she said that she was "waiting for someone" - as was Dougie, and indeed, all of us?

 

It could, indeed, all be absolutely nothing and just creating background noise to flesh out the town of Twin Peaks in its current state. But that last episode certainly added weight to the theory that something is going on at the Roadhouse. And after all, there's always music in the air...

 

As for a concerted effort to stop Mr. C, I definitely agree; MIKE is guiding Cooper back to himself, and actively collaborating with him, the Fireman is guiding people towards Twin Peaks for something, and Briggs has definitely been spending a long time trying to prevent the worst fall-out of the Black Lodge. I'm not sure Jeffries is actively attempting to stop Mr C, or if he just has his own motivations, as he didn't seem (to me, anyway) to recognise that the Cooper he spoke to was anyone other than the Cooper he knew as a man.

I'm not sure it's so much that they're working to stop Cooper, as there's some event coming in which both the White and Black Lodge are involved, and they're using the respective Coopers as earthly representatives to gain an advantage. I don't get the impression that MIKE is concerned with what Mr C is doing in the "real" world, so much as he's concerned about bringing about balance, which is currently thrown off by both Coopers being "awake". We still don't really know what role the Woodsmen play in the Lodges, or in representing them on Earth, either.

 

The two biggest points for the finale are surely going to be The Dreamer, and Laura's The One. I believe Audrey's the Dreamer, however that will manifest itself, and Laura will have a huge part to play in the finale, but how? Will she be involved purely in the Lodge, or will she manifest? Is there a Laura Palmer Tulpa out there? Or was the Laura Palmer killed way back when already a Tulpa, and the real Laura had been trapped in the Lodge even before then? Or perhaps she wasn't trapped, but protected - knowing that BOB had (or would) possess Leland, some benign force (The Fireman?) created a Laura Tulpa, and protected the real Laura in the Red Room? Diane's "I'm not me" crisis of self isn't a million miles away from seemingly out-of-character breakdowns and experiences suffered by Laura in Fire Walk With Me and Laura Palmer's Diary. And, in Episode 8, when it appeared that the Fireman was creating Laura Palmer to counteract BOB's influence, it looked like he created a seed much like those used by MIKE.

And what was with that frog/locust thing, anyway?

[Skummy]

Wait....Diane said "I'm in the sheriff's station". Is Naido somehow the real Diane?

 

And, thinking of Tulpas, what do we know of the "real" Dougie Jones? He was a gambler, a drinker, an adulterer...probably just not a very nice guy at all. And that makes sense, because he was a Tulpa crafted of, and by, Mr C, not a Tulpa of the real Dale Cooper. Now, Dale Cooper has tasked MIKE with creating a new Dougie Jones to send back to his family - but this one is to be created of the real thing, so the new Dougie will see the Joneses actually get the husband/father they deserve. It'll be interesting to see if the new Dougie is a copy of Dale Cooper, or more akin to the Dougie that Dale Cooper inhabited - there'll be something quite endearing about the Joneses getting back the childlike Dougie they grew to love.

[Hobo]

...And then we have whatever the hell Sarah Palmer is on top of that!?

A theory I've heard on the Woodsmen that I kinda like is that they exist just to do tasks for lodge spirits and other than that are completely neutral.

There was no record of Dougie Jones prior to 1997. Which is what made me think the Lodge can just make someone up if they want ("from pure air we have descended"). 

I'm also thinking that maybe the event that is happening in Twin Peaks is likely to be effected by the fact Mr C refused to go back to the lodge. Although it is probably more likely that it's a necessary part of the whole thing. Is a conflict between the two lodges is about to happen?

All we know about Audrey other than what we've seen is she was in a coma. But it's very weird that nobody ever mentions her except Richard who mentions her in the past tense. Yet she seems to actually be still living in Twin Peaks.

It could be that Audrey has some sort of brain injury from the explosion and what we're seeing is her perspective. Yet, everyone else is seeing something akin to what Dougie had been up until now? Which would be incredibly sad.

Unrelated, I am super excited for Cooper to meet up with Gordon and Albert. Maybe Albert will finally smile?

EDIT: My current pitch for the final shot of the season: Audrey wakes up in bed as her husband, Dale Cooper, comes out of the shower.

 

[jrhodes]

2 hours ago, Skummy said:

Wait....Diane said "I'm in the sheriff's station". Is Naido somehow the real Diane?

That makes way more sense than "I'm the sheriff's station" which is what I thought she said.

Naido clearly looks Asia so I don't see her being Diane but their names do share a backwards similarity - Naid(o)/Dian(e).

The way Diane 'cracked' when confronted by MIKE in the red room reminded me of how that strange creature cracked out the egg before crawling into the young girl's mouth in episode 8.

I also noticed that there was a scarab lit on a slot machine that faded away as Cooper left Sonny Jim and Janey-E behind in the casino. 

Is that creature related to tulpas? Maybe it plays a part in their creation?

[Skummy]

Drunkenly walking home listening to Audrey's Dance last night thoughts; has Audrey always been somehow able to influence the world? That song, as far back as season one, was able to move from diegetic to non-diegetic in a way most of the soundtrack doesn't. Who else has their own theme tune on a jukebox?

[Hobo]

 

 

[Josh]

I know it doesn't quite fit the theme, but I wish it had ended with, "It's a good one!" I don't know if any single line has made me laugh harder.

Hell, I'd just about kill for a spinoff movie all about Gordon Cole visiting France.