-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
Twin Peaks Season 3 |OT2| It's Just A Change, Not An End
- Thread starter Joqu
- Start date
Lol what if there is a chance that they sit down on a couch and watch Twin Peaks.
uncelestial
Member
The inside of the Palmers' house is quite nice and not at all creepy in real life.
https://www.redfin.com/WA/Everett/708-33rd-St-98201/home/2740617
https://www.redfin.com/WA/Everett/708-33rd-St-98201/home/2740617
I don't think this is true. They pass the R&R diner.
Just going to slide in and say I really loved the finale, when the credits rolled I had such a feeling of desperation and heartbreak.
A few things I took away that may have already be mentioned:
The credits sequence of Laura whispering to Coop is going to be an all time favourite for me.
A few things I took away that may have already be mentioned:
- "Once we cross it could all be different"
- Sheryl Lee is credited as both Carrie and Laura
- Carrie/Laura's expression the whole time after entering Twin Peaks was incredibly haunting, I had a real sense that she was committed to what Cooper was trying to do.
The credits sequence of Laura whispering to Coop is going to be an all time favourite for me.
I just rewatched 17 and 18 and while on first watch it felt like 17 in total was the triumphant, goofy, fan-servicey episode that tied up a bunch of plot threads while 18 was the extreme fuck you counter to that, on second watch that whole sequence once Coop recognizes Naido/Diane becomes much more ominous and the entire second half feels closer in spirit to ep 18 than to the first half of ep 17. It would be interesting if this had aired for an unbroken two hours (like the first 2 episodes originally did).
I don't think he was actually taking her home in that sense. My interpretation was that it looked like they were heading for Jack Rabbit's Palace.
darkwing-buck
Member
Foreshadow that Lynch was gonna fuck us again.
Albert: "you've gone soft in your old age."
Gordon: "not where it counts buddy."
They pass the original Mar-T Cafe, now called Twedes. Go back and look at the shot, it's not the R&R, it doesn't have the R&R To Go sign.
https://consequenceofsound.files.wo...t-2017-06-09-at-11-28-49-am.png?w=1612&h=1214
Fourth wall shit I knew it! That lady who answered the door didn't seem like an actress.
My brain is hurting right now.
Dusk Golem
A 21st Century Rockefeller
So some more thoughts a few hours later.
The song that plays when Cooper and Diane are having sex is the same song that plays in Part 8 when the Woodsman takes over the radio station and says the verse, "This is the water, and this is the well. Drink full, and descend. The horse is the white of the eyes, and dark within." I don't know exactly right now what that comparison means, but when it happens Diane begins to cover Cooper's face. Of note, Cooper's face is super imposed in Part 17 over the whole scene which can be considered the 'happy ending'.
I am pretty sure the implication is Cooper is the dreamer. He even says before he disappears from the Sheriff's station, "We live inside a dream. I hope I see all of you again. Everyone of you." And that's the last thing Cooper says to everyone before going back in time and the things that happen, and Cooper's face is super imposed on the image.
Cooper as we see him in Part 18 seems to literally mad, like actually crazy. He comes out of a place which isn't the place it should be, he shoots someone in the foot and deep fries their guns while threatening a lady (with courteousness) for an address. He finds a woman and is convinced she's Laura Palmer, and drives her all the way from Texas to Washington to show her Sarah Palmer's house, which isn't Sarah Palmer's house. From a very different angle all of this seems quite mad, and can come off as Cooper completely unhinged. It's not clear if he's even an FBI agent or just believes he's an FBI Agent. Essentially where he's coming from is an ideal for him, his good and evil is separate, he is an upstanding agent loved by all, even at his lowest there's always forces to guide him, his quirkiness is charming, and he's in a situation where he can help people, maybe the only person who can in some cases. But this ends when he goes to save Laura, there's an evil there he can't change no matter how hard he tries. Even when reality twists to wherever he ends up with Diane, everything is different and nothing is the world that Cooper/Richard knows from before. But there's one single element that's lingering, and it's the evil. Somewhere deep in the house is the reminder of the atrocity of Laura's murder, which is what I believe the ending means. Even with everything changed, the one thing Cooper wanted to change to help everything is the one untangiable that cannot be shifted, it's left a permanent scar.
The series often has thematics of good vs evil, and the struggle between them, or maybe less the struggle but more the duality between the two of them. Beneath goodness there is horror, goodness can settle within the nests of horror but it can be twisted, and there is a shadow beneath a facade. The finale perverts Cooper's own goodness and casts questions on him all together. No longer is his good and evil separate, they seem interchanged. The pure evil we saw from Mr. C is not some separate entity, it is a part of him, and it perverts hid own inherent goodness. Cooper's own pursuit of goodness can be a perversion that causes suffering. This happened somewhat in the Season 2 finale going into Season 3, but it's true here too. In the act of wanting to do good, he learns he can't change everything no matter his intentions. As Major Briggs says in the original series, "My greatest fear is that love may never be enough."
I think what happens in the end effects the beginning. When Laura is swept up from the Black Lodge in Part 2 it's when she disappears in Part 17. I think we see the ripples of the end result happening through the whole season. Leland's only role this season is asking Cooper to save Laura, but the truth is that's an impossible task. We are lead to believe at first we are getting the happiest possible ending, that BOB is defeated by a literal superhero pre-determined to save the world with a destiny, that Cooper comes in with happy confidence to save the day, everyone collects around the Twin Peaks Sheriff's Department for a happy ending. Through all of this, Cooper's face is super imposed again. Laura can be saved, Cooper can go back in time and save her. But this is all an illusion, it's all a dream, a dream they're all living inside of and Cooper wakes up from.
He holds Laura Palmer's hand to save her in Part 17, but she disappears. He then leads Carrie by her hand to the Palmer House only to find it's not the Palmer House at all. Whenever he tries to lead Laura to safety, he fails. And every time he fails, we hear Laura's blood-curtling scream. We heard it at the start when she's sucked away, we heard it when she disappeared in Part 17, and it's the last thing we hear in Part 18. Cooper keeps trying and fails, but Laura seems destined to not have a happy ending, she is a tragedy (of note Carrie has an upside down shoehorse necklace).
There's more I'm thinking, but a few thoughts from a few hours later.
The song that plays when Cooper and Diane are having sex is the same song that plays in Part 8 when the Woodsman takes over the radio station and says the verse, "This is the water, and this is the well. Drink full, and descend. The horse is the white of the eyes, and dark within." I don't know exactly right now what that comparison means, but when it happens Diane begins to cover Cooper's face. Of note, Cooper's face is super imposed in Part 17 over the whole scene which can be considered the 'happy ending'.
I am pretty sure the implication is Cooper is the dreamer. He even says before he disappears from the Sheriff's station, "We live inside a dream. I hope I see all of you again. Everyone of you." And that's the last thing Cooper says to everyone before going back in time and the things that happen, and Cooper's face is super imposed on the image.
Cooper as we see him in Part 18 seems to literally mad, like actually crazy. He comes out of a place which isn't the place it should be, he shoots someone in the foot and deep fries their guns while threatening a lady (with courteousness) for an address. He finds a woman and is convinced she's Laura Palmer, and drives her all the way from Texas to Washington to show her Sarah Palmer's house, which isn't Sarah Palmer's house. From a very different angle all of this seems quite mad, and can come off as Cooper completely unhinged. It's not clear if he's even an FBI agent or just believes he's an FBI Agent. Essentially where he's coming from is an ideal for him, his good and evil is separate, he is an upstanding agent loved by all, even at his lowest there's always forces to guide him, his quirkiness is charming, and he's in a situation where he can help people, maybe the only person who can in some cases. But this ends when he goes to save Laura, there's an evil there he can't change no matter how hard he tries. Even when reality twists to wherever he ends up with Diane, everything is different and nothing is the world that Cooper/Richard knows from before. But there's one single element that's lingering, and it's the evil. Somewhere deep in the house is the reminder of the atrocity of Laura's murder, which is what I believe the ending means. Even with everything changed, the one thing Cooper wanted to change to help everything is the one untangiable that cannot be shifted, it's left a permanent scar.
The series often has thematics of good vs evil, and the struggle between them, or maybe less the struggle but more the duality between the two of them. Beneath goodness there is horror, goodness can settle within the nests of horror but it can be twisted, and there is a shadow beneath a facade. The finale perverts Cooper's own goodness and casts questions on him all together. No longer is his good and evil separate, they seem interchanged. The pure evil we saw from Mr. C is not some separate entity, it is a part of him, and it perverts hid own inherent goodness. Cooper's own pursuit of goodness can be a perversion that causes suffering. This happened somewhat in the Season 2 finale going into Season 3, but it's true here too. In the act of wanting to do good, he learns he can't change everything no matter his intentions. As Major Briggs says in the original series, "My greatest fear is that love may never be enough."
I think what happens in the end effects the beginning. When Laura is swept up from the Black Lodge in Part 2 it's when she disappears in Part 17. I think we see the ripples of the end result happening through the whole season. Leland's only role this season is asking Cooper to save Laura, but the truth is that's an impossible task. We are lead to believe at first we are getting the happiest possible ending, that BOB is defeated by a literal superhero pre-determined to save the world with a destiny, that Cooper comes in with happy confidence to save the day, everyone collects around the Twin Peaks Sheriff's Department for a happy ending. Through all of this, Cooper's face is super imposed again. Laura can be saved, Cooper can go back in time and save her. But this is all an illusion, it's all a dream, a dream they're all living inside of and Cooper wakes up from.
He holds Laura Palmer's hand to save her in Part 17, but she disappears. He then leads Carrie by her hand to the Palmer House only to find it's not the Palmer House at all. Whenever he tries to lead Laura to safety, he fails. And every time he fails, we hear Laura's blood-curtling scream. We heard it at the start when she's sucked away, we heard it when she disappeared in Part 17, and it's the last thing we hear in Part 18. Cooper keeps trying and fails, but Laura seems destined to not have a happy ending, she is a tragedy (of note Carrie has an upside down shoehorse necklace).
There's more I'm thinking, but a few thoughts from a few hours later.
darkwing-buck
Member
HELLOOOOoooOOOOOOOOO
.That's what I thought when I first saw the scene, but that changed when the next part introduced Cooper's obsession with taking her back to her mother's home.
darkwing-buck
Member
: - ) ALL
darkwing-buck
Member
16 was the speed run
Even Laura almost fell asleep during the ride
darkwing-buck
Member
How's Audrey?
: - )
: - )
Intheflorsh
Banned
How's Anything?
I just realized that "Naido" is how "Diane" sounds backwards
SuperStiltzkin
Member
So do we know exactly what happened after Coop got out of the lodge and reunited with Diane? Like what was the plan? How did they know to go to that power line area? Did they know they were crossing over? What are they crossing over to?
We just know they had a plan together, not really what it entailed. When Cooper first frees Diane from being Naido, he asks her if she remembers everything. Then before leaving through the Great Northern Door, he tells her specifically that he'll see her at curtain call (Glastonbury Grove).
They know to go to the power line area because that's 430 miles from Twin Peaks, which was a clue from the Fireman. How Cooper knew that meant miles? Idk. They knew they were crossing over somewhere as well because Cooper mentions before the kiss that things might not be the same anymore where they're going.
Maybe we'll get more info in The Final Dossier since they had to have come up with this plan sometime in the past.
They were definitely heading 430 miles southeast of Twin Peaks. During the conversation with the Giant Teapot cosplaying as David Bowie the little ball stops on the southeast end of the infinity symbol dictating their direction. I'm not sure we have any idea of the concrete plan beyond save Laura/make things right, although Diane seems to understand that it is fraught with danger. What are they crossing over to is the biggest interpretive question of the season. No one really knows at this point.
This sentence needs to be framed and put on my wall.
Yo, wtf just happened? I hope in 3 months there is a solid theory explanation I can just read for this ending :| Everything despite the wackiness actually seemed pretty straightforward towards wrapping up the entire plot of TP in the season until this last ep, but last ep didn't do much for me and felt like it left a ton open instead. Ep17's ending also felt extremely rushed considering the long build up to the cooper/bob showdown. I also don't understand how Bob was still in evil cooper when I thought they took him out the last time he got shot?
I don't think Cooper was the dreamer in a literal sense. He fell into Laura's dream, a dream that she fell into between two worlds, life and death, to try to escape from her tragedy. She's as happy in the dream as she could ever have been, but Cooper shows up to save her and wakes her from the dream into eternal nothingness. The tragedy of Dale Cooper is not that he's a sad man who envisions himself successful, which Dusk Golem says in his fantastic although personally disagreeable analysis, it's that he always thinks he can do good and defeat evil. Dale Cooper thinks he can go into Laura's dream, take her out, defeat Judy, and save her. All he can do is wake her from the dream of a miserable life into the nightmare of an early death.
Thanks for taking the time to write this. Lots of interesting points you've made. I watched at 3:30am here so definitely need some time to collect my thoughts.
Airola
Member
No and yes.
In Season 2 it is revealed that Laura was in the same episode 3 dream with Cooper. He wrote about that in her diary. Donna reads the page where Laura tells how she's in a red room with an old man and a little man and she whispers something to the old man's ear. And Cooper is excited to note he and Laura saw the same dream (or at least the red room portion of the dream).
But yeah, she also sees Cooper warning her in FWWM.
Dusk Golem
A 21st Century Rockefeller
I'm almost wondering if something Lynch said might hold any important, where he said that the pilot to him is "Twin Peaks". And that he only watched the pilot again when making the new season.
(also, your thoughts above with the critique are very interesting! I'm still processing a lot and I certainly don't feel I've figured it out or anything, just putting together and thinking over some things.)
MetroidPrimeRib
Banned
The more I think about it the more the final scene reminds me of the final scene of End of Evangelion where it ends like a knife to the gut, where resolution isnt as important as the impact that kinda just leaves you upset.
darkwing-buck
Member
Lynch probably seen that and thought to himself, "this motherfucker here has the right idea"