-
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
Camper Van Beethoven
Banned
You'd unquestionably enjoy Mulholland.
Camper Van Beethoven
Banned
One of my biggest issues with this season is how simplistic it's been on a story level. There's been a LOT of telling rather than showing. Cole's info dump at the beginning of episode 17 is a great example.
By contrast 18 is the stuff people will be left talking about forever. The core "mythology" of Twin Peaks isn't especially interesting, once you get to specifics like BOB and Mother. The emotional resonance of Laura Palmer is.
Brian_FETO
Banned
There have been multiple obvious info-dumps this season that I have to believe are intentional
So much of this season is self aware.... like they give you all of this confusing stuff to make you lost and then an episode starts with Hawk finding Laura's diary pages and explaining in excruciating detail how this all makes sense in the story
This whole season just seems like they were having fun making it and that's why I think I've liked it so much. You can feel it
demonturkey
Member
I think the finale made the thread title even better.
Camper Van Beethoven
Banned
I mean I can sort of see this being the case but on the other hand Frost is writing two books that are incredibly deep info dumps in and of themselves. I kind of believe that guy is just really into the lore of the show.
I really enjoy it in book form, but in the show I find it quite distracting.
now i've had time to digest i "like" the finale. it wouldn't be twin peaks with coop having cherry pie at the R&R and living happily ever after, at least not without lynch and frost. i think everything has been laid out to make sense of it all, though i'm not about to write a dissertation explaining everything. at the very least it wasn't an abrupt stop like season 2; there's more to extrapolate on in regards to what happens "after"
still though i felt like they crammed way too much even at 18 hours. just too many story arcs going nowhere. maybe i'll look back years later and see the significance but i'm just not sure where they were going with becky, ashley judd and her terminally ill hubby, ect.
but whatever its season 3 of twin peaks and it exists. something i never thought would happen
still though i felt like they crammed way too much even at 18 hours. just too many story arcs going nowhere. maybe i'll look back years later and see the significance but i'm just not sure where they were going with becky, ashley judd and her terminally ill hubby, ect.
but whatever its season 3 of twin peaks and it exists. something i never thought would happen
Same, I can't seem to stop thinking about it, trying to piece it all together.
Episode 17 question- Coop's face overlay during the scene in sheriff truman's office- this is him observing it? When? Like, did it happen as we saw it and then he's observing from the future? Or this is him observing the "dream"? Or is it a lucid dream and we're seeing him control it as it plays out?
I saw a theory on Reddit that said, basically, the dream is ending, and this is the part where you are conscious you are dreaming, except, you are still dreaming
Camper Van Beethoven
Banned
Everything after the S2 finale is just Cooper going nuts in the Lodge living out these wild dreams where he tries to save Laura, this is scientific fact.
I think the overlay starts the moment he lays eyes on Diane, and his message to the rest of the cast that "we live inside the dream" is him from Laura's dream trying to get a message through that he and Diane were living inside Laura's dream, but I don't really know if I believe that myself.
What if the "we are living inside of a dream" stuff isn't as literal as it sounds? Like, instead of meaning Twin Peaks is a dream that's dreamed up by someone somewhere, Cooper is just referring to the fact that the world they're living is something that's ephemeral, not set in stone, something that can and should be changed?
Before he leaves, he talks about things changing and the past dictating the future. Not, "now I'm going to wake up now and you all will be blinked out of existence because you were never really here."
I haven't totally parsed why, but I think it's significant that Cooper's face being superimposed over the screen -- with the clock stuck at 2:52/2:53 -- happens after Naido reverts back into Diane. Like maybe it triggered a realization in him that things didn't have to be how they were, that they could be undone and changed into something better and he had the power to do that. Like Naido turning back into Diane when she touches Coop's hand makes him believe that Laura can be spared her fate by taking Coop's hand too.
Before he leaves, he talks about things changing and the past dictating the future. Not, "now I'm going to wake up now and you all will be blinked out of existence because you were never really here."
I haven't totally parsed why, but I think it's significant that Cooper's face being superimposed over the screen -- with the clock stuck at 2:52/2:53 -- happens after Naido reverts back into Diane. Like maybe it triggered a realization in him that things didn't have to be how they were, that they could be undone and changed into something better and he had the power to do that. Like Naido turning back into Diane when she touches Coop's hand makes him believe that Laura can be spared her fate by taking Coop's hand too.
The motel they pull into is between reality and Laura's dream, which is why Diane sees herself as Linda waiting to take her place. They go into the motel, have "intercourse between two worlds," and wake up in Laura's dream.
I haven't heard these yet but I first made myself believe that the phonograph sounds were repeated during the countdown of the atomic bomb in episode 8. I'm surely wrong but I could've sworn they were the same...
You know, I would say this is a silly theory, except for the part when Coop walks through the Red Room for a second time, shakes his hand a little, and leaves through the curtain that was blocked the first time.
Or to put it another way, he literally handwaves away the last 18 hours and just leaves.
HashtagLapsed
Member
Jeffries also mentioned "we live inside a dream" and so did Cole after his dream. Waking up is also a theme throughout The Return.
Im not completely sure what to make of it but I think the idea it is all Laura's dream is way too much like Mulholland Drive for Lynch to be satisfied. Everything being Richard's dream leaves too much open and not making sense too.
Im not completely sure what to make of it but I think the idea it is all Laura's dream is way too much like Mulholland Drive for Lynch to be satisfied. Everything being Richard's dream leaves too much open and not making sense too.
Holy shit
I don't think everything is Laura's dream, just the Richard section that finishes the last half of 18
Yeah I noticed the overlay starts there...and I do think there is an actual dream (and a related loop he and Laura are trapped in) but I don't think it starts until Episode 18 when he goes back to the red room after Laura gets zapped away in the woods. I think what Laura whispers in his ear is the same thing Monica Belucci tells Cole, "we're like the dreamer...".
Everything about Episode 18 from when we first see Coop and Diane traveling in the car seems like a dream- they are in an antique car for seemingly no reason, when they cross over its suddenly night, the motel changing, their names changing, Diane just disappearing, the car changing, in Judy's diner when he puts the guns in the oil, an extra gun just seems to appear (the revolver), the white horse in Carrie's house, the missing "2 Go" from the double R, all seem very dream-like. I know there's other possible explanations for all that stuff, but it feels very dream-like.
Camper Van Beethoven
Banned
He appears on screen and tells us we live inside a dream while watching his own dream play out. I don't even see how else you're supposed to interpret it. It's just a never ending loop of Cooper trying and failing to save Laura and gradually losing his mind and identity.
BlueTsunami
there is joy in sucking dick
My interest would absolutely deflate if 18 was just Lauras dream. Because that terrifying ending would be explained away, quickly, in a theoretical season 4.
Camper Van Beethoven
Banned
Good thing there won't ever be a season 4 and nobody will ever have their idea of what happened destroyed.
HashtagLapsed
Member
This is kind of how I am interpreting it too.
BlueTsunami
there is joy in sucking dick
Now I want a S4 just to find out this was all Leo's dream
I'm probably reading too much into things, but in the final scene, Coop's final movements seem very similar to Philip Jeffries, kind of slightly hunched and with an off walk. So that will be his fate too it seems, stuck in a loop forever.
plagiarize
Banned
I said there would never be a season 3 and I think that was a safer bet.
Never say never is all I'm saying.
It's a definitive end. Laura Palmer is dead and can never be saved. Cooper goes into her dream, but when she wake up, Cooper follows her into nonexistence. Cooper trapped himself in the dream of a dead girl and killed himself for absolutely nothing.
but Andy got the red chair c:
Death Metalist
Member
Kinda like this theory.
Camper Van Beethoven
Banned
The scream we hear in episode 17 when Laura vanishes in the woods is the exact same scream from when she's sucked away from him in the black lodge. I seriously just see all these things as being parallel to the Lodge; visual representations of his mind space in there. He's reliving and replaying these events trying to change them in some way and it always ends the same; Laura screaming and him waking up, back in the lodge.
I'm just trying to think like Lynch; he was obviously hurt and felt like there was unfinished business with Twin Peaks before. Now he had 18 hours to tell the story he wanted. I just can't see him going back, especially when we had to wait so long for him to make anything visual after Inland.
I wouldn't dislike a season 4, but I think it's less likely now than S3 ever was just because of his age
There's an interview somewhere where Lynch is talking about how we are all living in a dream, and we wake up when we realize who we really are, and how it's the greatest feeling. And in the end of this season Cooper lost his identity and self, so he is truly lost in a dream. Thats how I understood the dream talk lol
"Now this is something really interesting to think about!"
To add on to that - maybe the motel-between-worlds where Coop and Diane fuck themselves into becoming different people is related to the motel that Coop and Mr. C visit Jeffries at?
Death Metalist
Member
Intheflorsh
Banned
I'd be happy to accept that, but if that scene took place in "reality" then what was going on with the clock? What was up with the lights fading away?
2:53, the time we've seen, time and time again.
Coop sees the clock and then
man I don't fuckin know
Death Metalist
Member
When it comes to the theories, at some point, anything is possible.
plagiarize
Banned
I'm not really interested in piecing together what is and isn't real. The experiences feel real even if they didn't take place in the highest level of the shows reality.
They may live inside a dream. But live their they do. That is their life. We aren't seeing people imagining their challenges and triumphs but living them.
That's my truth anyway.
They may live inside a dream. But live their they do. That is their life. We aren't seeing people imagining their challenges and triumphs but living them.
That's my truth anyway.
This shit haunts my soul. Add to that the look on Coop's face. Happy ending my ass.
plagiarize
Banned
Yeah. I don't get this happy ending nonsense.
Coop will never give up. He may never be defeated, but he sure as shit didn't beat Judy.
I just have trouble accepting that the final sheriff's office scene is a dream because it's sort of the climax of 17 hours (and 25 years) of buildup. We get the final showdown. It may be goofy but I don't think it's meant to not happen. Maybe killing a Lodge spirit causes time to distort, and the Lodge takes Coop and Diane to the door, with Cole only tagging along because Cooper selects him. Perhaps that Great Northern bit is a dream induced by the Lodge?
Yeah. If he does, I hope he keeps working with an older cast. Lynch always gets great performances from more elderly cast members, especially from Richard Farnsworth in The Straight Story and Grace Zabriskie in The Return.
What a ride that was.
Anyway, I was so naive to think that the other waitress was going to be Annie. And maybe she was Judy all along.
I'm still heartbroken that Lynch/Frost decided to drop her all together. Like it or not, she was 50% of the cliffhanger of S2. But they didn't even address Audrey's situation or anything so yeah. I was naive to expect a surprise (of this kind) in the season finale.
I enjoyed the season, except for one episode or two. But having Cooper back for like 10 minutes was a low blow.
Sheryl is still great actress. I love her. So natural
Anyway, I was so naive to think that the other waitress was going to be Annie. And maybe she was Judy all along.
I'm still heartbroken that Lynch/Frost decided to drop her all together. Like it or not, she was 50% of the cliffhanger of S2. But they didn't even address Audrey's situation or anything so yeah. I was naive to expect a surprise (of this kind) in the season finale.
I enjoyed the season, except for one episode or two. But having Cooper back for like 10 minutes was a low blow.
Sheryl is still great actress. I love her. So natural
HashtagLapsed
Member
It is kind of Sisyphean.
WiiredShawn
Member
My two regrets right now, aside from all the unanswered questions:
Nadine should have fought BOB with her golden shovel. One Punch Man was an unnecessary addition.
I wish Sycamore Trees had played during Part 18's credits. Such a good song.
Nadine should have fought BOB with her golden shovel. One Punch Man was an unnecessary addition.
I wish Sycamore Trees had played during Part 18's credits. Such a good song.
Audrey's situation was addressed though. She was traumitized by what happened to her following S2 so she dreamed up a life for herself where those things never happened. Eventually her past comes back to her with the dance, and she wakes up.
Audrey's situation is the key to understanding 18: Cooper and Diane travel into Laura's dream, and at the end Laura is reminded of herself through the sound of her diary, the sight of her home, and her mother's voice, and then she wakes up.
The american girl was played by Phoebe Augustine, who was Ronette Pulaski in the original series and FWWM. (The girl that was with Laura the night Lelland/BOB killed Laura)
So I think the "American Girl" is just supposed to be Ronette.