"My childhood was elegant homes, tree-lined streets, the milkman, building backyard forts, droning airplanes, blue skies, picket fences, green grass, cherry trees. Middle America as it's supposed to be. But on the cherry tree there's this pitch oozing out some black, some yellow, and millions of red ants crawling all over it. I discovered that if one looks a little closer at this beautiful world, there are always red ants underneath. Because I grew up in a perfect world, other things were a contrast."
Basically, for every good, there will always be bad. You can't stop it. It will always be with us. You can't ignore it.
You can, and should do good so the world doesn't turn into nothing but ants, but the ants will always be there. For some of us, we can ignore them since we live in a "perfect": world while others are living in the pitch.
Twin Peaks 1990 was more or less the perfect world. Twin Peaks 2017 was getting our faces rubbed in the pitch.
no, this is what i don't buy. i totally get why you'd say this - it's neat. it seems like a point, but this season had fantasy world bullshit just as much as the original show - freddie, nadine and her shovels, the good hearted mitchum boys, it's all happy town fantasy nonsense - and then it also has unbearably dark stuff like everything to do with bad coop, recurring undue violence against women like with richard horne, and of course the ending itself. it's a scattershot, it doesn't line up with any one simplistic interpretation.
the question i'm asking right now is, does it fucking mean anything, or is it just dave's insanity finally going one step too far into nonsense.
"I discovered that if one looks a little closer at this beautiful world, there are always red ants underneath."
is there a word for that? Like if you look at a house from 100 yards away it can look absolutely perfect but when you get closer you see the peeling paint, cracks in the sidewalk, spider webs, broken window, etc.
the message I've taken from the Return is that no matter what you do, you can't change the past. all the horrible things that have happened to you or to others will always be there, hurting. But that doesn't mean you can't look the future and strive to do good and live happily in spite of these things.
Ed and Norma, Carl, Nadine, Bobby, so many of the characters in this show have been through some shit but even in their old age they make positive changes for themselves and for others to be happy. Cooper does not, Cooper clings to the past and strives to change and eliminate the pain of the past, and that's his undoing.
I've been working on a novel, probably going to turn out a draft come November... but its one of those wheel stories, where a guy is continually living life over and over again, and getting tormented by a dark force. Things play out in different ways, but the evil cannot be stopped and it will always, eventually, catch up with the main character and kill him.
But the way you can still win, is to find enjoyment in everything else that happens along the journey. To live, despite the horrors. Because that's the only way you can win.
Now, I don't personally think Twin Peaks is a wheel story, like others are now theorizing. It's Back to the Future, not The Dark Tower. We've seen the original version of events, which have now been changed by what happened in Part 17. I'm of the opinion that Part 18 isn't an alternate timeline where different things happened, but an alternate place all the same. Judy's bubble universe, someone else's dream, whatever... but not somewhere that was the same as the original version of events up until the moment that Laura Palmer ran off into the woods that night, at the stop light by Sparkwood and 21.
But I do feel that message ringing true in a lot of the interpretations. The world is full of horror. Agent Cooper used to know how to still see the beauty in it. Everyday, give yourself a gift. Don't plan for it. Just do it. Sure, Twin Peaks is a town where the prom queen was a drug addicted prostitute who was murdered by her abuser, but Twin Peaks was still a place that charmed him with it's people that slow down at a yellow light, and no matter the business espionage going on at the saw mill... did you see those trees?
Never mind that they're getting cut down and chopped into pieces, or cleared for development... man... what beautiful trees they are before they're killed.
As Dougie Jones, we saw that too. That day to day goodness. The joy of a light that turns on and off when you clap. Music. Food. Friends. Raising children. When he wakes up in Vegas, it's that same Coop, ever the optimist.
But in Part 18... that seems to be gone. I think that's what makes that episode so dark to me. Coop may still be trying to do the right thing. He may still be trying to save Laura and defeat evil...
But he's forgotten to give himself a gift every day. And that makes the world he finds himself in seem all the bleaker.
Whatever that place is. Even he doesn't seem to be able to find the good in it anymore.
"I discovered that if one looks a little closer at this beautiful world, there are always red ants underneath."
is there a word for that? Like if you look at a house from 100 yards away it can look absolutely perfect but when you get closer you see the peeling paint, cracks in the sidewalk, spider webs, broken window, etc.
yeah something happened in the transition, he was way too cold and methodical after the switch. it seemed more like bad coop than coop himself. but if he was actually bad coop he would have just killed them all, so it's unclear exactly what was going on there.
yeah something happened in the transition, he was way too cold and methodical after the switch. it seemed more like bad coop than coop himself. but if he was actually bad coop he would have just killed them all, so it's unclear exactly what was going on there.
Yeah he's kind of a dick to the waitress in how he asks about if another waitress works there. Doesn't seem very upbeat, but he does "save her" from the cowboys.
He shoots one but in the foot not the face at least. And he warns the cook about his deep frying guns. And is concerned where to put the fries lol.
I feel like he gets more like himself towards the end though.
Another interpretation someone mentioned in this thread is that creating another Dougie tulpa drained him of some but not all of the good qualities. So he still has that core of goodness, but it's very much diminished.
You mean that this season was Lynch's way of saying that the coffee & cherry pie-filled world of S1 & S2 was something that we, the audience made up and that the real world is a gritty, grimy place like the one presented in S3? Was this Lynch's way of telling the TP audience to get real?
This was already the theme in the original Twin Peaks and Fire Walk with Me. The original series wan't about coffee & cherry pie filled world. It was always about the dark forces hiding under the facade of pretty things.
And Fire Walk with Me made that point even clearer by adding Deer Meadow to the lore.
It was about good people being able to be bad and bad people being able to be good.
the message I've taken from the Return is that no matter what you do, you can't change the past. all the horrible things that have happened to you or to others will always be there, hurting. But that doesn't mean you can't look the future and strive to do good and live happily in spite of these things.
Ed and Norma, Carl, Nadine, Bobby, so many of the characters in this show have been through some shit but even in their old age they make positive changes for themselves and for others to be happy. Cooper does not, Cooper clings to the past and strives to change and eliminate the pain of the past, and that's his undoing.
Annie was able to go to the past and (even though in a dream) make Laura do something she wouldn't have done without her though.
I don't think it's about whether or not you can change the past, but whether or not you should change the past. Sometimes bad things are allowed for a greater good that might not happen until several hundred years from now.
It might even be so that Cooper was guided to do what he did. He just doesn't have any clue of what's happening. I don't get the theories that sound as if some sort of a fate worse than death has now happened with Cooper. I think he is just confused and hasn't understood what the reason for things happening is. Same goes to Laura.
I still think Cooper is now a spirit like Mike and Mrs. Tremond, and his "job" is to guide someone else to accomplish something, like Mike and Mrs. Tremond did. I think it was the Fireman who snatched Laura out of the Lodge and threw her spirit out to the world. And it was made for a reason. And so is Cooper guided to do certain things by the Fireman. Cooper, Diane and Laura are where they are supposed to be, but thay haven't yet understood what it's all about.
"My childhood was elegant homes, tree-lined streets, the milkman, building backyard forts, droning airplanes, blue skies, picket fences, green grass, cherry trees. Middle America as it's supposed to be. But on the cherry tree there's this pitch oozing out some black, some yellow, and millions of red ants crawling all over it. I discovered that if one looks a little closer at this beautiful world, there are always red ants underneath. Because I grew up in a perfect world, other things were a contrast."
yeah something happened in the transition, he was way too cold and methodical after the switch. it seemed more like bad coop than coop himself. but if he was actually bad coop he would have just killed them all, so it's unclear exactly what was going on there.
He was like that when he returned from the lodge. Watch it again. The change comes when he seeds Dougie, not when he warps or wakes up. Dougie takes the cheery, zany side of Coops personality. What's left isn't evil but is serious, taciturn, grim, direct.
TI don't get the theories that sound as if some sort of a fate worse than death has now happened with Cooper.
I still think Cooper is now a spirit like Mike and Mrs. Tremond, and his "job" is to guide someone else to accomplish something, like Mike and Mrs. Tremond did. I think it was the Fireman who snatched Laura out of the Lodge and threw her spirit out to the world. And it was made for a reason. And so is Cooper guided to do certain things by the Fireman. Cooper, Diane and Laura are where they are supposed to be, but thay haven't yet understood what it's all about.
If Cooper and Laura are where they're supposed to be, it's for someone else's benefit, far outside of their goals or happiness. The emotional reality the series leaves them with is one of total desolation. The final image under the credits is of an eternal, unresolvable mystery.
I don't see myself rewatching the return much, certainly nowhere near what I did with season 1 and 2. The return is just much more grim and in terms of story a lot goes unresolved and kind of left me frustrated lol. It had good imagery but it's not the goofy comfort food the first two seasons were, warts and all.
I also felt like going further and further into weird lodge lore got a little too close to the Architect matrix moment but thankfully we didn't get a full ingredients listing on the sausage label. I just wanted more pancake with the sausage lol.
He was like that when he returned from the lodge. Watch it again. The change comes when he seeds Dougie, not when he warps or wakes up. Dougie takes the cheery, zany side of Coops personality. What's left isn't evil but is serious, taciturn, grim, direct.
Another interpretation someone mentioned in this thread is that creating another Dougie tulpa drained him of some but not all of the good qualities. So he still has that core of goodness, but it's very much diminished.
Then wouldn't that imply that OG Dougie took something out of Mr. C? I mean old Dougie wasn't a saint but given what we last saw of Mr C in Season 2, shit, there was likely not much not-evil for him to have parted with to create Dougie.
I mean, the only other thing we saw spawn from Mr C was Richard Horne and he literally killed people.
The Cooper we saw before he left the lodge at Glastonbury Grove was a cartoon character. The one we saw afterwards acted like a more realistic character who had just lost 25 years of his life and then found himself all alone in a different world.
He's still trying to do good, but he doesn't quite fit in. His harsher mannerisms are already apparent during the car ride with Diane and that strange stiff kiss.
One thing I noticed as my GF was finally watching 18 last night, there was a POV shot from the car driving on the road during the final drive with Richard and Carrie.
As far as I know, the only other time they did a POV car shot like this was when Evil Coop was driving. Maybe there was one when Ray was driving? But either way, I think they only time they showed this previously is when someone bad/evil was driving.
Then wouldn't that imply that OG Dougie took something out of Mr. C? I mean old Dougie wasn't a saint but given what we last saw of Mr C in Season 2, shit, there was likely not much not-evil for him to have parted with to create Dougie
Yes. Someone also took that into account in this or the past thread. The Doppelganger that emerged out of Season 2 is very different than Mr. C, more of a cartoony crazy cackling villain. There is speculation that in creating Dougie Jones all of the vice like qualities were drained out of Mr. C, which is why he is always so grim and doesn't seem to enjoy anything.
Yes. Someone also took that into account in this or the past thread. The Doppelganger that emerged out of Season 2 is very different than Mr. C, more of a cartoony crazy cackling villain. There is speculation that in creating Dougie Jones all of the vice like qualities were drained out of Mr. C, which is why he is always so grim and doesn't seem to enjoy anything.
Sure, but also Mr. C is around for a quarter century. It could very well be that he just got that way because he's been around for 25 years and being an evil shitbag got tiresome.
I guess we won't know since this is all speculation anyway but I don't fully buy that Coop making Dougie 2 means he lost some Coop. He specifically mentions how things will change when they cross over and, well, as expected everything changes.
He changes, Diane changes, Laura changes, everyone and everything changed.
The dream is our consciousness and reality is just how we each perceive it as individuals.
Any thoughts on why the "good" Lodgers no longer seem able to exist in the real world? In the OG run Philip Gerard could have just jumped in his car and drove out to Vegas to pick up Cooper when things went wrong. Just a plot contrivance? Interesting too that Al Strobel is only ever credited as "Philip Gerard" and never referred to as "MIKE".
I thought Philip Gerard might be dead and thus stuck in the Lodge. In the original series and FWWM Phil was running around all over the place. I expected them to touch on this but they never did.
Sure, but also Mr. C is around for a quarter century. It could very well be that he just got that way because he's been around for 25 years and being an evil shitbag got tiresome.
I guess we won't know since this is all speculation anyway but I don't fully buy that Coop making Dougie 2 means he lost some Coop. He specifically mentions how things will change when they cross over and, well, as expected everything changes.
He changes, Diane changes, Laura changes, everyone and everything changed.
Yeah, I mean it's just another interpretation. I think it's interesting because Coop looks super worn and a bit different even before crossing over, when when he emerges from the Black Lodge to meet Diane.
Yeah, I mean it's just another interpretation. I think it's interesting because Coop looks super worn and a bit different even before crossing over, when when he emerges from the Black Lodge to meet Diane.
I think it's because the "dream" or "loop" or whatever we want to call it starts when he exits the lodge, the crossing over has already happened. Part of the journey in this loop has them "crossover" to Odessa via the 430 mile spot, but that's not when it starts. I guess I'm saying they are basically Richard and Linda as soon as he steps out of the lodge.
And in the long run it can benefit them too. There's absolutely nothing that proves otherwise. Perhaps whatever the Fireman is trying to accomplish will benefit all in the long run. These are spirits we are talking about after all. They have a tendency to be eternal.
Besides, who knows if the ending of Fire Walk with Me is the actual ending of Twin Peaks.
The emotional reality the series leaves them with is one of total desolation. The final image under the credits is of an eternal, unresolvable mystery.
Mark Frost 'liked' someone's tweet that said something like "to me episode 17 was the ending of season 3 and episode 18 was a start of a new story", and while him 'liking' that doesn't necessarily mean anything other that he likes someone's own theory, I think both Mark and David have thought about this further than this. Both have been ok with the idea of continuing the story if there is audience for that.
Even when season 2 ended and David was told how bleak ending it was, he was quick to say it's not how it ends. Things go on even if nothing is said about it. Mysteries are like that. They go on. It only tells more about the viewers mind than the actual work if the viewer thinks an ending is either good or a bad thing. The ending really is what is imagined happening after that, and after that, and after that. And until Mark and David continue it, it will remain ambiguous.
If someone says this ending was supposed to let things stay in either a high or a depressing note, then you have not let the ending breathe at all. The Fireman's "remember Richard and Linda" hasn't actually been addressed at all yet, but it must be something important. We were only able to understand that those names just meant something else than the Richard and Linda shown previously. I think it's only after this ending when Cooper really shouldn't forget about Richard and Linda.
This series has interdimensional travelling and time and space defying realities with tons of things that work outside of human logic. This ending definitely brings so many different directions it could go to. While a bleak ending like what you've theorized could be one of them, I think that the show has given enough clues to let us think there's more going on that what we think.
That's one of the reasons why I think this should've been the main mystery of Season 3. The season would've probably been much more interesting then.
With regard to what this series is about, one of the problems with this season I think is that it's about far too many things. It's totally overwrought that it stops being interesting.
Hey, anybody think the superimposed "we live inside a dream" Cooper is related to how we pass through a similarly superimposed Laura Palmer photo in every intro -- we're entering her "dream"? Or that they have some similar thematic connection.
I've been working on a novel, probably going to turn out a draft come November... but its one of those wheel stories, where a guy is continually living life over and over again, and getting tormented by a dark force. Things play out in different ways, but the evil cannot be stopped and it will always, eventually, catch up with the main character and kill him.
But the way you can still win, is to find enjoyment in everything else that happens along the journey. To live, despite the horrors. Because that's the only way you can win.
Now, I don't personally think Twin Peaks is a wheel story, like others are now theorizing. It's Back to the Future, not The Dark Tower. We've seen the original version of events, which have now been changed by what happened in Part 17. I'm of the opinion that Part 18 isn't an alternate timeline where different things happened, but an alternate place all the same. Judy's bubble universe, someone else's dream, whatever... but not somewhere that was the same as the original version of events up until the moment that Laura Palmer ran off into the woods that night, at the stop light by Sparkwood and 21.
But I do feel that message ringing true in a lot of the interpretations. The world is full of horror. Agent Cooper used to know how to still see the beauty in it. Everyday, give yourself a gift. Don't plan for it. Just do it. Sure, Twin Peaks is a town where the prom queen was a drug addicted prostitute who was murdered by her abuser, but Twin Peaks was still a place that charmed him with it's people that slow down at a yellow light, and no matter the business espionage going on at the saw mill... did you see those trees?
Never mind that they're getting cut down and chopped into pieces, or cleared for development... man... what beautiful trees they are before they're killed.
As Dougie Jones, we saw that too. That day to day goodness. The joy of a light that turns on and off when you clap. Music. Food. Friends. Raising children. When he wakes up in Vegas, it's that same Coop, ever the optimist.
But in Part 18... that seems to be gone. I think that's what makes that episode so dark to me. Coop may still be trying to do the right thing. He may still be trying to save Laura and defeat evil...
But he's forgotten to give himself a gift every day. And that makes the world he finds himself in seem all the bleaker.
Whatever that place is. Even he doesn't seem to be able to find the good in it anymore.
It's Major Briggs' greatest fear: The possibility that love is not enough.
But now there doesn't seem to be any love left in Cooper. There's the unflinching sense of duty that anchors his character, but in following that drive, he's lost what he loved. Twin Peaks is gone. He left his friends behind. Diane left him. The last symbol of his love, Laura Palmer, is all that remains to chase - and she's not even the same person.
Cooper wanted to right the wrongs of the past and create a future where love might flourish - but he stopped paying attention to the here-and-now, the mundane experiences of life that ground love in meaning. He didn't stop to savor the presence of his friends. He didn't ask about Harry. He didn't listen to Diane's suggestion to stop while they could. "Linda's" body language and message didn't register. He defended the waitress, but did little to comfort her. He was unfazed by the dead man in Carrie's home, but struck by the horse figurine - perhaps speaking to the idea that the symbolic has become more important than the real.
And in a way, isn't that how a lot of people approach their lives? Chasing a purpose, however imagined or futile, and overlooking the reality of the situation before them? Privileging ambiguous symbolism over tangible reality, only to wonder why we didn't end up where we thought we were going?
Laura Palmer became a narrative - the story of a little girl who lives at the end of the lane - that he had to resolve, even if meant ignoring the fact that Laura was a person who could never be replicated, or whose life could even be "fixed." Cooper seems intent on believing that the person in front of him is Laura Palmer - and even in those brief moments where she tries to connect to him as a person, to relay her feelings about being Carrie Page living in Odessa, Texas, he says nothing. He resists the very idea that she could be anything else - or that he could be anything else. He wants so badly for her to be Laura Palmer because, in a way, that's all he has left. She was the one. 25 years of his life - 25 years of potential happiness and growth and love - evaporated because of his desire to resolve the mystery of Laura Palmer. And isn't that what we, the audience, wanted from Cooper all along? Are we not complicit in his self-destruction?
It's interesting that Part 18 begins and ends on two very different Coopers: the one who embraces the present, who comes "home" to what he loves; and the one who chooses to live inside a dream, who tries to return to a home that doesn't exist. In a way, Cooper reminds us to be wary of looking too earnestly for the past in the present. As others have said, The Return is a resistance to nostalgia television. We came in looking for those signs of the Twin Peaks of old, eager to find resolution to all of its lingering mysteries, as if the town were simply a puzzle frozen in time. But it isn't. People moved on. They resisted our expectations. And they made it work because for them, love was enough.
But it isn't enough to save Cooper, just like it wasn't enough to save Laura. So it's fitting that they should be trapped, alone even while together, displaced by Judy - the inherent need to explain. "What year is it?" is not a question, but a warning of what happens when our desire for an idyllic past blinds us to the possibility of a loving future. There may not be answers in such a future, but there might be solace, for both the living and the dead.
I'm writing off the cuff here, so I might be off the mark here. Just wanted to get my thoughts out.
Uh. Do more off the cuff writing please. This is great and pretty nails the takeaway I got from the show.
This reminds me of why I love Carl in the show. He does what he can for Shelly and the blood selling guy, and helps them out immensely. He is able to enjoy having a coffee on the bench or strumming his guitar. He lives in the moment and is at peace with his life. He is what Cooper should have been after coming out of the lodge.
It's Major Briggs' greatest fear: The possibility that love is not enough.
But now there doesn't seem to be any love left in Cooper. There's the unflinching sense of duty that anchors his character, but in following that drive, he's lost what he loved. Twin Peaks is gone. He left his friends behind. Diane left him. The last symbol of his love, Laura Palmer, is all that remains to chase - and she's not even the same person.
Cooper wanted to right the wrongs of the past and create a future where love might flourish - but he stopped paying attention to the here-and-now. He didn't listen to Diane's suggestion to stop while they could. "Linda's" body language and message didn't register. He defended the waitress, but did little to comfort her. He was unfazed by the dead man in Carrie's home, but struck by the horse figurine - perhaps speaking to the idea that the symbolic has become more important than the real.
And in a way, isn't that how a lot of people approach their lives? Chasing a purpose, however imagined or futile, and overlooking the reality of the situation before them? Privileging ambiguous symbolism over tangible reality, only to wonder why we didn't end up where we thought we were going?
Laura Palmer became a narrative - the story of a little girl who lives at the end of the lane - that he had to resolve, even if meant ignoring the fact that Laura was a person who could never be replicated, or whose life could even be "fixed." Cooper seems intent on believing that the person in front of him is Laura Palmer - and even in those brief moments where she tries to connect to him as a person, to relay her feelings about being Carrie Page living in Odessa, Texas, he says nothing. He resists the very idea that she could be anything else - or that he could be anything else. He wants so badly for her to be Laura Palmer because, in a way, that's all he has left. She was the one. 25 years of his life - 25 years of potential happiness and growth and love - evaporated because of his desire to resolve the mystery of Laura Palmer. And isn't that what we, the audience, wanted from Cooper all along?
It's interesting that Part 18 begins and ends on two very different Coopers: the one who embraces the present, who comes "home" to what he loves; and the one who chases a dream, who tries to return to their home in the past. In a way, Cooper reminds us to be wary of looking too earnestly for the past in the present. As others have said, The Return is a resistance to nostalgia television. We came in looking for those signs of the Twin Peaks of old, eager to find resolution to all of its lingering mysteries, as if the town were simply a puzzle frozen in time. But it isn't. People moved on. They resisted our expectations. And they made it work because for them, love was enough.
But it isn't enough to save Cooper, just like it wasn't enough to save Laura. So it's fitting that they should be trapped, alone even while together, displaced by Judy - the inherent need to explain. "What year is it?" is not a question, but a warning of what happens when our desire for an idyllic past blinds us to the possibility of a loving future. There may not be answers in such a future, but there might be solace, for both the living and the dead.
I'm writing off the cuff here, so I might be off the mark here. Just wanted to get my thoughts out.
Basically, the pocket dimension in episode 18 is a means by which both Cooper and Laura can move on. They've both been trapped in the Red Room for 25 years. Cooper has to come to terms with how much of his life he's lost in pursuit of a dead woman ("What year is it?"), while Laura has to face the horrible things that happened to her in that house, and the fact that she died.
Jeff doesn't bring this up, but on that same note, perhaps Diane/Linda "left" because she was also dead. That's why she sees herself before she even gets there. She covers Cooper's face during that creepy sex scene because it brings to mind what Mr. C did to her. Her "moving on" moment is the horrific remembrance of her final moments in life, of a Cooper she no longer recognized.
All of this speaks to the futility of denying reality, resisting death, maybe even trying to revive a television show that was cancelled before its time.
Hey, anybody think the superimposed "we live inside a dream" Cooper is related to how we pass through a similarly superimposed Laura Palmer photo in every intro -- we're entering her "dream"? Or that they have some similar thematic connection.
This reminds me of why I love Carl in the show. He does what he can for Shelly and the blood selling guy, and helps them out immensely. He is able to enjoy having a coffee on the bench or strumming his guitar. He lives in the moment and is at peace with his life. He is what Cooper should have been after coming out of the lodge.
I was thinking of this today. Carl has been through the lodges, and he's been through wars, but he doesn't focus on that past. He lives for the moment and enjoys the time he has. His quote from FWWM sums his character up, and it's what Coop should have said once Bob was defeated, and he stood in a room surrounded by friends and loved ones.
"I've already gone places. I just want to stay where I am."
I was thinking of this today. Carl has been through the lodges, and he's been through wars, but he doesn't focus on that past. He lives for the moment and enjoys the time he has. His quote from FWWM sums his character up, and it's what Coop should have said once Bob was defeated, and he stood in a room surrounded by friends and loved ones.
"I've already gone places. I just want to stay where I am."
That's one of my favorite lines. He's damn near in tears when he says it. He wants no part of that bullshit anymore. Coop could have learned something for him. Twenty five years he was stuck in the Lodge and he just can't resist diving right back in. Noble but foolish.
I keep coming up with theories that work, but that I talk myself out of believing, but here's another I haven't yet heard people put forwards.
In Part 17, in trying to change the past, something happens that goes way beyond just changing the present. When Judy does what she does, we end up somewhere where Laura Palmer wasn't born to the Palmers, who potentially didn't even own that house in Twin Peaks. Heck maybe they don't even still exist either.
More has changed than you'd expect based on changing the past.
But Coop has found Laura, and is following breadcrumbs to try and defeat (kill?) Judy. So what happens after that?
Maybe what happens after that, is that Laura has to be returned to her destiny. And Coop goes back to 2017 or what have you in a reality very much like the one we were familiar with.
Only maybe a handful of things are different. Including things that, predate Laura's death.
Like Norma didn't have a sister. And her mother wasn't a food critic. And Nadine didn't fall in love with Big Ed until after school. And Pete played checkers, not chess. And Audrey went to the bank to protest her father, not the Packard's. And Lana won Miss Twin Peaks.
In otherwords, the version of events outlined in A Secret History, are how things end up, after Cooper mostly fixes the giant mess he made in trying to prevent Laura's death.
I guess we'll know when the Final Dossier comes out.
Right now, like I said, I don't believe this theory myself, but it's as plausible as any other, and it helps explain the Secret History.
but that's the whole point. He didn't take solace in what he had left. He wasn't okay with just accepting his present and living for a better future, he went to improve the past as well, and you can never undo that.
Hence the inherent tragic nature of his character. He can't not act, can't let things be, doesn't acknowledge that there are some wounds that can't or shouldn't be healed. His eagerness to undo wrong traps him in a cycle he can now never escape from.
Hence the inherent tragic nature of his character. He can't not act, can't let things be, doesn't acknowledge that there are some wounds that can't be or shouldn't be healed. His eagerness to undo wrong traps him in a cycle he can now never escape from.
I think my reading, going by the emphasis on repetition (losing Laura in the woods, the end credit scene, exiting the Black Lodge more than once, etc.), is that he will try and fail to save Laura again and again. Another 25 year limbo? Who knows?
He was like that when he returned from the lodge. Watch it again. The change comes when he seeds Dougie, not when he warps or wakes up. Dougie takes the cheery, zany side of Coops personality. What's left isn't evil but is serious, taciturn, grim, direct.
Disagree, he was asking for coffee on the phone after seeding Dougie but didn't care about coffee after the jump. I didn't think the kiss was stiff, either.
I don't buy that he doesn't exist anymore. He got too close to "Laura" again, she briefly remembered who she was, and things got reset. Again. The two of them are tied on a cosmic level now, but fated be torn apart right before he can accomplish anything.
I'm trying to figure out how Audrey ties into this. "The story of the little girl who lives at the end of the lane", her story, is mentioned in her timeline. She also wakes up at the end of episode 16, but we see her literally, and abruptly, waking up. What if she's the dreamer? Or what if she woke up wherever Cooper is now? Or what if that was Sherilyn Fenn?
I wonder if Diane/Linda was supposed to be with him when he found Laura/Carrie. He brought her for a reason or she just might have wanted to be with him to support him on his mission. "Remember Richard and Linda." Coop didn't remember jack and their love was not enough to keep them together.
