Theories & Speculation

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Xavi
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Re: Theories & Speculation

Post by Xavi »

[hum]
Hester Prynne
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Re: Theories & Speculation

Post by Hester Prynne »

Jasper wrote:To add a little more about Benjamin Franklin's kite experiment, here's some amusing Peaksy wording:
A house key belonging to Benjamin Loxley was attached to the hemp string and connected to a Leyden jar; a silk string was attached to this. "At this key he charged phials, and from the electric fire thus obtained, he kindled spirits, and performed all other electrical experiments which are usually exhibited by an excited globe or tube."
Very cool research, Jasper. "Electric fire," "kindled spirits," "excited globe," - sounds like stuff Frost would love.

In thinking of it this way, one could ask if Cooper is controlling the key/electricity or if the key is just symbolic of Cooper, and he is more of a conduit for Mike/The Fireman.
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Re: Theories & Speculation

Post by krishnanspace »

Donna's sister has a key around her neck in one of the episodes
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Re: Theories & Speculation

Post by krishnanspace »

Some good theorizing over here.
https://vimeo.com/276572660
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Re: Theories & Speculation

Post by Kilmoore »

Hester Prynne wrote:I think it's another great example that maybe what we are watching is a dream or a version of reality that Cooper has conjured up with his mind.
That is the only explanation that I can come up with that explains all the inconsistencies, plot holes, vague characters, meaningless time wastes and completely incoherent story. This is all Cooper's experience in the Red Room. He has been there for 25 years, preparing himself for what is out there when he gets out. This in one iteration of hundreds that he has come up with. He doesn't have information about everything the characters of Twin Peaks are doing, but has learned to read the lodges and gains knowledge of things through there.

This explains why Mr C is so mild and ineffective, as Cooper has trouble imagining all the evil he actually could do. The plots of Twin Peaks characters go nowhere because Cooper maybe catches a glimpse here and there but can't stitch together a whole story. The bomb and Giant's place are things Cooper sees through the lodges, gaining new info, and probably knowledge about Judy as well. Annie isn't mentioned because he has had time to find out what happened to her. She isn't in immediate danger, so isn't included in Cooper's plan right now. As for Dougie... Cooper has to be aware that 25 years in the Red Room will leave it's mark, and is preparing for the return to be hard. He has thought about this for a while and it has taken a life of its own, getting quite complicated. He plans to use Philip Jeffries to travel in time and save Laura to fight Judy, but is aware it could get tricky. The season ends exactly when Cooper is about to leave the Red Room.
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Re: Theories & Speculation

Post by Poiuyt »

I'm also starting to think the whole season was just a Lodge fever dream, the slow annihilation of Cooper's soul. Oh, Lynch, how he hurts me so.
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Re: Theories & Speculation

Post by Kilmoore »

Poiuyt wrote:I'm also starting to think the whole season was just a Lodge fever dream, the slow annihilation of Cooper's soul. Oh, Lynch, how he hurts me so.
I don't see it as annihilation, I see it as Cooper being trapped but working on a plan of action so he is ready when he can leave.
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Re: Theories & Speculation

Post by enumbs »

krishnanspace wrote:Some good theorizing over here.
https://vimeo.com/276572660
No offence, but I think this video illustrates everything that can go wrong with fan-theorising. Here are a few problems I had:


- The theory starts off by saying that the season 3 episode count is crucial, We know for a fact that the season was originally going to consist of 9 episodes, and Sutherland has confirmed that after the run was expanded there was no firm idea as to how many episodes there would be. So this pretty much undermines the whole theory from the get go.

- The guy then starts speculating on the title 'The Return' and how significant that must be. As we all know however, this title was purely a creation of the Showtime marketing and scheduling team, and has nothing to do with Lynch/Frost.

- He then says that he believes the timeline for the show splits into two at the crucial point of Leland's death, after episode 10 of season 2. But hang on, Leland dies in episode 9 of series 2, and episode 10 is the one where the show is widely believed to go off the rails. If Lynch and Frost wanted to "rewrite" the episodes which deviate from their vision, why start an episode too late?

- I don't understand how 12 Rainbow Trout serves as any kind of metaphor for these episodes. What is the correlation between some fish and a group of TV episodes the creators didn't like (a group which inexplicably includes the Lynch directed finale and the later season 2 episodes which Frost is certainly proud of)? How does a bit of flesh in the trunk of a car - which Lynch has said he thought of only as "meat" - serve as a nudge towards any of this? Do we really believe that Lynch included an absurdly oblique reference to some episodes of season 2 a quarter of a century ago with the intention of fulfilling this plan of rewriting them years later?

- "If Briggs departs episode 10, loses his head and reappears dead without ageing..." Um, he doesn't. And the guy in the video hasn't even made a case for this idea, so how can we be expected to take it seriously as a premise? Even going by the Return he stuck around long enough to die in a fire shortly before Cooper left.

- The "subtle nod to Briggs and Nadine's split timelines" is such an obvious load of bollocks that its not even worth deconstructing. In any case Norma's lack of concern for Annie is an obvious continuity error, and it's clear that this guy latched onto it as proof of his theory only to realise Mike's bandage spoiled it. So he leaps to this "realities bleeding" idea as a means of reconciling the discrepancy, never-mind the fact his point of timeline divergence is completely arbitrary.

- "If you lay out all the original episodes of Twin Peaks without episodes 11 through 21 of season 2, and line them up with the 18 episodes of The Return in reverse...." I frankly don't understand how anyone can buy into the idea at this point. You will notice that the system of connections here is incredibly erratic - sometimes they go vertically on his chart, sometimes they go diagonally. You may also notice that many of the connections are incredibly tenuous. Doc Hayward talks to somebody, a person looks in a mirror, the camera moves slightly while credits role (this one is especially ridiculous, particularly as the scene in season 3 only occurs in the edit of Part 1 that is separated from Part 2). The Zs on Sam and Tracey's cup are obviously logos for the fictional coffee chain in the show, not a reference to episode 22.

- Even the more convincing connections can be easily boiled down to coincidence. The scene of Cooper being shot can be seen to correlate with him avoiding being shot in Part 11. But it could also easily correlate with him avoiding being shot in Part 7 as well as Part 18 or indeed of DoppleCoop being shot in Part 8 and Part 17. You could find even more connections if you added all the time DoppleCoop shot someone. You are always going to find parallels like this, no matter what episodes you compare. As for the reference to The King and I, which seems to have swayed some people, isn't it possible that Lynch and Frost just share and are fond of a few specific reference points? It seems more likely to me than this incredibly convoluted plan which would seem to go completely against Lynch's instinct for prioritising right brain over left brain thinking, and would utterly destroy the possibility of freedom in the editing room. The theory posits Audrey's dance as the most important of all the connections - how then do we account for the fact that her part was rewritten well into the shoot? Was the whole plan concocted late in the day by Lynch, even as he was dealing with the existing pressure of directing almost 20 hours of television?

- The example of "striking visual symmetry" between the red room scene in Part 2 and the scene of Cooper comforting Sarah is obviously mad. Anyway, the documentary in the Blu Ray shows Lynch attempting to emulate the original red room scene very closely by watching YouTube. There is no second tab showing the opening to episode 17.

- Lastly, the video ends with the claim that Part 8 correlates with The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer. Ignoring the fact that Lynch has apparently never read the book, shouldn't the episode correlate with season 2 episode 3 according to the guy's own logic? Considering the loose system at play, It could also correlate with episodes 2 or 4 I suppose. Apparently all will be explained in the next video - I can't wait.


One of the most dispiriting things about this video for me was the number of fans who claimed to have their minds blown by this series of Info-Wars style logical leaps, You can see some of the reactions here: https://www.reddit.com/r/twinpeaks/comm ... _as_i_can/

My pet theory is that a lot of people may have been suckered in by the video's smooth editing. You can contrast the warm reaction to the above post with this far more negative appraisal of the idea when expressed through writing: https://www.reddit.com/r/twinpeaks/comm ... win_peaks/

Sorry if my tone is a little hostile, but this kind of nonsense really gets to me. My hope is that eventually this kind of theorising will subside, and people will start to "look at the donut, not at the hole".
Last edited by enumbs on Wed Jul 25, 2018 2:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Theories & Speculation

Post by LateReg »

enumbs wrote:
krishnanspace wrote:Some good theorizing over here.
https://vimeo.com/276572660
- The guy then starts speculating on the title 'The Return' and how significant that must be. As we all know however, this title was purely a creation of the Showtime marketing and scheduling team, and has nothing to do with Lynch/Frost.

I personally believe that "The Return" is hugely significant to interpreting what is going on. So much about that moniker fits and can be interpreted from the ground up. Is it a fact that Lynch/Frost had zero to do with that? Regardless of what's been said, I doubt that is totally true if only because Lynch/Frost had total power over the marketing and had to have at least okayed "The Return." And as I said, it fits so beautifully, so even if they did have nothing to do with it, it's just another facet of how Lynch is grabbing elements out of the unified field. I know they didn't use it for the box set and it's already been discarded, but I recently wrote the following in belated year-end capsule to friends via email:

"The Return is slippery and layered even by nature of its title: It is the series’ third season but also the direct sequel to a prequel film (Fire Walk with Me); it is never referred to as the third season but always as Twin Peaks: The Return in Showtime’s advertising and in the media, despite “The Return” never appearing in the series’ credits; and it was later billed on the Blu-ray box set only as Twin Peaks: A Limited Event Series. Yet the moniker of The Return sticks and should continue to stick because it would appear that it was carefully chosen by Lynch/Frost and then tucked away for the same reason: It provides a clue as to how to process the series, which is in fact predicated on the absolutely correct notion that the viewer will actively want this to be a RETURN in every sense while also being able to let go and follow the creators down every rabbit hole. There is an element of teasing that is absolutely vital, consolidating the complicated relationship between viewer and artist; it might not give you what you want, but it is dependent on your wanting it.

The Return marks the return of a beloved show to viewers, and the return of viewers to the show; it marks the return of its creators to their most iconic work, the return of actors to their roles, and the return of Lynch to the director’s chair to reunite with his most frequent collaborators; it marks the return of Special Agent Dale Cooper, both to himself and to the setting in which he was first encountered, and it marks the return to the legendary town and potentially the feeling that accompanies it; it addresses cosmic returns, the notion of stars aligning and a time presenting itself for this revival, as well as for the cyclical themes at its core. But most importantly, it marks one of the central questions of the series: Can all of this even be returned to, and at what cost? It is of course this nostalgic age of reboots that has enabled the return of Twin Peaks, but The Return is the only revival that seriously interrogates nostalgia – working against the collective desire for what is old, familiar and accepted, engaging the viewer along the way to confront their own expectations and desires, showing the dangers of fixating and obsessing over the past and the mythologized – and certainly the only series that goes as far as to question its own existence. Which can only be expected from a series that appears to question the very nature of all existence."
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Re: Theories & Speculation

Post by Jerry Horne »

enumbs wrote:
krishnanspace wrote:Some good theorizing over here.
https://vimeo.com/276572660
No offence, but I think this video illustrates everything that can go wrong with fan-theorising. Here are a few problems I had:


- The theory starts off by saying that the season 3 episode count is crucial, We know for a fact that the season was originally going to consist of 9 episodes, and Sutherland has confirmed that after the run was expanded there was no firm idea as to how many episodes there would be. So this pretty much undermines the whole theory from the get go.

- The guy then starts speculating on the title 'The Return' and how significant that must be. As we all know however, this title was purely a creation of the Showtime marketing and scheduling team, and has nothing to do with Lynch/Frost.

- He then says that he believes the timeline for the show splits into two at the crucial point of Leland's death, after episode 10 of season 2. But hang on, Leland dies in episode 9 of series 2, and episode 10 is the one where the show is widely believed to go off the rails. If Lynch and Frost wanted to "rewrite" the episodes which deviate from their vision, why start an episode too late?

- I don't understand how 12 Rainbow Trout serves as any kind of metaphor for these episodes. What is the correlation between some fish and a group of TV episodes the creators didn't like (a group which inexplicably includes the Lynch directed finale and the later season 2 episodes which Frost is certainly proud of)? How does a bit of flesh in the trunk of a car - which Lynch has said he thought of only as "meat" - serve as nudge towards any of this? Do we really believe that Lynch included an absurdly oblique reference to some episodes of season 2 a quarter of a century ago with the intention of fulfilling this plan of rewriting them years later?

- "If Briggs departs episode 10, loses his head and reappears dead without ageing..." Um, he doesn't. And the guy in the video hasn't even made a case for this idea, so how can we be expected to take it seriously as a premise? Even going by the Return he stuck around long enough to die in a fire shortly before Cooper left.

- The "subtle nod to Briggs and Nadine's split timelines" is such an obvious load of bollocks that its not even worth deconstructing. In any case Norma's lack of concern for Annie is an obvious continuity error, and it's clear that this guy latched onto it as proof of his theory only to realise Mike's bandage spoiled it. So he leaps to this "realities bleeding" idea as a means of reconciling the discrepancy, never-mind the fact his point of timeline divergence is completely arbitrary.

- "If you lay out all the original episodes of Twin Peaks without episodes 11 through 21 of season 2, and line them up with the 18 episodes of The Return in reverse...." I frankly don't understand how anyone can buy into the idea at this point. You will notice that the system of connections here is incredibly erratic - sometimes they go vertically on his chart, sometimes they go diagonally. You may also notice that many of the connections are incredibly tenuous. Doc Hayward talks to somebody, a person looks in a mirror, the camera moves slightly while credits role (this one is especially ridiculous, particularly as the scene in season 3 only occurs in the edit of Part 1 that is separated from Part 2). The Zs on Sam and Tracey's cup are obviously logos for the fictional coffee chain in the show, not a reference to episode 22.

- Even the more convincing connections can be easily boiled down to coincidence. The scene of Cooper being shot can be seen to correlate with him avoiding being shot in Part 11. But it could also easily correlate with him avoiding being shot in Part 7 as well as Part 18 or indeed of DoppleCoop being shot in Part 8 and Part 17. You could find even more connections if you added all the time DoppleCoop shot someone. You are always going to find parallels like this, no matter what episodes you compare. As for the reference to The King and I, which seems to have swayed some people, isn't it possible that Lynch and Frost just share and are fond of a few specific reference points? It seems more likely to me than this incredibly convoluted plan which would seem to go completely against Lynch's instinct for prioritising right brain over left brain thinking, and would utterly destroy the possibility of freedom in the editing room? The theory posits Audrey's dance as the most important of all the connections - how then do we account for the fact that her part was rewritten well into the shoot? Was the whole plan concocted late in the day by Lynch, even as he was dealing with the existing pressure of directing almost 20 hours of television?

- The example of "striking visual symmetry" between the red room scene in Part 2 and the scene of Cooper comforting Sarah is obviously mad. Anyway, the documentary in the Blu Ray shows Lynch attempting to emulate the original red room scene very closely by watching YouTube. There is no second tab showing the opening to episode 17.

- Lastly, the video ends with the claim that Part 8 correlates with The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer. Ignoring the fact that Lynch has apparently never read the book, shouldn't the episode correlate with season 2 episode 3 according to the guy's own logic? Considering the loose system at play, It could also correlate with episodes 2 or 4 I suppose. Apparently all will be explained in the next video - I can't wait.


One of the most dispiriting things about this video for me was the number of fans who claimed to have their minds blown by this series of Info-Wars style logical leaps, You can see some of the reactions here: https://www.reddit.com/r/twinpeaks/comm ... _as_i_can/

My pet theory is that a lot of people may have been suckered in by the video's smooth editing. You can contrast the warm reaction to the above post with this far more negative appraisal of the idea when expressed through writing: https://www.reddit.com/r/twinpeaks/comm ... win_peaks/

Sorry if my tone is a little hostile, but this kind of nonsense really gets to me. My hope is that eventually this kind of theorising will subside, and people will start to "look at the donut, not at the hole".
I just assume that video was a big joke/prank.
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enumbs
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Re: Theories & Speculation

Post by enumbs »

LateReg wrote:
I personally believe that "The Return" is hugely significant to interpreting what is going on. So much about that moniker fits and can be interpreted from the ground up. Is it a fact that Lynch/Frost had zero to do with that? Regardless of what's been said, I doubt that is totally true if only because Lynch/Frost had total power over the marketing and had to have at least okayed "The Return." And as I said, it fits so beautifully, so even if they did have nothing to do with it, it's just another facet of how Lynch is grabbing elements out of the unified field. I know they didn't use it for the box set and it's already been discarded, but I recently wrote the following in belated year-end capsule to friends via email:

"The Return is slippery and layered even by nature of its title: It is the series’ third season but also the direct sequel to a prequel film (Fire Walk with Me); it is never referred to as the third season but always as Twin Peaks: The Return in Showtime’s advertising and in the media, despite “The Return” never appearing in the series’ credits; and it was later billed on the Blu-ray box set only as Twin Peaks: A Limited Event Series. Yet the moniker of The Return sticks and should continue to stick because it would appear that it was carefully chosen by Lynch/Frost and then tucked away for the same reason: It provides a clue as to how to process the series, which is in fact predicated on the absolutely correct notion that the viewer will actively want this to be a RETURN in every sense while also being able to let go and follow the creators down every rabbit hole. There is an element of teasing that is absolutely vital, consolidating the complicated relationship between viewer and artist; it might not give you what you want, but it is dependent on your wanting it.

The Return marks the return of a beloved show to viewers, and the return of viewers to the show; it marks the return of its creators to their most iconic work, the return of actors to their roles, and the return of Lynch to the director’s chair to reunite with his most frequent collaborators; it marks the return of Special Agent Dale Cooper, both to himself and to the setting in which he was first encountered, and it marks the return to the legendary town and potentially the feeling that accompanies it; it addresses cosmic returns, the notion of stars aligning and a time presenting itself for this revival, as well as for the cyclical themes at its core. But most importantly, it marks one of the central questions of the series: Can all of this even be returned to, and at what cost? It is of course this nostalgic age of reboots that has enabled the return of Twin Peaks, but The Return is the only revival that seriously interrogates nostalgia – working against the collective desire for what is old, familiar and accepted, engaging the viewer along the way to confront their own expectations and desires, showing the dangers of fixating and obsessing over the past and the mythologized – and certainly the only series that goes as far as to question its own existence. Which can only be expected from a series that appears to question the very nature of all existence."
I definitely agree that The Return is an excellent title, and far more interesting than "A Limited Event Series". That said, it definitely wasn't labelled The Return by Lynch or Frost, as Sabrina Sutherland confirmed in a Reddit AMA and as Lynch has himself stated in interviews. It was only renamed as a means of separating the show from the original in listings and publicity materials. Because of this I think its a very poor starting point for an argument regarding the creators' intentions for the show, and particularly when arguing for the existence of such a precise yet convoluted plan. It's not the most significant point in my post, but its definitely indicative of the kind of sloppiness and unearned confidence we see throughout the video.
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Re: Theories & Speculation

Post by Mr. Reindeer »

LateReg wrote:I personally believe that "The Return" is hugely significant to interpreting what is going on. So much about that moniker fits and can be interpreted from the ground up. Is it a fact that Lynch/Frost had zero to do with that? Regardless of what's been said, I doubt that is totally true if only because Lynch/Frost had total power over the marketing and had to have at least okayed "The Return."
When I look back, the only source I see for Showtime marketing having invented “The Return” is a tweet from some fan saying that Sabrina Sutherland said this on the Twin Peaks Unwrapped podcast. I have no reason to doubt the veracity, but I do wonder if anyone here has actually listened to the podcast and heard this firsthand? (It is worth noting that the same tweet says Sabrina claimed that DKL referred to the show as S3, but in one of the earliest pre-season interviews, I’m pretty sure he explicitly said he does NOT consider the show a third season but its own movie—which is part of the reason we all latched on to “The Return” as a title, I think.)

You’re right that DKL likely vetted it, although he may have approved it only as a tagline and not intended that it take on the life it did. Mark seems to have adopted it as an official title, frequently using it in interviews (likely for the same reason most of us do—because we have to call this thing SOMETHING). DKL, though, seems to have avoided using this title in interviews. The McKenna-penned chapters in his biography (which, again, he certainly vetted) do use TP:TR as the title. DKL himself, in his chapters, does use the title precisely once. I’m curious if maybe McKenna or another editor just added that to what DKL wrote for clarity/consistency. Bowisneski said that DKL’s audiobook diverges from the text edition sometimes. I just started listening to it, but I’m curious to see if he actually says the title on the audiobook.

In any event, I don’t particularly care whether TR is an official title or not. I like it for the reasons you stated, but even without “the Return” being in the equation, we have the series’ repeated references to “home,” which serve pretty much the same function for me thematically, albeit in slightly less on-the-nose fashion.

Btw, while we’re talking about tenuous connections to the original show, I’ll point out that nearly every episode of the old series ends with Laura’s HOMEcoming photo, and TR ends with her coming home.
Last edited by Mr. Reindeer on Wed Jul 25, 2018 2:42 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: Theories & Speculation

Post by enumbs »

Jerry Horne wrote: I just assume that video was a big joke/prank.
I wish you were right, but a look into the poster's Reddit history indicates otherwise. In any case, he seems to have caused a lot of people to look at the show in a whole different way. :shock:
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Re: Theories & Speculation

Post by krishnanspace »

enumbs wrote:
Jerry Horne wrote: I just assume that video was a big joke/prank.
I wish you were right, but a look into the poster's Reddit history indicates otherwise. In any case, he seems to have caused a lot of people to look at the show in a whole different way. :shock:
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Re: Theories & Speculation

Post by Jerry Horne »

Someone asked Frost on Twitter if was Twin Peaks or Twin Peaks: The Return. Mark just responded "Twin Peaks".
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