The Random Season 3 Thread

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Cappy
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Re: The Random Season 3 Thread

Post by Cappy »

Mr. Reindeer wrote: I think Between Two Worlds gives us a clue as to Lynch’s mindset, re: Leland during the period he was scripting TP:TR. In BTW, Leland—even after twenty-five years in the afterlife—is in complete denial about his own culpability, insisting that it was someone else who carried out those acts (which we know from FWWM is a vast oversimplification/obfuscation). Therefore, I think he is sincere in wanting Cooper to save Laura on the surface, but may be more conflicted deep down...so, (c) might be the closest, IMO. Significantly, it seems that by aligning himself with the misguided/self-righteous Leland’s agenda, Cooper does Laura more harm than good.
I had completely forgotten about Between Two Worlds! I went back and watched it last night after seeing this post.

Yeah, I see your point, it is most likely c), conflicted FWWM Leland. Although I dislike the implication of Cooper somehow working with Leland, I guess it's also possible that Coop and Leland both want to find Laura for different purposes altogether. I'm not sure, it's difficult to gauge Cooper's reaction to Leland.

It kinda puts that scene from the beginning of S3E18 into perspective, where Dougie (or Dougie's clone/tulpa?) reunites with his wife and son. That scene never really fit into the episode for me, or even within the larger framework of S3, but maybe it's telling that E18 starts with the Jones family reunion, which is warm and loving, then ends with an implied Palmer family reunion, which is at first cold and alien, before sharply turning into unintelligible horror.

Getting back to Leland, perhaps the Jones family reunion is what Leland imagines a Palmer family reunion would be like -- the beloved father welcomed at the front door with hugs. Perhaps there is a little bit of Leland tangled up in Cooper's jumbled Season 3 self.

EDIT: Also worth considering, the framing of Dougie's homecoming vs. Laura's homecoming. Dougie's homecoming is shot from entirely inside of the Jones home, with no camera angles from outside the house. Also, it is one continuous shot. Laura's homecoming, on the other hand, is shot from outside of the Palmer house, with multiple cuts. In the Dougie scene we can't see anything outside of the house, in the Laura sequence we see nothing inside of the Palmer home (except for the current inhabitant).
Last edited by Cappy on Thu Sep 12, 2019 7:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Mr. Reindeer
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Re: The Random Season 3 Thread

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I think Cooper looks for the best in everyone (as evidenced by his “Dougie” side), and sometimes that attitude can lead to poor judgment calls. Remember how forgiving he is of Leland in E16 (the Tibetan Book of the Dead scene). I don’t think there’s anything sinister about him following Leland’s agenda, but I think it may be a poor decision based on giving confused, conflicted Leland the benefit of the doubt.
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Re: The Random Season 3 Thread

Post by Henrys Hair »

There were a few poor judgement calls from Cooper, Truman & Sternwood in the Roadhouse too. Leo Johnson declared not fit to stand trial & allowed to return home - tries to kill Shelly a few days later. Leland bailed - kills Maddy almost immediately. At least Cooper & Truman never seem too fazed by their decisions.
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Re: The Random Season 3 Thread

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Henrys Hair wrote:There were a few poor judgement calls from Cooper, Truman & Sternwood in the Roadhouse too. Leo Johnson declared not fit to stand trial & allowed to return home - tries to kill Shelly a few days later. Leland bailed - kills Maddy almost immediately. At least Cooper & Truman never seem too fazed by their decisions.
Yeah, Sternwood's rulings on both Leland and Leo looked awful only a few episodes later. If the character of State Prosecutor Darryl Lodgwick ever reappeared in Twin Peaks, I imagine he'd really grill Sheriff Truman over a murder suspect committing another murder while on bail.

Also, Leland's suicide -- death by multiple self-inflicted blows to the forehead while in police custody -- seems like the kind of thing that would draw scrutiny as well. How did Truman and Co. explain that one? Was there an independent investigation of this from a state agency? Did Sarah file a wrongful death suit with the city/county? Did Cyril Ponds do an expose piece for the local news?

And that's not even mentioning the Bookhouse Boys, Sheriff Truman's personal extrajudicial secret police - slash biker gang. If the original Twin Peaks went to a third season, I could easily imagine Truman losing his job in it.
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Re: The Random Season 3 Thread

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TwinsPeak wrote:I think C) or B) fit best for how I see it. Its amazing how its open for interpretation. Nice topic cappy.
Thanks. I was always sort of vexed by Leland's doppelganger from the original finale. Leland in the original series is treated as a case of possession, and FWWM treats him as just a horrible human being with occasional flashes of something resembling real human empathy. Unlike Cooper's doppelganger in S3, who is out in the real world, being generally awful and one-dimensional while the real Cooper sits in the Red Room.

Why is the BOB relationship for Leland so different than it is for Cooper? My thought is that Leland himself is awful enough to be a vessel (or whatever) for BOB, therefor BOB doesn't need to dispatch any sort of Leland doppelganger out into the real world. Leland killed Laura and Teresa Banks, not the doppelganger. When Leland's doppelganger proclaims that he did not kill anybody, he's being truthful. And when the doppelganger laughs, I suppose he's laughing at the fact that his real world counterpart is just as awful, if not more, than he is.
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Re: The Random Season 3 Thread

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Mr. Reindeer wrote:I think Cooper looks for the best in everyone (as evidenced by his “Dougie” side), and sometimes that attitude can lead to poor judgment calls. Remember how forgiving he is of Leland in E16 (the Tibetan Book of the Dead scene). I don’t think there’s anything sinister about him following Leland’s agenda, but I think it may be a poor decision based on giving confused, conflicted Leland the benefit of the doubt.
I agree with this. All of Cappy's options are interesting, but I think this sums up Cooper nicely. Leland's intent remains a tantalizing mystery, but I think I take it as 25 years of remorse. All he can do is constantly and only think of Laura, his own personal hell, which strikes me as the major point of his existence, and what the audience is meant to feel from it. There's certainly a wounded sadness about him, at any rate, for some reason. Regardless of his true feelings, for me the key is that both Leland and Cooper are obsessed with Laura, and their quest to find her is possibly a well intentioned product of that obsession, but also may ultimately be the wrong path for them to take as it may lead to zapping Laura out of enlightenment.
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Re: The Random Season 3 Thread

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Why is the BOB relationship for Leland so different than it is for Cooper? My thought is that Leland himself is awful enough to be a vessel (or whatever) for BOB, therefor BOB doesn't need to dispatch any sort of Leland doppelganger out into the real world. Leland killed Laura and Teresa Banks, not the doppelganger. When Leland's doppelganger proclaims that he did not kill anybody, he's being truthful. And when the doppelganger laughs, I suppose he's laughing at the fact that his real world counterpart is just as awful, if not more, than he is.
Really great stuff, I too view BOB's possession of Leland completely different to a doppelganger. Leland provided BOB with enough Garmonbozia. I might be wrong but I've always thought in order for a doppelganger to be released, the real person has to enter the lodges. One in one out.

I agree with this. All of Cappy's options are interesting, but I think this sums up Cooper nicely. Leland's intent remains a tantalizing mystery, but I think I take it as 25 years of remorse. All he can do is constantly and only think of Laura, his own personal hell, which strikes me as the major point of his existence, and what the audience is meant to feel from it. There's certainly a wounded sadness about him, at any rate, for some reason. Regardless of his true feelings, for me the key is that both Leland and Cooper are obsessed with Laura, and their quest to find her is possibly a well intentioned product of that obsession, but also may ultimately be the wrong path for them to take as it may lead to zapping Laura out of enlightenment.
I prefer Cappy's options. You might be right, however, one of the great things about Twin Peaks, is how open it is. It could be any of the options depending on the viewer. Lynch is amazing at creating open meanings. Its beautiful. So we're all right. And for me personally, I don't group Leland and Cooper together like LateReg does. To me they are completely separate characters with way different beliefs, intents, wants and desires. And I especially don't group "the good Cooper" and Leland's doppelganger together. Also Cappy wasnt really asking about Cooper, the options were about Leland.
"Wanting something to be different will not make it so." "Explaining a different rule is not complaining for months. A lie will never be true." - Dale Cooper: My Life, My Tapes.
LateReg
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Re: The Random Season 3 Thread

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TwinsPeak wrote:
I agree with this. All of Cappy's options are interesting, but I think this sums up Cooper nicely. Leland's intent remains a tantalizing mystery, but I think I take it as 25 years of remorse. All he can do is constantly and only think of Laura, his own personal hell, which strikes me as the major point of his existence, and what the audience is meant to feel from it. There's certainly a wounded sadness about him, at any rate, for some reason. Regardless of his true feelings, for me the key is that both Leland and Cooper are obsessed with Laura, and their quest to find her is possibly a well intentioned product of that obsession, but also may ultimately be the wrong path for them to take as it may lead to zapping Laura out of enlightenment.
I prefer Cappy's options. You might be right, however, one of the great things about Twin Peaks, is how open it is. It could be any of the options depending on the viewer. Lynch is amazing at creating open meanings. Its beautiful. So we're all right. And for me personally, I don't group Leland and Cooper together like LateReg does. To me they are completely separate characters with way different beliefs, intents, wants and desires. And I especially don't group "the good Cooper" and Leland's doppelganger together. Also Cappy wasnt really asking about Cooper, the options were about Leland.
My statement was in response to Reindeer's thoughts about Cooper, and wasn't meant to refute any one of Cappy's possibilities, but to tie in with some of them. I don't group Leland or Cooper together either, but I believe that both - via so much time spent seemingly frozen in the lodge and the evidence in the show of Cooper's (oft-repeated?) plan and Leland's words - are obsessed with Laura...for their own individual reasons.
Cappy wrote:
It kinda puts that scene from the beginning of S3E18 into perspective, where Dougie (or Dougie's clone/tulpa?) reunites with his wife and son. That scene never really fit into the episode for me, or even within the larger framework of S3, but maybe it's telling that E18 starts with the Jones family reunion, which is warm and loving, then ends with an implied Palmer family reunion, which is at first cold and alien, before sharply turning into unintelligible horror.

Getting back to Leland, perhaps the Jones family reunion is what Leland imagines a Palmer family reunion would be like -- the beloved father welcomed at the front door with hugs. Perhaps there is a little bit of Leland tangled up in Cooper's jumbled Season 3 self.

EDIT: Also worth considering, the framing of Dougie's homecoming vs. Laura's homecoming. Dougie's homecoming is shot from entirely inside of the Jones home, with no camera angles from outside the house. Also, it is one continuous shot. Laura's homecoming, on the other hand, is shot from outside of the Palmer house, with multiple cuts. In the Dougie scene we can't see anything outside of the house, in the Laura sequence we see nothing inside of the Palmer home (except for the current inhabitant).
I think this is very interesting and I meant to reference it in my previous post. That scene of Dougie's homecoming can seem somewhat incongruous but also fits extremely well for me for a number of reasons that make it perhaps one of the most mysterious moments in the entire series. First, there is the theory that Cooper had to sacrifice a piece of himself to create the good Dougie tulpa. Second, there is the fact that some believe the Vegas-verse is in some way lodge related and not actually "real," which could coincide with the first point to suggest that Cooper has simply relegated a portion of his psyche to an eternally and unrealistically happy place that he truly longs to occupy yet will never attain. Third, most importantly, the music that plays is the "Accident/Farewell Theme." This music cue is used, I believe, two other times in the series, and never during happy moments. That song has always signaled to me that perhaps this seemingly happy homecoming is not what it seems, and if you put stock into the first two points, that could mean that indeed Cooper has in some way given up, saying farewell either to a part of himself or some aspect of his dreams and aspirations.
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Re: The Random Season 3 Thread

Post by Mr. Reindeer »

LateReg wrote:My statement was in response to Reindeer's thoughts about Cooper, and wasn't meant to refute any one of Cappy's possibilities, but to tie in with some of them. I don't group Leland or Cooper together either, but I believe that both - via so much time spent seemingly frozen in the lodge and the evidence in the show of Cooper's (oft-repeated?) plan and Leland's words - are obsessed with Laura...for their own individual reasons.
Right. I think the link between them is more thematic than literal/plot-based. Cooper is obsessed with saving Laura due to his white-knight complex, whereas Leland is obsessed with atoning/trying to assuage his guilt. Both may have convinced themselves that they are acting in Laura’s best interests, but in reality are acting moreso in reaction to their own complexes and not bothering to notice (or even consider) that Laura has seemingly processed her trauma and reached a place of peace on her own by the end of FWWM. To focus on Leland in particular, he can be compared to a lot of real-word abusers who try to “make things right” with the victim, often to the detriment of the victim who has already managed to process/move on.

Of course, in Cooper’s case, he believes Laura is in danger due to her being ripped screaming from the Red Room. Ironically, he doesn’t realize that he is likely the one who causes this to happen with his subsequent actions. There is also the tantalizing tidbit of what Laura whispered to him, and what if any impact that entered into (or should have entered into) his subsequent decision-making. Is it possible that I’m being too unkind to Cooper, and Laura actually told Cooper that the events of P17 and P18 had to unfold exactly as they did? Did his instructions come from her? That whisper remains such a tantalizing missing puzzle piece in interpreting the whole of the season.
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Re: The Random Season 3 Thread

Post by Snailhead »

One very strong possibility about Leland in S3 that hasn't been addressed in recent posts is this: We are seeing the Leland who killed himself after Laura went "missing" rather than being murdered by him. If so, it's interesting that Leland is asking Cooper to find Laura, since it's Cooper who was responsible for her disappearance by going back in time and leading her away from Leo & Jacques.

My own personal take on things is that this exchange between Cooper and Leland demonstrates that Coop is making the mistake of listening to Leland, who was indeed culpable in the abuse of Laura to a large extent despite the simple possession narrative that Cooper embraced in S2.
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Re: The Random Season 3 Thread

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LateReg wrote: I think this is very interesting and I meant to reference it in my previous post. That scene of Dougie's homecoming can seem somewhat incongruous but also fits extremely well for me for a number of reasons that make it perhaps one of the most mysterious moments in the entire series. First, there is the theory that Cooper had to sacrifice a piece of himself to create the good Dougie tulpa. Second, there is the fact that some believe the Vegas-verse is in some way lodge related and not actually "real," which could coincide with the first point to suggest that Cooper has simply relegated a portion of his psyche to an eternally and unrealistically happy place that he truly longs to occupy yet will never attain. Third, most importantly, the music that plays is the "Accident/Farewell Theme." This music cue is used, I believe, two other times in the series, and never during happy moments. That song has always signaled to me that perhaps this seemingly happy homecoming is not what it seems, and if you put stock into the first two points, that could mean that indeed Cooper has in some way given up, saying farewell either to a part of himself or some aspect of his dreams and aspirations.
The observation about the "Accident/Farewell Theme" makes a lot of sense. I had found the usage of that track during the Jones family reunion to be odd, but I never made the connection that the scene could in fact be Cooper saying farewell to some part of himself. I like this interpretation a lot; one thing about Cooper that annoys me in Season 3 is the implication that he hasn't changed in 25 years. Others have pointed out in this thread that Cooper inherently believes or wants to believe that people are good (in relation to interactions with Leland in Season 3), and I would like to think that he's learned to be a little more skeptical or discerning after all that he's been through.

Cooper having to say goodbye to his idealized and naive ideas about the American nuclear family unit (as symbolizes by the Jones family) might be what makes him the more serious and stern version of Coop (or "Richard") that we see in ep. 18. Maybe he had to do that to in order to finally be able to look at the Palmer family without rose colored glasses on.
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Re: The Random Season 3 Thread

Post by Cappy »

The talk about Cooper looking for the best in everyone reminds me of Bobby's recollection of something Laura said to Dr. Jacoby in the Season 1 ep. "Cooper's Dreams":

"...people tried to be good, but they were really sick and rotten, her most of all. And every time she tried to make the world a better place, something terrible came up inside her and pulled her back down into hell. It took her deeper and deeper into the blackest nightmare, and every time it got harder to go back up to the light."

We could take this be Laura dismissing Cooper's supposedly good intentions. Also, this might be Laura's description of getting ripped from her existence of some being of light in the Red Room and dragged back to her family home ("hell") by Agent Cooper. I don't imagine anyone on the show had the stuff in Season 3 in mind while making the original run back in 1990 or so, but it's interesting to think that Laura somehow knew this was coming for her, but was powerless to stop it. Maybe this was what she was was whispering to Agent Cooper, that he was somehow part of the forces that pull her back to hell every time.
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Re: The Random Season 3 Thread

Post by Mr. Reindeer »

Cappy wrote:
"...people tried to be good, but they were really sick and rotten, her most of all. And every time she tried to make the world a better place, something terrible came up inside her and pulled her back down into hell. It took her deeper and deeper into the blackest nightmare, and every time it got harder to go back up to the light."
This quote also reminds me of what Carrie says in P18: “I tried to keep a clean house. Keep everything organized. It's a long way... In those days, I was too young to know any better.”
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Re: The Random Season 3 Thread

Post by eyeboogers »

Cappy wrote:The observation about the "Accident/Farewell Theme" makes a lot of sense. I had found the usage of that track during the Jones family reunion to be odd, but I never made the connection that the scene could in fact be Cooper saying farewell to some part of himself.
This seems to generally be what happens, whenever a Tulpa is created the original gives up part of themselves. Mr.C was first seen with a manic grin on his face after smashing his face into the mirror, and spouting one liners. The Mr.C who has split into the first Dougie tulpa is left without this "sense of humor". His destruction and existence is joyless and cerebral while original Dougie is someone who is all driven solely by pleasure and without a sense of responsibility.
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Re: The Random Season 3 Thread

Post by Hester Prynne »

What if Cooper isn’t the original though? What if Cooper is a tulpa that was “manufactured for a purpose?” What if Richard is the original? Richard seems to embody characteristics of all three - Cooper, Mr. C, and Dougie. Or is Richard really there to show that Cooper’s tulpas/doppelgängers are just different aspects of the same person?
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