World of Blue - Archived Forum 2007-2022

Recently, I watched season 3 at four-times the normal speed, since it was apparent Lynch included several musical cues at quarter speed ("Moonlight Sonata" in "Part 8" and "Part 17" being the most obvious).

I'm currently writing up all the interesting sounds and music I found (and there's a damn lot), but one interesting thing has stuck out: the phone call Cooper's doppelgänger receives in "Part 2".

The phone call

In "Part 2", Cooper's doppelgänger receives a call from a person he believes to be Phillip Jeffries–though it's clearly an imposter.

The voice is obviously processed and modulated, but what's more interesting is the sound design in the scene, not the voice itself. What appears to be a low-frequency drone throughout is actually a strange, edited piece of 1930s-sounding jazz music playing at quarter speed, with pad sounds from the Fire Walk with Me track "Phillip Jeffries" fading in and out.

While I originally thought this might indicate the caller was the Fireman (he clearly likes old jazz and plans to trap the doppelgänger), this particular music plays only once more in the entire season, again at quarter speed to sound like an ominous drone.

The second instance

It's only ever played again in "Part 14", after Sarah Palmer (or rather the entity inhabiting her, likely Judy) kills the trucker at the bar (the music starts around 00:11).

Many have previously speculated the uncredited voice on the phone was Grace Zabriskie. And it seems the two instances of this music seems to further connect Sarah (or rather Judy via Sarah) to the phone call to the doppelgänger.

Another clue

What's more, at the end of "Part 2", during Sarah's very first scene, an edited version of Lynch's song "Last Call" is also playing at quarter-speed.

"Last call" as a term refers to the final orders at a bar, and Sarah is obviously shown deep in alcoholism. But what if it's also a double entendre, another hidden clue in the sound design (essentially a subtle wink-wink by Lynch) to the fact Sarah/Judy was the caller?

Kilmoore wrote:If the Fireman and the Giant are the same character, something very significant has changed betweeen S2 and S3. Some kind of power balance has shifted, perhaps. I wrote in some earlier topic:

In the original series, the Giant clearly says he is only allowed to give Cooper hints, and a limited amount of them. But the Fireman gives Cooper a navigation guide to another dimension, imbues a Brit with superpowers to beat up BOB, fills Andy in on the situation to a level of understanding and gives brainbirth to Laura after watching an episode of Twin Peaks in a celestial theater.

Behavior is what defines a character and these two characters behave very differently.

N. Needleman wrote: Also, it's not like Twin Peaks has ever subscribed to the kind of strict narrative rules you describe.

Kilmoore wrote:

N. Needleman wrote: Also, it's not like Twin Peaks has ever subscribed to the kind of strict narrative rules you describe.

That is, really, the heart of the problem. It's not like Lynch and Frost went back and examined how the Giant behaved in the original. They just used a same actor as a similar character, without any intention of consistency. Therefore, speculation on the character is pointless. At times, he is the same kind, others he isn't, and there isn't any grand reason behind it. Any conclusion can be drawn, making all of them equally wrong.

LateReg wrote:

Kilmoore wrote:Any conclusion can be drawn, making all of them equally wrong.

Or equally right.

enumbs wrote:I wonder if the Fireman adjusts his communication style depending on the audience he's addressing. So where the straightforward Freddie receives explicit instructions, the detective Dale Cooper gets a series of riddles and opaque clues. As for Andy, who isn't the most educated but has a degree of emotional intuition, he sees images designed to connect with him on a gut level.

Jerry Horne wrote:...

Mr. Reindeer wrote:Great post, LateReg, although I’m still not convinced that Cooper actually changes the past — at least, not for more than a few seconds (however one temporally measures such a thing!). Yes, I know TFD seems to support the inference that he created some new timeline where Laura disappeared instead of being killed...but we’re talking about DKL’s ouevre here, not the book, and as he said of TSHoTP, “That is Mark’s book. I have never read it and I don’t want to. He has his own ideas of the history and I have my own.” Going by simply what they chose to show us in the series, Laura vanishes from Cooper’s grasp and screams, and afterward we don’t know what-all happens to the world that we knew and loved...in fact, it seems quite possible that we never see the established TP world again after that moment. All we know is Cooper’s plan to bring Laura to the Fireman’s fails because she literally disappears from his grasp, he ends up repeating a (nearly-identical) version of his earlier Red Room scenes, with Laura AGAIN being whisked away screaming, and when he finally manages to find Laura again, it’s not in an altered version of the old reality. Instead, it seems to be an entirely different world where someone who looks like Laura has been dropped into an entirely different life/identity, a phenomenon akin in some ways to the “Betty” world in MD or the “Blue Tomorrows” world in IE — which doesn’t fit cozily into the traditional definition of “changing the past.”

I certainly agree that Cooper’s EFFORTS to change the past lead to some bad mojo, but I don’t see much evidence that any part of what he was attempting went according to plan.

mtwentz wrote:In thinking back on The Return, one reason I posit for the profoundly disappointed group is that The Return is much more a 'cerebral' adventure, whereas the original series and FWWM were more a combination of cerebral and emotional, with the balance leaning towards the emotional.