World of Blue - Archived Forum 2007-2022

laughingpinecone wrote:Richard tells us that she raised him up to a certain point, told him that the man in the picture was FBI. So whatever happened to her, I'd rule out the coma we left her in in ep29...
(I'm still praying for TFD to throw us a bone here. Not a whole univocal explanation, Hell would freeze over and Mark Frost would spontaneously combust before that, just one scrap of a clue)

Richard never told the audience any of that. All we know is he recognized Cooper from a photograph... and that "my mom had it."

Audrey Horne wrote:

laughingpinecone wrote:Richard tells us that she raised him up to a certain point, told him that the man in the picture was FBI. So whatever happened to her, I'd rule out the coma we left her in in ep29...
(I'm still praying for TFD to throw us a bone here. Not a whole univocal explanation, Hell would freeze over and Mark Frost would spontaneously combust before that, just one scrap of a clue)

Richard never told the audience any of that. All we know is he recognized Cooper from a photograph... and that "my mom had it."

Could be they just didn't change Richard's lines from before Audrey's plot change, but he knows Cooper's job and name. I somehow can't find it in myself to picture Ben or Jerry or whoever else telling young Richard aaall about this dude on a picture his comatose mother-he-never-knew owned, to the point that he still remembers it many years later.

See, just like every other damn line and frame and long mysterious question after question, it's all open to interpretation.

But Richard's actual facts are Ben saying "that boy never had a father," his mom had a picture of Cooper, and her name is Audrey Horne. It's open to whether or not she was awake. He never says she raised him.

Thumbsup, I don't know -sure why not - to me, her body is still in a coma in Twin Peaks. Or if they ever do another season, maybe lobby for her coma body to be in New York or another locale if Lynch is going to meander all over the country again. The contract for me is Audrey's logical brain (Charlie) saying he'll figure it all out if her impatient, passionate side allows him. To me, that is.

laughingpinecone wrote:Richard tells us that she raised him up to a certain point, told him that the man in the picture was FBI.

This is not quite accurate. He says he saw a picture of him in his FBI suit. Coop asks him where he saw the picture, and he says, "My mom had it." It's possible that they preserved Audrey's room after she fell into the coma, and she had the picture of Cooper in there. You could certainly be right, but we don't know definitively either way.

edit: I see this was covered.

I will say, pointing out that "Richard never had a father" seems a bit odd if he also didn't have a mother. I know it led into Ben's story about his dad, but you'd think he would say, "Richard never had parents" or something.

Hester Prynne wrote:I loved that her and Cooper's awakenings paralleled each other's in Pt 16.

Hester Prynne wrote:Her dance parallels Coop's "I am the FBI," both characters remembering exactly who they were, but Audrey's awakening was short lived.

So was Cooper's really, in proportion to the overall arc. Your parallels are spot on here!

Audrey Horne wrote:
We have rape, molestation, suffering from so many characters. Purgatory in some way for most of them. But instead a green glove fight, and a gotcha Twilight Zone ending. What if instead we find out Cooper and Mr. C are the same person... two halves split. And Coooer has to actually deal with his darker side. Shades of Leland.

Nothing concrete has to happen, but having women raped, molested, having a child and left in limbo seems kinda irresponsible not to explore. There’s something with Audrey, Laura and Diane that, to me, feels like should’ve been tied together to Cooper.

It does seem like there needs to be some kind of reckoning with Cooper that doesn't happen. It's similar to the first two seasons where I wish they had delved more into Leland's responsibility for Laura's abuse and death than his merely being a conduit for Bob or lodge forces - the idea that the lodges are internal forces driving our decisions and impulses and ultimately our responsibility when they must be accounted for. Cue all the accountants in this series.

The scene with Diane/Linda and Coop/Richard in the hotel room is what disturbed me the most. This is not the Cooper we know - or is it? Maybe that is what's so disturbing about it - seeing our hero in a different light - his idea of chivalry and jumping into action to protect a waitress getting hassled and in the next moment, holding a gun at her without hesitation and telling her to write down Carrie's address, but "it's okay, I'm with the FBI." - Don't want to get too off topic as this is the Audrey thread, but it does seem like Audrey is left in some sort of limbo without any resolution, similar to Diane, after going through some brutal experiences linked back to Cooper/Richard/Mr. C's actions.

ThumbsUp wrote:
For me, up until halfway through S2, Coop was presented as this perfect, flawless character, but then you found out he cheated on his partner's wife, and his hero complex manifests in his Black Lodge trial when he's confronted with the various people he failed to protect (Caroline, Maddy, Leland, Laura, Annie...)

I guess the closest thing, from my POV, that we got to Coop/Mr. C "unifying" was the sequence at the diner in Odessa, as others on the internet have pointed out and theorised. We see flashes of Good Coop, Mr. C, even Dougie all in the same vignette.

I also think it's interesting that his name is Richard, the name of his and Audrey's dead son. This, with the arm's repetition of Audrey's line about the little girl that lived down the lane are resonances of Audrey in the final part even though we don't see her. Maybe this is some sort of punishment or purgatory for Cooper - stuck living out his life with the name of his dead son and trapped in one of Audrey's stories - a bit out there, but who knows.

Hester Prynne wrote: I also think it's interesting that his name is Richard, the name of his and Audrey's dead son. This, with the arm's repetition of Audrey's line about the little girl that lived down the lane are resonances of Audrey in the final part even though we don't see her. Maybe this is some sort of punishment or purgatory for Cooper - stuck living out his life with the name of his dead son and trapped in one of Audrey's stories - a bit out there, but who knows.

Richard is not the son of (this) Cooper.

BGate wrote: I will say, pointing out that "Richard never had a father" seems a bit odd if he also didn't have a mother. I know it led into Ben's story about his dad, but you'd think he would say, "Richard never had parents" or something.

And Doc Hayward said that she "was" in a coma.

And I don't think that you can wake up from a 25 years coma like that, saying immediatly "What ?"

PsychoFox wrote:

BGate wrote: I will say, pointing out that "Richard never had a father" seems a bit odd if he also didn't have a mother. I know it led into Ben's story about his dad, but you'd think he would say, "Richard never had parents" or something.

And Doc Hayward said that she "was" in a coma.

And I don't think that you can wake up from a 25 years coma like that, saying immediatly "What ?"

These too!
Of course, it's Peaks so it's all loosely woven and few things are 100% set in stone. I worded my first post too strongly. But I do think that all the little details point more toward Audrey having woken up from that coma at some point than the opposite.

On a personal level, I would also prefer it. Both because Peaks can be more inventive than "oh she was in a coma", and because imho that'd be a worst case scenario for the character. If she 'just' fucked off into some shifted reality or whatever, she can 'just' come back at some point in the future. If she's in a coma, her conscience has to come back all the same like in the previous case, but then she'd have to deal with a body that has been in a coma for 25++ years. Canon's harsh enough already, I'm trying to stick to best case scenarios

I think most of us in the coma camp are saying she said "What?" to her mind realizing she's not in the world of being married to Charlie. The mirror scene is what she really looks like- but her physical body is still in a coma, her mind/soul is in a white room, lodge prison.

And that's the whole interesting potential point about Richard Horne not being Cooper's. Isn't he in some way? Same DNA. TWIN Peaks, shadow self. Leland did and did not kill Laura. So many interesting human dynamics not explored in favor of supernatural, Twilight Zone and superhero 101s.

Audrey Horne wrote:I think most of us in the coma camp are saying she said "What?" to her mind realizing she's not in the world of being married to Charlie. The mirror scene is what she really looks like- but her physical body is still in a coma, her mind/soul is in a white room, lodge prison.

And that's the whole interesting potential point about Richard Horne not being Cooper's. Isn't he in some way? Same DNA. TWIN Peaks, shadow self. Leland did and did not kill Laura. So many interesting human dynamics not explored in favor of supernatural, Twilight Zone and superhero 101s.

The way I looked at it, is that the characters themselves are still in denial over the magnitude of this horror, and Lynch likes the audiences to feel what the characters are feeling, and get inside their heads. The superhero stuff and Cooper wanting to save Laura is just him trading delusions now that he realizes all these disassociated personas he's conjured are all a part of him. He still can't cope and confront it, not really, which is why he wants to change the past. That's how I saw it anyway.

Audrey Horne wrote: And that's the whole interesting potential point about Richard Horne not being Cooper's. Isn't he in some way? Same DNA.

chromereflectsimage wrote:The superhero stuff and Cooper wanting to save Laura is just him trading delusions now that he realizes all these disassociated personas he's conjured are all a part of him.

Yes - this is how I interpreted it, too. It is revealed to us that Mr. C fathered Richard, but in the final episode, we see Cooper's various identities merge, which means Richard is as much a part of Cooper as Mr. C. Now having the same name as his son can't be unintentional. It made me think of "Sr." and "Jr." Mr. C is definitely present in that last episode, but I see glimpses of Richard, as well. At Judy's in Odessa when Coop-Richard is confronted by the cowboy as he sat in the booth, it reminded me of Richard in the Roadhouse being confronted by the manager to put out his cigarette - they even reach their right arm back in the booths the same way. I think these are all hints that Richard Horne is just as much a product of and a part of Cooper as Mr. C and Dougie.

Hester Prynne wrote:

Audrey Horne wrote: And that's the whole interesting potential point about Richard Horne not being Cooper's. Isn't he in some way? Same DNA.

chromereflectsimage wrote:The superhero stuff and Cooper wanting to save Laura is just him trading delusions now that he realizes all these disassociated personas he's conjured are all a part of him.

Yes - this is how I interpreted it, too. It is revealed to us that Mr. C fathered Richard, but in the final episode, we see Cooper's various identities merge, which means Richard is as much a part of Cooper as Mr. C. Now having the same name as his son can't be unintentional. It made me think of "Sr." and "Jr." Mr. C is definitely present in that last episode, but I see glimpses of Richard, as well. At Judy's in Odessa when Coop-Richard is confronted by the cowboy as he sat in the booth, it reminded me of Richard in the Roadhouse being confronted by the manager to put out his cigarette - they even reach their right arm back in the booths the same way. I think these are all hints that Richard Horne is just as much a product of and a part of Cooper as Mr. C and Dougie.

I really like this. I agree that the Richard name isn't just another random name that happens to be shared with another character, as is the case with so many TP characters (Mike, Bob, etc). It's a great way of manifesting the dark sides of Coop, who, like I said before, was a character that I love but for the first season and a half was way too perfect and can-do-no-wrong.

I think it was mentioned here and elsewhere, but the way Richard held his cigarette in that Roadhouse scene was reminiscent of how Audrey would hold her cigarettes in the original show. The bathroom scene, for instance. (I wonder what Richard Horne suggests about Audrey's own dark sides...)

If Coop and Audrey's awakenings in part 16 parallel each other (another bit I love), I wonder what other parallels exist? Richard gets "electrocuted" to open the episode... while Audrey gets "zapped" to the White Room as electricity is heard to close the episode. Maybe those who think Richard got teleported somewhere rather than just fried may be on to something after all.

I've also just realised the episode opens and closes with various members of the Horne family by birth or marriage or other circumstances (Mr. C, Richard, Jerry, Audrey, Charlie).

I think all these ideas are great and interesting... in theory. And to me then, pick a road and explore it. Much earlier. As it stands now, it’s not cathartic because it comes out of the blue, and seems more like a shock gimmick than actual exploring human nature. In this case, the road they took was a sixteen episode stint of Cooper returning to himself... only for it to be yanked away basically the next episode. So if they’re going to take that route of Cooper returning whole from Dougie stick to it and see how he does in his new world with twenty five years of enlightenment. Or if they go with his persona being Richard, bring in earlier the hints of Mr. C and Cooper actually being split.

Does that make any sense? To me nothing in the end worked, only beautiful scenes sprinkled throughout with the story structure pulling its punches. I love undefined endings where the characters fates live off the page, or screen, so I’m not one who wants it all tied up in a bow... but as it stands now, everyone (well, the three main protagonists Cooper, Audrey and Laura) ends on a shock cliffhanger, not an ambiguous ending... if my difference makes any sense. I’m rambling of course.

But I’m also not big on dreams or alternate realities, etc. Especially when Coooer already had a red room dream in episode two, so then it just makes dreams on top of dreams on top of dreams, and without a concrete structure to hang anything in it just bottoms out.

I guess I say this because in the end, I have never found myself lost in this new world asking questions about the characters’ fates, but instead asking questions about the behind the scenes story structure.