Who exactly has been part of the Blue Rose Squad? (SPOILERS)

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Mr. Jackpots
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Who exactly has been part of the Blue Rose Squad? (SPOILERS)

Post by Mr. Jackpots »

Frankly I'm a little disappointed on such a big reveal associated with the Blue Rose. Mystery is what makes Twin Peaks so great, and to take all that mystery away from the Blue Rose of all things. Ah well.

Anyway. Who exactly has been part of the Blue Rose Squad...?

Confirmed: Gordon Cole. Albert Rosenfeld. Tammy Preston. Dale Cooper. Philip Jefferies. Chester Desmond.

Ambiguous: Diane. Windom Earle. Major Briggs. Sam Stanley. Dennis/Denise Bryson.

The thing I'm questioning is Major Briggs. Did he not say in the original series something to the effect that him and others were working in a somewhat unofficial capacity continuing the work of Project Blue Book? Sounds an awful lot like the Blue Rose Squad. I gotta wonder if Briggs, Cole, and Coop all have known each other from the get go. Briggs figured prominently in TSHOTP and appeared to Cooper in that outer space scene in The Return. Also Briggs was one of the few characters Cooper had a genuine friendship with in the original run.

I have thoughts on the other ambiguous characters I listed, but I want to hear others thoughts on the Blue Rose Squad.
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laughingpinecone
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Re: Who exactly has been part of the Blue Rose Squad?

Post by laughingpinecone »

Diane: not an agent so not part of the group itself, but she knows what it's about. Secretary of a BR agent and all.

Windom: I see two main options here and I don't know which one is funnier so I love them both. It's either "we're giving you an abridged account of the task force's history and we don't like to mention that one dude who stabbed another agent and was generally kind of an embarrassment", or Windom Earle, with all his Blue Book expertise, was considered and ultimately rejected for Blue Rose (because he was generally kind of an embarrassment). I can see Milford and Briggs giving him the thumbs down.

Sam was being tested... but nothing came of it, apparently, and he cracked soon afterwards? It's worth noting that Albert said that Gordon was reluctant to bring in new blood after three BR agents out of five vanished. When Sam was given his test run, only Jeffries was gone. He could've been the first 'new blood' they meant to bring in but everything turned out awful.

Denise: at this point I don't think so? She wasn't mentioned in TSHOTP nor TPTR, she was doing shady undercover stuff for Gordon for most of the relevant years... of course considering her actor, one hopes she got some juicy supernatural cases...

Briggs: TSHOTP says Nixon ordered Milford to create a post-Blue Book inter-agency task force. No CIA, everyone else is fair game. My understanding is that Blue Rose is its FBI incarnation (because they only ever mention FBI people). Milford himself was USAF and Briggs was his man, so I have no doubt they handled the USAF side of things... maybe Colonel Davis is having a similar chat with Lieutenant Knox right now! Much like with Denise, I hope Colonel Ghostbuster had his fair share of supernatural experiences!
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BigEd
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Re: Who exactly has been part of the Blue Rose Squad?

Post by BigEd »

laughingpinecone wrote: It's worth noting that Albert said that Gordon was reluctant to bring in new blood after three BR agents out of five vanished. When Sam was given his test run, only Jeffries was gone. He could've been the first 'new blood' they meant to bring in but everything turned out awful.
I must have missed the "three out of five." I recall them saying that Jeffries was appointed to lead the force and Albert, Coop and Desmond were also assigned. Who was number five?
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Dreamy Audrey
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Re: Who exactly has been part of the Blue Rose Squad?

Post by Dreamy Audrey »

BigEd wrote:
laughingpinecone wrote: It's worth noting that Albert said that Gordon was reluctant to bring in new blood after three BR agents out of five vanished. When Sam was given his test run, only Jeffries was gone. He could've been the first 'new blood' they meant to bring in but everything turned out awful.
I must have missed the "three out of five." I recall them saying that Jeffries was appointed to lead the force and Albert, Coop and Desmond were also assigned. Who was number five?
You're right, Albert says: "Gordon suggested an agent by the name of Phillip Jeffries to head the squad. He soon recruited three others: myself, Chet Desmond, and Dale Cooper. Perhaps you haven't failed to notice that I'm the only one of that group who hasn't disappeared without explanation, which has led to a certain reluctance on Gordon's part to bring new blood into the fold until tonight."

However, they are five people if you count Gordon.
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laughingpinecone
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Re: Who exactly has been part of the Blue Rose Squad?

Post by laughingpinecone »

Dreamy Audrey wrote:
BigEd wrote:
laughingpinecone wrote: It's worth noting that Albert said that Gordon was reluctant to bring in new blood after three BR agents out of five vanished. When Sam was given his test run, only Jeffries was gone. He could've been the first 'new blood' they meant to bring in but everything turned out awful.
I must have missed the "three out of five." I recall them saying that Jeffries was appointed to lead the force and Albert, Coop and Desmond were also assigned. Who was number five?
You're right, Albert says: "Gordon suggested an agent by the name of Phillip Jeffries to head the squad. He soon recruited three others: myself, Chet Desmond, and Dale Cooper. Perhaps you haven't failed to notice that I'm the only one of that group who hasn't disappeared without explanation, which has led to a certain reluctance on Gordon's part to bring new blood into the fold until tonight."

However, they are five people if you count Gordon.
I did, indeed, count Gordon as the fifth man! :) Combining the TSHOTP list that included him with Gordon's recent brush-in with disappearing without explanation...
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asmahan
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Re: Who exactly has been part of the Blue Rose Squad?

Post by asmahan »

Cooper and Jeffries are part of the same task force, but Cooper doesn't recognize him when he shows up in Philadelphia? I suppose we're to assume Cooper joined after Phillip's initial disappearance?
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Re: Who exactly has been part of the Blue Rose Squad?

Post by Ragnell »

asmahan wrote:Cooper and Jeffries are part of the same task force, but Cooper doesn't recognize him when he shows up in Philadelphia? I suppose we're to assume Cooper joined after Phillip's initial disappearance?
That's what I thought. If they were vetting Tammy as early as high school, Jeffries probably picked Cooper out from his academic records and career trajectory before ever meeting him. The final recruitment would been after Jeffries disappeared.

Jeffries disappeared 2 years before FWWM. Dale was stabbed and Windom disappeared 2 years before the pilot, I believe. So Jeffries was missing a year before the stabbing.

If Dale was trained by Windom BEFORE being officially brought in to Gordon's task force, that fits with Windom not being a part of it abd Dale not meeting Jeffries face to face. And fits Gordon's tone when Jeffries asks who Cooper is. It had a "You remember?" quality.

I'd also surmise Dale's psychic abilities attracted their attention. He always had a high level of intuition.
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Re: Who exactly has been part of the Blue Rose Squad?

Post by Mr. Jackpots »

Ragnell wrote:
asmahan wrote:Cooper and Jeffries are part of the same task force, but Cooper doesn't recognize him when he shows up in Philadelphia? I suppose we're to assume Cooper joined after Phillip's initial disappearance?
That's what I thought. If they were vetting Tammy as early as high school, Jeffries probably picked Cooper out from his academic records and career trajectory before ever meeting him. The final recruitment would been after Jeffries disappeared.

Jeffries disappeared 2 years before FWWM. Dale was stabbed and Windom disappeared 2 years before the pilot, I believe. So Jeffries was missing a year before the stabbing.

If Dale was trained by Windom BEFORE being officially brought in to Gordon's task force, that fits with Windom not being a part of it abd Dale not meeting Jeffries face to face. And fits Gordon's tone when Jeffries asks who Cooper is. It had a "You remember?" quality.

I'd also surmise Dale's psychic abilities attracted their attention. He always had a high level of intuition.
Also when Coop enters Coles office and Jefferies is there in FWWM. Cole remarks "Cooper, meet the long lost Philip Jefferies." Suggesting they had never been formally introduced before. And now, Mr.C and Jefferies are entangled in a deadly game of cat and mouse, and possibly were working together "undercover". ....???

I don't know if will ever really get to the bottom of this. I hope a lot about Jefferies remains a mystery after The Return is over.
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Re: Who exactly has been part of the Blue Rose Squad?

Post by laughingpinecone »

I rather suspect we're staring at a retcon.

The only way I see of reconciling FWWM's scene with pt12's exposition is that Gordon picked Jeffries, then Gordon picked the other three, and Gordon kept these two branches of blue rose wholly separate for some reason (Jeffries was his peer and they worked together on occasion, like their TSHOTP LPA visit, the other were a different bunch, idk).
And there's a whole other round of straws-clutching to go through to explain how FWWM Gordon reacted so coldly to the reappearance of the man described by TSHOTP as his old partner and by TPTR as his first Blue Rose buddy.

Chances are we're simply being told a different version of these characters' backgrounds. It wouldn't be the first nor the last time.
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Re: Who exactly has been part of the Blue Rose Squad?

Post by Novalis »

Cole says to Coop, of Jeffries, 'you may have heard of him from the academy', but later in the same sequence says to Jeffries 'where the hell have you been Jeffries, you've been gone damn near two years?'.

This suggests to me that Coop is a relatively new addition to the team at this point, and possibly has only graduated to special agent status relatively recently. If he was still at the academy, say, 18 months ago, these two quotes could make sense; i.e. Jeffries went missing prior to Cooper being recruited.
As a matter of fact, 'Chalfont' was the name of the people that rented this space before. Two Chalfonts. Weird, huh?
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Re: Who exactly has been part of the Blue Rose Squad?

Post by Mr. Reindeer »

Novalis wrote:Cole says to Coop, of Jeffries, 'you may have heard of him from the academy', but later in the same sequence says to Jeffries 'where the hell have you been Jeffries, you've been gone damn near two years?'.

This suggests to me that Coop is a relatively new addition to the team at this point, and possibly has only graduated to special agent status relatively recently. If he was still at the academy, say, 18 months ago, these two quotes could make sense; i.e. Jeffries went missing prior to Cooper being recruited.
Putting aside MLMT, which has its own host of continuity errors, Coop says in the old show that the Caroline/Windom stuff happened four years ago, so he's definitely been out of the Academy for awhile by 1988.
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Re: Who exactly has been part of the Blue Rose Squad?

Post by Ragnell »

Mr. Reindeer wrote:
Novalis wrote:Cole says to Coop, of Jeffries, 'you may have heard of him from the academy', but later in the same sequence says to Jeffries 'where the hell have you been Jeffries, you've been gone damn near two years?'.

This suggests to me that Coop is a relatively new addition to the team at this point, and possibly has only graduated to special agent status relatively recently. If he was still at the academy, say, 18 months ago, these two quotes could make sense; i.e. Jeffries went missing prior to Cooper being recruited.
Putting aside MLMT, which has its own host of continuity errors, Coop says in the old show that the Caroline/Windom stuff happened four years ago, so he's definitely been out of the Academy for awhile by 1988.
Yeah, but you don'tgo right from the Academy to an elite unit. You have to get some experience, make a name for yourself, pass tests. Cooper was Earle's protege prior to the stabbing. Then he had to recover, work on his own, gain exprlerience, get vetted. I still say Jeffries could've picked him but disappeared before he had a chance to meet him. When Jeffries disappeared, Cole had the recruiting files and went through with vetting Cooper and bringing him in. Cooper could've worked w/Cole, Desmond and Albert for months before getting the acceptance speech and STILL have been a full member for a year before Jeffries reappeared and Desmond disappeared.
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Re: Who exactly has been part of the Blue Rose Squad?

Post by Novalis »

Ah yes: Cooper can't have graduated recently in 1988. The Caroline and Earle involvements preclude that. He can, however, have been recently inducted into the Blue Rose task force.

It hurts me to type Blue Rose 'task force'. As Mr. Jackpots has said, this overt connection with Blue Book tends to demystify it somewhat. I am optimistic however. The alignment of the cases not with UFOs but with 'abstractions' is promising, and the name being a reference to the dying words of some investigated woman also helps re-mystify it.
As a matter of fact, 'Chalfont' was the name of the people that rented this space before. Two Chalfonts. Weird, huh?
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Re: Who exactly has been part of the Blue Rose Squad?

Post by laughingpinecone »

They were always "Cole's Blue Rose cases"... the agents selected for these blue rose cases make up a blue rose task force, I reckon, it's not a big lexical stretch? And to me, the fact that we've seen a blue rose in pt3 makes this dying woman's words all the more delightfully mysterious. Who was she, and what did she see...
It's the fact that the whole shebang is funded by Nixon's UFO money that kills the mood for me, if any :lol:

Even assuming the most convenient timing, Coop should have at least known about Jeffries as the second Blue Rose agent, like Tammy is hearing about him and Chet now, not as some dude who was famous at Quantico (for being really really good at karaoke, presumably). It still doesn't jive with the actual dialogue in FWWM. Pittsburgh is now in 1988 in some versions of the events, by the by, for added fun! And I'd kill to know what made Mark Frost go with this specific retcon, because it makes so much sense for me considering how Coop is in the show and I'd like to know if it's intentional.
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Re: Who exactly has been part of the Blue Rose Squad?

Post by alreadygoneplaces »

I think there have been some quite liberal retconning of the Blue Rose/FBI/Blue Book backstory, which I don't really have a problem with in itself. But I think it's going to get unnecessarily complicated the harder one tries to settle on a consistent canonical account of it all.
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