The Lodges and the Convenience Store

[Soolsma]

The Red Room (Black/White Lodge): Humans enter this place and confront themselves. If they show fear and shy away from truth, then it is the Black Lodge and they are trapped there, but if they show courage and accept truth, then... ? Not sure what the White Lodge experience might be like, aside from the end of FWWM. Laura was already dead at that point, so it is hard to say what would happen to a living soul who finds the White Lodge.

Major Briggs in season 2? Andy in part 14? Plus, I'd dare say Señor Droolcup has had an encounter.

[Cappy]

Major Briggs in season 2? Andy in part 14? Plus, I'd dare say Señor Droolcup has had an encounter.

I'm operating under the assumption that the Fireman's House is some separate place from the Red Room/White Lodge. I might be wrong about that, and I suspect there is a degree of overlap between these supernatural locales. Andy definitely went to the Fireman's House, which might be the White Lodge. It's implied Laura went to the White Lodge at the end of FWWM, passing through the Red Room to get there.

Maj. Briggs abduction, while I originally was interpreting it as being White Lodge based, looks somewhat inconsistent with what we've seen of the Fireman's House. The place Briggs described was filled with greenery. So far we have a purple room, a red room, a vaguely monochromatic Convenience Store and Fireman's House. I wonder if there is a Green Room (the Green House?) that we've not yet seen. This green place could be the White Lodge, or it could be something else entirely.

[FlyingSquirrel]

Re: Does the convenience store move?: It must. Jeffries says he encountered it in Seattle, we first see it chronologically in New Mexico after the atomic-bomb test, and most recently it appeared somewhere between Montana and the pacific northwest.

Do we know that it was actually in New Mexico, or are we just assuming that because it took place after the montage of the atomic explosion? (You may well be right, I just don't remember the exact order of when we saw what in Episode 8.)

And how did Richard get there? Was he following DoppelCooper ever since he left the farm?

[DoppelBocker]

Before season 3 I kind of thought of the lodge spirits as a curious group exploring our reality as astronauts do outer space. The scene above the convenience store in FWWM seems to represent them trying to understand physical reality and perhaps even carve out a niche for themselves slightly beyond it not too far removed from actual physical reality.

In Season 3 it seems a physical disruption takes place due to meddling from spirits beyond our plane of existence. Natural gateways (wormholes) exist as do actual locations such as the convenience store that seems to be an actual place that blips in and out of physical reality. Because of this being an actual place as well as the existence of various gateways (wormholes), this convenience store serves as a perfect nexus point for spirits to go through while travelling through our reality (electricity) or into various wormholes to go to another physical location or perhaps an immaterial location like the black or white lodge.

The black lodge I think is the blackness outside that cooper was falling through (this was in the script for last episode of season 2 according to Twin Peaks FAQ book from what I understand). The red room is simply a waiting room throughout season 1 and 2 of Twin Peaks but becomes the Black Lodge in the very last episode once Coop starts moving through it and the Dopplegangers start to appear and he encounters the shadow self on the threshold as Hawk mentioned earlier in the series. I think the red room is just an immaterial place in the black (astral?) space that the spirits carved out for themselves to sort of reside in. It becomes the black lodge as a test if someone were to physically enter the portal before can move on (however, perhaps many other types of places could appear too if one were to step outside the lodge and fall through space).

The white lodge is a gateway to a higher plane beyond which nothing can be physically recognizable anymore. However, being just a gateway beyond the test and not the higher plane itself spirits have carved out a sort of niche area right beyond the edge of our physical reality in which they reside in sort of like black lodge spirits reside in their place.

[Ragnell]

See, I've been reading it as a collection of realms and spirits, which are associated with one side or the other, and certain places overlap. Like the White Lodge and the Black Lodge are two kingdoms, with some sort of hierarchy attached to them. As we've seen, the Arm seems to be the highest authority in the Black Lodge, and the Fireman the highest authority in the White Lodge. There are associated spirits and realms. I saw the Purple Sea as an outer realm of the White Lodge, and the Mauve Room as another associated realm. The Fireman's stronghold is at the top of mountainous island, it's the highest and deepest part of the White Lodge. The Red Room is part of the Black Lodge, but seems to be the part where spirits from all alignments can visit, analogous to the Purple Sea or the Mauve Room (which seem to be on the same island, only lower, than the Fireman's stronghold) while the darkened rooms Cooper visited during his test were deeper in the Black Lodge.

The convenience store seems to be a Black Lodge realm but not the Lodge itself, and so does the shadow of the hotel that Doppelcoop visits to talk to Jeffries. However, I'm not 100% convinced Jeffries is there. The wall disappears, and Jeffries appears to be inside a device shaped like the sorts we've only seen in White Lodge-associated rooms, with a wall that appears like a White Lodge associated room. I suspect Doppelcoop was talking to a projection, and the Inn may be a place where the realms can cross.

Either way, did anyone else play White Wolf World of Darkness RPGs when they were younger? There's a concept in Mage/Werewolf/Wraith and arguably Changeling that comes to mind. The Umbra and the Dreaming. Both are spiritual realities that shadow the real world, resembling it very closely when you initially cross the barrier but becoming stranger and wilder as you get farther from earth. The Umbra has the Near Umbra and the Deep Umbra and there's a whole area that's basically just a warped shadow of Earth, while the Deep Umbra has different realms with different rules. I've been thinking of the White Lodge and Black Lodge as like a combination of the Umbra and the Dreaming, and seeing the motel just made that interpretation stick even more. The motel is clearly a warped shadow of that physical motel, while Jeffries seems to very very deep in this other dimension. The convenience store also seems like a shadow of the physical world.

The Red Room doesn't seem like a shadow of the real world, though. It's distinct. It's well-kept. It's more solid than the places the Woodsman are. The Purple Sea and the Mauve room don't seem as solid, but they seem as distinct and as original as the Red Room. They don't seem like places that are a copy of other places. The place above the convenience store seems otherworldly, but earthly. Like it's just a shadow of Earth rather than a full part of the Lodge dimensions.

[wxray]

For some reason, my provider now has descriptions for parts 1 to 7 for the upcoming replay this Sunday.

For Part 1, it says: "In the Black Lodge, the Giant tells Cooper to listen to the sounds."

WTF? I think these descriptions are not Lynch/Frost sanctioned. I don't buy that description at all. Black Lodge? Really?

[The Jumping Man]

I can;t imagine they're sanctioned, since they're not calling that character The Giant.

[StealThisCorn]

I think the simplest explanation for what we've seen in The Return so far, is that the Fireman's castle on the purple sea = the White Lodge. The Convenience Store = the Black Lodge. And that leaves the Red Room as the place where beings from both can meet, which fits nicely with the symbolism of it's dark and light chevron floor pattern.

[N. Needleman]

I don't think the convenience store is the Black Lodge. The Bad Dale was explicitly not trying to go back there.

[Ragnell]

I don't think the convenience store is the Black Lodge. The Bad Dale was explicitly not trying to go back there.

Yeah, the Red Room just seems to be a portion of the Black Lodge where guests are permitted. I think the Convenience Store is like a transit station, that leads to different places in that dimension.

Now, what occurs to me is if there is a mirror of the motel in the otherworld, is there a mirror of other places too? Such as the Sheriff's station? Could that be what was meant in the last ep?

[Mr. Reindeer]

Kinda funny that the Episode 29 script represented the Black Lodge as a B&W rendering of the Great Northern and DKL nixed this idea. 25 years later, he decided B&W shadow-spirit of a motel is where it's at!