Calling all who think the original timeline is still intact

Moderators: Brad D, Annie, Jonah, BookhouseBoyBob, Ross, Jerry Horne

User avatar
Wonderful & Strange
Great Northern Member
Posts: 513
Joined: Thu Oct 09, 2014 10:01 pm
Contact:

Re: Calling all who think the original timeline is still intact

Post by Wonderful & Strange »

If Cooper didn't save Laura from dying, then why did he go to Odessa to bring her back to Twin Peaks where her memories resurfaced?
Member of the Agent Tammy Preston Defense Lodge
User avatar
Ashok
Great Northern Member
Posts: 534
Joined: Mon Oct 24, 2016 10:39 am
Location: Ohio
Contact:

Re: Calling all who think the original timeline is still intact

Post by Ashok »

Wonderful & Strange wrote:If Cooper didn't save Laura from dying, then why did he go to Odessa to bring her back to Twin Peaks where her memories resurfaced?
The fact that "Carrie" was able to remember Laura's memories seemed to pretty much confirm to me that the original timeline is 100% intact. If the original timeline didn't exist, there would be nothing to bleed into the new timeline like we witnessed in Part 18. The new timeline seems to be riding on top of the old timeline like a jello cake.
"Whatever happened, happened." -Daniel Faraday
User avatar
dud
RR Diner Member
Posts: 177
Joined: Fri Sep 18, 2015 1:09 pm
Location: North Jersey

Re: Calling all who think the original timeline is still intact

Post by dud »

tiny bit more evidence for the idea that new timelines were created rather than the old ones being erased: fwwm jefferies scene: cooper seeing himself in the security camera, front desk saying 'jefferies was never here' both indicate to me that time is fractured by jefferies' time/space travel
User avatar
Wonderful & Strange
Great Northern Member
Posts: 513
Joined: Thu Oct 09, 2014 10:01 pm
Contact:

Re: Calling all who think the original timeline is still intact

Post by Wonderful & Strange »

Ashok wrote:
Wonderful & Strange wrote:If Cooper didn't save Laura from dying, then why did he go to Odessa to bring her back to Twin Peaks where her memories resurfaced?
The fact that "Carrie" was able to remember Laura's memories seemed to pretty much confirm to me that the original timeline is 100% intact. If the original timeline didn't exist, there would be nothing to bleed into the new timeline like we witnessed in Part 18. The new timeline seems to be riding on top of the old timeline like a jello cake.
Laura's memories of what? Of her sexual abuse by her father. That part of the original timeline is still intact. Cooper didn't change the timeline until the night of her death. It's at that point that the timeline changes.

So when Laura regains her memories in part 18, there's plenty for her to scream about.

The question we should be debating is why didn't Cooper go back farther in the timeline to change things? Before Laura's abuse?

One theory is that Laura was created to be a kind of garmonbozia bomb created by the Fireman designed to eventually destroy BOB/Judy by making them overload on suffering: https://www.waggish.org/2017/twin-peaks-finale/

Or it's simply case of Cooper not really understanding well enough how to save his "princess." He's focused on saving her from death, which he does, but ignores her life of suffering.

But there's never any sign that Pete's fishing day is a fantasy. That's an interesting theory with no evidence to support it. What we do see is Laura being stolen away from Cooper as they approach the white lodge. The question is who did the stealing? Seems to be Judy or the Fireman, but if it was the latter, was Cooper aware of the plan? Did he know the Fireman would place Laura in Odessa in order to trap Judy (see URL above).

I tend to think it's as simple as Judy stealing Laura away so she can continue to feed off her suffering in Odessa.
Member of the Agent Tammy Preston Defense Lodge
User avatar
referendum
RR Diner Member
Posts: 312
Joined: Sun Jul 02, 2017 2:29 am

Re: Calling all who think the original timeline is still intact

Post by referendum »

@wonderful and strange
What we do see is Laura being stolen away from Cooper as they approach the white lodge. The question is who did the stealing?
being stolen away is one way of looking at it. Another that has been proposed by several people in different threads here is that it is an ''Orpheus and Eurydice'' thing - he looks back and she vanishes. Back to the underworld. What if he hadn't looked back? Would he have saved her? We don't know. What we see is, that he did look back. We are shown this twice, in both ep 17 and in Ep 18, to underline it.

What I took from this is that Cooper couldn't go back and change things. We are shown what he wanted to happen - she wasn't murdered, there was no body, Pete Martell went fishing, he saved her, the murder didn't happen. But I can't read her disappearing ( twice ) and that scream in an empty forest as any kind of confident indication that he was successful. To me it meant the opposite.

I will grant you that there is alot of ambiguity in the last hour and half of this, and there are several ways of reading it that can make sense. I suppose the reason why I see it the way I do is because for me, it makes some kind of emotional sense. The Richard and Linda ending limbo ending, and the red room whisper, don't make alot of sense to me if she had been saved, or stolen away, as you put it. I guess it is a very ' Lynch' kind of ending, that we can see it in completely opposite ways, and your way makes sense to you, and my way makes sense to me. :)
''let's not overthink this opportunity''
User avatar
DoppelBocker
Roadhouse Member
Posts: 95
Joined: Fri Jun 23, 2017 11:14 pm

Re: Calling all who think the original timeline is still intact

Post by DoppelBocker »

I think concrete answers will not be had but certainly some are more probably than others. Numerous possibilities of course could be going on here.

I think the original timeline is still intact.

Hindu belief structure on alternate realities that Lynch may've read up on?
User avatar
LostInTheMovies
Bookhouse Member
Posts: 1558
Joined: Tue May 20, 2014 12:48 pm

Re: Calling all who think the original timeline is still intact

Post by LostInTheMovies »

I don't think anyone in the thread has mentioned that the shot of Laura talking to James and then screaming (at Cooper, though we don't know it yet) is in FWWM. This strongly suggests that everything we see in Pt17 *already happened* in the timeline from the film. Cooper was always there, Laura always glimpsed him in the woods and screamed, he always took her hand after she hopped off the bike, and she was always whisked back, from which point she walked on to meet Jacques & Ronette, perhaps thinking she'd just experienced a hallucination (she's in quite a condition at this point).

While it's possible Cooper created a separate timeline in which Laura never died (without erasing the timeline in which she did; otherwise how could he end up there in the first place?), the cut to Coop when Laura screams suggests there may still only be one timeline as far as Laura is concerned (*perhaps* putting aside what happens in pt18): the one we know from FWWM. With that in mind, the Josie/Pete scene seems a glimpse of something that *could be* but ultimately isn't - notice it's placed between shots of Coop leading Laura and before Sarah smashing the portrait. Or Lynch/Frost were just trying to be clever with the Laura-seeing-Coop idea and didn't realize it contradicted the notion that this is some new twist on FWWM (but it is, so the effect is the same, intentional or otherwise).

I think the emotional/allegorical/poetic meaning has much more to do with Coop's perception (and lack of understanding) than anything that would actually affect Laura's outcome in FWWM, but even if we're trying to think logistically, there's plenty onscreen to suggest nothing was "erased".
User avatar
SpookyDollhouse
RR Diner Member
Posts: 312
Joined: Tue Oct 18, 2016 5:22 pm
Contact:

Re: Calling all who think the original timeline is still intact

Post by SpookyDollhouse »

Yes it does still exist. A lil extra fourth wall breaking proof; it exists cuz we make it exist everytime we watch it. 8)
cowwithfivelegs
Roadhouse Member
Posts: 73
Joined: Tue Dec 04, 2007 11:33 pm

Re: Calling all who think the original timeline is still intact

Post by cowwithfivelegs »

LostInTheMovies wrote:While it's possible Cooper created a separate timeline in which Laura never died (without erasing the timeline in which she did; otherwise how could he end up there in the first place?), the cut to Coop when Laura screams suggests there may still only be one timeline as far as Laura is concerned (*perhaps* putting aside what happens in pt18): the one we know from FWWM. With that in mind, the Josie/Pete scene seems a glimpse of something that *could be* but ultimately isn't - notice it's placed between shots of Coop leading Laura and before Sarah smashing the portrait.
Also, the scenes of Josie/Pete are intentionally cut into the middle of the scenes where Cooper is leading Laura to salvation, yet fails to actually do so. I see those scenes as what "could have been" or "what was starting to transpire," before Laura was snatched away and Cooper was returned to the Red Room once again.
User avatar
referendum
RR Diner Member
Posts: 312
Joined: Sun Jul 02, 2017 2:29 am

Re: Calling all who think the original timeline is still intact

Post by referendum »

cowwithfivelegs wrote:
Also, the scenes of Josie/Pete are intentionally cut into the middle of the scenes where Cooper is leading Laura to salvation, yet fails to actually do so. I see those scenes as what "could have been" or "what was starting to transpire," before Laura was snatched away and Cooper was returned to the Red Room once again.
Yes,'' what could have been '' is a good way of putting it.
''let's not overthink this opportunity''
writersblock
RR Diner Member
Posts: 118
Joined: Wed Mar 09, 2016 7:03 am

Re: Calling all who think the original timeline is still intact

Post by writersblock »

Wonderful & Strange wrote:There are real consequences to Cooper saving Laura. That's why the original timeline is toast.

OT: Cooper goes to Twin Peaks because Laura is murdered.
Actually Cooper goes to Twin Peaks because Ronette crossed a state line.
baxter
Great Northern Member
Posts: 565
Joined: Sun Mar 06, 2016 4:12 pm

Re: Calling all who think the original timeline is still intact

Post by baxter »

Started my rewatch today (and on a really big screen- fantastic to see so much detail).

My thought now is that we're seeing two different realities that exist after Laura's scream in the lodge. In one version, Cooper hears the scream, exits the lodge through the mauve room, comes out as Dougie, most of the series happens and he ends up going back in time to stop Laura being murdered. That all still has to happen for Laura to be snatched, and it seems pretty clear that that happens in the same reality as S1 and S2.

After Laura is snatched, that's exactly when we see the weird lodge sequence with some sort of shift. The Cooper we see in Part 17/18 is on the other timeline that exists after that moment, in which Cooper can exit the lodge normally (his Doppelganger no longer existing) and he then crosses into another reality with Diane.

Both of those realities have to exist to support the chain of events in each of them. Without Laura being snatched, the reality where Cooper leaves the lodge in search of Laura can't exist, and it seems to occur causally after Cooper has been through the whole journey as Dougie. When we see Cooper's face superimposed on the screen, I think we're seeing the Cooper in the lodge from the new timeline/reality somehow recalling events in the other timeline. When we see Cooper in the lodge with Laura being sntached, we're repeatedly seeing different versions of the same moment from different realities, but they both meet at that point.

It's a little hazy in my head, but this broadly makes sense to me. I've been teaching general relativity for the first time in the last few months, so my interpretation is heavily weighted towards spacetime diagrams!
User avatar
Ashok
Great Northern Member
Posts: 534
Joined: Mon Oct 24, 2016 10:39 am
Location: Ohio
Contact:

Re: Calling all who think the original timeline is still intact

Post by Ashok »

baxter wrote:Both of those realities have to exist to support the chain of events in each of them.
Yup, everything in both timelines seems to have equal weight in being "real". It's just that time is no longer a straight line, it's a forest. :mrgreen:
"Whatever happened, happened." -Daniel Faraday
User avatar
PsychoFox
Roadhouse Member
Posts: 45
Joined: Sun Nov 13, 2016 2:51 pm
Location: Paris
Contact:

Re: Calling all who think the original timeline is still intact

Post by PsychoFox »

If Laura is saved (alive or "just" missing) and if Maddy hasn't been killed, how Leland/Bob would have been discovered ?

With Teresa and Ronette killed, is it enough to warn the FBI ?
Last edited by PsychoFox on Wed Sep 20, 2017 7:23 am, edited 3 times in total.
User avatar
Mr. Reindeer
Lodge Member
Posts: 3680
Joined: Mon Jan 26, 2015 4:09 pm

Re: Calling all who think the original timeline is still intact

Post by Mr. Reindeer »

PsychoFox wrote:If Laura is saved (alive or "just" missing) and no Maddy killed, how Leland/Bob is discovered ?

With Teresa and Ronette killed, is it anough to warn the FBI ?
Apparently, since the FBI was brought in on Teresa's murder a year before Laura died, for reasons that have never been entirely clear, other than Gordon presumably recognizing it as a "Blue Rose" case. I still have no clue what the pretense was for jurisdiction on that one, but in 1989, they had jurisdiction because Ronette crossed state lines.
Post Reply