Dougie Milford, Dougie Jones

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

Post Reply
User avatar
p-air
Roadhouse Member
Posts: 60
Joined: Wed Jan 28, 2015 4:36 am
Location: Philadelphia

Dougie Milford, Dougie Jones

Post by p-air »

Fairly sure there's no dedicated thread for this. It's certainly been acknowledged and mentioned many times but I'm surprised there isn't more discussion about it: our central character in TSHOTP is named Dougie - and our (sort of) central character in The Return is also (sort of) named...Dougie (yet they're not the same Dougie)!

So what do people think went on here? Personally I don't sense any deeper meaning in this. Still I'm curious how exactly it came about, from a Lynch/Frost writing and conception standpoint. Strange name Dougie..
User avatar
Mr. Reindeer
Lodge Member
Posts: 3680
Joined: Mon Jan 26, 2015 4:09 pm

Re: Dougie Milford, Dougie Jones

Post by Mr. Reindeer »

I assume it's a name that just really tickles Mark's fancy (DKL almost certainly wasn't involved in the creation of Dougie Milford circa Episode 17). I wonder if Mark even remembered Dougie Milford existed when they first used the name in the new script.

My in-world explanation (and maybe what Mark was going for?) is that Mr. C named his tulpa as a dark tribute to Milford (or perhaps as a dig), after Garland showed him the dossier.
claaa7
Great Northern Member
Posts: 715
Joined: Sun Oct 19, 2014 2:47 am

Re: Dougie Milford, Dougie Jones

Post by claaa7 »

i have a feeling it will be revealed that our Archivist who we believe to be Dougie is actually not Dougie at all, just like the lead character that everyone around believes to be Dougie is not really Dougie at all. a clue :)
User avatar
p-air
Roadhouse Member
Posts: 60
Joined: Wed Jan 28, 2015 4:36 am
Location: Philadelphia

Re: Dougie Milford, Dougie Jones

Post by p-air »

Mr. Reindeer wrote:I assume it's a name that just really tickles Mark's fancy (DKL almost certainly wasn't involved in the creation of Dougie Milford circa Episode 17). I wonder if Mark even remembered Dougie Milford existed when they first used the name in the new script.
Plausible! It's funny to picture Mark "pulling a Lynch" here: unwittingly reusing the name Dougie in The Return, then subsequently realizing he'd already written a character named Dougie in the original, then taking it is as a "sign" to focus on that original character his Secret History. I could see it happening!

I must admit in the first few minutes when Dougie Jones was introduced, when I heard the name Dougie I simply assumed Kyle was playing Dougie Milford in some way shape or form. He's wearing the owl cave ring as well! Then when there weren't really any further connections I sort of forgot about it - wonder if anyone else experienced the same.
claaa7
Great Northern Member
Posts: 715
Joined: Sun Oct 19, 2014 2:47 am

Re: Dougie Milford, Dougie Jones

Post by claaa7 »

p-air wrote: I must admit in the first few minutes when Dougie Jones was introduced, when I heard the name Dougie I simply assumed Kyle was playing Dougie Milford in some way shape or form. He's wearing the owl cave ring as well! Then when there weren't really any further connections I sort of forgot about it - wonder if anyone else experienced the same.
yes that was pretty much the same for me, i connected back to Dougie Milford right as she said his name too... man, how crazy wasn't it seeing those 4 first episodes when they was first released? what a fucking journey out of the Red Room (!!!)
Manwith
RR Diner Member
Posts: 172
Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2017 3:04 pm

Re: Dougie Milford, Dougie Jones

Post by Manwith »

Mr. Reindeer wrote:I wonder if Mark even remembered Dougie Milford existed when they first used the name in the new script.
I'm sure he did remember. Based on this Q & A I suspect Milford would have been featured in an important way in Season 3 if the original show hadn't been cancelled:

https://io9.gizmodo.com/ask-twin-peaks- ... 1788202916
What made you decide to make the focus of the dossier Dougie Milford? He had such a small role in the show, but after reading the book you find out he was into some heavy shit.

Mark Frost
10/26/16 1:58pm
I’ve been keeping that ace up my sleeve for many years.
User avatar
Henrys Hair
RR Diner Member
Posts: 211
Joined: Tue Aug 07, 2007 10:28 am
Contact:

Re: Dougie Milford, Dougie Jones

Post by Henrys Hair »

claaa7 wrote:
p-air wrote: I must admit in the first few minutes when Dougie Jones was introduced, when I heard the name Dougie I simply assumed Kyle was playing Dougie Milford in some way shape or form. He's wearing the owl cave ring as well! Then when there weren't really any further connections I sort of forgot about it - wonder if anyone else experienced the same.
yes that was pretty much the same for me, i connected back to Dougie Milford right as she said his name too... man, how crazy wasn't it seeing those 4 first episodes when they was first released? what a fucking journey out of the Red Room (!!!)
Me too. There was so much to take in during those first four episodes, though, that it slipped my mind very soon after.
BGate
RR Diner Member
Posts: 306
Joined: Mon Apr 24, 2017 11:15 am

Re: Dougie Milford, Dougie Jones

Post by BGate »

It was probably just a happy coincidence. I mean how many characters from the original series had such limited screen time and also would have been alive for most of the 20th century?
User avatar
p-air
Roadhouse Member
Posts: 60
Joined: Wed Jan 28, 2015 4:36 am
Location: Philadelphia

Re: Dougie Milford, Dougie Jones

Post by p-air »

Manwith wrote:
Mark Frost
10/26/16 1:58pm
I’ve been keeping that ace up my sleeve for many years.
Aha! Good find - I'd forgotten this.

In which case I suppose Mark had Dougie Milford in mind throughout and (probably) gave the name "Dougie" to Dougie Jones when they were writing The Return... why? Knowing him there is probably either an elaborate "in-world" explanation or he is really just having a laugh. He's a character that Mark Frost!
Manwith
RR Diner Member
Posts: 172
Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2017 3:04 pm

Re: Dougie Milford, Dougie Jones

Post by Manwith »

p-air wrote:
Manwith wrote:
Mark Frost
10/26/16 1:58pm
I’ve been keeping that ace up my sleeve for many years.
Aha! Good find - I'd forgotten this.

In which case I suppose Mark had Dougie Milford in mind throughout and (probably) gave the name "Dougie" to Dougie Jones when they were writing The Return... why? Knowing him there is probably either an elaborate "in-world" explanation or he is really just having a laugh. He's a character that Mark Frost!
The original show had two Bobs and two Mikes- it's just part of the tradition of writing for Twin Peaks, it would seem.
User avatar
Novalis
RR Diner Member
Posts: 431
Joined: Sat Jun 10, 2017 3:18 pm

Re: Dougie Milford, Dougie Jones

Post by Novalis »

The repeated use of the name Dougie never struck me as odd. Far more interesting to me was the surname Jones.

Jones, like Smith, is one of those extremely widespread and thus generic names that are often used (only half-seriously) as a stand-in for someone's real surname. Hence in the UK we have a popular expression "keeping up with the Jones'", which means competing with others living in the same neighbourhood / social class in terms of the conspicuous consumption of commodities: having the latest model of the same marque of car parked on the driveway, for example. Given Janey-E's feelings of being economically downtrodden and wanting to compensate by getting some nice new gear to flaunt, it seems very appropriate to me that she would be a 'Jones'.

There's something else. Thomas Eckhardt's would-be assassin/PA was called Jones. The woman who tried to kill Sheriff Harry Truman, I mean; who smeared his lips with the late Josie's perfume before attempting to garotte him. Again, the name felt much like an assumed name there as well.

I feel like the surname Jones was chosen because it creates a nice anxiety on the part of the audience over whether Janey-E and Sonny-Jim (both also odd forenames, seem like formalised familiar names or nicknames become proper) are real people or something other than that (something like the way the Agents Brown, Jones, and most memorably Smith are used in the Matrix franchise, but on a less overt level).
As a matter of fact, 'Chalfont' was the name of the people that rented this space before. Two Chalfonts. Weird, huh?
User avatar
Jasper
Bookhouse Member
Posts: 1138
Joined: Wed May 08, 2013 9:24 am

Re: Dougie Milford, Dougie Jones

Post by Jasper »

Novalis wrote:The repeated use of the name Dougie never struck me as odd. Far more interesting to me was the surname Jones.

Jones, like Smith, is one of those extremely widespread and thus generic names that are often used (only half-seriously) as a stand-in for someone's real surname. Hence in the UK we have a popular expression "keeping up with the Jones'", which means competing with others living in the same neighbourhood / social class in terms of the conspicuous consumption of commodities: having the latest model of the same marque of car parked on the driveway, for example. Given Janey-E's feelings of being economically downtrodden and wanting to compensate by getting some nice new gear to flaunt, it seems very appropriate to me that she would be a 'Jones'.

There's something else. Thomas Eckhardt's would-be assassin/PA was called Jones. The woman who tried to kill Sheriff Harry Truman, I mean; who smeared his lips with the late Josie's perfume before attempting to garotte him. Again, the name felt much like an assumed name there as well.

I feel like the surname Jones was chosen because it creates a nice anxiety on the part of the audience over whether Janey-E and Sonny-Jim (both also odd forenames, seem like formalised familiar names or nicknames become proper) are real people or something other than that (something like the way the Agents Brown, Jones, and most memorably Smith are used in the Matrix franchise, but on a less overt level).
"Keeping up with the Joneses" is common in the U.S. as well, or at least it was in the 20th century. I looked into it, and the idiom originated in the U.S. as the title of a comic strip begun in 1913 by one Arthur R. Momand. The use of Joneses as a stand-in for a generic neighborhood family seems to have begun earlier, and has a more nuanced history which is too much to get into here. "Keeping up with the Joneses" has its own article on Wikipedia.
Post Reply