Ray/Phillip Jeffries storyline

[NewtoTwinPeaks]

It’s pretty convoluted, that’s for sure. I still have doubts about how much L/F thought this kind of stuff through. In retrospect, it seems pretty obvious that Gordon and Albert were much further ahead of the audience than most of us initially assumed. For instance, given the Lois Duffy history, they clearly suspected Mr. C was some sort of second Cooper from the moment they met him in prison — if not before. It seems absurd that they wouldn’t know Cooper was Ray’s boss, unless Ray deliberately kept it from them...which I suppose is possible. The very idea of a covert FBI subsection that is kept top-secret even from most Bureau members revealing its existence to a street-level career criminal is inherently absurd. It’s never made particularly clear what Ray was tasked by the FBI to do, aside from getting the coordinates. The question becomes one of “chicken or the egg.” Did the FBI recruit Ray because he had a preexisting relationship with Hastings’s secretary, which Mr. C subsequently caught wind of? Did Mr. C find Ray first, and the FBI employed him because of that (this assumes the FBI did have knowledge of Mr. C and his operations)? Whatever the order of events, there has to be some connection. It would be profoundly stupid for Ray to miraculously end up as both a Blue Rose informant and Mr. C’s henchman through pure coincidence.

Don't forget that it's also heavily implied that Mr. C was on the scene when Ruth Davenport was killed (heck, The Final Dossier pretty much spells this out). Which makes things even sloppier with respect to Ray. If Mr. C was there, he already had access to the coordinates, they were written in LARGE font on her arm for pete's sake. So... why all the pestering of Ray for the coordinates (Ruth and the school secretary would no doubt have the same exact info)?!? And likewise, it is completely redundant to have Diane crib them off the pic of Ruth's arm and send them to him...

This is a good point. Also, was Ray lying about the secretary? I don't remember Hastings ever mentioning his secretary knowing this information, I believe it was only himself and Ruth Davenport.

Thanks for the responses to everyone:)

[hans1973]

Does anyone know where I can find a link for all the new film locations? for example, the spot were Coop and Diane cross over? Thank you in advance.

[NewtoTwinPeaks]

Another thing that I just thought of...

Major Briggs left a note for Bobby 25 years ago with instructions on how to get to one of the portals. However, 25 years later he is looking for coordinates from Hastings and Ruth. Where do these coordinates lead to? We see him in the same area with the Fireman where the portal in Twin Peaks leads to. So was he looking for different coordinates?

[LateReg]

Since you asked.

I think the original TP had two major influences on the TV landscape (both delayed by about a decade, showing how ahead of its time the original was). One of the things it did is to inspire creators like David Chase and Matthew Weiner to create compelling, original works — so-called “prestige drama” — shows which may not look much like TP, except in the ways they challenge the boundaries of what TV drama is supposed to be. The second influence was to create a cottage industry of mythology-based “puzzle box” shows, a template and a language which really didn’t exist for television prior to TP S2. While The X Files built on this, it was self-proclaimed TP freak Damon Lindelof who really broke this genre wide open with Lost, and it’s been booming ever since with Mr. Robot, Westworld, Legion, True Detective, &c. As I’ve said elsewhere, I think the script for this season (presumably influenced largely by Mark in this regard) was interested in engaging with that puzzle box genre. While having Matt Weiner say that TP was a huge influence on his creation of Mad Men might be the more prestigious influence, I think the connection between TP and Lost and its progeny is by far the more palpable one, and therefore I think Mark was far more interested in playing in that sandbox again in light of all the works that were influenced by his own, rather than trying to be The Wire or Breaking Bad.

In any event, I’ve postulated that just as the old show earnestly engaged with soap opera tropes while simultaneously mocking them, the new show is playing a similar game with the very genre it spawned. Mythology shows almost invariably lead to disappointment — either the answers are never revealed at all, or they inevitably don’t live up to the hype. I think Mark (a professed fan of many of these shows) was having some fan with what we’ll call “hatch syndrome” — the audience thinks it wants to know what’s inside the hatch, but it’s ultimately much more fun wondering than knowing. I think TP:TR’s seesaw between murky ambiguity and clunky information-dumps is partly Mark having fun and acknowledging the limitations of the genre he himself was integral in creating.

And, as LateReg noted, there is an added weirdness/irony when DKL — a man notoriously uncomfotable with words, a primarily visual storyteller and someone who generally seems to have little interest in mythology-building, the right brain to Mark’s left — is the one onscreen cheerfully spewing page after page of elaborate backstory.

The more I think about it, the script to some extent may reflect a playful back-and-forth between DKL and Mark about the reveal of Laura’s killer, which DKL fought (“you don’t kill the goose that lays the golden eggs”) and Mark at the time overruled him, but has since said he regrets the decision. Just as Fenn in BTS footage calls DKL out on basing some of Audrey’s behavior in the new show on the antagonism between Fenn and DKL, there might be a bit of a metatextual “I told you so”/mea culpa element to TR’s push-and-pull between mystery and reveal.

That's all fascinating. Especially the notion that Lynch/Frost were playfully pushing and pulling at each other over the original reveal of Laura's killer. That definitely seems like it could be the case!

And I'd just like to point out - as I have elsewhere - that upon hearing Audrey's dialogue in The Return, I had almost immediately thought and posted that it seemed based on what we understood of the actress's rocky relationship with The Return. I only mention this because my interpretation of those scenes could have also been ruled a stretch by those thinking I was reading too much into things (my particular reading of the scenes based on and coinciding with the increasing intrusion of the real world late in the show), but there is now evidence that I was right in thinking that. Which I believe is further evidence that you have to be totally open to every possibility while viewing this thing. Lynch expects his audience to be intuitive and open to receive, and I think that The Return was based on that notion. There are so many things to pick up on and so many patterns to observe. And whether they all were intended or not is another story, or whether certain things were intended from the start and others were simply mistakes Lynch liked and left in during editing, we'll never know. I don't know a single critic who doesn't view the glass box in Part 1 as some metaphor about watching TV and specifically watching The Return, but when Lynch was asked about that specifically, he had said that it's very interesting, but that he hadn't considered that before. Is he lying or playing coy (and is he doing the same about not remembering the "I'll see you again in 25 years" line)? Who knows! If he's telling the truth does it invalidate the common and obvious reading of the scene? Absolutely not, and especially not when you have a creator famous for working by diving within and catching ideas.

Now, one might ask what Lynch/Frost intentionally demonstrating their push/pull dynamic in certain scenes or what noticing Sherilyn's tantrums in the actual text of The Return might have to do with the story being told in Twin Peaks, and my answer will be what it always has been: maybe it's more about the feeling and the ideas than the plot in a typical sense, or maybe we don't yet fully understand what the plot even is, being that it is in some ways rendered abstractly (numerous versions of Cooper standing for shards of Cooper's whole self, for example). This is not just about the plot in Twin Peaks, but rather about the story of TWIN PEAKS; not just the characters and the town, but creation of that town, the implosion of the original series, the explosion of TV in its wake, fans keeping the fictional town alive and enabling a return, a creator responding to and fighting and embracing the beck and call of his past work, the ensuing and ongoing relationship between the real world and the fictional one, the fallibility of memory and the toll of time and the nature of nostalgia, and on and on and on. It's all there and all intertwined.

None of which is to say that we shouldn't try to figure out who Ray is working for and when and why. That's all part of it too.

[claaa7]

some really good posts on here, i think what is confusing some poeple is that they think that Ray Monroe was an FBI agent working undercover which clearly wasn't the case... he was a paid informer, he definitely was a criminal low-life but he most likely had a deal that as loong as he gave information of some of his closer associaties in the underworld they would turn a blind eye. this happens all the time IRL of course. he sure as hell didn't know what he was getting in too, as can be seen by his smug almost poking responses to Mister C in episodes betweens Part 2and early Part 8 till he really started realizing how far out of his depths he were here. it is heavily implied both in the Final Dossier and in the series that the person of the Blue Roase Squad that contacted Munroe was always Phlip Jeffries while for the longest time the other members didn't even know of his existence.

So Jeffries is definitely going Rougie but at the same he seems to do so for the greater good of the turth and the Blue Rose taskforce.

[PeaksCarnivaleLost]

Two people gave Mr. C the same set of coordinates, which (impliedly) led to the location where Richard gets fried (which — again impliedly — would have also been Mr. C’s fate). One person gave him the — impliedly — correct coordinates which lead to the Fireman’s, but cause him to be trapped, redirected and ultimately shot by Lucy. Logically, if two people gave the wrong coordinates, those people were conspiring together against him, right? Of the three people we saw give him coordinates, we know (or think we know) that Ray and Jeffries were conspiring, whereas nothing in the show indicates that Diane had any contact with either. So it seems a very rational assumption that Jeffries and Ray, who wanted Mr. C dead, gave him the fake coordinates. But if Diane has the real coordinates, why did Albert — knowing that she was a traitor — hold up the photo nice and long, allowing her to memorize the sequence? I posit that it is because Gordon and Albert were aware of the Fireman’s plan. They wanted Mr. C to go to the “real” coordinates location because they knew, at least in vague outline, that it would lead to his demise. (All of this ignores the fact that we actually don’t see Diane text him the coordinates until AFTER he says three people have sent him coordinates. I, and I think most fans, are assuming that this inconsistency was a result of scenes being shuffled in editing, which most certainly happened quite a bit on this project — see Dougie’s temporally-inappropriate game of catch. But it’s also possible that someone else sent him coordinates and we didn’t see it, which makes things even MORE convoluted and ambiguous.)

I think it goes this way -- (and thanks for the great outline to work off of)

Diane -- first time she sent coordinates she was struggling to remember something. Eventually, i believe, she sent "Coordinates Minus 2". I believe this to be a 20, 25, or even 30 year old trap that the FBI had set up, or coordinated (sorry!) to destroy a Mr. C or any other escaped denizen.

Jeffries -- as an old FBI guy he knew this plan and also sent the same fake coordinates (C minus 2)

Ray -- he was not privy to the trap and only gave the real coordinates he had. And only to save his life when he realized he was probably on his way out and was not going to get rich off them.

These were the 3 sets of coordinates Mr. C referenced.

Diane -- she did not want to kill Albert, Gordon and TP. So she then sent the real coordinates ("i hope this works") to appease Mr.C but by then he knew the first version was a trap and wouldn't let her get out of it.

Just my take but i think it holds some water.

[Isis Unveiled]

That is some really constructive thinking there Mr. Reindeer.

Personally, I've always assumed that Ray was never actually in contact with the real Phillip Jeffries. I like to think that Major Briggs was impersonating Jeffries (with the help of the FIreman) in order to either - kill Mr. C - or - subvert his master plan to reunite with Judy.

If you take everything that Jeffries says to Cooper in the convenience store as genuine, then it makes sense that someone else was pretending to be Jeffries in order to get to Mr C. However, that would also negate everything Albert said about his off-the-record conversations with Jeffries over the years, that is, unless Albert was speaking to the imposter Jeffries also? Continuing on that assumption, perhaps Mr. C has been well aware of who Judy is all along and is only testing Jeffries in the convenience store when he asks him who Judy is, essentially trying to elicit some kind of response be it genuine or farcical. It makes sense that by the time Mr. C actually gets to the convenience store to speak to Jeffries, he has made the connection that whomever he had been dealing with for years, as well as the person he spoke to on the phone in part two, was in fact not Phillip Jeffries. Hence the reason for the unexpected visit and subsequent pop quiz, Mr. C wanted to see just how much he had been played by the imposter Jeffries.

And what if the car accident Mr. C gets into caused him to lose some of Cooper's memories? That's a real psychosis inducing possibility that throws a wrench into much of the speculation in this thread.

[NewtoTwinPeaks]

That is some really constructive thinking there Mr. Reindeer.

Personally, I've always assumed that Ray was never actually in contact with the real Phillip Jeffries. I like to think that Major Briggs was impersonating Jeffries (with the help of the FIreman) in order to either - kill Mr. C - or - subvert his master plan to reunite with Judy.

If you take everything that Jeffries says to Cooper in the convenience store as genuine, then it makes sense that someone else was pretending to be Jeffries in order to get to Mr C. However, that would also negate everything Albert said about his off-the-record conversations with Jeffries over the years, that is, unless Albert was speaking to the imposter Jeffries also? Continuing on that assumption, perhaps Mr. C has been well aware of who Judy is all along and is only testing Jeffries in the convenience store when he asks him who Judy is, essentially trying to elicit some kind of response be it genuine or farcical. It makes sense that by the time Mr. C actually gets to the convenience store to speak to Jeffries, he has made the connection that whomever he had been dealing with for years, as well as the person he spoke to on the phone in part two, was in fact not Phillip Jeffries. Hence the reason for the unexpected visit and subsequent pop quiz, Mr. C wanted to see just how much he had been played by the imposter Jeffries.

And what if the car accident Mr. C gets into caused him to lose some of Cooper's memories? That's a real psychosis inducing possibility that throws a wrench into much of the speculation in this thread.

I believe the real Jeffries told Cooper that 'he called Ray' so I believe he admitted in being in contact with Ray.

[Isis Unveiled]

Maybe he did call Ray? He never says that he spoke to Ray, only that he called him. Right?

That doesn't mean he's been in contact with Mr. C, and since we never hear who Ray is talking to on the phone after he shoots Mr. C, we can only assume. I think the line Ray has at the farm where he says that "someone who CLAIMED his name was Jeffries had hired me to kill you." So apparently, even Ray isn't sure who he was talking to.

Definitely, the person/spirit talking to Mr. C on the phone in part two is not Jeffries. Whoever it was didn't sound anything like that smoldering teapot...

Or maybe he was throwing Mr. C a red herring?

The whole relationship is screwy. At this point it's either Jeffries, Briggs, Gordon Cole, or The Fireman (and maybe Judy?) that had used Ray to weed out Mr. C and circumvent some bodies to the Black Lodge.

I think an interesting question would be, where is Jeffries doppelgänger? How do we know what team Jeffries is on? Black Lodge? White Lodge? His own interests perhaps?

[Cappy]

I still wonder why Hastings' secretary (Betty) would only give the coordinates to Ray. Did Ray and her have some prior relationship...?

Also, when did Ray find the time to interact with her -- Betty was killed in a car bomb, and Ray was arrested seemingly a day after teaming up with Mr. C. I don't really know, but if Ray goes into the Red Room after his death, then it's possible he can interact with people across time via dreams, a la Laura telling Cooper who killed her in the original series (and... again in S3). And Betty, along with Bill Hastings and Ruth, had some sort of access or exposure to the Convenient Store. Maybe Ray got the coordinates from her in the spirit world, at some non-specific point in time?

These little mysteries/inaccuracies surrounding Ray's character really elevate him to an interest level on par with the original TP characters, at least in my eyes anyway. Plus the actor has that young Michael Madsen look. I'm surprised he hasn't been in any Tarantino or Rodriguez projects yet.

[laughingpinecone]

I still wonder why Hastings' secretary (Betty) would only give the coordinates to Ray. Did Ray and her have some prior relationship...?

My take after pt17 is that she was also connected with the FBI, directly or indirectly, and tasked with keeping a close eye on Bill and his otherworldly shenanigans...

[N. Needleman]

Re: one other plot point - I feel relatively convinced the voice on the phone in part 2 is Sarah Palmer/Grace Zabriskie/Judy ("I missed you in New York"). I've heard a fan's attempt at trying to undo the distortion in the voice and it sounds a lot like Grace. But that's me.

[mtwentz]

Re: one other plot point - I feel relatively convinced the voice on the phone in part 2 is Sarah Palmer/Grace Zabriskie/Judy ("I missed you in New York"). I've heard a fan's attempt at trying to undo the distortion in the voice and it sounds a lot like Grace. But that's me.

That could be, though it just occurred to me that it could be Phillip Gerard, since whoever is on the line responds to Mr. C calling for 'Phillip'.

Ultimately, I don't think we'll ever know unless Grace or Al fees up to having done the voice. Or it's possible neither of them did the voice.

Also, if Mr. C goes back in, how does that unite Judy and BOB again? Wouldn't Judy rather have Mr. C come to her house in order to be with BOB?

[Mr. Reindeer]

I know the idea of the voice being Mike/Gerard has been mentioned before, along with the “Phillip” connection (can’t remember if this was my idea or someone else’s initially, but I remember writing about it). I really like this idea because it’s clever, especially in light of Jeffries’s response in the later scene when Mr. C addresses him as “Phillip” (in Gerard/Mike’s presence!) and Jeffries says, “Be specific.” I think by the time that scene aired, I already liked the “Gerard as the voice on the phone” theory and was delighted because I assumed the scene was heading in the direction of Jeffries outing Gerard. As it stands, the scene goes a different direction, and the line might be a subtle touch by L/F (Jeffries sort of nodding to Gerard that he knows but both keeping Mr. C in the dark), or could just be a complete coincidence I’m reading too much into. In any event, this would also explain DKL’s rather odd decision to continually credit the character as “Phillip Gerard” rather than “Mike.” And wanting to be with Bob again certainly sounds like the Mike of FWWM and the original series, and is consistent with Gerard’s behavior throughout this show.

For me, the main strike against this theory is the “New York” line, which seems to SO clearly hit the audience over the head with the implication that the caller is the entity we then knew only as “Experiment” and can now call Judy. Arguably it’s so obvious (really the only clear-cut takeaway from a VERY ambiguous scene) that it was a piece of misdirection? But I don’t see much proof for that onscreen, and no reason to believe that Gerard went to NY.

The idea that Grace recorded the lines is interesting. Just going off my memory, it doesn’t strike me as her usual distinctive rhythm (since the rhythm of the speech is really all we have to go on), but of course she’s a great actress and can certainly deliver dialogue in different styles. When I first heard it, I thought certain parts of it sounded like Mark’s rather dry delivery (and Mark voicing Judy would be a nice counterpoint to DKL—as many believe—voicing the Evolution of the Arm). But I kind of figure this is one of those “Eraserhead baby”-style production tales that DKL and his colleagues will take to the grave to preserve the mystery.

[claaa7]

Ray Monroe was certainly not an FBI agent, they had some shit on him that coukd put him away for a long time so he had a choice either work as a paid informant and give the info the Bkue Rose Task Squad wanted. interestingky enough according to The Final Dossier Cole, Albert and Tammy didn't know who his contact was - stromgly hinting it was Jeffries.