Ray/Phillip Jeffries storyline

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Mr. Reindeer
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Re: Ray/Phillip Jeffries storyline

Post by Mr. Reindeer »

claaa7 wrote: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.
Which raises the really interesting question of how Gordon was getting the info.
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Re: Ray/Phillip Jeffries storyline

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I'm sorry, but this theorizing is a bit silly. You all realize that this is pretty much fan fiction, right? A couple things have just gone totally outside of anything that is on the show.
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Re: Ray/Phillip Jeffries storyline

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Kilmoore
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Re: Ray/Phillip Jeffries storyline

Post by Kilmoore »

IcedOver wrote:I'm sorry, but this theorizing is a bit silly. You all realize that this is pretty much fan fiction, right? A couple things have just gone totally outside of anything that.
This. What is seen on screen or later confirmed by Lynch or Frost count. The rest is just as relevant as a theory that the voice talking to Mr. C over the phone was Leo calling from a gas station after having faked his own death and found a way into black lodge, then decided to return to trucking instead because he ran out of money but wanted a way back into the lodge.
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Re: Ray/Phillip Jeffries storyline

Post by chromereflectsimage »

mtwentz wrote:
N. Needleman wrote: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?
In the Missing Pieces, Gordon tries to use the intercom, but it isn't works and the lights flicker. This is when Phillip Jeffries then disappears, and is transported to Argentina.

In Part 15 of the Return, we have Phillip tell Mr. C that he already knows Judy. The phone starts ringing, Mr. C picks up and is transported outside the store.

Mr. C also messes with the lights when he calls on the phone from the jail cell "The Cow Jumped Over the Moon."

In Part 18, it's when Cooper notices the white horse on the mantel that Carrie's phone starts ringing, but she doesn't answer it. She just knows she has to get out of there.
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Re: Ray/Phillip Jeffries storyline

Post by pinballmars »

There's a famous story about the 1946 film adaptation of Raymond Chandler's novel THE BIG SLEEP in which director Howard Hawks and the screenwriters got stuck on a plot point that, best they could tell, was unresolved in the book (I think it was the identity of a someone who shot somebody or something like that). So they contacted Chandler directly and asked him to clarify--and even he didn't know the answer. None of that stopped both the book and the film from being great.

I suspect that Lynch and Frost might have at least a few, to say the least, BIG SLEEP moments in Season 3. And probably a few in Seasons 1 and 2.

While David Lynch enjoys narrative, I don't think that he cares much for plot. He likes the story, but doesn't care much for building a sturdy house of cards to support it. He gets away with it (if you like what he does, at least) by leaving everything just carefully ambiguous enough that there IS a potential explanation. He's just not going to go into it because, for Lynch, that's besides the point. The Ray situation is a head-scratcher, but I agree with those who don't call it a plot hole.

You know how there are about 70,000 novels based on STAR WARS, X-FILES, CSI, BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER, etc.? If such a thing existed for TWIN PEAKS, a good writer hired for the task could figure out Ray's story probably.

As for Mr. C and his mysterious phone call, I think he's communicating with Judy/Sarah. I think she's leading on him and Ray throughout the whole series while they think they're communicating with Phillip Jefferies.
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Re: Ray/Phillip Jeffries storyline

Post by Pinky »

pinballmars wrote:There's a famous story about the 1946 film adaptation of Raymond Chandler's novel THE BIG SLEEP in which director Howard Hawks and the screenwriters got stuck on a plot point that, best they could tell, was unresolved in the book (I think it was the identity of a someone who shot somebody or something like that). So they contacted Chandler directly and asked him to clarify--and even he didn't know the answer. None of that stopped both the book and the film from being great.

I suspect that Lynch and Frost might have at least a few, to say the least, BIG SLEEP moments in Season 3. And probably a few in Seasons 1 and 2.

While David Lynch enjoys narrative, I don't think that he cares much for plot. He likes the story, but doesn't care much for building a sturdy house of cards to support it. He gets away with it (if you like what he does, at least) by leaving everything just carefully ambiguous enough that there IS a potential explanation. He's just not going to go into it because, for Lynch, that's besides the point. The Ray situation is a head-scratcher, but I agree with those who don't call it a plot hole.

You know how there are about 70,000 novels based on STAR WARS, X-FILES, CSI, BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER, etc.? If such a thing existed for TWIN PEAKS, a good writer hired for the task could figure out Ray's story probably.

As for Mr. C and his mysterious phone call, I think he's communicating with Judy/Sarah. I think she's leading on him and Ray throughout the whole series while they think they're communicating with Phillip Jefferies.


I would say that Lynch and Frost just missed the 'carefully ambiguous' mark with The Return in a few instances, namely the Jeffries/Mr C/Briggs interplay over the past 25 years and the whole 'tragic flaw' aspect of Coop's situation at the end. I'm fine with things being ambiguous, but I just don't think there's enough connective tissue for me to feel that any particular outcome in these two cases had been particularly thought through. I'd hate L&F to sit there and explain things to us after the fact, i'm not saying that this would be a good thing, but it feels quite handy for them in this example as i'm really not sure they could answer.

Regarding the failure of Coop... immediately after the airing of the finale, it certainly seems as if something has gone horribly wrong. It's a beautiful and mysterious ending, and it's so good that they decided to loop us back to a FWWMish state of affairs for it (Laura crying and happy in the Red Room can never be topped, so it's great that they decided to augment it instead). But I never took hold of the 'Coop fucked up' angle that seemed to proliferate. Not because I didn't particularly like it, but because it's not shown or even really hinted at onscreen. It seems that it's the 'correct' view insomuch as Frost talked about it a little in his AMA. Yet there's no evidence of an incident or action supporting it, or at least not one in which everything that he was doing wasn't predicted or preordained by the Fireman or Andy's vision at the Fireman's.

Don't get me wrong, it's completely their prerogative and it's not all that big of a deal to me, but it does make pulling my own meaning and enjoyment out of it (which, as we know, L&F prefer people to do) a lot harder after the fact. I mean, they're staying silent on it (again, completely their right to) but there's not quite enough of a skeleton for me to feel it's worth putting together. I guess I just can't shake the feeling that they don't know the answer to some of this stuff, and not quite in a deliberately designed way, either. Even to ask Frost: 'is there, to you, a narrative path through The Return that leads to a potential outcome that we can quite reasonably infer based on what we've seen on screen?' in a way that doesn't sound rude would be a blessing. I am fine with death of the author etc, but i'd just like to know if Frost knows.

To me, it feels like they pulled off 80% of a beautiful 'you can infer the ending from much of what takes place within the story' move similar to DFW with Infinite Jest, but they didn't quite make it.
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Re: Ray/Phillip Jeffries storyline

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Pinky wrote:I would say that Lynch and Frost just missed the 'carefully ambiguous' mark with The Return in a few instances, namely the Jeffries/Mr C/Briggs interplay over the past 25 years and the whole 'tragic flaw' aspect of Coop's situation at the end. I'm fine with things being ambiguous, but I just don't think there's enough connective tissue for me to feel that any particular outcome in these two cases had been particularly thought through. I'd hate L&F to sit there and explain things to us after the fact, i'm not saying that this would be a good thing, but it feels quite handy for them in this example as i'm really not sure they could answer.

Regarding the failure of Coop... immediately after the airing of the finale, it certainly seems as if something has gone horribly wrong. It's a beautiful and mysterious ending, and it's so good that they decided to loop us back to a FWWMish state of affairs for it (Laura crying and happy in the Red Room can never be topped, so it's great that they decided to augment it instead). But I never took hold of the 'Coop fucked up' angle that seemed to proliferate. Not because I didn't particularly like it, but because it's not shown or even really hinted at onscreen. It seems that it's the 'correct' view insomuch as Frost talked about it a little in his AMA. Yet there's no evidence of an incident or action supporting it, or at least not one in which everything that he was doing wasn't predicted or preordained by the Fireman or Andy's vision at the Fireman's.

Don't get me wrong, it's completely their prerogative and it's not all that big of a deal to me, but it does make pulling my own meaning and enjoyment out of it (which, as we know, L&F prefer people to do) a lot harder after the fact. I mean, they're staying silent on it (again, completely their right to) but there's not quite enough of a skeleton for me to feel it's worth putting together. I guess I just can't shake the feeling that they don't know the answer to some of this stuff, and not quite in a deliberately designed way, either. Even to ask Frost: 'is there, to you, a narrative path through The Return that leads to a potential outcome that we can quite reasonably infer based on what we've seen on screen?' in a way that doesn't sound rude would be a blessing. I am fine with death of the author etc, but i'd just like to know if Frost knows.

To me, it feels like they pulled off 80% of a beautiful 'you can infer the ending from much of what takes place within the story' move similar to DFW with Infinite Jest, but they didn't quite make it.
From my way of looking at the Jeffries/Ray/Mr C/Briggs thing, I don't think it was a matter of being carefully ambiguous so much as being forcefully disorientating. Yes, one could think of so many ways that the backstory works, but I think they whipped that out when they did as a playful retcon that is more reckless than careful, but deliberately so. Which is to say that I don't know if there were bread crumbs planted along the way, and so I think playing things "carefully" ambiguously was not actually what they were going for.
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Ray/Phillip Jeffries storyline

Post by yaxomoxay »

Pinky wrote:But I never took hold of the 'Coop fucked up' angle that seemed to proliferate. Not because I didn't particularly like it, but because it's not shown or even really hinted at onscreen.
I dare say that it’s more than hinted. It’s explicit.
“What year is this?”
Think about the first questions that - at least in movies - are asked to a patient coming out from a coma or that are indirectly asked and answered if there is some weird situation (back to the future is an example, especially when Marty wakes up in 1956 as Calvin Klein - or Levi Strauss in the Italian edition Image ).

- What is your name?
- What is your birthday?
- What year is this?
(Or similar).

We call the guy Richard. But he’s Dale. So we don’t know his name. Does he? Laura is Carrie. The first question can’t’ be answered.
As for the second question, we know nothing about it.
As for the third question... He doesn’t know the year, or at least he thinks he doesn’t. Carrie doesn’t answer. Actually, that question prompts Laura/Carrie to hear her mother’s calling.

I think it’s fair to say that Cooper messed up, big big time.

Now, we know that at the beginning (on the screens at least) the Fireman gives Cooper the clues, and makes him listen to the sound. Cooper says “I understand.” I propose a new question: How does the interpretation of that scene changes if we put it at the VERY end (after the scream and the lights go out)?



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Re: Ray/Phillip Jeffries storyline

Post by Pinky »

i'm fine with shifting the Fireman's scene everywhere, I tried many places when trying to get on board with the Coop Hubris theory. I'm not disputing it, Frost basically said it's what it appears to be, it just feels to me like we're supposed to base this on nothing more than Coop being confused in front of the Palmer house (and even from that we can only take that something has gone terribly awry, not that it is in any way Coop's fault).

It's a perfectly valid explanation to say that at some point offscreen, Coop came across some information about the Odessa crossing being 430 miles from some starting position for Coop and Diane, and at some point in his fuckery, Coop is whisked to the Fireman's where he is reminded of his error, perhaps, and told that he is now as a result 'far away'. In this reading, I guess we could take Andy's vision of the electricity pole outside Carrie's house not as a sign that Cooper was on the right path, but as a warning from the Fireman of the grave danger to come? But I would be stumped as to why Major Briggs would try so hard to make sure Coop had access to the boiler room portal of the Great Northern (unless Coop's mistake comes after this moment; the deciding to use Jeffries to go back to change things feels like an obvious contender, but after two seasons and a film's worth of watching Cooper follow their clues to relative success, it feels a bit disingenuous to suggest that, oh, this time it didn't go right, Coop did something wrong but we didn't feel like showing it - or the moment that he decided to make that decision, etc).


I mean, it's perfectly valid, but so then are many if not almost all of the bizarre and ludicrous theories that you can find on the Reddit sub; everything can thrive when there's so little actually known or seen. FWWM was close to perfect with the balancing act between mystery and imagination filling in what it can, whereas it feels to me that in The Return, this balance is off.


I want to say again that i'm not saying that I wanted everything explained, but I wanted more connective tissue, for sure. Now, maybe i'm just too dumb to spot that connective tissue but i've been trying. I'd be willing to accept that maybe i've not been thinking fourth-dimensionally enough, but then everything else we know about the whole thing (rushed schedule, tight budget, Lynch going for visuals over mood, Dunham's explanation of how visual continuity is nowhere near paramount, Frost's possibly laissez-faire attitude to research and consistency)does not suggest to me that he'd have been up for some of these delicately nuanced, super-labyrinthine quadruple-level plots -that also require hitherto unheard of levels of audience participation and attentiveness - that pretty much all of these (again, mainly Reddit) theories require. The theories seem to outpace the writing. If i'm wrong, then maybe there is in the loosest sense an internally consistent 'true ending' that exists and will one day be posited. We'll never get confirmation, but that's fine. But it feels more like a get-out clause to me at the moment (the authorial silence, that is, not the waiting for a 'correct' theory)



PS. Something interesting I just thought about regarding my take on it: all these problems just become interesting plot gymnastics if you look at them in the context of an ongoing story that we're going to get more of at a later date. I'm not saying that it makes these problems with The Return go away, necessarily, but viewing it as part of a larger piece makes many of the decisions more understandable. But pretty much everything I loved about the ending is predicated on the fact that this is it for our trip along with Coop and Laura, etc. I mean, obviously the story's not over but what remains is - like 'Laura''s whisper to horrified Coop - probably going to remain forever unknown to us, and that's what makes that ending (and his expression) so beautiful and terrible, all at once.


Apologies for how rambling and messy this is
Last edited by Pinky on Tue Feb 27, 2018 12:01 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Ray/Phillip Jeffries storyline

Post by IcedOver »

pinballmars wrote:
I suspect that Lynch and Frost might have at least a few, to say the least, BIG SLEEP moments in Season 3. And probably a few in Seasons 1 and 2.

While David Lynch enjoys narrative, I don't think that he cares much for plot. He likes the story, but doesn't care much for building a sturdy house of cards to support it. He gets away with it (if you like what he does, at least) by leaving everything just carefully ambiguous enough that there IS a potential explanation. He's just not going to go into it because, for Lynch, that's besides the point. The Ray situation is a head-scratcher, but I agree with those who don't call it a plot hole.

As for Mr. C and his mysterious phone call, I think he's communicating with Judy/Sarah. I think she's leading on him and Ray throughout the whole series while they think they're communicating with Phillip Jefferies.
The idea of not being based in plot or of leaving some things ambiguous is fine. However, IF that was the intention (unknowable, although again I am in the camp that believes he just had a lack of attention to detail), it was used on some of the wrong things in this show. Just basic service to the very traditional and non-surreal plot surrounding Mr. C and his cohorts isn't lessening the mystery. By satisfying that, you can allow other, deeper mysteries to be present to the viewer. If at part 17 we're still stuck back at the hotel scene in part 2 wondering what the hell that was about, how can we progress in this very long work? It's not as if it's such a tantalizing mystery either.

As far as putting Judy as the Big Bad of the show of leading things along behind the scenes, again, no action towards allowing the audience to get much of a clue-in on this character or its motivations, and very little screen time, so why do we care? Bad reference, but it's like the "Seinfeld" ep with the "good naked" and "bad naked" demonstrations. You have "good ambiguity" in successful works usually, but many aspects of this show are examples of "bad ambiguity" (or, again, just carelessness).
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Re: Ray/Phillip Jeffries storyline

Post by yaxomoxay »

Pinky wrote:i'm fine with shifting the Fireman's scene everywhere, I tried many places when trying to get on board with the Coop Hubris theory. I'm not disputing it, Frost basically said it's what it appears to be, it just feels to me like we're supposed to base this on nothing more than Coop being confused in front of the Palmer house (and even from that we can only take that something has gone terribly awry, not that it is in any way Coop's fault).

It's a perfectly valid explanation to say that at some point offscreen, Coop came across some information about the Odessa crossing being 430 miles from some starting position for Coop and Diane, and at some point in his fuckery, Coop is whisked to the Fireman's where he is reminded of his error, perhaps, and told that he is now as a result 'far away'. In this reading, I guess we could take Andy's vision of the electricity pole outside Carrie's house not as a sign that Cooper was on the right path, but as a warning from the Fireman of the grave danger to come? But I would be stumped as to why Major Briggs would try so hard to make sure Coop had access to the boiler room portal of the Great Northern (unless Coop's mistake comes after this moment; the deciding to use Jeffries to go back to change things feels like an obvious contender, but after two seasons and a film's worth of watching Cooper follow their clues to relative success, it feels a bit disingenuous to suggest that, oh, this time it didn't go right, Coop did something wrong but we didn't feel like showing it - or the moment that he decided to make that decision, etc).


I mean, it's perfectly valid, but so then are many if not almost all of the bizarre and ludicrous theories that you can find on the Reddit sub; everything can thrive when there's so little actually known or seen. FWWM was close to perfect with the balancing act between mystery and imagination filling in what it can, whereas it feels to me that in The Return, this balance is off.


I want to say again that i'm not saying that I wanted everything explained, but I wanted more connective tissue, for sure. Now, maybe i'm just too dumb to spot that connective tissue but i've been trying. I'd be willing to accept that maybe i've not been thinking fourth-dimensionally enough, but then everything else we know about the whole thing (rushed schedule, tight budget, Lynch going for visuals over mood, Dunham's explanation of how visual continuity is nowhere near paramount, Frost's possibly laissez-faire attitude to research and consistency)does not suggest to me that he'd have been up for some of these delicately nuanced, super-labyrinthine quadruple-level plots -that also require hitherto unheard of levels of audience participation and attentiveness - that pretty much all of these (again, mainly Reddit) theories require. The theories seem to outpace the writing. If i'm wrong, then maybe there is in the loosest sense an internally consistent 'true ending' that exists and will one day be posited. We'll never get confirmation, but that's fine. But it feels more like a get-out clause to me at the moment (the authorial silence, that is, not the waiting for a 'correct' theory)



PS. Something interesting I just thought about regarding my take on it: all these problems just become interesting plot gymnastics if you look at them in the context of an ongoing story that we're going to get more of at a later date. I'm not saying that it makes these problems with The Return go away, necessarily, but viewing it as part of a larger piece makes many of the decisions more understandable. But pretty much everything I loved about the ending is predicated on the fact that this is it for our trip along with Coop and Laura, etc. I mean, obviously the story's not over but what remains is - like 'Laura''s whisper to horrified Coop - probably going to remain forever unknown to us, and that's what makes that ending (and his expression) so beautiful and terrible, all at once.


Apologies for how rambling and messy this is
No need for apologies, definitely a good post.

I think that the problem in reading this work is that we still can’t piece all the “static” parts together, and then work backwards toward a reading of what has happened.
The whole work starts with a very important conversation: listen to the sounds, 430, richard and linda, two birds with one stone, it’s in our house now. That is, it begins with clue. Now, unless Lynch and Frost are completely mental (which I can’t rule out :) ) the bottom line of opening the series with clues is: there is a logic behind it, but you have to investigate. That is what a clue is. Just the sound from the gramophone - which is heard at least once more in a pivotal scene - indicates that something that is not clear at all, in reality is something fixed. Of course this type of work is open to many plot holes, but I am not sure that we can count them yet for the simple reason that we’re still trying to figure out the plot.
I have the feeling that it’s all there, that the clues are there, and some of them are so evident we can’t see them. For this reason I am convinced that the “what year is this?” Is the ultimate acknowledgment of failure (from Coop’s perspective).


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Re: Ray/Phillip Jeffries storyline

Post by LateReg »

Pinky wrote:i'm fine with shifting the Fireman's scene everywhere, I tried many places when trying to get on board with the Coop Hubris theory. I'm not disputing it, Frost basically said it's what it appears to be, it just feels to me like we're supposed to base this on nothing more than Coop being confused in front of the Palmer house (and even from that we can only take that something has gone terribly awry, not that it is in any way Coop's fault).

It's a perfectly valid explanation to say that at some point offscreen, Coop came across some information about the Odessa crossing being 430 miles from some starting position for Coop and Diane, and at some point in his fuckery, Coop is whisked to the Fireman's where he is reminded of his error, perhaps, and told that he is now as a result 'far away'. In this reading, I guess we could take Andy's vision of the electricity pole outside Carrie's house not as a sign that Cooper was on the right path, but as a warning from the Fireman of the grave danger to come? But I would be stumped as to why Major Briggs would try so hard to make sure Coop had access to the boiler room portal of the Great Northern (unless Coop's mistake comes after this moment; the deciding to use Jeffries to go back to change things feels like an obvious contender, but after two seasons and a film's worth of watching Cooper follow their clues to relative success, it feels a bit disingenuous to suggest that, oh, this time it didn't go right, Coop did something wrong but we didn't feel like showing it - or the moment that he decided to make that decision, etc).
I would not have put this together myself, either, since we are supposed to think of Cooper as a nearly perfect, thoughtful person throughout the original incarnation; at least that's how I mostly considered him. Like everything else, The Return decides to flip that notion on its head, and apparently focus on the flaws of his character. Others have highlighted that he actually did fail before - after all, Maddy dies on his watch, and before then with Caroline, and again with Annie. That's a pattern of failure right there, all based around trying to save a girl. He also attempted to enter the black lodge, and apparently did so with imperfect courage, and failed in that. Now, as far as where his hubris comes in, I've read about that as well, but need a reminder as to where in his history we've seen him display such hubris before? Is his willingness to enter into the Black Lodge with imperfect courage an example? Whether he has displayed hubris or not, it doesn't matter much because one of the questions at the end has to be what kind of person would be so bold as to try to reset the past? Even if he did succeed, what kind of person would even attempt to do so? That's where the hubris undoubtedly comes into play.
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Re: Ray/Phillip Jeffries storyline

Post by Pinky »

pinballmars wrote:
As for Mr. C and his mysterious phone call, I think he's communicating with Judy/Sarah. I think she's leading on him and Ray throughout the whole series while they think they're communicating with Phillip Jefferies.
This works as a good example for me for issues I have with that aspect of the storyline. It came across to me as being Judy/The Experiment on that call. On a plot level because we're given the line 'missed you in New York', and on a nerd level because there are manipulations of the voice out there that sound bang on like it's Grace Zabriskie giving those lines (dangerously subjective, I know). The Mark Frost that i've met through TSHOTP and TFD wouldn't assume that anyone would bother trying to use tech to try and ascertain the identity of the reader of those lines (I don't say the character because I guess there's no point at this point in making any assumptions, it is perfectly Lynchian to have Zabriskie read those lines because he liked the timbre of her voice on that particular day and it has no relation to the character she plays), whereas it's hard to imagine that Lynch's attention to detail when it comes to sound wouldn't preclude letting anyone with sound software discover the identity of a voice (counterpoint: he seems incredibly mercurial in this regard; sometimes he is insanely detailed and other times he - maybe due to time/budget/the psychosphere - is content to let things slide. It's the not knowing in each case that is what leads to the confusion, and - inasmuch as it has served him and his work so very well over the years - more power to him.

I agree that Judy is leading Ray and Mr C on throughout what we see of The Return, what i'd like is maybe some in-world link to how this situation came about given that Mr C is said to have been in at least semi-regular communication with Jeffries over the past quarter century and the two are supposedly in league with each other. The prison scene was the absolute high point for me of The Return: I was a way bigger fan of FWWM and the expansion of the mythos and of the FBI/Blue Rose's role, so to suddenly get this supposed further expansion - delivered in that terrifying low, atonal voice (that only seems to carry through the intercom scenes, weirdly) was a delight. But it doesn't really have a later payoff. We're not sure what it is they were supposedly up to together, whether the Jeffries he was in league with was a)JUDY all along b)a real Jeffries playing along with a pre-1989 Cole/Coop/Jeffries long game plan, or c)some unseen, unmentioned DoppleJeffries. Being vague as to this is perfectly fine and it would work really well, but things just feel loose. Given Mr C would have some idea of just how powerful Jeffries has become, why is their (unknown) plan not much further along? He knows what The Dutchman's is, and where to find it.

Any ideas on why 'Jeffries' knowing that Mr C met Maj. Briggs would clue Mr C in to it not being the Jeffries he had been dealing with up to this point? The 'missed you in New York' line doesn't seem to make him suspicious, even though we could be expected (again, not knowing what's expected of us as a viewer is what makes it so...slippery in The Return) to assume that Mr C knows that this is a reference to the Sam/Tracey/Experiment incident in the NY Glass Box. If 'Jeffries' is saying that he was in NY for the Sam and Tracey 'fun' but Mr C. didn't get there in time cause he was still held up in Buckhorn, it suggests that they were in league with the Glass Box together, at least, but to what end? It can't be to capture Good Coop because how would C explain that to a Jeffries that isn't outright evil himself? When the two 'meet' at The Dutchmans, Mr C's appearance (hair, skin, eyes etc) doesn't seem to rule him out as being Cooper, in Jeffries' eyes. Could it be that, despite his apparent great power within this other world, Jeffries didn't have knowledge of good Coop's physical appearance? If Jeffries was being played/doesn't have certain powers that we might reasonably expect of a guy who can bend time, then was Cole et al also being played?

Don't get me wrong, it's all great stuff and I love thinking about this, it's just the not knowing when and where the attention should be that can make it maddening.


I'd better shut up until I can gauge how much sense i'm making, and at least get out of my work clothes!
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Pinky
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Re: Ray/Phillip Jeffries storyline

Post by Pinky »

yaxomoxay wrote: No need for apologies, definitely a good post.

I think that the problem in reading this work is that we still can’t piece all the “static” parts together, and then work backwards toward a reading of what has happened.
The whole work starts with a very important conversation: listen to the sounds, 430, richard and linda, two birds with one stone, it’s in our house now. That is, it begins with clue. Now, unless Lynch and Frost are completely mental (which I can’t rule out :) ) the bottom line of opening the series with clues is: there is a logic behind it, but you have to investigate. That is what a clue is. Just the sound from the gramophone - which is heard at least once more in a pivotal scene - indicates that something that is not clear at all, in reality is something fixed. Of course this type of work is open to many plot holes, but I am not sure that we can count them yet for the simple reason that we’re still trying to figure out the plot.
I have the feeling that it’s all there, that the clues are there, and some of them are so evident we can’t see them. For this reason I am convinced that the “what year is this?” Is the ultimate acknowledgment of failure (from Coop’s perspective).


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Thanks, this may be the most thinking i've done in years, headache on the way for sure!

Completely with you on the gramophone being a fixed point. We hear it with The Fireman and we hear it as Laura is snatched away in the woods. Do you hear it in the very last scene, just before he does the weird shuffling walk? I think I do but again I run into the 'I know Lynch would have hidden it (and 'listen to the sounds' is about as obvious as he's ever going to get) but would he have mixed it in quite so quietly? ' The same feeling I get with all these supposed 'glitches': if they were just a little bit more obvious (and we didn't have a few BTS hours of Lynch kicking off about the budget and rushed schedule), at this point i'd maybe be a third of the way towards believing them...
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