just finished the entire series, many unanswered questions!!

[minou81]

So I just finished the series...I was obsessed--watched it everyday for the past 2.5 weeks!

I don't know how to feel about the finale.

I had a feeling Cooper would be possessed by Bob. But I was just hoping for a different ending. I understand the whole cliffhanger appeal...but I wanted him to prevail and end up happy with Annie, and have Wyndam Earle dead!

Which leads me to my next question, and I realize I may have some of these questions answered when I watch Fire Walk With Me, which I plan on renting next week (although I hear it got awful reviews...anyone see it??) I hear that even though it's a "pre-quel", it answers lingering questions like a sequel would.



Wyndam Earle.....was he not possessed by Bob from the beginning? That scene in the Black Lodge-when he tells Cooper he'll take his soul so that Annie dies, and then Bob tells him that he will take Wyndam's soul instead..... Was Wyndam evil all along? When Coop fell in love with Caroline, Wyndam's wife, was Wyndam evil then, or did he become evil after Coop "stole her away" from him?



Why, in... maybe the 3rd or 4th last episode...Wyndam appears to Leo as a zombie??! His face was white and his eyes red, and his teeth were black. What was up with that?! What was the significance of that?!

Now onto Leo.....what the hell happened to him!?!? I know he was an unliked character for what he did to Shelley, but they should have at least confirmed his fate to us. Was he left to perish in the woods?



Did Benjamin Horne die after Dr. Hayward slammed his head into the fireplace?



Why did Laura tell Coop "see you in 25 years"?



I'm wondering why Cooper also did not follow the warning of the Giant when he was shaking his head, waving his arms and mouthing "no" when Annie was discussing entering the pageant. I would've thought that Coop would have stopped her!



Also--did Sarah Palmer (Laura's mother) become possessed by Bob as well?!?? We didn't see her for the majority of season 2, after Leland's funeral! I found it so odd when Dr. Jacoby brings her to the diner to tell Major Briggs about the lodge in that creepy demonic voice!

Those are all the questions I have...anyone have any input?? I'd greatly appreciate it....I've become obsessed!

[TheArm]

I remember being pretty upset the first time I saw the finale, too, but after it sat with me for a while I began to like it and now I love it. I can't imagine the series ending any other way now, but I definitely sympathize with your initial feelings about it! Just give it some time to sink in.

And yeah, I imagine most of us here have seen the movie, multiple times! For all intents and purposes, it is indeed a prequel, but there's a lot in it that ties into later events in the series, all the way up to the finale. While what happened to Cooper is referenced in the film, you won't get a whole lot more resolution as to the finale's cliffhangers. And while it did get awful reviews at the time, I think the critics have revised their opinions of it over the years. It's an extremely powerful and deeply disturbing film (in my opinion); I love it very much, but I have to be in the right mood to watch it, as tonally it's very different from the show (much, much darker). So just go in knowing that. If your favorite parts of the show were the coffee, the pie, the doughnuts, the Sheriff's office, etc., you may be disappointed to find none of those really present in the film (even Agent Cooper is reduced to a cameo).

I don't think Earle was ever possessed by BOB, from what I understand. I think he was just driven mad by Cooper and Caroline's betrayal. His discovery of their affair led him to kill Caroline and I think he just was never the same afterwards.

I love that bit with Windom looking really scary. It's never really explained, but I took it to mean he was really getting close to the Black Lodge, its spirits and its power, and was beginning to channel it through his own body.

I think Leo was probably just left to die in the woods.

Everything I've ever read and heard over the years (as recently as Matt Haley's podcast) leads me to believe that Ben would have been back had there been a third season. But we'll never really know for sure!

Remember that Cooper's very first Red Room dream in episode 2 takes place 25 years later (it's even captioned just like that in the European version - "25 Years Later"). So I take this to mean that they'll be reunited again in 25 years, when Cooper will likely experience that dream for "real." In essence, I take that to mean that his dream in episode 2 was a premonition for what would eventually become of him (that he'd be residing in the Lodge as an older man).

I think Cooper was too blinded by his love for Annie (different strokes for different folks, I suppose!) to listen to the Giant. Just poor judgment on his part!

If you use the "closed captioning," it says that Sarah is speaking in the voice of Windom Earle. So I think that's meant to be his voice coming through Sarah, not BOB.

[nemo]

I think, Cooper would enter the Lodge anyway, no matter who of the girls would have won the contest. He always was a man of honour.
The Windom Earle case is covered by mystery, for me at least. It's not some sort of simple madness. Cooper's words prove it in some dialogs. And we do remember BOB's words about what happened with Cooper in Pittsburgh, which evidence BOB's awareness of all the events connected with Earle. And Cooper seems to be completely astonished, when he hears it.
The words of Earle through Sara Palmer I find very exciting. It could be a reference for his return in the third season. But honestly I have no idea, how it could be, since his soul was taken by BOB.

[Yasdnil]

I'm also a newcomer to Twin Peaks and have become quite the addict. Here are my thoughts about your questions:

I've often wondered if BOB/the Black Lodge was perhaps after Cooper all along... I read The Autobiography of FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper: My Life, My Tapes and there are some strange goings on in Cooper's life from the time he was in his early teens -- sounds outside his door at night, strange events involving his mother and the mother of one of his girlfriends, blackouts in college, long periods of time with no recorded entries, etc. -- and it made me wonder if perhaps Coop was vulnerable or made vulnerable (by BOB or the Lodge) at an early age, which might have led him to Twin Peaks in the first place and down the path at the end of the series. It would explain how Leland/BOB knew about Pittsburgh, and why he has visions and seems to be connected to the Lodge via the Giant and the LMFAP and such. Any thoughts on that?

I think that some of the weird stuff happening with Windom could possibly be explained away as stuff done for shock value or something but without much extra thought -- by that point in the series, I imagine things were pretty bananas in the writer's room as they tried to save the series, and some writers have expressed the thought that they were flying by the seat of their pants near the end -- but it could be that he is a pawn of the Black Lodge and may have been channelling some of that evil all along.

I think Leo would have probably made it out, somehow... I dunno, even though I hated him, I think they were priming his character for a turnaround. And Ben likely survived, as well, I think.

My opinion of Annie isn't a good one. I'm not a fan of her and Coop (I'm TOTALLY for Cooper/Audrey, but that never happened, so I have to dream about it instead! lol) but I think she was either one of two things: a convenient plot piece thrown in at the end to distract Cooper (as he'd been distracted by Caroline) and get the action moving toward the season/series finale... or... she was an agent of the Lodge (either the White or the Black). And, maybe, so is Caroline and Windom. Bear with me here. Annie is pure and virginal (like the White Lodge?), coming straight from the convent at just the right time to tempt Cooper. She's pretty and bears a slight resemblance to Caroline. She is quite easily put under the spell of the Lodge in the end. And when Coop is in the Lodge and sees Annie, Caroline, and Windom morphing into each other, I think it points to the idea that perhaps they are all being used by the Lodge to get to Cooper, at various points in his life, and that maybe they are all part-and-parcel of the same entity from the Lodge trying to reach him. Why? Who knows! That's part of the mystery and the fun of the finale, for me!

Anyway, maybe it's a crazy thought, but I like it!

[Audrey Horne]

I think the Annie thing is basically the damsel in distress. I don't think there were any other ulterior motives with it.

Most likely when they began tinkering with the Windom Earle storyline (second episode in the second season) it was to involve Audrey as Cooper's love interest. Cooper dictates to Diane about Audrey's absence touches him deeply, and then mentions Earle -joining the two themes. And then rescuing her from One Eyes Jacks he tells Harry that this isn't the first time he's jeopardized someone he cares about. They might not have thought up Miss Twin Peaks this early, but most likely their intended finale of the season would involve the Cooper/Audrey/Earle plot and Mark Frost's idea of a Black/White lodge (a strange variation of The Great Northern before Lynch took the reins in directing the episode).

So Annie's involvement is probably the same as Audrey's was intended to be.

[Yasdnil]

You're probably right about Annie... I just like to pretend there are deeper, more mysterious things going on!

[guildnavigator]

I think of TP as one big closed loop, including the pilot

i look at it like this:

pilot --->s1--->s2--->FWWM---->(repeat)

I also feel like time becomes non-linear when dealing the black lodge

I also believe that the european closed pilot ending really happened after cooper went into the black lodge.


bye

[Yasdnil]

guildnavigator: I totally agree with you about the non-linear timeline in the Black Lodge. I might even go so far as to say that time is totally irrelevant there, perhaps even non-existent. It would have been hard to get Cooper out of the Lodge (as they probably would have done in season 3) if he had to actually spend 25 years there... could they have gone 25 years into the future (instead of just 5-10) and continued the series there? I don't know.

Could you explain a bit more about your loop theory? Sounds interesting!